Urgh, I hate my avatar right now. Looks like the Wikileaks guy after a hard night on the gin, He’s forgiven for his “urgh” look as my 7 year old asked if she could come to work with me today. Sure, why not. She’s used to virtual worlds being called work, and always a willing test-pilot for whatever game I’ve bought this week to try out. She’s getting pretty good at giving feedback too – in fact it’s way more objective that most teachers might imagine.
So a minute later, she arrives on a sandbox sim I’m working on for a pre-teacher game class. It’s weird to see your daughter all grown up and taller than you are. She watched for a while and soon got the idea. Within a few minutes she was modding her avatar and asking questions. Ten minutes later she was attempting to build a house. Half an hour later she asked where she could get furniture. An hour later she want’s me to add an island to put it on – and for me to call her friend to download Imprudence so she could play too. The Virtual World Explorers club seems to be going past Animal Jam all too quickly.
I didn’t see her for an hour or so as she flew around the grid exploring. When she came back, she wanted to know why there weren’t any games to play. “Why?”, I asked. “So I can get my character some more reputation points and buy some clothes”.
Ding! – She expects to work to get rewards, and though I could show her how to make things – she expected to do ‘work’ in order to get a reward. But most importantly – she wanted to choose the reward.
Playable 