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Dad Makes His Kid Play Through All Video Game History In Chronological Order
An anonymous reader writes Andy Baio, aka @waxpancake, indy video game enthusiast and founder of the XOXO conference and other cool stuff, conducted a weird/cool experiment on his four-year-old. Andy taught him about gaming by making him play and master all of the old video games and gaming systems in the exact order they were actually released. In other words, this 21st century kid learned gaming the same way the generation that grew up in the 1970s and 1980s experienced them, but in compressed time. From the article: "This approach to widely surveying classic games clearly had an impact on him, and influenced the games that he likes now. Like seemingly every kid his age, he loves Minecraft. No surprises there. But he also loves brutally difficult games that challenge gamers 2–3 times his age, and he’s frighteningly good at them. His favorites usually borrow characteristics from roguelikes: procedurally-generated levels, permanent death, no save points."
Took me five years as a teenager to master the Sargon II chess game for the Commodore 64 on the hardest difficulty level. I'll like to see a four-year-old do that in less time.
N64 was not the beginning of the "3D era on consoles." That would be Sega 32x, Sega CD, or at the very least Playstation.
Andy taught him about gaming by making him play and master all of the old video games and gaming systems in the exact order they were actually released.
So he's forcing his kid to play these games? I wonder if he ever has to tell his son that he has to beat Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles before he's allowed to do his homework...
How can we continue to believe in a just universe and freedom to eat crackers if we have no ale?
The same conference that tells people to "listen and believe" and suggests that people should use block lists to create their own social isolation circle?
Om, nomnomnom...
this was probably the hardest game I played in the old days - it took me a month to figure out all it's secrets and figure out how to get the Ark of the Covenant - (the final tricky point was snagging a parachute on a branch that dragged you into the mesa the Ark was buried in) -
but man when I beat it - holy crap - also the first Atari game I recall where you needed to play it with both joysticks - one to select items and one to move the guy
RB
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ah honey, we're all resplendent - Bill Mallonee
Check the comments on the Nethack article yesterday.
In 1988 or whatever, while playing, and exchanging ideas with your friends, Zork was fun.
In 2014, with the internet and guides, its a massive exercise in self restraint not ruin the game for yourself.
In 2014, without the internet and guides, and without the benefit of even having friends playing and exchanging hints with, the game is all but impossible.
I recall spending weeks on end stuck in Kings Quest IV. And in Zork. And in Pyramid 2000. And countless other games. But if you kept at it and your friends were playing the same games, you'd eventually figure it out.
But IMO Internet + GameGuides etc have largely ruined that style of game.
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
Eaten by a grue is the least of his worries. The father's more likely to get a visit by Child Protection Services.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
He is teaching his kid skills which have some but limited value in actual life. Perhaps reaction times, maybe some cognitive development yes, but it's not life. He's channeling his little boy down a narrow funnel of gameland when the whole world is still full of wonder. At that age, he could be absorbing human languages. He could be playing with lego. He could be learning any number of things, but even better - he could be playing with other little kids and developing essential social skills - OUTSIDE! You know, like in the world out there?
"DAAAAAAD, can I please do my homework? Just an hour?"
"Not before you're done with Donkey Kong!"
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
You know those crazy parents that make their kids go to baseball camps, practice several hours a week, and try to talk over the teams coach. Yeah, this guy is that kind of parent.
I'd like to know how the kid fared on E.T. for the Atari 2600.
Trolling is a art,
what games is he playing? In all of the RPGs that I have played my character resurrects at a graveyard or a save point. I can always continue my game with the same character. Yes, I am showing my age. lol
I hate the fact that "roguelike" just means "permadeath" now. That was the least interesting part of rogue/nethack/etc. To me, "roguelike" has always meant an exploration-focused RPG with a simple UI but complex play. I always savescummed anyhow. (Except in nethack. There I played real permadeath. When my character died the first time -- to a cheap kill -- I deleted the game and never played again).
I'd love to find an RPG with the depth and detail of rogue/nethack/angband/etc but with the same learn-as-you go vibe, where everything has more depth than it seems at first. (Wait - you can eat your kills? And there are so many different effects depending on what the critter was? Now I have to try every one! Everything was like that.)
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Andy taught him about gaming by making him play and master all of the old video games and gaming systems in the exact order they were actually released.
Part of that sentence is definitely wrong and part of it is definitely misleading. Because he skipped straight from the Atari 2600 to the NES, and then to the Super NES, and then to the N64. No Coleco, no Genesis, etc. So not all the consoles, and from what i can tell not even all the games for each console. And i can't see any indication that they're being played strictly in order either.
So it's a heavily curated list of games, which is a good thing because the full list would be impossible to do, and it seems to be in strict chronological order in terms of consoles but only vague order within each generation.
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He has a 4yr old playing these games?
His 4yr old plays mine craft?!?!
His 4yr old can handle WASD input?
I keep hearing about kids loving minecraft, but every time I ask if they have actually played the game I find out they are simply watching Youtube videos of funny British guys narrating their games. It seems the narrators are the real stars and the games incidental. I've got a 7yr old and he, nor anyone in his class can actually play the game.
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
Eaten by a grue is the least of his worries. The father's more likely to get a visit by Child Protection Services.
You know, I remember about, oh, two decades ago, discussions on misc.kids (this thing called Usenet... never mind, just go with it) wherein multiple parents (I assume they were parents...) were arguing, seriously, that TV-free households amounted to child abuse, because the children wouldn't be able to properly relate to children from households that allowed TV privileges.
And so, it's with some amusement that I hear now that requiring kids to play video games is tantamount to child abuse.
The headline says "dad makes his kid play through all video game history..." I personally took that to mean "you want to play a video game? Play this one. When you've mastered it, if you want to play a video game, play that one" and so on, which is different from whisssh-CRACK "Go right! Right you little bastard!" whissssh-CRACK "Left you twit! There, you lost level nine you worthless piece of garbage. Hold out your hands!" WHACK WHACK WHACK.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Been there, still doing that that.
Waste of time on a 4 year old. I have bright 11+ yr olds who are only beginning to really get it. Even while they have stuff in the TF2 workshop. It's both sad and hard to see that they, too, are distracted by the 3D shiny instead of the gameplay diamond. But they're getting there.
I know 6 year olds that love playing GTA, so I think that Bloodless Doom won't be an issue.
What? You get to start another game after your character dies? Where's the skill in that? The whole program should be wiped after the first death and you should never be able to play it again! It's much more realistic.
Anybody else remember the old Infocom hint books they published with invisible ink and markers to reveal the hints? They had questions for most major puzzles, and three levels of hints IIRC. You started with the vaguest hint and progressed until the last hint just told you how to do it, or close to it.
Great. Now I'm having a major Infocom nostalgia flashback. Thanks /.
I don't really agree with this approach, it is like forcing somebody to watch all great sci-fi movies before he can go watch Interstellar. I do think they should watch all those great movies in good time and because they are great, they will still be fun/good to watch today.
The same with games, i've seen it with my own kids. The real gems from the 8bit NES / C64 era still stand their own. I never forced them on these, but the questions come anyway, if you know kids, they are always full of questions.
After playing mario galaxy, the question came if there are other mario games, at that point it is easy to introduce them to the past. I showed/played them through the whole history of Mario, starting with donkey kong (and showing donkey kong jr on my original savoured game&watch), going to mario bros (no, not 'super mario bros'), etc. Did they like all of them, no and i don't blame them, because some of them are not that great anymore. But the real good ones were still enjoyed and played (by them, by choice afterwards).
Games are part of our culture now, like art, books, music and movies. It would be cruel not to let them know the classics, but it is just as cruel to force-feed them.
On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero.
Assuming you are religious, and you do sound so - you are automatically anti-all other religions in the world.
LOL, no. That's, quite possibly, the stupidest thing I'll read on Slashdot this week. Where did you come up with that nonsense?
Required reading for internet skeptics
He should have started with today's games and made the kid play in reverse chronological order until he mastered text-based adventure games.
If I taught my kid that there is absolutely no god, end of story, then I guess you could claim I was indoctrinating him/her. But in fact, 1) I did not identify as an atheist and 2) I didn't mention whether I even have children, or if I did, how I would raise them (which is none of your business anyway).
You moron.
The appeal is that it isn't real life. I like being able to be a superhero. Rocket jump, jump through portals, breath under water and in outer space, travel faster than the speed of light, be shot a ridiculous number of times, quaff a potion that makes me fly... all of these things are fun.
If I wanted realism I'd go outside and play real sports.