Moving to Tumblr

I'm switching to Tumblr. I like that I can post little bits. Maybe I won't feel so guilty about not updating all the time! Or maybe it's just a mental thing. Anyway, check me out at http://playinvestigator.tumblr.com

My recent manga binge...

I've been on a manga kick. Don't know why. It just happened.

It started off simply enough. I read a few issues of Fruits Basket, Vol. 1. Then I read Hana-Kimi, Volume 1: For You In Full Blossom. (I only made it through one of those. Just didn't like it that much.)

Then I devoured all four books for Miki Falls, starting with Miki Falls: Spring.

Now I just finished reading The Manga Guide to Statistics by Shin Takahashi.

It's a basic text (data types, standard score and standard deviation, probability, correlations, and chi-squares). It actually explains things in a relatively straight-forward manner and includes a cheesy romance story line. There's not a lot of exercises, so if I were learning the concepts for the first time, it would need supplemental information. But as a basic primer, I'm impressed. It was actually kind of fun to have a romance bud in between equations and hypothesis testing! I wonder how it would translate to hierarchical modeling... hmmm...

So that's a little of where I've been hiding. We all know I stink at blogging now. More sooner or later!

Good bye, Foster's

My favorite kids' tv show, Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends, has aired it's last episode. It's just a funny, creative show. Not only is it nice to think about where imaginary friends go, but the characters they developed are hysterical. The sky really was the limit.

Two of my favorites... "It's Hot in Topeka" and this nice person who put together a mix of Cheese moments

As far as games, I particularly recommend the Big Fat Awesome House Party. They just kept building and building and building an interactive version of the Foster's world until it became quite a fun place to spend ridiculous amounts of time!

Meanwhile, I'll Until Craig McCraken has another creation for us, I'll be watching Phineas and Ferb.

A favorite resource for child development milestones

One of my favorite quick and dirty references for what's appropriate at what age is the PBS Parents Child Development Tracker at http://www.pbs.org/parents/childdevelopmenttracker/. Of course, I might be slightly partial since I worked at pbskids.org, but still, I've continued to use the tracker, despite leaving PBS three years ago. That must count for something.

One of the reasons I like it so much is because it's so comprehensive. For example, for three-year olds, you can look at guidelines for language, literacy, math, physical health, and social and emotional growth. (And note that I still left out a few categories.) It's just not your puny table that you find in a lot of basic child dev books.

Bookmark it. Use it well. But remember, they're guidelines... not absolutes!

Kids Singing in Rock Band

I love poking around YouTube for videos of kids using games. Since I briefly talked about kids and singing games in my GDC presentation, I thought I'd share some of the more amusing videos I've found.

Remember that the research says that kids around 3-4 years of age will generally follow the melodic contour, but they won't always hit the right notes and often won't pronounce words intelligibly.

Jonny T singing Blitzkreig Bop - Rock Band - Easy - 85%
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m63_jYrRsXY

He's actually quite good (better than me...) but it also makes me laugh when he swings his arms out and takes the microphone away from his mouth.

3 year old Rock Star
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AAaWJIfeoXA

She's good too, although I really can't understand any of the words. (I think that might be a product of the song more so than about the child's skills!)

Rock band 2 Three year old Danny sings More than a feeling by Boston
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g-w7C7Ugt38

I looooove when he sings "I close my eyes..." Be sure to check out around 3:30 in the video, too. Totally rock star!

GDC Slides

So my 2009 Game Developers Talk is done. Here's the link to the slides for Little Hands, Foul Moods, and Runny Noses 2.0: The research you should know when making games for kids. I recommend using save as rather than trying to open it directly. The file is big!

Eventually I'll post some of the lost slides. I had so much jammed into that talk that I had to cut really good stuff! Ah well.

More soon on the conference...

The Cast-Off Slides

When I'm at GDC, I feel this overwhelming urge to defend kids games. Probably because I'm surrounded by World of Warcraft and Ninja Gaiden players and not that many kids' games people. So originally, I had a slide in my presentation (shameless plug -- Wednesday at 2:30!) that had some recent kids and games stats. But my presentation is incredibly dense (slides to come soon...). And as such, I've had to make some tough cuts. One thing to go was the stats. I'm going to operate on the assumption that everyone at the session is there because they know kids games are an important share of the market. So for lack of a better place to share the info, here's the data from the slides.
- 84% of kids ages 2-14 play games on digital devices (NPD, 2008)
- 82% of kids ages 2-5 play games on digital devices (NPD, 2009)
- 20% of children ages 4-14 own a cell phone and 13% of ages 4-5 report using cell phones (NPD, 2008)
- 2-14 y.o. spend an average of 44 minutes per session on video gaming consoles (NPD, 2007)

More discarded slides and info to come!