Hashtag Kids Playing Games

Here's a post that you all probably expected. I know I expected it--after all, I'm a game designer with the potential to intern at a company that makes kids games. It's only natural that I should learn how kids play games. And what better forum to do that at than a camp?

The first thing to note about kids is that they take their play extremely seriously--probably because it's a high percentage of what they do on a daily basis. This is something I've already mentioned in a post, but I want to expand on it a little more, and this time talk about gaming in a more traditional sense than "vidya games"--sports and card games. Naturally, these are the games I witness kids playing the most at camp, though some of my campers bring their 3DS systems with their Pokemon games to play very briefly at arrival and dismissal.

Now, during a few of my game design courses at RPI, we've touched upon the way rules are imposed and enforced within games of varying media. Video games have the benefit of written code to provide rigidity to the rules that govern gameplay, but card games, board games, and sports do not. This leaves more room for the players to cheat the system, and I think we all know some kids who like to test the limits of what they can get away with.

In my experience in particular, I've noticed a wide spectrum of rule-breaking occur. Some campers legitimately have a hard time grasping the rules--and, of course, there's always a learning curve--but others willingly break the rules and try to pass it off like they aren't doing anything that is considered illegal within the bounds of the game. They'll say "I didn't know that was a rule" or "since when?" or "I thought it was okay, so long as [insert stipulation here]." This behavior often inspires the added rule of: "If the counselor says you're out, then you're out." They try to fight this one, too, naturally. Sometimes they'll fight it verbally, other times they'll just pretend as though they can't hear you. The latter method is obviously the more frustrating of the two.

As a counselor, the best way to combat this kind of rule-breaking is to know the rules of the game inside and out. In gaga ball (if you don't know what this is, you probably haven't been to camp. Don't feel bad, I didn't know what it was until I became a counselor) if you hit the ball over the wall of the arena, you're out. As an addition to this rule, if someone catches the ball that went out of bounds before it bounces, they can choose to enter the arena, even if they had previously gotten out that game. A few of my campers will lean over the wall in an attempt to grab the ball while it's still in the ring, claiming that's grounds for re-entry, and we have to re-explain the rules every time.

Sometimes, however, you won't be so lucky as to know the rules of a game you're playing with kids. One of my campers insisted on teaching me Yugioh after I taught him how to play Magic: the Gathering. Of course, I didn't completely understand what was going on, but I had a good idea as a designer as to what seemed fair. If any of the kids played a card, I would immediately read what it said. A lot of the time the campers had no idea what their cards even did, and I ended up being the one explaining it to them based on what I already knew about the game, as well as some MTG knowledge. Sometimes it seemed like they were trying to trick me into letting all of my monsters be sent to the graveyard prematurely, but other times I could tell they truly didn't understand what the words on the cards meant.

And I guess that's really the thing with kids: they play the way they want. They have no use for energy cards in Pokemon, all they care about are the numbers next to the attacks and the HP total at the top. They judge cards entirely by power alone, and not secondary effects, which is totally okay for novice players of any game. Learning the basics first is always better than attempting to learn it all at once.

At some point, though, they have to learn the full extent of the rules to whatever game it is they're playing. And this isn't just me saying "They need to learn to play games right because I'm a game designer and I said so blah blah blah." Kids can be brutal when it comes to play. They need to let you know that you're out the second the ball touches your leg in gaga, because they know that--if they were in your shoes--they might try to cheat and say it never touched them. It's a terrible double standard, but it's the way kids play at the age I work with. Some of them get frustrated by the instantaneous chorus of "you're out"s that can be heard immediately after the ball makes contact with their body. They shout "I know, I know!" as they leave the game to stand on the sidelines and peer over the wall. The mentality seems to be "I can cheat, but don't you dare." Hopefully they'll grow out of it.