GWJ Conference Call Episode 655

Days Gone, Dark Devotion, Backbone Prologue, Mortal Kombat 11, Xenoblade Chronicles 2, Forager, Fate Extella Link, The Positive Impact of Games on Kids, Your Emails and More!

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This week Shawn, Allen, Lara and Greg Decker talk about the ways games positively impact kids!

To contact us, email [email protected]! Send us your thoughts on the show, pressing issues you want to talk about or whatever else is on your mind.

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00:01:04 Backbone Prologue
00:05:55 Dark Devotion
00:08:30 Mortal Kombat 11
00:17:02 Tetris 99
00:22:52 Xenoblade Chronicles 2
00:28:54 Fate Extella Link
00:36:53 Forager
00:41:25 Days Gone
00:47:29 The Positive Impact of Games on Kids
01:10:00 Your Emails

I think my audio track glitches out at some point about halfway through the show, because it sounds like I’m talking over people a lot after that point.

Unless I’m just very rude, which I suppose is possible and if so I apologize.

Yeah, I think there’s something funny with the edit. We’ll look into it!

Certis wrote:
doubtingthomas396 wrote:

I think my audio track glitches out at some point about halfway through the show, because it sounds like I’m talking over people a lot after that point.

Unless I’m just very rude, which I suppose is possible and if so I apologize.

Yeah, I think there’s something funny with the edit. We’ll look into it!

Not to throw out any names, but perhaps somebody infected it with their ongoing case of The Syphilis.

Regarding Diablo3, I was mostly thinking about the Real Money Auction House.

Thanks for the discussion. You guys went way further than I was originally even thinking of.

Tetris 99 is the reason I took my Pro Controller apart. Taping over the d-pad contacts helped a lot.

Agathos wrote:

Tetris 99 is the reason I took my Pro Controller apart. Taping over the d-pad contacts helped a lot.

Tetris 99 recently added an option to set the sensitivity of the hard-drop button. I set it to the low sensitivity setting and now I almost never accidentally drop pieces unless I mean to.

Lara's story about her son was wonderful in the discussion topic. Definite credit as well to his teacher for recognising that great opportunity to build his confidence.

I'm still confused as to whether or not Lara actually wants us to look into the Fate franchise.

Rat Boy wrote:

I'm still confused as to whether or not Lara actually wants us to look into the Fate franchise.

Only if you have want to bang historical, if inaccurate, figures.

lunchbox12682 wrote:
Rat Boy wrote:

I'm still confused as to whether or not Lara actually wants us to look into the Fate franchise.

Only if you have want to bang historical, if inaccurate, figures.

She mentioned Fate Go which sounds like Pokemon Go which makes me wonder if I go to Grant's tomb can I summon Ulysses S. Grant to go fight for me and/or is he an anime girl.

Rat Boy wrote:
lunchbox12682 wrote:
Rat Boy wrote:

I'm still confused as to whether or not Lara actually wants us to look into the Fate franchise.

Only if you have want to bang historical, if inaccurate, figures.

She mentioned Fate Go which sounds like Pokemon Go which makes me wonder if I go to Grant's tomb can I summon Ulysses S. Grant to go fight for me and/or is he an anime girl.

Yes, but you have to have sex with them first.

Rat Boy wrote:
lunchbox12682 wrote:
Rat Boy wrote:

I'm still confused as to whether or not Lara actually wants us to look into the Fate franchise.

Only if you have want to bang historical, if inaccurate, figures.

She mentioned Fate Go which sounds like Pokemon Go which makes me wonder if I go to Grant's tomb can I summon Ulysses S. Grant to go fight for me and/or is he an anime girl.

“I cannot spare this woman. She f***s!”

—Baberaham Lincoln, Fate extella series.

Explanation for people in need of a history lesson:

Spoiler:

After the battle of Shiloh, Alexander McClure recommended that Abraham Lincoln remove Ulysses S. Grant from command, owing to the generals reputed uncouth and boorish personality.

Lincoln’s response : “I cannot spare this man. He fights!”

doubtingthomas396 wrote:
Rat Boy wrote:
lunchbox12682 wrote:
Rat Boy wrote:

I'm still confused as to whether or not Lara actually wants us to look into the Fate franchise.

Only if you have want to bang historical, if inaccurate, figures.

She mentioned Fate Go which sounds like Pokemon Go which makes me wonder if I go to Grant's tomb can I summon Ulysses S. Grant to go fight for me and/or is he an anime girl.

“I cannot spare this woman. She f***s!”

—Baberaham Lincoln, Fate extella series.

Explanation for people in need of a history lesson:

Spoiler:

After the battle of Shiloh, Alexander McClure recommended that Abraham Lincoln remove Ulysses S. Grant from command, owing to the generals reputed uncouth and boorish personality.

Lincoln’s response : “I cannot spare this man. He fights!”

I think you mean:

Spoiler:

Babe-raham Lincoln

Rat Boy wrote:

I'm still confused as to whether or not Lara actually wants us to look into the Fate franchise.

No. Run, while you still can. It's too late for me. For the love of God, save yourselves.

KaterinLHC wrote:
Rat Boy wrote:

I'm still confused as to whether or not Lara actually wants us to look into the Fate franchise.

No. Run, while you still can. It's too late for me. For the love of God, save yourselves.

Please stop trying to sell me these games! There’s a steam sale on, and my overwhelming compulsion to find the good in everything is at war with my wallet!

Rat Boy wrote:
lunchbox12682 wrote:
Rat Boy wrote:

I'm still confused as to whether or not Lara actually wants us to look into the Fate franchise.

Only if you have want to bang historical, if inaccurate, figures.

She mentioned Fate Go which sounds like Pokemon Go which makes me wonder if I go to Grant's tomb can I summon Ulysses S. Grant to go fight for me and/or is he an anime girl.

You can't summon Grant, but in Fate G/O you can summon Nikola Tesla, William Shakespeare, Hans Christian Anderson, Frankenstein (who's, um, a hot lady) and/or Paul Bunyan (who's an 11 year old girl).

Seriously, folks. SAVE YOURSELVES.

KaterinLHC wrote:
Rat Boy wrote:
lunchbox12682 wrote:
Rat Boy wrote:

I'm still confused as to whether or not Lara actually wants us to look into the Fate franchise.

Only if you have want to bang historical, if inaccurate, figures.

She mentioned Fate Go which sounds like Pokemon Go which makes me wonder if I go to Grant's tomb can I summon Ulysses S. Grant to go fight for me and/or is he an anime girl.

You can't summon Grant, but in Fate G/O you can summon Nikola Tesla, William Shakespeare, Hans Christian Anderson, Frankenstein (who's, um, a hot lady) and/or Paul Bunyan (who's an 11 year old girl).

Seriously, folks. SAVE YOURSELVES.

Translation: Buy Now!

KaterinLHC wrote:

and/or Paul Bunyan (who's an 11 year old girl).

IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/XZuxmpO.gif)

Ok, show file is now updated! Please re-download if you haven't listened yet. Sorry for the hassle!

doubtingthomas396 wrote:

I think my audio track glitches out at some point about halfway through the show, because it sounds like I’m talking over people a lot after that point.

Unless I’m just very rude, which I suppose is possible and if so I apologize.

Yeah, I was starting to wonder about that.

The best parts were when Allen & Lara would seemingly be laughing nervously at nothing.

If you can deal with some language and a lot of yelling, I liked this primer for Fate.

Gave Backbone: Prologue a spin based on Shawn's recommendation. Setting feels like Zootopia if it was an HBO drama. Controls are very straight forward, the meat of the game seems to be in the dialogue trees, though there is a rudimentary stealth mechanic and a puzzle system. Only goes for an hour, but it's enough for me to keep an eye out for the full version.

Wow, what a relevant topic you had! And I'm always fascinated by 3-4yo kids who can play games, especially platformers. My 7yo has just started and platforming is challenging for him even in Lego games. I don't even think about marios of the world.

And speaking of anxiety and frustration and games, I have a serious question for the community: how do you address these issues with small children?

My wife is quite critical of me introducing our son to gaming and him being frustrated by something in a game is just another point into her camp.

giant_garlik wrote:

Wow, what a relevant topic you had! And I'm always fascinated by 3-4yo kids who can play games, especially platformers. My 7yo has just started and platforming is challenging for him even in Lego games. I don't even think about marios of the world.

And speaking of anxiety and frustration and games, I have a serious question for the community: how do you address these issues with small children?

My wife is quite critical of me introducing our son to gaming and him being frustrated by something in a game is just another point into her camp.

The way my wife and I look at it is to treat frustration at video games as a learning opportunity in a safe environment.

A kid who throws a controller because they lost at Mario is probably a kid who will struggle with real life setbacks in the same way. Video games uniquely allow us to literally pause the situation and talk to our kids about it in a low stakes way. (Except for online games, but that’s another topic)

With practice and patience we can use that to teach the kid to handle real world frustration in real-time, no pausing required.

doubtingthomas396 wrote:

The way my wife and I look at it is to treat frustration at video games as a learning opportunity in a safe environment.

A kid who throws a controller because they lost at Mario is probably a kid who will struggle with real life setbacks in the same way. Video games uniquely allow us to literally pause the situation and talk to our kids about it in a low stakes way. (Except for online games, but that’s another topic)

With practice and patience we can use that to teach the kid to handle real world frustration in real-time, no pausing required.

well, this is an argument I haven't thought about, strangely enough. probably because personally I never realized what kind of life skills video games taught me, I bet they have.

seeing my son getting anxious about a thing in a game, I often feel I introduced him too early, he's not ready yet etc. Maybe your way of seeing these issues says it's not that early. Thanks.

giant_garlik wrote:
doubtingthomas396 wrote:

The way my wife and I look at it is to treat frustration at video games as a learning opportunity in a safe environment.

A kid who throws a controller because they lost at Mario is probably a kid who will struggle with real life setbacks in the same way. Video games uniquely allow us to literally pause the situation and talk to our kids about it in a low stakes way. (Except for online games, but that’s another topic)

With practice and patience we can use that to teach the kid to handle real world frustration in real-time, no pausing required.

well, this is an argument I haven't thought about, strangely enough. probably because personally I never realized what kind of life skills video games taught me, I bet they have.

seeing my son getting anxious about a thing in a game, I often feel I introduced him too early, he's not ready yet etc. Maybe your way of seeing these issues says it's not that early. Thanks.

100% to what Greg said. It also helps if you play alongside your kids, so they can see you as an example of how to behave. If you get frustrated when you lose, then they'll think losing is a thing to get frustrated about. If you shrug it off, so will they. Like all parenting, it has to be an active process; you can't just give them a controller and expect they'll be able to figure this out on their own, unfortunately.

Also, it's worth remembering that kids don't always have fun in the same way that adults do. As adults, we are trained to believe that reaching a goal is what matters, and reaching or not reaching it is a metric of how much fun you are having. But kids have much more emergent play styles.

For example, my 3 yo daughter loves hearing the sad Mario music when you run out of lives; she thinks it's hilarious. She's also perfectly content to roam around the map of New Super Mario Brothers for ages, just seeing all the places you can go without clicking on any of the levels. And who am I to tell her that she's playing it wrong, you know? She'll figure it out, eventually, at her own pace and on her own time.

IMO, that freedom I'm giving her to explore on her own, rather than trying to usher her towards Beating A Level, that's one of the best things we're doing toward reducing our kids' overall frustration with, well, anything really. Kids want to explore, they want to learn. And it frustrates them when they realize they're not Doing The Thing that they're Supposed To Be Doing. So if we take out the "supposed to be" from the equation, then you take out a lot of the frustration as well. Just my own anecdotal experience.

KaterinLHC wrote:
giant_garlik wrote:
doubtingthomas396 wrote:

The way my wife and I look at it is to treat frustration at video games as a learning opportunity in a safe environment.

A kid who throws a controller because they lost at Mario is probably a kid who will struggle with real life setbacks in the same way. Video games uniquely allow us to literally pause the situation and talk to our kids about it in a low stakes way. (Except for online games, but that’s another topic)

With practice and patience we can use that to teach the kid to handle real world frustration in real-time, no pausing required.

well, this is an argument I haven't thought about, strangely enough. probably because personally I never realized what kind of life skills video games taught me, I bet they have.

seeing my son getting anxious about a thing in a game, I often feel I introduced him too early, he's not ready yet etc. Maybe your way of seeing these issues says it's not that early. Thanks.

100% to what Greg said. It also helps if you play alongside your kids, so they can see you as an example of how to behave. If you get frustrated when you lose, then they'll think losing is a thing to get frustrated about. If you shrug it off, so will they. Like all parenting, it has to be an active process; you can't just give them a controller and expect they'll be able to figure this out on their own, unfortunately.

Also, it's worth remembering that kids don't always have fun in the same way that adults do. As adults, we are trained to believe that reaching a goal is what matters, and reaching or not reaching it is a metric of how much fun you are having. But kids have much more emergent play styles.

For example, my 3 yo daughter loves hearing the sad Mario music when you run out of lives; she thinks it's hilarious. She's also perfectly content to roam around the map of New Super Mario Brothers for ages, just seeing all the places you can go without clicking on any of the levels. And who am I to tell her that she's playing it wrong, you know? She'll figure it out, eventually, at her own pace and on her own time.

IMO, that freedom I'm giving her to explore on her own, rather than trying to usher her towards Beating A Level, that's one of the best things we're doing toward reducing our kids' overall frustration with, well, anything really. Kids want to explore, they want to learn. And it frustrates them when they realize they're not Doing The Thing that they're Supposed To Be Doing. So if we take out the "supposed to be" from the equation, then you take out a lot of the frustration as well. Just my own anecdotal experience.

Very much agree
My son is a karmic kick in the head as he reflects my own anger management issues both when I was a kid and now. So my wife and I work extra hard to help him have better coping mechanisms for expressing and handling his emotions,positive and negative. It seems to be at least partially working as he can definitely articulate when he is frustrated better than I could.

I get most satisfaction from completing a game I’ve spent a lot of time with. I’ve grown to appreciate shorter games but, for a memorable and satisfying game experience, I would rather spend a lot of time with one game rather than fly through five or six shorter games.

With games like the Assassin’s Creeds, the Mass Effects, Horizon Zero Dawn, Bloodborne and Dark Souls, I feel like I’ve had a true adventure getting attached to the characters I’ve steered through a game over weeks or months and am usually completely happy and satisfied when I see credits roll.

Thanks for another great episode.

Wow, an e-mail of mine was upgraded into a topic! I feel like I should get an achievement unlocked ping or something

Thanks for sharing your stories. We try to limit any screen time to the bare minimum for our kids (Luna 3,5y and Febe 2 years old). They get 10-15 minutes of tv in the morning and 20-30 minutes in the evening before bedtime. We have never gamed or watched tv while they're awake. Febe still naps though while Luna doesn't, so maybe - and thanks to your stories I'm more inclined to take an active approach - I will introduce her to some Just Dance during the weekend. She loves to dance, although unfortunately she has her dad's (lack of) talent and tends to shut down when pushed even slightly. Another challenge is that most games - and thus song selections - are made for the Anglophone market.

Until now, the few minutes we introduced her to games were not a success. She shuts down if it gets even slightly twitchy, so easy does it.

Honestly, I should listen to the episode again, as I missed most other recommendations. Plants vs Zombies and Crypt of the Necrodancer are the only ones I got. Oh and Greg, if you feel like recommending any board games for my girls' age group, feel free!

Thanks again, I really enjoyed the entire show this week.