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From A to Z Family is the blog of Alex and Zoe Cronk-Young. We write about all things family-oriented, from toys and games, to editorials on raising children and our experiences with parenting. Our opinions of things may differ, but there will most likely be plenty of common ground. There's my opinion, there's my wife's opinion, and there's everything in between. Where do you stand?

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In Search of the Perfect First Game

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When a loyal video game enthusiast has a child, one of the first things they think about (apart from all of that important parenting stuff) is how they will go about introducing their new kid to video games. It can be like a science project, because making a mistake and turning them off from gaming is probably the worst scenario a gamer could ever imagine.

I'm no different. I've been slowly and carefully introducing various video games to Emerson since the moment my wife said she was old enough that they wouldn't rot her brain, or hurt her eyes, or whatever it was she said -- she's the one that researches those kind of things. 

I started with a V.Smile Baby console that had been passed down to us by my brother-in-law. The chief concern here was that it was designed more for education, and less for fun; Not exactly the ideal for a gamer. I would have considered continuing her playtime with the games, but she was already learning better with us teaching her, and they didn't exactly entrance her, so I moved on.

Talking Down to our Kids

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The Generation Video Game articles were originally written for Bitmob.com. I've decided to post some of the ones that I wrote here, as I think they might speak to the audience we hope to develop for this site. You can read all of them by going here.


I don't know about you, but to me, games used to be much more difficult than they are today. When I was a kid, I struggled my way through games like Mega Man, and I enjoyed every second of it. But these days, it seems as though the term "kid's game" means that it will hold your hand the entire way through.

Why are so many "kid's games" so easy? Perhaps developers have misjudged the abilities of our children to navigate and understand game worlds.

A "kid's game" shouldn't mean a walk through the park. It should mean a simple enough set of controls for them to easily pick up, and a friendly storyline. Those two things have nothing to do with difficulty. I've witnessed the obsessive lengths a child will go to when playing a game -- a child doesn't ever blame the controller, or the game design. They just try, try again.