Last Sunday, I played Battle Bash with my cousins, ages 8 and 6. We only had enough time to play it once, so I decided not to use power ups, so they wouldn’t have to deal with too much complexity. The game lasted longer than usual, 30 minutes compared to an average 20. While I got bored of the game kind of quickly, they seemed engaged the entire time. They had lots of fun counting squares to get next to each other, and rolling the dice to see who won. I’m not sure how they would have responded to the power up mechanic, but my guess is that they would ignore it for the more fun activity of attacking each other.
Playing Battle Bash with my cousins showed me that younger kids enjoy simple games of chance, even if that simplicity comes at the cost of choice. Complexity will easily confuse them. Looking at popular kids games shows this to be accurate. Hi Ho Cheerio, Candy Land, Trouble and Shoots and Ladders all rely almost completely on chance. The choice in those games is limited to how hard to spin a spinner or how thoroughly to shuffle a deck of cards. But kids still love them!
Battle Bash’s appeal to young children is important to me because I want the game to be fun for the whole family, not just 12 and up. Based on the wants of little kids, the power up mechanic is unnecessary, and might even be harmful to the game. But on the other hand. . .
For teens and adults, power ups are a great addition to the game. We’ve tested Battle Bash without power ups immediately before playing it with power ups to make sure. After both playthroughs, I asked my play testers whether they liked power ups, and nearly everyone said that they made the game more fun. For adults, power ups fulfill the roll I designed them for: adding more choice, and making the game better as a whole. But for little kids, they just add confusion.
How do we solve the difference in needs and make our games appeal to both kids and adults? For Battle Bash, I will make power ups an optional rule. If you’re playing with lots of little kids, you can play without them for a simple game that everybody can understand. And if you’re playing with teens and adults, you can add them in for a game with more choice and strategy.
Not every game needs to be family friendly, but for those that are, simplicity to appeal to children is an absolute necessity, even if it comes at the cost of choice.
How will you make your games appealing to little kids? Is that even one of your objectives?
Thanks for reading!!!
