Is Angband healthy for 6-year olds?

[HallucinationMushroom]

Cool, I'll let you know how it goes! The wife wanted her to have some kind of programming exposure and I recall reading about the game from RPS, so maybe it will give her some good entry level exposure to coding. Lord knows I know nothing about it!

[Derakon]

My daughter is much more of a Minecraft player, and is a whiz at that. I picked up Hack-Slash for us to play over X-Mas break... it is some kind of DoubleFine game mish-mash of legend of zelda and programming? Or so I was told.

Hack and Slash is much more of a programming game that uses a Zelda-like perspective; there's basically no Zelda-style gaming in it. I still enjoyed it though. The basic conceit is that when you hit an enemy (or any other active object in the game), instead of damaging them, you get to modify their source code and/or tweak the variables that represent them. This works into the puzzles, so e.g. there's a gate that demands a password which you cannot possibly determine from outside means, but if you hack the gate, you can look into its code to find what text string it's expecting, and thus learn what the password is (and you can change the password to "lol butts" or whatever if it strikes your fancy).

I'm already a programmer, so I found the game very easy to get into; I'm curious how other people who have less experience will fare.

[HallucinationMushroom]

I like watching my daughter play nethack. She started at 3 and is now 7. That grabbed her a lot more because I play tiles with nethack, has mouse move, and almost always provides some kind of 'story', even within the limited 2-5 levels she manages. I would just prop her on my lap when I played, and when she reached a certain point that she could hit the buttons I just let her play. I mean, if your son is gravitating towards roguelikes, why not? Shit, that's the dream, isn't it?

My daughter is much more of a Minecraft player, and is a whiz at that. I picked up Hack-Slash for us to play over X-Mas break... it is some kind of DoubleFine game mish-mash of legend of zelda and programming? Or so I was told.

[tprice]

Anyway I intend to start reading The Hobbit to him tonight ...

So how is he liking the hobbit so far? I remember my dad reading it to me when I was little...

[Wanderlust]

Truth be told, my interest in finding "something better" began when my 14 year old son got addicted to Geometry Dash Lite on his iPad.

Judging from the amount of time he spends with it, that game is equally addictive to Angband. However, it has zero depth, delivers no lasting rewards, and forces the player to spend 10% of his time watching advertisement videos.

This kid is a competitive chess player and I was appalled how easily he became "victim" of what I consider an abusive game. It's designed to trigger the "immediate gratification" response just enough to keep the player hooked ... so they can show more paid ads. Yuck!

So yeah ... video games are addictive. We all know that. But some addictions are better than others ..

Anyway Angband seems to be teaching my son all kinds of little lessons that I really think may be useful for him (which are glaringly lacking in commercial games). Such as the fact you can die. And the idea of caution in general as a preventive measure. And be selective who you kill.

[Bowman]

Hmmm, I think I need help with this one....

Well, I only said it would be easier, not easy . Angband can be (much) more than a little addictive, but at least you never need to worry about waiting through some 15-30 cutscene so that you can save and quit.

[Wanderlust]

I think what happens here is that your son likes angband because you like it. You enjoy playing it and that is what he wants to emulate, it's all about the father-son experience. I suppose you do a lot of explaining when you are playing and that's what draws him in. You can let him play but I would guess it's only interesting to him as long as you are playing with him. It's still a great thing to do with your kid but I think the actual game of angband has fairly little to do with it.

That's a very fair observation but in this particular case it's clearly about Angband as well. My son is nuts for numbers. He used to spend hours and hours counting. He is fascinated by all the numbers in Angband, and by the way the numbers interact together to create an interesting story.

For sure he and I love doing stuff together but certain activities become favorites. And since he's excited and curious about numbers and math, we do lots of things together along those lines (i.e., chess, origami, number games, angband). He and I seem to have similar kinds of numbers-oriented OCD-inclined brains ...

Anyway I intend to start reading The Hobbit to him tonight ...

[Timo Pietilä]

I think what happens here is that your son likes angband because you like it. You enjoy playing it and that is what he wants to emulate, it's all about the father-son experience. I suppose you do a lot of explaining when you are playing and that's what draws him in. You can let him play but I would guess it's only interesting to him as long as you are playing with him. It's still a great thing to do with your kid but I think the actual game of angband has fairly little to do with it.

Maybe, maybe not. Kids can get rather fanatic about games they like. However sometimes it is fun to just watch someone else playing, that is why I have used almost as much time watching experts playing civ IV than I have used playing it.

[quarague]

I think what happens here is that your son likes angband because you like it. You enjoy playing it and that is what he wants to emulate, it's all about the father-son experience. I suppose you do a lot of explaining when you are playing and that's what draws him in. You can let him play but I would guess it's only interesting to him as long as you are playing with him. It's still a great thing to do with your kid but I think the actual game of angband has fairly little to do with it.

[Ingwe Ingweron]

Of course, you'll want to pay attention to how much he's playing and make sure that he's not neglecting more important things, but the fact that you can stop at any time and pick right back up from there later should help with relieving some of that "just one more level" mindset.

Hmmm, I think I need help with this one....

[Raccoon]

Letting a kid play Angband will, however, ruin their appreciation for mainstream games. Or at least it did for me! I discovered roguelike games when I was 12, and though I don't have the tenacity to stick with them like some people do, they have definitely changed my perspective on mainstream games. I often find myself asking why I'd bother paying $60 for a linear, ten hour game with little to no depth or replay value when I have Angband, ToME, Crawl, and other games available!

[fph]

Roverandom is also a nice children's book by JRRT. Now that I think of it, it would be a nice cameo to add a themed unique C or Z.

[bio_hazard]

I don't think it would be harmful. I think it requires some imagination to see ascii on the screen and envision monsters, treasure, etc. As said above, just limit levels.

That said, what about Minecraft? I've never played, but that seems like a great sandbox game that probably has more of an upside for child development. Or maybe something like one of the Civilization games played on easy.

If you read the Hobbit to your kids, they will remember that forever!

[tprice]

I learned to touch type by playing Moria late at night with the lights off when I was supposed to be asleep. ;-)

Since he isn't' up to reading full on Tolkien yet if letters are just being learned then i recommend the Rob Inglis narrated audio books. He has such a great reading voice for Tolkien in my opinion.

[Bowman]

I don't have any kids either, but as someone who started playing roguelikes in general after getting fed up with the overall poor quality of consumer games these days, I can't see what would be wrong with letting a kid play Angband. It may lead to some awkward questions about what it means when Draebor gives him the finger and violates him (though someone can probably tell you a way to change the messages for the insult attack), but on the whole, I don't think there's any more objectionable content in Angband than there was in games like Castlevania or Super Mario Bros, and besides, it's a great game. Aside from the positives that Carnivean mentioned, it can also teach about the importance of learning from your mistakes and about making decisions based on anticipating what might go wrong with a situation.

Of course, you'll want to pay attention to how much he's playing and make sure that he's not neglecting more important things, but the fact that you can stop at any time and pick right back up from there later should help with relieving some of that "just one more level" mindset.