There's an on-line world called 'Webkinz'. The little guy wanted to get a Webkinz stuffed toy, because it's got a code on it that'll allow entry into Webkinz world and a lot of his friends have them. You end up with a virtual pet that you've got to feed and take care of, and you can earn Kinzcash to do that through games and quizzes. So we now have Fuzzy the cat that the little guy's made an 11-room mansion for - but the place is notably bare of furnishings. (One must have priorities, after all. I hate to see him going the ego-mansion route, but hey - it's his pet.)
And Sue and I were having so much fun with the games, (visual puzzles, pattern matching, clones of old classic arcade games) that we got Webkinz of our own. (Two tree frogs - Flipper and Frankie.) Yes, we ARE kids, even if our bodies aren't exactly 8-year-old size.
It's a pretty kid-safe environment - and it's pretty restrictive on the messages and such that can be sent between the kids. There's plenty of games for them to play, and lots of two-player games. The kids can send their pets to each other's homes, though it's kind of difficult to communicate. There's a chat system, but like I said it's pretty restrictive in the messages. There's no way to send plain text, you've got to choose from the remarks that are preprogrammed.
It's kind of wierd. World of Warcraft never really appealed, Second Life sounded technically interesting but not something I wanted to waste a lot of time and money on - particularly time. Webkinz are a bit different - you log on, play some games, play with your pet a bit and you're done - you don't have do to anything more than you want to. Yeah, it's not much compared to Second Life - but it's just right for kids.
What wonders we've created just for fun...
J.
Comments (1)
I have a couple of alts in SL and going there helped me to recover from the causes of my catalepsy and memory problems. By being able to play with shapes and their geometry and create interesting things, my mind worked at things and soon I was doing textures to be applied, then making jewelry and then doing some scripting... Not much good at the scripting, beyond the simple things, but the few I put together and amalgamated from open source helped me to regain my mental footing. Now I am highly disoriented by SL and even by car trips in real life. So while other areas recovered, in doing that something got lost.
Hopefully I can return, but the disorientation and feeling of same is just too much to handle now.
Posted by ajacksonian | March 20, 2007 10:31 AM
Posted on March 20, 2007 10:31