KidZui Gaming Categories
Hi Folks.
My name is Sean and I’m Gaming Editor here at KidZui. This week I’d like to lend some clarity to some of the gaming categories your children may be accessing in KidZui and on our gaming portal, Zuigames.com.
If you’ve been following the KidZui blog you know that in the beginning of November, 2008 we launched Zuigames.com. This website is our answer to the risk that most gaming domains pose. Unfortunately the majority of gaming websites are laden with adult orientated content from violent games to inappropriate ads to unmonitored user comments. Seeing this fact and knowing that kids love games, we decided to collect the coolest and safest games the internet has to offer and put them on our own site, Zuigames.com. Of course this site is approved in KidZui and its games make up the content your children will find in the gaming categories.
The categories themselves were selected based off experience with other game websites and games in general. They are designed to be specific enough to allow kids to find what they are looking for while at the same time aiding parents in understanding what type of games their kids are playing. This week I’m going to give you a quick overview of five categories, Games, Arcade Games, Action Games, Puzzle Games, and Racing Games.
Games: This is a catch all category in KidZui that has a sampling of each of the other nine gaming categories. It’s a great place to start if your children are unsure of what they want to play or you would like to get an idea of the games we feature in KidZui.
Arcade Games: This category has a selection of fun games that can be played for 5 minutes or 5 hours. It includes simple games like Dino Drop, in which you match 3 of the same color eggs to clear a board. It also has games like Red Beard, in which you control a red bearded pirate as he jumps from platform to platform to collect all the gold.
Action Games: This category includes a selection of action and adventure games. Some of these games pit the player against an endless army of robots that they must destroy such as in Mechablaster. Some of them challenge your child’s investigative skills such as in Scooby Doo and the Attacks of the Ghost Pirates. And some of them are just plain fun action orientated romps such as Dogfight in which you control a World War 1 fighter Ace and Snowball Warrior, in which you fight off the bullies in an epic snowball fight.
Puzzle Games: This category includes a selection of puzzle orientated games. Here your children will find traditional puzzles like the 101 Dalmatians Jigsaw puzzle. They will find classics like Mahjong, Silly Solitaire, and Tetris as well as some new classics like Conundrum in which they will be challenged to raise all 25 blocks by clicking on different sections of a board. Puzzle games also include games like Charger Escape in which players much find certain objects to help a horse escape its pen. Finally they will find some fun games that require a little more thought and deft mouse work such as Scribble in which they must draw a path to guide the little characters safely through each level.
Racing Games: This category is actually pretty straight forward. Here your children will find standard racing games like Hyper Velocity Racer in which they drive an F1 racecar to victory. They’ll also find less traditional racing games like Frog Race in which they race a frog by selecting the power of its jumps and Scooby Doo’s 1000 Yard Graveyard Dash in which you help Scooby race away from an evil ghost.
So there you have a quick summary of what these five gaming categories are and some games they include. As Gaming Editor it is my pleasure to personally select the games your kids are playing in the KidZui Gaming Categories and I hope they are enjoying them as much I do. I’ll be back down the line to give you all some more insight into the rest of our gaming categories. Thanks for reading and enjoy KidZui.
Kids’ Trends
At KidZui, it is my job to know simply everything kids are into. Little kids are easy. They’re intrigued by anything to do with animals, animation, and absolutely adore songs that make them laugh. Where it becomes tricky is the tween set. “Tweens” refer to the age group of 8 to 12. These kids are stuck between wanting to be children and wanting to be teens; a pretty complex dilemma! Tweens have, in recent years, become a huge focal group to marketers and creators of multimedia. A whole new world of television, movies, music and clothing has emerged just for them.
An obvious trend over the past few months (or even past few years if you’re familiar with it), have been the Stephanie Meyer’s Twilight series. Jumping off from the success of the Harry Potter series based on wizardry, Twilight has introduced a whole new world of vampires, werewolves and young love. The Twilight series has been marketed to almost everyone, from tweens to adults, and the following it has acquired is huge. The series became so popular that Summit Entertainment bought the rights to the books and made a movie – released last year. This pushed the books into the mainstream even more making almost everyone aware of it, even quite possibly your child. While the PG-13 rated movie doesn’t seem like it would be appropriate or interesting for KidZui’s 3 to 12 target audience, the mania surrounding it has probably made your child very curious about all the buzz. Rest assured, KidZui does have all the awesome Twilight content your kids are looking for, plus all the content meets KidZui’s strict editorial guidelines; this should be enough to satiate your child’s Twilight appetite without exposing too much! The sequel to Twilight, New Moon, will release later this year on November 20th.
Another very popular trend and top web-destination of KidZui users is WebKinz. Kids love being able to interact in virtual worlds and adopt virtual pets. However, a certain level of know-how is required in being involved in these virtual worlds. Kids have to know how to use a mouse and be able to type and spell on a keyboard to get the full experience. Unfortunately, this seems to leave out the younger kids who just aren’t there yet. But there is good news for our youngsters coming this Spring! The online phenomenon, WebKinz, is currently developing an online experience made specifically for these young children (3-6 year olds) who are still perfecting their motor-skills and are just learning about computers and how to use them independently. Howard Ganz, president of Ganz, said, “Webkinz Jr. is a world for younger children to discover, where learning and daily activities can be chosen by parents to meet their child’s needs.” (http://www.giftsanddec.com/article/CA6626603.html). WebKinzJr.com is already included in KidZui and awaiting the much anticipated launch in late Spring, so keep an eye out for it!
Painting with the Computer
Before coming aboard as a KidZui art director, I’d spent years as a freelance illustrator – doing artwork for advertisers and magazine articles – and then as an illustrator for animated educational CD-ROM games for school children as well as online computer games. Working for KidZui was different in that most of the artwork involved what’s referred to as UI, for User Interface, design. This means designing what KidZui will look and feel like – the buttons, the windows, the tabs, etc. – and how they all work together. I also got to design what the Zui characters looked like and to create much of the fun clothes, hairstyles and doodads that go with them.
But while all this is fun, my passion is still illustrating… painting pictures that tell stories or create moods. So imagine my delight when KidZui decided that kids could customize their KidZui browsers with different backgrounds (See latest backgrounds below.) “We’ll need some fun background illustrations. LOTS of them!” they told me. “Of what?” I asked. “Anything kids would be interested in. Everything kids would be interested in. Colorful designs, fun places, sports, activities, animals, anything!”
For an illustrator who’s always been a little boy at heart, nothing could be more fun. Of course, that left only one problem. You see, I’ve never been a little girl, and KidZui is for boys and girls. So I’ve been eternally grateful to the ladies of KidZui for their endless suggestions and feedback on what appeals to the imaginations of both little girls and boys. Together we created a long list of themes and topics as idea starters. Plus we’re always looking ahead to special occasions like holidays and events.
My ideas come from all over… comic books, movies, paintings, anything. I’ll start a new background by wondering through my list, and inevitably something will smack me upside the head with a mental image. Once I’ve sketched out a composition, I’ll surf through the Internet looking for reference materials. Want to know what, oh let’s say, a rock concert stage looks like? Or a baseball player at bat? Or a Tyrannosaurus Rex? Or a pirate ship? There’s bound to be lots of images to help you start sketching. From there, it’s the years of experience and practice that take over. I work at my computer, using an electronic stylus and drawing tablet to draw, and then “paint”, directly to the screen, so what used to take me a few weeks now takes a few days. And unlike painting, I can move things around or change their colors with ease. It’s really quite amazing.
And the list of ideas is very long, so watch for new background art appearing for years to come.
Dan Owen Jones
Art Director
Take a look at Dan’s latest work! Click on any of the images to enlarge them. KidZui members can now choose from any of these backgrounds to customize their KidZui experience.
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- KidZui Martial Art
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- Girls Rock Band
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- The KidZui land of dinosaurs
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- The KidZui Unicorn
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- KidZui Underwater World
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- Attention KidZui Snowboarders!
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