Sandbox Games

Minecraft might not force anyone to learn engineering or design—to actually build computers with Redstone—but because there is little to do in creative mode, one must learn to solve the problem of boredom. That might mean fi ghting pits, that might mean building a hotel. The way we play is offl ine so we never have to worry about griefers other than Kal. Once he discovered how to spawn creatures, he was happy to spawn too many pigs. The game would warn him that his planet could not sustain them. He began to spawn Zombie Pigmen because that was less likely to cause him to get yelled at than if he spawned and killed cows or chickens. Where else can he learn that no one likes a vengeful and irrational god?

When Kal gets bored playing Karting by himself, he can happily sit in the LBP pod and design carts for an hour. Building a world on one of the moons is a bit too intense. He’s given it a try in all three versions of the game. The worst has to be LBP3 because that caused him to not be able to access the pod computer and continue playing the story mode game. The best is probably the fi rst (I think) because it allows users to spawn a world based on one of the levels already played. The tutorials are basically all the same. One just has to actually take the time to do them. Kal has gotten better and had more fun after I forced him to follow a few tutorials in LBP1. It’s odd how at the same time it can be easier to build on the LBP moon than in Minecraft but also so much harder.

While the idea that building a cart for an hour isn’t that impressive, it’s an hour he’s trying to be creative. Megan would sit for 20 minutes, applying makeup to her Bratz characters. Sometimes the posters she designed in Bratz needed to be hung around town in a race challenge that followed, but the makeup was mostly the entertainment of painting computer faces. But we’re not supposed to be letting anyone sit in front of a screen for that long, so fi nding book versions of any of these characters is easier on my conscience —even if it’s just a coloring book version. —MV

Betty has discovered the game we bought years ago

Madeline Strum Photography

BLOXELS

manufactured by Mattel in 2018

Anyone can build a video game, creating characters, art, and stories to share with the world. The original kit came with blocks to arrange on a board then photograph with an iPad. Betty has gotten into the animation aspect of character creation. Some of it’s really good, like when one of her Teletubbies heads breaks apart. For a while the boys were happy to play the games other people had created. No one here has really used it to create a game yet. —MV

She is excited to make characters and animating them

Madeline Vega