Jump to content
Search In
  • More options...
Find results that contain...
Find results in...
Nomad

Doom for Kids

Recommended Posts

I know I'm not the the only Doomer around here with hellspawn of my own running around, and as mine is getting older and starting to understand how to operate things more, she's getting about to the age that she can start playing games. I don't want to corrupt her TOO early with death and violence, so I've been kicking around the idea of starting a Doom TC aimed at particularly small children. I know there's Chex Quest, but I'm talking even younger. Kids who are just learning to play games.

Any other Doom Dads and/or Moms or anyone else interested in doing something like this?

First thing that comes to mind is doing something simple like this: I'm thinking it should be focusing more on developing coordination than really any kind of "combat," but we could have stuff like shooting balloons with a squirt gun and put in some other moving targets for kids to practice their aim with no real threat. Anything that DOES cause damage they can negate by collecting candy for health and stars for powerups, and add in a treasure system to collect other things for fun. Maybe even throw in some kind of visual puzzles to put on screen for the little squirts to figure out. I think it could be a fun project, and could produce something we could even pass on to our friends and family for their kids to play with.

Share this post


Link to post

There are already bloodless FPS out there; H.U.R.L for an old example and at least two Nerf based games for more recent examples.

H.U.R.L:

Share this post


Link to post

I'm not a dad, but my first interaction with computers was with drawing programs like Paintbrush, MS Word's drawing toolbar or CorelDRAW (I wish I had access to Photoshop equivalents, not to vector graphics though). Only a bit later I started playing puzzle or platforming games after watching my sister play them (she was also playing Wolf3D at the same time, but I only had courage to try Ep1 and Ep3 on skill 1 -- first-person shooters might be scarier indeed). Note that however I cried a lot while watching Lemmings (who looked like little children to me) falling to their deaths (but it was all fine as long as they escaped all well)...

What I'm saying is that you don't have to limit yourself to showing your child Doom :)

Share this post


Link to post
Nomad said:

I know I'm not the the only Doomer around here with hellspawn of my own running around, and as mine is getting older and starting to understand how to operate things more, she's getting about to the age that she can start playing games. I don't want to corrupt her TOO early with death and violence, so I've been kicking around the idea of starting a Doom TC aimed at particularly small children. I know there's Chex Quest, but I'm talking even younger. Kids who are just learning to play games.

Any other Doom Dads and/or Moms or anyone else interested in doing something like this?


There's someone on the ZDoom forums who made this:

Share this post


Link to post
Nomad said:

[...]

First thing that comes to mind is doing something simple like this: I'm thinking it should be focusing more on developing coordination than really any kind of "combat," but we could have stuff like shooting balloons with a squirt gun and put in some other moving targets for kids to practice their aim with no real threat. Anything that DOES cause damage they can negate by collecting candy for health and stars for powerups, and add in a treasure system to collect other things for fun. Maybe even throw in some kind of visual puzzles to put on screen for the little squirts to figure out. I think it could be a fun project, and could produce something we could even pass on to our friends and family for their kids to play with.

I think this is a great idea. And you don't even have to have the damage be damage. Instead of the player's mug that shows a bloodier face as he takes damage, it could be a graphic of a .. I dunno, maybe a pitcher of Koolade or something that goes slightly less when you take on damage. Medkits could be replaced with little cups of Koolade and health potions with little vials of koolade. This isn't a good idea, It's the best I can think of at the moment to move away from damage, pain and other non-child like stuff. You could replace the the damage sound with Koolade being slurpred or something.

As far as the balloon thing--it's really brilliant. You could have the balloons pop when shot with the squirt gun and the popping sound would be great for little tots.

I wonder what would take "health" away? Of course you could just sidestep the whole health aspect of the game.

Other brainstorming: Imps could be cute cuddly carebares that blow bubbles at you instead of hurling fireballs.

Share this post


Link to post

How about this: monsters throw bubbles that stick to you. When too many bubbles stick, you fly to the clouds. :P

Share this post


Link to post

My five year old loves Doom. Even my 3 year old likes watching. Two boys of course. :) They love all the monsters. Cacodemon and Arachnotron being their favorites.

Now my brother's girl has no interest in it...thinks its stupid.

Share this post


Link to post
Gez said:

There's someone on the ZDoom forums who made this


Looks cute, but it's only the one level? I'd like to have something more lengthy for my kiddo. Though obviously little kids have really short attention spans so each level should be fairly short and self contained. Also that's a bit cheesy. ;P

Something like that would be nice though! That could be just one of many different challenges in the game; obviously that one's just simple key replacements, but could add in lots of other collecting puzzles and I like the suggestion of some simple math puzzles--maybe for the later levels; color puzzles would be great too.

About the health, it's probably not necessary to include any kind of damage. Definitely not death because I know that would frustrate and potentially upset some kids. Maybe include some animals that don't attack unless provoked, which could teach that some things don't appreciate being poked or shot at with a squirt gun. :P

Share this post


Link to post

It's not Doom, but I guess the obvious choice for non-combat FPS is Portal. Also, World of Padman has the sorts of weapons you mentioned (bubble gum gun, water cannon, etc.). Its cartoon-ish style should be appealing as well, I think.

Share this post


Link to post
antares said:

It's not Doom, but I guess the obvious choice for non-combat FPS is Portal.

I was going to mention Portal, but it's probably too sophisticated for a toddler.

Share this post


Link to post
Nomad said:

Looks cute, but it's only the one level? I'd like to have something more lengthy for my kiddo. Though obviously little kids have really short attention spans so each level should be fairly short and self contained. Also that's a bit cheesy. ;P


Yeah, I only had time to make one level for my school project. I did plan on making at least two or three more levels, but my lack of mapping skills and the time consumption for making new textures, sprites and recording voices ultimately killed any chances for this mod to be completed. :/

Share this post


Link to post

I've played Chex Quest with my girlfriend's young cousin on many occasions and he seems to really enjoy it. It makes for a good "kid-safe" version of Doom. I might switch to "proper" Doom in a few years when he's older.

Focusing on coordination is a really good place to start. I usually play with me using the movement keys and him with the fire button. Full cheats as well, because he just wants to go around and shoot stuff and doesn't really care about or understand concepts like "limited ammo".

Share this post


Link to post

Probably Chex Quest is the best "DOOM" for kids. No death and gore, and still fun.

There have been "official" versions of DOOM with less violence: DOOM and DOOM 2 for GBA. However, these have a T13+ rating, and the gore is green instead of red, but there are no gibs. Changing blood from red to green doesn't exactly make something kid-safe, but judging from the Teen rating, I would assume green blood makes something "teen-safe".

And no, it's not "kid-safe" in my opinion, but the rating of the 3DO version of DOOM is 12. It mentions some stuff about guidance for under 12s because it "may" contain violence to inanimate objects, property, and creatures, yet this stuff is also in the originals, which are M17+.

So, a kid TC would be good. It'd still be DOOM, but with a brighter, happier theme.

Share this post


Link to post

Meh, my kids played Doom from an early age. The only concession to it being "kid safe" was that my son preferred to play it with god mode on until his got good enough to not need it.

The main way I made it kid safe was to ensure that my kids new the difference between walking up to someone in real life and turning them inside out with a shotgun and shooting a cartoony sprite on a screen in the comfort of their own chair. Strangely enough, they seemed to grasp this pretty quickly.

Share this post


Link to post

One good thing about Doom is the enemies are mostly pink or red, or quite obviously the stuff of pure evil, and even the humanoids have scary red eyes and are covered in blood. I would stick kids with Chex Quest, but Doom itself is really pretty darn unambiguous compared to a lot of games.

Share this post


Link to post

I don't really care about the violence, it's just a matter of putting things on the screen that the kids are actually interested in. Little kids like to look at things they recognize.

Share this post


Link to post

it would be really neat to have a full wad like this. and since sprites like that are so easy to design, just about anyone could do it, heh

Share this post


Link to post
Nomad said:

I don't really care about the violence, it's just a matter of putting things on the screen that the kids are actually interested in. Little kids like to look at things they recognize.

Heh, that's why Wolfenstein 3-D worked so well to get my attention :P But I think it's too antique for these days. Since she's a girl I don't think it's a problem, but if your child was a boy, he would probably resent for being exposed to old shit instead of modern games other children were introduced by their parents.

It's easy to compare: Wolfenstein 3D is colourful and has funny and varied sounds for each item and Nazi, whereas Doom is drab and recycles sounds and makes them uniform -- lots of "gohhh" monster groans.

Share this post


Link to post

I dunno -- I feel that Chex Quest is pretty much the perfect kid-primer to the Dooming life, since the mechanics are the same but the overall difficulty is much lower (mostly since so many basic enemies are melee-only). Might save the godmode step. :P

Share this post


Link to post

My 6 year old, Dylan loves retro games. His current dream is to build a retro arcade.

He plays Doom and gets pretty far in E1 in easy. Once he gets the hang of strafeing and better orientation he'll be well away.

We quite often play co-op (always looking for vanilla - or at least Legacy compatible Doom WADs that have short or non confusing levels and difficulties set). He even has the occasional atteempt at designing maps (see blogs, reminds me - his MAP03 is ready for upload).

Going by his example some kid friendly layouts and difficulty settings would be sufficient. I've been using Oblige for this purpose but human made maps are usually better.

Share this post


Link to post
Xaser said:

I dunno -- I feel that Chex Quest is pretty much the perfect kid-primer to the Dooming life, since the mechanics are the same but the overall difficulty is much lower (mostly since so many basic enemies are melee-only). Might save the godmode step. :P

I'd rather let the kid learn playing by using "I'm too young to die" (I think this skill level is specifically meant for kids, hence the name!) than by letting him/her know there are cheats and thus ruin the game.

Share this post


Link to post

That picture is absolutely adorable. Even modern kids know that Doom is a good game!

Then again, maybe it's because she hasn't been spoiled by today's gaming climate yet.

Share this post


Link to post
TheUltimateDoomer666 said:

And no, it's not "kid-safe" in my opinion, but the rating of the 3DO version of DOOM is 12.

Well, that kind of make sense: a tiny jerky postage stamp-sized window is far less engrossing than a smooth full screen one :)

Share this post


Link to post

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×