Sunday 4 November 2012

Super Mario and Son

Jack has a nintendo 3ds but only has one game for it so far. Super Mario Bros DS.

Jack loves the game and will play it all day long if you let him. We generally try to limit his play time to something resembling an hour a day but somedays it's nice to just let him play.

I, along with many from my generation spent most of my time playing video games when I was growing up, and I still spend a lot of time playing them now. In fact it's the subject of my degree. I'm well aware of all the stigma that's attached to children playing video games and I can honestly say that it doesn't concern me. I'm not concerned particularly about the reported effects on his imagination or anything like that. Jack created an octopus on a pogo stick out of a few pieces of one of his building sets a few weeks back and he gets plenty of exercise and all that. Sure there's a lot of really violent games out there, but no more so than movies, or dare I say it, real life. So no I don't think there's any harm in Jack squashing the walking toadstools or winged tortoises, it's a game. I personally don't see how a child playing a video game today is any different to a child reading a book. But I digress.

I often muse as the prospect of Jack, aged fourteen, bringing friends over to play video games. I'm waiting for the day when I'm not allowed to play because they'd like to win for a change. I'm sure I wouldn't be allowed to play with him and his friends anyway, being that I have every intention of being the un-coolest dad ever, but I can dream.

When I was growing up the Mario games were some of my favorites so I know the answers to most of Jack's questions about the game, its plot and characters. Jack plays along and talks to me about it, sometimes I play the more difficult levels for him, or I help him with a difficult manoeuvre. Sometimes he just wants to watch while I play a few levels. It's something that we can share and do together and I hope that it will always be so. Some parents never find something like this that they can share with their children, I'm glad that I'm not one of them.


4 comments:

  1. It's good to have a buddy, huh? for you and him...

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  2. hi Derek i'm wondering if you have any affiliation with the company "edugo" as the college i work for is currently considering a deal in buying a pre-loaded iPad which contains your app ioverlay. the company claims that you built this app for them. i'm just wondering whether this is true or not

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    Replies
    1. Any more information you could give me on that would be appreciated

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  3. It is not true. I have no affiliation with any companies on any of my products. Except Apple perhaps. I will certainly be looking into this though thank you.

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