Hand drawn "computer game"

My 7-year-old daughter makes hand drawn "computer games." You play one row at a time, from the bottom up. Each row has its own set of rules.

UPDATE: Since some of you asked if Jane could explain the game, I recorded her telling me about it. And here's a photo with the complete game.

Mark Frauenfelder is the founder of Boing Boing and the editor-in-chief of MAKE and Cool Tools. Twitter: @frauenfelder. Come and hear Mark speak at the ALA conference in Chicago on July 1.

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daemonsquire

Among my friends, there are a few happy mutant spawn in the offing this year. I can’t wait ’til the li’l ones are exercising their own creative muscles, like your daughter does.

Visiting my 8 y.o. nephew Mac’s family over the past holiday season, we were busy doing some tree trimming, while he accumulated info from us to build some fantasy characters, for a game of his own device. At his behest, we each listed five inanimate objects, then picked five numbers between 1 and 10. He assigned a number to each object, then, for each of us, drew an assemblage of the requisite number of all five objects together. Then, he drew the creature that each agglomeration had come to resemble. Mine, he named a “trash ant eater” (trash, maybe, in part, because one of my objects was dog poo). My wife’s chosen objects formed a “killapillar”, and the boy’s creature was an “octoplatypus”. Then he gave each a numerical ranking in recyclability, defense, speed, attack, and life, and explained how the scores related to one another. E.g., defense and attack cancel one another out, because “one is what you can do, and the other is what you don’t do”. My recyclability was low because, in addition to dog poo, I was made of rocks, too, and, he says, “no one wants those”, while his octoplatypus contained both soda cans and bottles–eminently recyclable, although not as well defended.

We didn’t play a game with these creatures, although he drew a detailed map of their habitats, and natural enemies. We did, however, on another day, try out a very playable set of rules he’d invented for a mancala set.
Jesse M.

Is that a pooping elephant in row 6? What a way to go! I also want to know what’s going on in row 15, it looks like some bank robbers are stretching that dude’s arms waaaay out…
Anonymous

“you go into the elephant and then he poops you out.”

obligatory poop reference. excellent.
JIMWICh

This is my favorite bOING bOING post of all time! Thanks for your great explanation, Jane!
quesie

Winning! ;-)

I was wild about board games and secret spy codes in the 60s, like all TV-watching girls and boys, and would endlessly draw out my own “games” which I would then fail to get my mother to play with me, so I would get out my bear and Barbie and make THEM play. And I had almost forgotten the whole darn thing until i saw this!

Xoxo to your daughter!
Anonymous

I think this is the first time I’ve ever wanted to have a kid. Wonderful!
- Major Variola (ret)
  
  You can do many more cognitive science experiments *without commitee approval* if you have your own. If you end up with identical twins, total score, just name one “Control”.
ElectroDruid

I used to do this when I was a kid. I still have some of the drawings somewhere, I think. Now I make computer games for a living.
James

“You win”
jefurii

Right after I hit “submit” on that post I realized I’ve got a scanner sitting right here on my desk… http://media.cafejosti.net/img/blog/tie-vs-xwing.gif
jere7my

Awesome. It reminds me of the “video games” I used to make by drawing with markers on acetate to make overlays for my Etch-a-Sketch.
zachstronaut

I totally used to do this! You might have quite the budding computer programmer on your hands. =)
Bookburn

I felt very alone as a kid. I didn’t have a video game system. I didn’t have a T.V. From my brief experiences with Mario, I created my own “video game” from sheets of paper, glue and my erector set. Basically it was paper belt I had to navigate with my finger without hitting of the obstacles I had glued on. I felt very alone.

Thank god for the internet and the realization that there are happy mutants out there and happy mutant children who do or have done very similar things with their childhood.
- Major Variola (ret)
  
  You’re not expecting sympathy for not having a teevee, are you?
bob d

“I guess it’s okay, but there are a few glitches in level 26, camera issues plague it throughout, and, well, the advertising and product placement in level 14 was pretty blatant and left a bad taste in my mouth.”
And yet it still looks better than the last game I played. Heck, it looks like a more coherent design document than the last AAA game I worked on.
- Major Variola (ret)
  
  Sir, the phrase,
  
  “Heck, it looks like a more coherent design document than the last ______ I worked on.”
  
  with respect to this schematic, is, as we say, EPIC
  
  for some of us. Thank you, thank you.
Anonymous

Alot of korean school kids play similar games in class. The most interesting was paper-Starcraft, played axross two notebook pages. Neatstuff. :)
Prufrock451

I don’t think that’s product placement on level 14. I think the kid was Googling a walkthrough of the game she was still designing!
Anonymous

I hope there’s a game developer out there willing to make her day, Axe Cop style?
sdaris

“The real thing you need is to go through the tiny porthole in the middle of those two eyeballs and then it’ll take you to the outside of the big master eyeball”. I won’t bother extolling the non-linear awesomeness of a child’s imagination here. I just want to say that this statement is symbolic on SO many levels.
Anonymous

Mark, your daughter is awe-inspiring. I only know one other child who has done this, but all the levels were in his head, they weren’t drawn out completely on paper.

As an art teacher, I see a lot of kids draw out a complicated story that involves creatures, Pokemon, and other fantasy characters they’ve created. It’s not usually a game, but they have a complex explanation for every ink stroke of sizzling action and explosions on the page and the detailed stories behind each character.
fenrox

I did that as a kid too! How else would I play Super Mario in class?
Anonymous

This is one of the best posts ever. So cute! I’ve got a seven year old daughter too and the rules that they make up for play are always entertaining and sometimes logical in very interesting ways. These techno babies will say rewind, when they want you to repeat something and Google is as familiar to them as Barbie and Legos. A lot of them read so well because they have to to play Pokemon or Animal Crossing (we read books too!)

Gotta show this to both my daughters- the elephant poop level will make them laugh!
David Pescovitz

My favorite levels are the one where you need to flip a penny and nail a very specific pattern and also the one where you must hook a grappling hook in the level above to swing over the cops and bad people who might do something to you.
Jesse M.

The explanation was great! The one part I was curious about that she didn’t mention was level 13, where there’s something that looks like an obese horse sitting on the ceiling…
Anonymous

My 6 year old Niece became obsessed with drawing “Levels” (as she calls them) after playing Little Big Planet. She would draw them for me to play then make me draw some for her too. I wish I had some of hers to show, but here is one I draw for her…
http://screencast.com/t/bKam8fk1qOje
tomboing

Oops, forgot to sign in first. My comment is:

What an inventive, articulate, charming girl. Her game seems to me like an IQ test in reverse. A smart brain using visual puzzles to show the wide range of rule systems and associations it thinks in. She’s obviously very bright. Most kids are bright at that age, with their creativity and joyful interest in the world, but Jane does strike me as having a VERY lit-up mind, plus a very mature ability to express herself. I also like the way you interact with her in the interview — interested and encouraging without overdoing the praise. This was a delightful way to start my day.
Anonymous

That’s great. I showed this to my two boys (8 and 5) and they had to go off and make their own. I love seeing the creative stuff kids come up with.
Dan Baker

I’ve played this a few times this morning, but I’ve only been able to make it to level 11.
TheCrawNotTheCraw

“You play one row at a time, from the bottom up. Each row has its own set of rules.”

Well, this is kind-of brilliant/inspired.

Congratulations, Mark. You have a smart child!
andyhavens

That’s awesome. I bet she’d also like “My Team, Your Team”

http://www.tinkerx.com/2006/02/08/my-team-your-team-crayons-at-dusk/
Stellalune

This is awesome! My son used to draw games like this (with verbal commentary) when he was little…Sonic the Hedgehog, robot combat, outer space and underwater adventures, etc. Parents: Be sure to encourage your kids’ imaginings. Life need not be logical or linear. Who knows, they could be the next Miyazaki, Wright or Persson.
Scott

That’s really wonderful. I remember making very open games –with all sorts of different game mechanics, though I wouldn’t have called them that then– in 5th grade. Once I got Mega Man, my designs got much more focused.

If she wants to go digital, she could make games pretty close to those designs in Gamestar Mechanic (http://www.gamestarmechanic.com) or Scratch (http://scratch.mit.edu). Normally those tools aim a bit older, but she looks ready for them!
Anonymous

Great scott, this is brilliant. I will be collecting it for my next book, The Doodle Revolution. And thank you, Mark, for enjoying and blogging about my TED talk. Very cool.

Sunni Brown
- Mark Frauenfelder
  
  That would br so cool, Sunni. I loved your TED talk!
chawke

My friends and I did the _exact_same_thing_ in 5th grade! I’m 40 years old in April. We based it on arcade games we liked, but also on our own ideas. If we liked our own ideas enough we’d do flow charts and shit.

We did this in class, passed around like notes. Our own ideas – if we liked them enough – we would go home, fire-up our Commodores (or Trash-80s), then unleash a cascade of Pokes and Peeks at our ideas. We tolerated Trs-80s, but we fucking hated – HATED – Apple IIs. We excluded kids who even hinted at liking Logo. Sure – we knew logo ’cause we had to during summer camp programs – but we hated it.

Fucking apple. Still don’t like Macs.

I do really like Steve Jobs though. People criticize him for not having a Steve & Steve foundation – but at least Mr. Jobs doesn’t use his foundation to assist Monsanto in enslaving developing nations, or assist Nestle in sending the Good-Ship High-Fructose up the Amazon with cans and bars of subsidized diabetes and obesity, and yes…infant formula.
Anonymous

I used to do this all the time.
Anonymous

I’d love to see an actual computer adaptation of this game. Maybe an iPhone app. Someday, I might even want to code it. Would your daughter consider releasing her game under a Creative Commons license?
Major Variola (ret)

Ok, who’s going to grab “goggle serch” as a domain name?

Is there a unicode glyph for l/r reversed ‘g’ ??
chawke

Did I mention my first computer was a Vic-20, 2nd, C-64 – but my 3rd was an Apple II. I loved that Apple II. But I still fucking hate Macs. And I didn’t lose my disdain for the Macs at school.
Unusualism

Always touched by a child’s creativity.
Astragali

I rather liked the concept that the obvious, large portals (levels 9 and 10) weren’t the ones you were actually supposed to take. There’s some cunning in this game design!
Mister44

I did something like this too.

I would draw two cliff, one on either side of the paper. There would be caves for planes to take off from or to hide other guns. I would place guns on each cliff face. Then I would play a sort of “Scorched Earth” artillery type game, with each side firing one shot. Some times there would be direct hits. Sometimes you blew off part of the cliff like an over hang, and down went everything on and under it.
Anonymous

High five Dungeonbrownies!I remember using gold pens for coins and purple circles for power-ups!
Anonymous

We used to do this with our cousins! Our best one was the “Grandpa Game”, where you were a kid running around your grandparents’ house breaking things while avoiding the dreaded Grandpa.
Nicky G

Dang, the Mac-bashing can’t even get left out of a thread such as this, huh? Soon you won’t be able to look at ANYTHING AT ALL on the internet without some level of Apple/Mac-bashing coming into play.

Anyway, this is fantastic. I’m 33, reminds me of what friends/sibling and I would do for hours on end. We found much inspiration from early adventure games such as Legend of Zelda.

Want kids now! :-) I do look forward to being a pop, hopefully it works out that way someday.
jdoe9898

Wow mark, she is really well spoken and an awesome game designer for such a young age. I don’t know why that surprises me.
Anonymous

I really enjoyed this and it was really cute hearing your daughter explanation.

Tell her I think she will become a famous game designer one day.
Muse

The art is charming and rather impressively detailed for a 7 year old. I smiled the whole time I listened to Jane exuberantly and articulately explain it all. Mark, I am delighted that you encourage this kind of creativity in your kids. The world needs more creative and enthusiastic people like Jane.
Lady Katey

THANK YOU, Mark’s daughter & Mark.

This brings me back- this kind of ‘play’ is classic, at least if you consider the 80s classic. We were first gen 8 bit Nintendo kids (our teenaged uncle got his knee busted playing hockey and had surgery and my grandparents bought him a Nintento as he was recuperating when it just came out… many memories of playing Mario Bros and Burger Time with my aunts!) but even before this, we played ‘scenerios’… there were usually limits on what we could do in play. Play was about working through constraints. (And as the oldest, but the only girl, we played lots of “Barbie meets GI Joe / Barbie meets Transformers / Barbie meets Cops.” scenarios.)

I guess the point is (and I apologize for the rant, this is 3 am ranting of an undermedicated bi-winner who decided to drink three cups of coffee, then buy a bottle of whiskey today) that the style of play trancends the technology. At a certain point, children start defining ‘rules’ to their play. They can imagine the destination and what it would take to get there, and what could happen if they didn’t get there.
- Chentzilla
  
  Why not “Transformers meet cops”?
  - Excuse me, sir, but you were going at 80 miles per hour in your truck…
  - Well, officer, I beg your pardon, but this driver is an optical illusion and I’m not a truck but actually a robot in disguise.
  (Transforms.)
  - A robot in disguise! Well put your hands in the air, pal, and don’t you dare to transform into anything but a law-obeying citizen! We’ve got here an APB for just that kind of robot, named Megatron, who just now destroyed a city block and also robbed a bank, I forgot in which order.
  - But that’s not me, I’m innocent!
  - Why would you disguise yourself if you have nothing to hide?
  - Look at the photo, it’s not mine!
  - Well, that’s one clever disguise, then. Or do you mean that transforming robots are a common occurence?
Islington

This is awesome. Reminds me of the deluge of Megaman levels i used to draw while sitting in church as a child.
Tavie

Is this also the kid who arranged her dinner on a series of small plates?

I seriously love this kid. What an awesome kid.
g3n3tix

Coming soon to a Minecraft server near you.
osmo

Thats just absurdly adorable. WHat abrilliant kid! :D
Anonymous

This is adorable. It reminds me of my old grade school french immersion journals. Each day we had to draw a picture and describe something we did, and a huge amount of my journals are about playing metroid on the nes, and there is a similarity to the drawings.
Dungeonbrownies

I used to do this when I was a kid; oh the joys of precomputer gaming ^_^
Anonymous

My six-year-old son does this exact same thing. He loved the photo.
Anonymous

Wow, I also remember doing this sort of thing, I literally created a whole adventure game on paper with a cut out arrow…
Anonymous

I did a lot of these when i was in elementary school when the NES just came out, nostalgia trip ensured, also we did lots of Super Mario Bros draws too, but instead of being “playable” they were just “screenshots” of crazy scenarios wich if it were real it would be very hard to survive/beat (a screen filled with para-tropas bullet bills etc), to this day i can still draw a koopa tropa, with the same technique a friend taught me 18 years ago, Mario on the other hand =(
http://i.imgur.com/iTb0Z.jpg
Anonymous

AWESOME! 7! It reminds me of another level-based, non sequential “game” called Oeverture-Facile.
bklynchris

I love the top, “YOU WIN”! I still have a 7 foot roll of paper where my son and his friend drew “Mario Bros. in Dinosaur Land”.
Mujokan

Maybe she would also like Conway’s Game of Life (e.g. Golly http://golly.sourceforge.net/ ).
Anonymous

I guess it’s okay, but there are a few glitches in level 26, camera issues plague it throughout, and, well, the advertising and product placement in level 14 was pretty blatant and left a bad taste in my mouth.
jonw

I don’t understand the game but this is awesome.
Anonymous

Mark – the proud papa! Awesome post, Mark. Thank you so much for sharing – especially the audio track describing how to play the levels.

Next thing you know, she’ll be college age and maybe tell you, two weeks before leaving for the dorms, that she has joined the Marine Corp instead. That’s what mine did. As horrifying as that may sound, I couldn’t be prouder.

Thanks again for sharing!
Narmitaj

When all our digital information is lost in the coming distant times, the archaeologists of futurity will be trying to recreate our society from surviving bits of paper like this.
ili

My 7-year old assigned a screen name to her imaginary friend. The future: it’s here, it’s bright, it’s now.
Anonymous

Well… what are the rules?
jdixon

I’d love to hear firsthand how it plays, from the author’s lips!
Seg

When people ask me what I do for a living, the conversation goes something like:

Me: “I make video games with computers.”
Them: “As if you can make video games without computers.”
Me: “You can, but that’s not what I focus on with my work.”

Thank you and your daughter for showing that there are other forms of video game platforms!
Anonymous

Your daughter is brilliant. I want to know how to play this now.
Major Variola (ret)

At first glance I thought, ok, art of the insane.

Then, videogame script by 7 year old.

Dang. Now that’s expert parenting. Kudos.
grimc

I like the ad for hello.com in the middle. She’s already thinking about how to monetize!
Clifton

My son and his friends make up playground games that are clearly based on computer game and videogame experiences. “Here and here are save points. And if you beat the monster here you can get extra powers!”
Major Variola (ret)

FWIW: my kid is 11 and starting to ask questions about computers.
He knows videogames, youtube, etc, and can debug our wired/wifi LAN.

I downloaded QB64 and recalled (from 30+ years ago) some elementary
commands. They are very useful for demonstrating how embedded
quasi-real time systems ie videogames which they take for granted.

I currently work on embedded quasi-realtime linux medical video.

While it was said that Basic caused dain bramage, at MIT mid 80s, I think the resemblance to machine language is actually useful.

Good job, Mark F.
tobymarx

Truly delightful, Mark. Your daughter’s “computer game” has brought a big, big smile to my face. Thanks for sharing this (and be sure to tell your daughter she made my day).
zyodei

A student taught me a cool game that is similar to this:

You take two ball point pens of different colors.

You draw a bunch of boats and planes, on opposite sides of a sheet of paper. You can also use tanks and planes. Also draw some obstacles, like rocks and islands.

For each player’s turn, they take their pen. They put it point down on one of their pieces. This is the tricky part: you hold the pen in place with one finger on an end of the pen. You push down, so that the ball of the pen rolls of in a direction, until you lose grip of the pen and it slips away. It will leave a short line, usually about 1-2 inches.

This is your move. If you hit an enemies vessel, it is destroyed. If you are moving a boat/tank and you hit an island/rock, you are destroyed. Cross out your old boat, and re-draw it in the old location.

One player wins once the other runs out of ships/tanks/planes.

Have fun!
- jefurii
  
  I remember that game! We played a variation of that with simplified X-wings and TIE fighters, and sometimes little UFOs that were just circles with lines through them. At some point we started making asteroids and caves that you had to navigate around, and later on we had fortresses with guns you could use to shoot the fighters that were attacking your base.
  
  We played with pencils. It could be tricky–you have to modify your technique depending on the length of your pencil, what kind of lead it had, and how sharp it was.
  
  There was a lot strategic thinking involved: you could only shoot/move one piece at a time and we often played lots of pieces on the board. In junior high some of us graduated to war games like Starfleet Battles.
  - Winnie12
    
    That game was awesome. High school, early 90′s. We called it STAB: subs, tanks, airplanes, boats? Each type of vehicle had its own rules. And if the pencil got out of control, you actually would stab your opponent. :)
  - Fred H
    
    I also played it in middle school! You could could throw anything in there. Spaceships, Godzilla, etc. Each thing had its own hit points. Had to play with a pencil though, just so you could erase. Otherwise the page became a confusing mess of lines.
  - sharkattack
    
    me and the neighbor kid used to play this too, back in the 80s. our version was the revolution war for some reason. and yeah, you had to be careful because the pencil could puncture the paper.
Anonymous

Please, oh please, someone give this the ‘axe cop’ treatment and turn it into an actual game. I would play this!