This is part of a series of posts looking at virtual worlds targeted toward kids.
The latest stop on our kid-focused virtual worlds safari took us to a world of cute dinosaurs. Dinokids was a major sponsor of the recent Virtual Worlds Conference & Expo, so I not only got their promotional cards in my conference bag, but also got to watch commercials for them prior to every panel and keynote. Not sure if my little review will give them enough return on the money spent for that placement, but here goes. <wink>
One of the first things that struck me about Dinokids is how game-like it seemed. Not that it’s any different in regards to the games it offers in-world – it’s very similar to most of the other kid worlds we’ve visited in regards to the activities offered. No, when I say game-like, I’m talking about the way your dinosaur actually moves around inside the environment. Not having played many video games in quite some time, I still immediately thought of Mario Brothers when I saw ladders and ropes to climb to different levels. This video illustrates it better than I can explain:
In fact, one of the times my girl seemed to be having the most fun in Dinokids was during a game of chase with one of the few other dinos she met in-world, much like what you see in the video.
Speaking of videos, my girl discovered a movie theatre in-world while I had stepped away. She mentioned finding it, but said it just had some “teenager videos” in it – which I immediately made her go back and show me. Turns out they’re running YouTube videos inside Dinokids that appear to be primarily G-rated movie trailers for kid/tween-targeted moves. Whew!
The Good
Dinokids has a definite focus on parental involvement. When we first explored the world, I noticed two types of accounts – authorized and unauthorized. Having seen the subscription model as the main method other kid-focused worlds use to create cash-flow, I just assumed that unauthorized accounts were free and authorized ones cost. Turns out that both are free, but authorized means that a parental account has been created and associated with the child’s account.
This allows the parent to set several parameters for how your child will interact in Dinokids, including not only the choice between pre-programmed responses or free chat, but also setting time limits for how long your child can be logged in during a day. I really like that one as I’ve often thought about setting a timer when my girl gets on the computer to keep myself from losing track of just how long she’s been sitting there.
Also good is the educational element in some of the games such as the math one in the school building. And, dinos can learn about good citizenship and environmental stewardship by picking up trash around their world and placing it into a trash bin to earn eggs (the Dinokids currency).
One other thing I think I would rate “good” that I think is a unique feature in Dinokids is the camera for snapping pics of you and your friends in-world. I can see this as a nice bonus feature. It’s something you have to pay extra for, but gives your little dino a nice scrapbook of snapshots that they wouldn’t be able to grab via your basic screen capture.
The Bad
I’ve had to rewrite much of this section of my post after making the discovery that authorized accounts didn’t cost. Many features that I thought should have been at least partially available to free accounts are available, they just require that you as a parent authorize the account. So, “the bad” section of the post got a lot shorter.
Free or not, one thing I still didn’t really like was the controls for the athletic games such as track. Making your dino run requires hitting the space bar on your keyboard – over-and-over, faster-and-faster. In older users hands like mine, that can be done pretty easily, but in a six-year-old’s hands that repetitive fast motion turns into parent-cringing pounding on the keyboard. And don’t even ask them to try to do that and hit a letter key at the same time to jump over hurdles.
The Lessons Learned
Dinokids just launched as a public beta in September, so you won’t find the traffic numbers of a Club Penguin or Webkinz when your kid is looking for someone to talk to or play with in-world. And, many areas of the world are still under construction. Also, you may encounter bugs with such a new application. My first attempts to authorize my girl’s account didn’t work, and after a nice e-mail exchange with the team in Korea who is building Dinokids, it was determined that a bug in the system didn’t like the underscore character in my e-mail address. They quickly fixed it, and I can feel good about the fact that I’ve helped make it a better process for those who come after me. But, not everyone wants to be an early adopter and deal with the issues that can sometimes bring. Overall, we both liked what we were able to see and my girl has returned several times on her own, so if you’ve got a kiddo who’s crazy about dinosaurs this world is probably a good one for them.
Laura P. Thomas is the wife of a former rocker and mother of one 6-year-old girl that’s already waaay too interested in The Jonas Brothers (the apple didn’t fall far). She works in the Global Online team at Dell, evangelizes virtual worlds, and twitters too much as LPT.
