This is part of a series of posts looking at virtual worlds targeted toward kids.

A commenter on my Handipoints review here asked if I’d heard of another world called SecretBuilders. His child’s teacher had mentioned it, but he was concerned about the safety. (Teachers seem to have been early PR targets during the world’s testing phase, and have their own section on the web site.)

It’s taken a while for us to get back on our safari, and in the meantime it appears that the SecretBuilders world officially launched. So, we’ve taken time here during the holidays to go check it out.

SecretBuilders.com

The style of graphics is very similar to Club Penguin, although the avatars are human figures. The intentions are higher than many other kid-targeted worlds, as their site says they view children not as consumers, “but rather as creative, ingenious beings that will help build a vibrant virtual world that will also impact their real world.”

Screenshot of a room in SecretBuilders

The Good

SecretBuilders is designed primarily for children 5 to 14 years of age and is free to join and use. And, they are very concious of privacy concerns. My six-year-old was able to complete the account set-up process essentially own her own. She only needed my assistance for a parent’s e-mail account, which for safety reasons they require of all children under 12.
Also, restricted chat is the default for those under 9 and parents are required to approve additions to their buddy lists. Free chat is available to children over 10 but moderators will still screen out inappropriate language and speech including bullying, harassment, intimidation as well as revelation of any personal identity information.
In addition to interacting with other children in the Secret Builders world, there are opportunities to chat with historical figures such as Shakespeare and Einstein and fictional characters via artificial intelligence (AI). These characters are supposed to chat with children vis-à-vis a monitored chat dialogue and provide guidance on places and activities in SecretBuilders. The only one we’ve encountered so far was called “The Beast” and looked like the Big Bad Wolf, but I’m guessing was from the Beauty and the Beast story. Results of the AI chat were rather mixed - can’t say it was an easy conversation to follow.

The Bad
It was hard to find much to dislike about Secret Builders. After my girl went back on her own to give her friend from next door a tour, I asked her if she had any criticisms. She said it was cool, easy to move around and had fun things to do (she and her BFF were taking turns painting a picture at that moment).
However, I did have some difficulty finding how to edit the settings of her account after it was set up. Apparently, she must have entered her age incorrectly because free chat was available on her account, as well as safe chat. I couldn’t find a parental login, so I tried logging in as her to edit, but still couldn’t find a way to change it.

The Lessons Learned
While it’s nice from a user experience perspective to know that even the younger users can get started using SecretBuilders without a lot of help, parents should still be involved in the initial set-up to ensure everything is done the way you want it to be.

The one thing I was left wondering after a couple of visits to SecretBuilders was just where the name came from. Were the kids secretly building or building secrets or what? Not being able to really find that answer online, I finally took a shot at sending a note to the generic e-mail address on the site. I soon heard back from Umair Khan, CEO of SecretBuilders:

“We named our world and our community SecretBuilders because it is a world whose builders are children themselves. Children will build this world out, with their ideas, suggestions, creativity and activities. They will build out this world both by helping build venues and features, and also by providing content for others to consume (by publishing articles in our magazine for e.g.) We will provide them with more and more tools, activities and features to help them do so.”

Doesn’t sound so secret, but it does sound very admirable!

For another good review of SecretBuilders, check out: Kids Computer Games Recommendations

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.