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

If your kids watch the same TV channels mine does, then you’ve probably seen the commercials for a new virtual world called Free Realms. My girl certainly saw them and wanted to go check it out, so our series of kid-focused virtual world reviews continues.

Free Realms
Free Realms bills itself as “a fun, whimsical virtual world filled with dynamic gameplay and compelling content for everyone, especially families.” It’s really more of a pure MMOG than any of the other worlds we’ve toured as part of this series. As soon as my girl set up her account (all by herself, except for my need to give her an e-mail to attach to the account) and entered the world, she was met by a character asking her to embark on her first quest. This prevents the “what do I do now” issue that plagues some virtual worlds, but also aligns more firmly with games such as the non-kid-focused World of Warcraft (WoW).

With more than a million people signing up for it in the first week and that number doubled already, it’s on target to be just as popular as WoW, too. In addition to quests, kids can work at a variety of jobs from pet trainer to ninja to miner and others mentioned below. Like most other kid virtual worlds, you can enter and play for free; but, for $4.99/month you can upgrade to get more things like additional job options, and you’ll also pay to purchase items.

The Good
Free Realms automatically limits kids under 13 to “quick chat” - my preferred choice for my youngster because it restricts them to a preprogramed set of words and phrases to communicate. That way you don’t have to worry about them giving out any personal information (but, don’t let that get you off the hook for still having that discussion about what you don’t share online).
Free Realms’ parent controls area also mentions that they intend to implement a feature which will permit you to customize a calendar to set times of day and/or days of the week that your kid will have access to the account online, as well as days and times during which they may play.

The Bad
I’m willing to bet that most of us teach our kids that fighting is wrong, so it’s a little unsettling to see that quests in Free Realms can involve combat and one of the jobs kids can get is called a Brawler. Brawlers are described as being “up for fight anytime with anyone” and they “use hammers, clubs, and powerful kicks to defeat enemies.”
We didn’t run into any Brawlers in our first few visits to Free Realms, but then again, we didn’t run into anyone other than the in-world characters who play parts in the quests. This may or may not be a bad thing, but struck me as odd considering there are supposed to be more than 2 million people in-world now.

The Lessons Learned
I only heard the “rated E for everyone” part of the commercials, but when you really look, you’ll see it is “everyone 10+” and I would reccomend following that age recommendation from the Entertainment Software Rating Board. Even more specifically the rating warns of “crude humor” and “fantasy violence.” We haven’t encountered the humor yet, but as noted above, the violence is definitely there.

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• Free Realms Still Growing Insanely Quickly [E3 2009] (kotaku.com)
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• The free price is working out nice for Sony’s Free Realms as registrants top 2 million (venturebeat.com)
• Video Game Review | Free Realms: Pick a Role, Any Role, Then Live Nine Lives (nytimes.com)

So Maggie and I are on our way to the grocery store, just the two of us, driving down the road in happy, contented silence. Then it goes like this:

Maggie: Stop yelling at them!

Me: Huh? What?

Maggie: The birds! You pushed them out of the way and knocked them over! Stop yelling at them! They don’t like that!

Me: Huh? What? Oh, right! What are the birds saying? What do they look like?

In looking back, maybe there were birds in the road and they scattered when we drove through. Or, more likely, it’s just one of the many imaginary conversations we’ve been having lately where the 2-year-old brain is somehow not quite in tune with mine.

Maggie’s fantasy world is quite active and she’s recently developed another personality named Mary who tends to wear white tutus and herd sheep (channeling Mother Goose, perhaps?) leading to yet more confusion for my poor, addled brain. I’ve started engaging Mary and the fantasy world in conversation trying to find roots in reality, and often find that the roots lie in a semi-event in the past or in a book that we were reading recently. It’s fascinating stuff, it really is, but I swear I have an incredibly hard time keeping up and must sound rather obtuse when I’m stumbling around not even slightly able to follow where the conversation is going…….she must be thinking, “Poor Mommy, she just can’t keep up.”

No my dear, I can’t. And I imagine there must be at LEAST 1 more parent out there like me, just trying to keep a firm grip on reality in a quest to make it through the day…….without the added dimension of Mary, her sheep, and white tutus.