HISTORY OF
COMPU-TOT-GAMES
In February 2001, I began searching for computer games for my, then,
eighteen
month old grandson. Though he'd been on a computer since he was six
months
old, he had not gotten much beyond the keyboard banger stage. One of my
favorite computer games is a breakout style game so I went in search of
an easy to play breakout game suitable for a small child just beginning
to use a mouse. I discovered there were very few games of any
type
available for this age group. And the few that were available were
mostly
keyboard bangers. Since I could find so few games for the 6-24 month
age
range that were what I wanted, I created my own.
My first game was a simple breakout game, Ani Breakout. Since I was
designing
it for a toddler, I made the blocks, ball and paddle considerably
larger
than in the average breakout game. The blocks were of animals and when
hit by the ball, they made the sound of the animal pictured. I also set
it so moving the mouse moved the paddle though most breakout games used
the arrow keys to control the motion of the paddle. Sadly, my grandson
wasn't quite ready to try to use the mouse. This game was submitted to
a competition sponsored by the creator of the software I used to create
the game. It was selected as one of the top ten games out of some 200
submitted.
This encouraged me to continue designing games.
Since my grandson wasn't ready for a mouse controlled
game
yet, I decided to create some keyboard bangers for him. The first of
these
was "Hopping Frogs". A simple game that doesn't do anything except make
the frogs hop and ribbit, it soon became my grandson's favorite game.
Thus
encouraged, I continued creating games for my grandson. The word got
around
and folks began to ask for copies of the games I'd created. With that
encouragement,
I continued to develop PC games with the toddler in mind. From those
first
few games that were intended for my grandson, came a whole new line of
computer games. Though my main focus is educational games for toddlers
and younger computer users, I have also developed games suitable for
older
children and adults.
Two games for a toddler soon became five then ten. Those games spawned
new ideas for games for little guys and gals and my current list
includes 37 completed games with another two dozen in the works.
Though these games were written for the younger beginning computer
user,
they are suitable for any person just learning to use a computer.
