Warning: Despite the Disneyesque look to the beginning of Michael Gagne's short animated film "A Touch of Deceit," this is probably not something for your toddler. Any five-year-old with a taste for gothic action, however, will think it rocks.


The amusingly dark but ultimately harmless film is by Michel Gagne, a Canadian animator who resurfaced on our radar today when we discovered the most artistic and exciting take on the drive-a-spaceship-through-hazards genre in a long time. Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet is based largely on Gagne's animated shorts for Nickelodeon run under the series title Insanely Twisted Shadow Puppets, which I found disturbing enough not to embed here, lest your easily-frightened children come across it while reading Punnybop over your shoulder. (That's what this blog is designed for, by the way.) As for Shadow Planet, combination of the detailed silhouette outlines, the judicious use of color, and the imaginative world-making that is part organic, part machine, is an exciting thing to see in a side-scrolling, arcade-style game. Just look at it - it's beautiful.


Rumor has it Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet will be an XBox Live offering as well as a PC game, but the whole point of this "trailer" is for Gagne and his partners to get some investors to help bring this game to the marketplace. You can find out more, and see some of those Puppet videos, on Gagne's website. - Jeremiah

Jenni and I both got iPhone 3GSses a week ago and naturally we are letting Z use them a bit. We'll be sharing nice apps for young kids as we find them.

First up is Learning Touch's FirstWords series. Jenni downloaded the FirstWords Vehicles app and Z played happily through the less-entertaining stretches of a very nice meal we had in Houston before taking her to see Swan Lake.


(Hmm... If I turn my iPhone sideways will it shoot horizontal video?)

I just wish they offered (a) more words per app - at 26 vocabulary words repeats come up fast - and/or (b) levels of play - why not allow a child to progress to the point where they have to put the letters in order without the aid of shadow text?

To anyone who wouldn't let their child touch a new gadget with a ten-foot pole, I say to you: First, why are you letting them play with a ten-foot pole? And second, how else will we train the next generation of digerati? I find it endearing and heartening for her to have already mastered not only the screen swipe but the zoom in/zoom out movements used in the GPS/mapping program. We control the environment she uses them in quite closely, and also make sure she knows we are letting her play with our toys, i.e. ownership is not shared. That said, I can't wait to introduce her to the iPhone Oregon Trail... I've beaten it twice now solo, and don't have many more challenges to throw its way, but helping Z drive her way to Manifest Destiny? Any day now!

Any iPhone users out there with kid-friendly apps to recommend? - Jeremiah

"Project Natal" - a new XBox360 project that has me, for the first time ever, wondering if I'd like an XBox to go along with our family's Nintendo Wii, is making some big promises. The disclaimer at the beginning has me wary, though - don't let anyone tell you this product has been through anything like a demo - this is a concept video only. The big question will be, can Microsoft really deliver all of this? If they can, this could be huge, not least for games for young children, which is what we always have our eye on. - Jeremiah

- Jeremiah

The Onion scoops the story of a new Mike Tyson documentary trapped in the world of Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!! (and yes, those two exclamation points were part of the Nintendo game's title)

Running 144 minutes without pauses, the documentary follows Tyson through the MINOR, MAJOR, and WORLD CIRCUITS, where his fighting took him to faraway and exotic places, including Tokyo, Spain, the USSR, and Hippo Island. ...

"Tyson was the toughest fighter in the boxing game at the time, but he was also the first fighter to pay attention to patterns and warning signals," Yoneyama said. "Before he came on the scene, no one realized that opponents sometimes raise their eyebrows or twinkle the gem in the middle of their turban immediately before throwing a punch." [Link]

I still remember bleary-eyed games of Punch Out!! at 2 a.m. during elementary-school slumber parties. Good stuff. - Jeremiah

From the Times of London:

The survey of ten-year-old children found no evidence to support claims in Nintendo's advertising campaign, featuring Nicole Kidman, that users can test and rejuvenate their grey cells. “The Nintendo DS is a technological jewel. As a game it's fine,” said Alain Lieury, professor of cognitive psychology at the University of Rennes, Brittany, who conducted the survey. “But it is charlatanism to claim that it is a scientific test.”

Nintendo claims its “edutainment” programmes, such as Big Brain Academy and Brain Training, can improve blood flow to the brain and thereby improve “practical intelligence”.

The company suggests that its programmes can make users “two to three times better in tests of memory.” It claims to assess capacity by measuring “brain age” and says that older people can keep their minds young by using the console. Nearly 90 million DS units have been sold worldwide. ...

Professor Lieury said that helping one's children with their homework, reading, playing Scrabble or Sudoku or watching documentaries instead of soap operas matched or beat the console. [Link]

The study tested 67 ten-year-olds, on the theory that their more plastic brains would show the greatest impact. If the games don't work for kids, they won't work for adults, the researcher argues.

What the study doesn't seem to account for is how well children will be motivated to engage in a given learning activity. It's pretty safe to say that playing platform games is more fun for most kids than Sudoku (which is itself included in BrainAge 2) or getting help with homework. For many kids, this can make a big difference in how much exposure to material they get, and how well they fit it into their daily routine. - Jeremiah