Today I told my kids and their friends that they had to
go outside to play. That it was too nice to stay inside. They were not
happy with me as they had been having a grand time all playing on their
Nintendo DS handhelds. Granted, they were talking to each other while
playing them but I wanted them to be more active. I was quite surprised
to see a traditonal game of hide and seek transform itself to a game of
logic due to the availability of texting on the DS.
In a traditional game when the child hiding had hidden so well that the
seeker could not find the hidden child, the seeker would simply give
up. In this new tech assisted ve
rsion, the seeker asks for a clue via
the DS. The hidden child replies with a clue like "window" or "closet"
either by typing in the word or by drawing it. I'm told they used
Pictochat. I sometimes overheard discussions regarding what the clue
could mean. Especially if multiple clues were given. "Window" and
"flowers". Does that mean the person hiding is outside? (No, actually
she was inside near a window where she could see flowers, tricky, eh?)
Since the kids had never before played Hide and Seek with the DS they
had to figure out the bumps. It only took one round before they agreed
they should not go out of range. And every now and then I would hear
exclamations of "so and so left the chat room!"
Eventually it all fell apart when one child refused to play by the rules. Now that sounds familiar. Tech or no tech.
