Hello,<br><br>What about visual novels ?<br><br>according to a Wikipedia article [1]:<br><br>"""<br>A visual novel is an interactive fiction game featuring mostly static graphics, usually with anime-style art. As the name might suggest, they resemble mixed-media novels or tableau vivant stage plays. Visual novels are classified as a sub-genre of adventure games, referred to as AVGs in Japan. Visual novels are especially prevalent in Japan, where they make up nearly 70% of PC games released.
<br>"""<br>This kind of game are still rare in the EU and US market but they are now coming with title like "Phoenix Wright" [2] and "Hotel Dusk" [3] for the Nintendo GBA and/or DS.<br>
<br>I'm not myself a regular 'user' of these games but they could be interesting to consider :<br><br>- they encourage reading (but in a colorful and multimedia context which helps comprehension)<br>- the kid read at their own pace
<br>- it's also often possible to integrate minigames in the Visual Novel itself<br>- user interaction is usually required with different endings<br><br>Obviously for kids the best educational and fun part is to actual make their own Visual Novel (possibly in a collaborative way):
<br><br>- imagine a story to share if possible with different choices<br>- learn to draw (characters ?) or take pictures of landscapes/scenes/characters or use existing contents<br>- use/create some sound/music<br>- share it with other kids
<br><br><br>Few hours ago while browsing <a href="http://pygame.org">pygame.org</a> I stumble on Ren'Py framework that I didn't noticed before (they've released a new version - 0.6 - few days ago). See <a href="http://www.renpy.org">
www.renpy.org</a>. I've tested the Demo novel (which explain how it works in a Visual Novel itself) and looked at the website,<br><br>I like:<br><br>- very neat end result and nice UI to select, load or edit the script of a Visual Novel
<br>- Open Source and Multiplateforme and Python/Pygame based<br>- possibility to include directly some Python code in the easy to learn Ren'Py scripts (a '$' prefix for a single line or 'python:' for a block of code)
<br>- possibility to integrate pygame minigames in the novel (there's a Pong game in the Demo novel)<br>- good documentation, cookbook, etc<br>- distribution tool of the visual novels<br>- lively community on their forum
<br><br>I've also noticed someone in the forum 'remaking' a chapter of the original "Phoenix Wright" (with Ren'Py and some Python extras) : it looks to me very near to the quality of the original Nintendo version (with items and people management tool also nicely integrated).[4]
<br><br>So far I like what I've seen :)<br><br>francois<br><br><br>[1] <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_novels">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_novels</a><br>[2] <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoenix_Wright">
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoenix_Wright</a><br>[3] <a href="http://www.wired.com/news/columns/0,72702-0.html?tw=wn_columns_6">http://www.wired.com/news/columns/0,72702-0.html?tw=wn_columns_6</a><br>[4] <a href="http://lemmasoft.renai.us/forums/viewtopic.php?t=1767&postdays=0&postorder=asc&highlight=wright&start=0">
http://lemmasoft.renai.us/forums/viewtopic.php?t=1767&postdays=0&postorder=asc&highlight=wright&start=0</a>