As a retired teacher who has taken an interest in the toolset over the last few years and used it with a class of Games Design pupils, it occurred to me that there are very few modules aimed at younger children on the Vault. There is a an older project page created by @OlivierLeroux which outlines most of the existing kids' modules but I thought it might be nice to give them a bit more exposure and try to encourage builders to think about catering for a younger age group.
As a grandfather myself, I know that my granddaughter is interested in good stories and playing games on the computer and I am currently trying to interest her in building simple things using the toolset. I'm sure many of us on the Vault are of a similar age and hope they might be interested in catering for a younger audience occasionally. I'd like to thank Olivier for his work in curating these and this updated page comes with his encouragement.
Before continuing, in the interests of full disclosure, one of the modules on Olivier's page is one that I created for my granddaughter (aged 9) called "Ruby and the Last Unicorn". It will be included here, just as a link with a screenshot but without a review by me as that would be bizarre (!). However, at least you are aware of my connection to it. It is aimed at a slightly higher age group ( 9-11?).There are a number of haks etc. required for it as it was built after EE came out and specifically with using recent assets in mind so I'd strongly recommend using NIT to download the module as @Surazal has kindly written a rule for his program which fetches the correct assets.
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The first question that springs to mind is probably what exactly constitutes a kids' module? Well, while reluctant to set down any ground rules, to me it would be one with a good but simple storyline, fun characters, a colourful look and not too long but I'm probably more sure about what it shouldn't have - heavy graphic violence, adult themes, bad language or gruesome deaths! This doesn't mean that there shouldn't be combat - I think that's age dependant. Kids about 4-6 probably don't need combat to enjoy it, and certainly don't need deaths, while those slightly older can probably cope with these although I've tried to indicate in the reviews where each module stands with this for any concerned parents.
It should also be fun with probably a happy ending to avoid sending young ones away with nightmares... I personally would start by setting the game's violence level by choosing Options on the main menu then game options then Game/General/Advanced and set violence to Low. Not entirely sure of all that this does but it does remove blood from the equation and it's a start. I've shied away from giving suitable age levels as that's problematic but you may well get an indication from the individual project page of the author's thoughts on the matter.
Another issue is that of spoilers. I don't intend to give any endings away but I'm assuming that anyone reading this is probably going to be playing it along with a younger person so I'm aiming this at pointing out any issues there could be with what you do or do not want youngsters to see in a module. You may have your own views on this and that's fine. In the end this is just a guide - you are the adult in the room - scary though that might be
Finally, I'm sure that these are not all the modules suitable for kids that exist on the Vault so if you know of another please feel free to contact me with a review of it, preferably using roughly the same format as I have for consistency. I'm happy just to receive a link or even just the text of the review which I will turn into a review. Please note that any comments on modules here are weighted to the positive as it's not my intention to upset anyone or discourage anyone from having a go at this genre. I played them on EE so can't vouch for anything else. You also may well have to change the format of any movies included in the modules as some of them are quite old.
A link to a module's project page on the Vault is also given at the bottom of each review.
(Jimdad55)