I wasn’t sure whether IMHO or CS was best for this thread. If it starts looking more IMHO, mods, feel free to move it.
I just watched a bunch of 10-12 year old boys play Counterstrike, GTA, etc. for half an hour here at the internet club. And it occurred to me that I have never seen a single girl here, although I see these boys all the time. They’re all learning how to use a computer, maybe even a little English (terrorist? machine gun? hijack? super!), etc. but I guess these games don’t appeal to girls. Keep in mind computers are pretty much prohibitively expensive for most Bulgarians, so they’re probably not at home typing on their MySpace pages.
Any ideas for games that girls might be interested in that don’t necessarily require English?
In my experience, girls tend to like more puzzle-type games rather than shoot-em-ups. And word games. Word games are a big hit. Also RPGs that have detailed stories.
That’s the sort of thing that involves complex English, though. I’ll have to see if there’s something along those lines in Bulgarian, but I’m doubting it.
Too true. I was trying to think of an alternative. Sims is great. Also there are a ton of games online that are essentially just matching three of something. Think (or Google) Bejewled.
But I can’t think of a better one than Sims, honestly - they don’t even speak English.
The Sims games, definitely. The tycoon games like Zoo Tycoon and Rollercoaster Tycoon are also great. Adventure games and story-oriented RPGs are quite popular with female gamers.
I don’t know if there are many games translated into Bulgarian, but you can find plenty of games written or translated into Russian (I’ve played preview builds of games that were still in Russian, and the game I’m reviewing now was originally a Russian title). I have no idea how closely related the two languages are (had to look it up to know what language Bulgarians speak), but at least the alphabet would be familiar.
Well, I’m an English teacher, so I don’t think I want to be confusing my kids by introducing a third language…especially one I don’t speak. (I don’t really know how closely related BG and RU are either. My Bulgarian sucks too badly for me to really compare.) Some English would be ideal, but really dialogue-intensive stuff is probably too much.
Thanks for the ideas, everyone! I’ll try to work these in when school starts (after class, of course, we’re not going to be playing Sims in the classroom)…I don’t know that I’ll have a good opportunity during the summer.
Another one my kid likes is Petz 5. Sort of a virtual pet simulation, you can play with them with different toys, different locations, etc. They can pick the breed of cat/dog they adopt, have different pets play together. There’s not much reading to it that I can see.
Also the Roller Coaster Tycoon series is fun, you can play in “sandbox” mode where you aren’t limited by money, and just design your theme park however you want.
There is a series of Nancy Drew mystery games that my daughter liked - she was a bit older, but I think they would work for preteens also. Nothing too nasty.
There was one my daughter liked as a preteen called Crayola Magic Wardrobe. It involved dressing characters up and learning about different eras in history. Imagine something along the lines of the American Girls books. She also liked the various Tycoon games, The Sims, and Neopets - if you’re not familiar with it, Neopets is an on-line world that involves raising different little creatures, taking care of them, and earning points in various ways that you can do things with in-game. It’s playable for free, though there is a premium pay version with fewer ads, etc. Neopets would probably be for the older end of the pre-teen spectrum.
She likes ‘taking care of things’ games like where you raise a puppy or a kitten (she has both).
She likes family relationship games like the one where she has to go to school, spend time with friends, make friends, dump friends, do activities etc.
To me watching her…it is ungodly boring. No action, no fighting (except ‘socially’)…but she loves em to death.
As an example, she likes to watch me play ROME-TOTAL WAR…but groans whenever I go into battle. To her, that is boring. What does she like? She wants to see the family tree after every turn…who got married, did they have kids etc…that is of great interest to her :eek:
I’m sorry I don’t know any of the names of her games, but I could ask if you like. I do know she loves Sims as well.
This has already been said, but my Daughter loves Zoo Tycoon, any version and almost any other Animal games. She also likes the Shock Wave game Fish Tycoon.
She is only 9 so not quite a preteen yet.
There’s always NeoPets. Take care of a virtual pet, play games (of which there are a couple hundred) to earn points to buy stuff for your pet, and just sort of wander around and look at stuff. And it’s free!
My daughter is 10 and she and my son (8) play this alot. We don’t buy them many videogames, so they do more of the free internet stuff. Also Cartoon Network and other sites which have silly, easy to figure out games.
I also wouldn’t worry too much that they’re deprived by not spending a bazillion hours on the net. Maybe it’s the boys that are depriving themselves?
