"No, your other arm!" I giggle a frustrated laugh at my four year old son, who is trying to move to the next menu in the demo for A Monster's Tale. I'm standing next to him, but out of range of our new overblown camera. Trying to give him directions verbally is turning me into somebody in Fable who's child was taken by social services, so I'm trying to demonstrate. I'm standing with my right arm out to my right. He's standing with right arm out to his left, across his body. "Are you doing the same thing as me?" I ask. Straight faced, he answers "yup."

So, is Kinect for kids? the camera has a hard time recognizing short people. The game, although geared towards children, doesn't explain itself well enough for kids to do everything themselves. And even if kids could follow the directions to the letter, they can't stand still long enough to actually activate any of the choices on screen because the want to wave to mom or have to pee or just have ADD. So, I guess parents need to play with (read: play FOR) kids.

I should just load up my gamertag and get the achievement points myself.

"No, your other arm!" I giggle a frustrated laugh at my four year old son, who is trying to move to the next menu in the demo for A Monster's Tale. I'm standing next to him, but out of range of our new overblown camera. Trying to give him directions verbally is turning me into somebody in Fable who's child was taken by social services, so I'm trying to demonstrate. I'm standing with my right arm out to my right. He's standing with right arm out to his left, across his body. "Are you doing the same thing as me?" I ask. Straight faced, he answers "yup."

So, is Kinect for kids? the camera has a hard time recognizing short people. The game, although geared towards children, doesn't explain itself well enough for kids to do everything themselves. And even if kids could follow the directions to the letter, they can't stand still long enough to actually activate any of the choices on screen because the want to wave to mom or have to pee or just have ADD. So, I guess parents need to play with (read: play FOR) kids.

I should just load up my gamertag and get the achievement points myself.

My daughter just turned 5 and she has similar problems with kinect. It is frustrating watching them fumble with the menus. I found if I just walk away and let her make mistakes with the menus, she'll call me over, I'll fix it for her or tell her what's wrong, then I'll WALK AWAY again. This way she get's to spend 2-3 minutes messing it up without me knowing and getting frustrated. Then she calls me over, I explain it and move on.

I actually set him up with fruit ninja after that. That was fantastic. Flail away and earn points!!

From what I've seen and played of the Kinect the menus are rather clunky and very fiddly. I understand why that kind of thing could be frustrating for a child to deal with, especially one who's not yet well-versed with using computer interfaces. I hadn't thought about it that much but I suppose a lot of the games also don't explain themselves that well off of the bat. In some ways they seem to carry the more traditional design mantra of building a game for people who are familiar with playing games already.

@manaseviglietta said:

So, is Kinect for kids? the camera has a hard time recognizing short people.

I'm so glad to know I'm not the only one who runs into this. The Kinect seems to go through periods where it thinks that our daughter is a full grown adult who's just constantly kneeling.