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I’ve been trying to read a Sci-Fi(ish) short story to the kids at bedtime, in between other longer books. This is how it’s been going.

Really Successful Stories

These are the stories they love, that they ask for and that we’ve read multiple times.

The Mind Blown/Exploding Head Emoji

The stories that have really worked generally get this kind of “mind blown” reaction from the kids at the end – which is very satisfying!

These are short stories by some of the greatest Science Fiction/SF authors in history. They are all well written and well put together, to say the least. These are mostly not written for children, but I’ve trawled the history of the genre and found some that are suitable and that my kids enjoyed.

I’ve found that 40s & 50s sci-fi shorts are sometimes quite suitable for …

Continue reading “Sci-Fi Short Stories to Read Aloud with the Kids”

Hand-drawn map of the Kingdom of Hyrule.
Figure 1. Our hand-drawn map of the Kingdom of Hyrule. I drew a 2x1 grid in Inkscape and printed it out, then we filled it in as we went along.

It’s been about six months since the last update. We’ve mostly been camping, playing outside and generally enjoying the summer - although we have also squeezed in some gaming, here and there.

Favourite Games So Far

We spent almost all of our game time playing Legend of Zelda. It’s a towering achievement – a truly great game. I’m amazed that this thing is from 1986 – it doesn’t feel like it.

It’s also a great example of a different kind of co-op game. One where you play together by collaborating: discussing what to do & where to go next, how to tackle things, etc…​ We also took turns …

Continue reading “Speedrunning Computer Games History with a 6yr Old - Part 4”

Gauntlet Screenshot
Figure 1. Gauntlet, by far and away the kids favourite game so far.

Time for another update on the Retro Gaming project. It’s been roughly a month since the last update and we’ve been playing a bit more often this time.

Favourite Games So Far

Roughly in order of playtime:

Gauntlet is far and away the kids favourite game so far. Almost nothing else got a look in since I put it on. Even Super Mario Bros is a pretty distant second place, and the other games have barely been played at all.

I think there are two reasons for this. Firstly, Gauntlet is a 4 player co-operative game. So far we’ve only played with two players, but even then, co-op games are just really fun. I think the other reason …

Continue reading “Speedrunning Computer Games History with a 6yr Old - Part 3”

Time for an update on the Retro Gaming project. It’s been almost four months since we started and it’s been, predictably, lots of fun. What with work and school and everything else, we have very little time for playing computer games. That, combined with a fairly dry winter & spring letting us get outside more, means that even with the Covid-19 pandemic curtailing activities, we haven’t clocked very many hours of playtime.

Favourite Games So Far

Roughly in order of playtime:

In the end, we didn’t actually play any ZX Spectrum or C64 games at all, sadly. I played a lot of these when I was a kid, so I was secretly disappointed …

Continue reading “Speedrunning Computer Games History with a 6yr Old - Part 2”

Galaxians vector
Figure 1. Galaxians.

As a family gift for Christmas 2020, I set up a Raspberry Pi 400 with Retropie. The plan is to load a selection of the “best of the best” games from computer game history, starting with games up to, roughly, 1985.

The kid doesn’t really know any better, so we can play Space Invaders unsullied by time and expectations and enjoy a speedrun through gaming history, playing just the highlights.

I’ll add more games as we go along, progressing through gaming history, one classic game at a time.

Continue reading “Speedrunning Computer Games History with a 6yr Old - Part 1”