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We spend our lives in buildings every day. It subverts the commercial feel of other app games by focusing purchases on items that are primarily to give away to other players. Sky Children of the Light combines many of the criteria, offering a welcoming experience for newcomers, imaginative play. Stormworks combines open ended play like Minecraft, but offers a context more age appropriate to ambitious teenagers through its float-mechanics and boat design. Sea of Thieves and Valheim offer age appropriate play for older teenagers that is built around experimentation and discovery through risk taking that is lead by imagination. Phantom Abyss offers an unusual competitive play space that celebrates experimentation and is safe by design through minimal communication. Games like Journey and One Hour One Life offer a welcoming experience by encouraging (in some cases requiring) other players to help newcomers. Risk taking and rule breaking play that doesn't become a burden on the child is found in games like Untitled Goose Game and The Longing.Įxamples on this list also include playful online video games. Then games like A Short Hike and Wilmot's Warehouse offer play that is welcoming for newcomers and specifically age appropriate. Spelunky 2, Mini Metro and Teardown enable free-play that is intrinsically and experimentally motivated without commercial exploitation.

#Unpacking platforms simulator

Games like Lonely Mountains Downhill and Microsoft Flight Simulator offer open-ended play where you can go where you want and make your own fun.

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They want digital products designed to enhance the qualities of play and at the same time want those aspects of design that are exploitative or invasive to be dialled down.Įxamples on this list include playful offline video games. They don't want a completely 'whole-food experience', nor to turn back the clock to an offline world. In the report, children identify their need to play in ways that perhaps adults don’t understand or that some digital designs deny.

#Unpacking platforms for free

Like the report, this aims to concentrate energy on identifying opportunities for free play that should be enriched and expanded to make play online more child-centred. Inspired and challenged by the report, we searched our database to identify games that came closest to meeting these high standards. The freedom for risk taking is sometimes present but here, children themselves take on the safety burden from society at large and limit play themselves.' Games very rarely leave children to play at their own pace and rate. Where it's more difficult is in the voluntary and intrinsically motivated play. 'Children bring a lot to their play that for them is imaginative and sociable. I asked Sonia Livingstone, lead researcher and report author, whether there were many games that already met this criteria.

Be age-appropriate: Respect the needs of children of different ages by providing age-appropriate opportunities for play, while also allowing for safe intergenerational play.

Allow for experimentation: Recognise that exploration, invention and a degree of risk taking is important in children’s play and that the burden should not fall on them always to be cautious or anxious, or to follow rules set by others.

Ensure safety: Ensure children’s play in online spaces is safe, including by giving them control over who can contact them and supplying help when needed.

No commercial exploitation: Reduce compulsive features designed to prolong user engagement or cultivate dependency on games, apps or platforms, so children’s immersive play is intrinsically motivated and freely chosen.Enable Open-Ended Play: Provide and enhance features that offer easy-to use pathways, flexibility and variety as these support children’s agency and encourage their imaginative, stimulating and open-ended play.

Enhance Imagination: Prioritise creative resources and imaginative, open ended play over pre-determined pathways built on popularity metrics or driven by advertising or other commercial pressures.

Be Welcoming: Prioritise digital features that are inclusive, sociable and welcoming to all, reducing hateful communication and forms of exclusion and reflecting multiple identities.

To claim the label ‘Playful by Design’, digital products and services should adopt seven principles: The team from 5 Rights Foundation and Digital Futures LSE set out ambitious expectations for children’s free play in all contexts. The Digital Futures Commission's A Vision of Free Play in a Digital World report that outlines the key qualities of 'free play' for what 'good' looks like in a digital world.