Summer Games 2008

Originally printed in the July | August 2008 issue of TNWoU Passages.

Girls, play super bounce out yahoo we have a new fun game called Super Barbie rescue Elsa Doctor for you to play. Hit the panic button for a free move! Keep an eye on the dynamite fuse, because when it runs out of time, so do you! Download Super Bounce Out and try it for free! Super Bounce Out features. Jun 02, 2016 Super Bounce Out Publisher's Description Bounce Out - another maddeningly addictive game with a simple premise: Create groups of three or more matching balls, either up, down or diagonally, then watch them bounce off the screen, only to be immediately replaced by more!

Bounce Out is an addictive game with a simple premise: Create groups of three or more matching balls, either up, down or diagonally, then watch them bounce off the screen, only to be immediately replaced by more! Bounce the required number of balls off the screen and move to the next level. Hit the panic button for a free move! Super Bounce Out 1.0.2 is a hot game which will attract your attention instantly. Click to line up similar balls in rows of three or more. Click to line up similar balls in rows of three or more. Clear as many balls as you can before time runs. Super Bounce Back is a auto bouncing, side scrolling, high score chasing, one touch, arcade, puzzle platformer with randomly generated levels. How you bounce through the level will determine how easy or hard it is to bounce back to the finish.

Summer’s great! Instead of being stuck in the house, kids have many more sunlight hours to be outside when they play. Often the outdoor activities are social and the games physical, which helps children to network as well as work off that excessive energy that seems to come with warm weather.

Nonetheless, the Midwest can get cloudy, dreary days during June, July and August, and this year we have had more than our fair share of inclement weather. Although you don’t want the computer on during a major storm—and especially not connected to the Internet—computer games can provide entertainment and a learning experience when you’re stuck in the house. Sharing the online experience with your child can be richly rewarding. John M. Grohol, Psy.D. wrote an article “How Does the Internet and Video Games Affect Children?” (March 28, 2008). To start, he mentions “Mind Hacks” by U.K. psychologist Tanya Byron.

…Through embracing and understanding [kids using technology], we can better educate and help guide our children in its use…. She emphasizes the need to come at all of this through a child-centered approach. We need to look at these things through the eyes of children and teens, their technical prowess, and their heavy reliance and importance that technology plays in their lives. To dismiss this facet of modern childhood is to really miss the entire point of the lives of children and teens who grow up in this Internet age.

Many online and free download games teach life skills in addition to mousing skills. Thus a morning or afternoon of safe online games provides a good mesh between what we want children to learn as people and about the technology of their world.

It will help if you know a little bit about the technology yourself, but you might be surprised how savvy your child has become when you ask about her/his online gaming experience. Different games may be Java enabled, require plug-ins, or be only a download. Some online games are self-play and some are Multi-Player (multiple players around the world playing the same game; yes, your children know about these and play them.) One of the best sites online for parents to gain this type of information is netsmartz.org.

Where Do You Go?

This is a very short list from a massive World Wide Web, but the following recommendations will start you on your way.

• For young children: funbrain.com, primarygames.com and popcap.com.
• For kids and tweens, netsmartzkids.org and netsmartzteens.org.
• For teens and older, shockwave.com, yahoogames.com, addictinggames.com, bigfishgames.com and gamehouse.com. These sites allow anyone to play and the ads are not censored, so be sure you’re there—in the room—as your teenager chooses a game. You may need to explain why you’d prefer she/he don’t play a few of those less-socially-acceptable-title games. By the way, if you have a WIN machine hidden in a corner, king.com has take-offs on television shows, such as 1 vs. 100 and Deal or No Deal.

Very Quick Synopsis

Popcap provides a great safe site for small children. Definitely try the matching game of Noah’s Ark for preschool age.

Funbrain touts itself as The Internet’s #1 Education Site for K-8 Kids and Teachers. Very child-safe in content and ads, content includes Flash Arcades, Classic, Web Books, Comics and Movies.

Primarygames has safe ads, home and hearth. Games appear to be more intense, more multi-step, than funbrain. Try AntFarm with 7-9 year olds.

Screen shot from NetSmartzKids.org

Netsmartz (note it’s a dot org) should be bookmarked on every computer with Internet access. Kids will enjoy the side site, netsmartzkids.org. Not only can children through tween age play fun and challenging games, kids learn online safety as they surf. Both the Center for Missing and Exploited Children and Boys and Girls Clubs of America support this site and it has a section dedicated for parents to learn about online safety practices.

Bigfishgames divides into tabs the Windows and Macintosh games for downloads. The online games tab lists some great choices. Sometimes you’ll find problems with advertisements covering important buttons, such as Play.

Gamehouse has online puzzle games, online word games (Super TextTwist, BookWorm Deluxe) and online action games (Fish Tycoon). The daily jigsaw has some very recognizable pictures (Mount Rushmore, etc.) but takes 30 percent longer to finish on a PowerPC G3 since the click and drag isn’t instantaneous. Additionally, gamehouse has online card games and online Casino games. Please be cautious of the new national concern of online gambling with kids and teens.

Whether you’ve allowed your child to have a Yahoo! account or not, any computer user—including your child—has access to free Yahoo! games. The home page lists the varieties, including arcade, board, card, puzzle, word, downloads, multiplayer, skill and video. A feature of Yahoo! games: Click on the menu puzzle and you get a table of the games available; click on the word Web and it will sort by that column so you have the online versions at the top.

Shockwave games (sometimes/often/always?) have Adobe Shockwave required. Themes of games include Action & Arcade, Adventure, Card & Board, Jigsaw, Kids, Music & Photos, Puzzle Racing, Shooters, Sports, Strategy, and Word. Patchworkz! is a puzzle game I’ve only found here and it’s particularly enjoyable for any young person who has a slight interest in sewing or patterns.

One of the “features” (read: suck-you-in-to-more-games) of addictinggames is the recommendation of other games similar to the one you’ve just played. However, some of the ads on the sidebar and several, if not most, of the games are inappropriate for small children. Any time your child visits addictinggames, be sure you’re in the room, close by, looking over her/his shoulder every 15-20 minutes.

Personal Favorites

As you read through this, remember that I’m not the typical gamer. The three activities I put in my Dock after getting my iBook: SimCity 2000, Myst and Starry Night (astronomy software). The games in my Application folder include QBeez, Bejeweled, Candy Crisis, Scruffy Gems, Chess, Quinn, Jewel Toy and MacSolitaire (1.6!). (Thank you TNWoU’s CDoM team!) My favorite online activity: Yahoo!’s Daily Jigsaw. Nonetheless, I’ve watched my brother play massively multiplayer online role-playing games and been extremely intrigued by World of Warcraft. Last Spring I attended a seminar for educators to bring MMORPGs into the classroom and I jumped into the fray by creating my first avatar at Second Life. I’m trying to branch out into the ‘Net so I can be ready for today’s children when they’re tomorrow’s tech-born adult learners.

Arcade Games

Carrie The Caregiver (first version, Infancy)

I first found Carrie at addictinggames; a coworker introduced me to the game during her lunch. As a people-person I like the theme, but as a casual game player, I like the ability to achieve.

You’re a young nurse staffing a prenatal room. A baby in a bed slides into the frame. You click on the baby and drag it to a care bed. You take a bottle out of the fridge and put it in the warmer. When the baby has an icon for a bottle over her/his head, you grab a bottle from the warmer and take it to the baby. After the baby’s done, the empty bottle icon is over the bed; click on the baby’s bed then click on the corner dishwasher to get the bottle cleaned. After a short while, the baby will make a puttttt sound and the icon of a diaper is over the bed. Click on the diaper dispenser, click on the bed, and Carrie changes the diaper. One final click on the baby and the baby leaves to go home. Click on the corner diaper pail to dump the dirty diaper.

Babies line up pretty quickly for the beds. You can take care of two tasks at once. For example, you double-click on the refrigerator door and you get one bottle for each hand; you click on one warmer then the other warmer and both bottles go to the slots. You can click on both warmers and you’ll have two bottles; click on one bed than another and you’re feeding two babies at once. Click on the diaper dispense twice and you get two diapers; double-click on one bed and then another bed and you change both babies at the same time as well as clear the diaper from the bed.

Game Super Bounce Out For Mac Download

Every so often a door opens and you can get a pair of roller skates to move more quickly across the room. At higher levels a heart appears at the window when a mom visits and you can give a baby heart strength.

Game Super Bounce Out For Mac Pro

Sounds easy, right? Add these facts:

• You start with two beds on the first level, but it increases to five beds.
• You get extra points for matching the baby’s blanket color to the bed’s blanket color.
• You can mix the steps you take. Grab bottles for warmer. Slide more babies to open tables. Clean diapers on babies who’ve finished…and on and on.
• Babies start with many hearts. The hearts are like a health level in some games. If the hearts run out, you lose the baby to neonatal emergency care.

Screen shot from Carrie The Caregiver

Additional levels add special babies.

• Babies who have happy signs don’t ask for anything quickly, so they take up time in the beds.
• Babies who have unhappy signs get aggravated very quickly if you don’t take care of them first and foremost.
• Babies with the medical plus sign can get sick if not taken care of properly. When the sick icon appears over those babies, you need to run to the medicine cabinet and then back to them to give the medicine.

If you don’t eat when food appears by the doorway, you can lose energy to handle all the necessary tasks.

Watch the Sanitation meter! Too many diaper changes without stopping by the sink to clean your hands and you make a baby ill.

You can read a story to the babies “waiting in line” to get a bed. However, you need to wait until the story finishes before clicking on something else or the babies in line will not get the extra hearts.

I started to play and found that I couldn’t pass a certain level. I became obsessed for a nearly a month, trying a plethora of options, until I realized how much I had accomplished to get through level I at my novice gaming skill.

When you’re online you only get one activity, 10 levels, 5 toddler types, 5 crisis types, 2 shirt colors, 5 room upgrades and such. The full version has five activities, 75 levels, 5 shirt colors, and 10 room upgrades and such.

Having only fed a portion of my obsession with the online version, I used a WIN machine to download the trial version (requires Intel Pentium III 700MHz or higher, Windows 2000/ME/XP, 128 MB RAM (256 recommended), 12 MB available disk space). The download had smoother graphics and I made it to a higher level. Even so, I’m not sure that I’ll ever be willing to pay for the full download. ($10 maybe; $20? No. Mostly because once I start paying for one game, I know others will follow.) Therefore, I simply play online.

Not enough Carrie? There are two other editions/versions. Carrie The Caregiver #2 has her taking care of children in Preschool, creating paintings, matching shapes, writing and baking. Play at least one level of this game; the CarrieFone at the end of the game that gives status looks a whole lot like an iPhone. The new Carrie #3 is titled Camp Funshine: making tie-dye shirts, buddy bracelets and flower power. This one features flitting bugs and you have two camp councilors you can assign to help kids.

Cake Mania (from Sandlot Games) runs similarly.

You have a cake shop that opens in January. A man comes in to buy a cake. You hand him a menu. He decides if he wants a cake that’s triangular, rectangular, star-shaped or round. He will also decide upon the frosting: brown, white, purple or red. You go to the oven and click on the shape and it bakes the cake. When the oven dings, the cake pops out. Grab the cake and take it to the counter with the frosting; click on the button the color the customer wants. After the froster finishes, pick up the cake and hand it over the counter to the customer. If the customer is happy, you get a decent tip. Each customer starts with five or six hearts and loses the hearts as you take longer to take care of them.

What makes this mania?

• February brings Cupids who need cakes quickly.
• April brings Easter Bunnies (man-size?) who need cakes quickly.
• Another month brings in Grandmas who are very impatient.
• Then there’s the month that I haven’t yet conquered: men, Cupids, Bunnies and Grandmas!

Babysitter, Diner Dash, Belle’s Beauty Boutique and Pet Shop have the same concepts: processes that need to be completed according to customer requests.

Games That Don’t Stop

Both Fish Tycoon (you breed and care for exotic fish) and Virtual Villagers (you take care of a tribe) continue in the process even when you’re not online. Be sure you go back every so often or the fish and villagers die off from lack of care.

Words! Boost your child’s vocabulary with games.

Text Twist gives you six randomly generated letters and six spaces. You click on the letters in the order you want them to appear and submit. If the word is in the list, the list of boxes on the left change, when one goes from blank to the submitted word. I’ve done poorly in this game, but it also uses some odd words.

Bookworm takes a turn to be (sort of) Scrabble for one person: click adjacent letters in a string to make words; click on the last letter twice to submit. Longer words and gold tiles are worth more points. Watch for red tiles that burn through other tiles. (Once a red tile gets to the bottom, game over.) The game also gives you a special word that provides bonus points.

Letter Linker gives you a grid of five random letters across and five random letters down. At the top: five boxes. You click on letters to make words; if the word is part of the puzzle, it appears. If not, you get the buzz. Catch a certain number of words from the list and get to the next level.

Puzzle Games

Avalanche, Ball Lines, Bricks Breaking, Cubis Gold, Collapse and Super Bounce Out bring fun angles to the old click-on-the-group-to-get-rid-of-it game. Ball Lines could be a good learning experience for small children to match colors and count up to five (the number of balls you need for a set). Super Bounce Out will be a favorite of anyone growing up in the mid ‘60s who had a super ball, especially the white glitter one.

Both the game Arrows and the game Missionaries and Cannibals solve mathematical problems comparable to Towers of Hanoi.

These Internet games will help get you through the summer-stuck-in-the-house days.

Although a huge population of the world is thinking that Summer ‘08 games are all being played in Beijing, you now know how to bring mental athleticism to your family.