That bit (half jokingly said?) about Spelunky kinda ruining other games for kids who play it as their first game is kinda wierd to see first hand.
My neice (who is 10) used to watch me play games. She never really played anything herself (except a few times taking the controller when I was playing Halo and shooting at the ground non stop) but Spelunky caught her attention last year. I think it was the cutesy art style.
It takes a couple of weeks or so get familiar with the controller (this being her first game) and the controls. And after that we play a LOT of co op. She would play solo as well but she still preffered co op cause it had a little more room for mistakes and I could carry her (literally at times
) through the levels somewhat.
I actually ended up having a lot of fun with her so I figure we should give some other games a shot. She is totally excited about that concept, so I picked up Rayman Origins and a couple of those Lego games a little while ago. Its the same concept (2dish) since I figure that she cant quite get the hang of FPS or TPS controls yet (although she loves watching me play BF for some reason).
And she just cant get into either one of those games at all. Part of it is that those games seem baby-ish ("You dont have to start from the begining everytime? Why not?") but I think a large part of it is the random ness is missing. Spelunky is a different game everytime you play it, every crate you see is a mystery box with the potential of having something amazing in it. By comparision, Rayman or Batman is just the same track over and over again.
So ..... I dunno. I guess I should have started her off with Mario or something.
Edit As a side note its hilarious how optimistic she is when she is playing Spelunky Solo. She can make it to the jungle on a good run at best (getting to Ice caves once was a super proud acheivement for her). But damn if she is leaving the mines without the udjet eye. "I wanna go to the black market and get the ankh." every single time.
