Poland's Coolest Video Games for Children
The topic of video games for children is a rather complex one. First, it attracts a whole legion of traditionally trained educators who view the playing of video games as a phenomenon comparable to the use of drugs or alcohol, in the (often justified) belief that a child who sits down at a computer will rarely get up of his or her own free will. Secondly, the debate is joined by even more numerous legions of marketers who direct the production of ‘free’ hits that flow through parents’ phones to the rhythm of subsequent waves of popular toys and seasons of TV series.
A child is a very particular type of consumer. On the one hand, they’re satisfied with easily digestible but entertaining content. On the other hand, however, they have a much greater and more unpredictable sensitivity than most adults. Creating high-quality entertainment for children is often a far greater art than for their parents. Over the past two decades in Poland, creators of content for children have become more aware of this fact – the market for children’s books and theatrical productions for children has grown, and Polish illustrators and writers of picture books have become very successful. It can be said that a vast community has emerged, focused on creating the best possible culture for young consumers. This community has found a loyal audience and continues to grow. In the world of video games, the situation is a bit different – it’s more difficult to create a stable market niche for children’s products.
Imitators
One of the earliest significant and widely recognised attempts in Poland to create a video game for children was Lew Leon (Leo the Lion), which was released in 1996 by Leryx Longsoft, a company based in Wrocław. A story about the king of the animals whose crown was stolen by a bunch of schemers was presented in the form of a cartoon; it should be noted that the animation is very good. Each animal has expressive and comical movements that add character to the game from the moment it begins. The problems, however, lie elsewhere. This is a platform game that stands out from other well-known examples of the genre primarily because of its difficulty level, which is pushed to the limit (often due to bugs and poor game logic), and uninteresting level designs. One of the game’s creators, Jerzy Poprawa (better known as the long-time editor-in-chief of CD-Action magazine), recalled years later that Lew Leon was like a lens in which everything that was flawed at Longsoft came into focus, including terrible project management and the developers’ lack of familiarity with the gaming industry.’
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'Leo the Lion', photo: author's archive
The second part of the series is Zagadki Lwa Leona (Leo the Lion’s Riddles), a series of puzzles similar to the popular series The Incredible Machine. It’s definitely more player-friendly, but still manages to be frustrating – even when we already know the solution to a puzzle, we still often have to place its elements on the screen with the accuracy of a few pixels. Although they gained some popularity in their time (local patriotism was a very important part of gaming culture in the 1990s), in retrospect the games about Leo the Lion seem like rather unsuccessful attempts at imitating superior foreign models.
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'Leo the Lion’s Riddles', photo: author's archive
The same goes for Kangurek Kao (Kao the Kangaroo), a popular 3D platform game released in 2000. It fares better than the Lew Leon games when compared to the competition – it’s an average, solidly designed game, but it lacks imagination, with challenges that are typical of the genre and extremely bad dialogue (for example, we can hear in the second part of the game: ‘You can look around by pressing the look button’). Kangurek Kao didn’t captivate the world, but it developed quite nicely and had several consecutive parts that were released in different versions for PC and all major consoles. Many Polish gamers still remember it with a tear in their eye, as evidenced by its impressive 95 percent positive rating in the Steam store (which is slightly lower than the third part of The Witcher and slightly higher than the second part).
The game Juju (2014) doesn’t even try to hide the fact that it was inspired by Rayman Legends, a charming platform game by the French firm Ubisoft. It doesn’t quite measure up to the original, but, as consolation, it can be added that little else does – Rayman’s adventures are one of the great achievements of the genre. And Juju is a robust, colourful and likable counterpart to which Rayman Legends politely yields. It has its own charm, decent graphic design and music that makes kids want to jump up and down, composed by Adam Skorupa (who, incidentally, also worked on Lew Leon). The game is also playable by two people, controlling a pair of characters. Juju is enjoyable, although it leaves you unsatisfied.
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'Juju', photo: author's archive
Reksio & the Shadow of the Spanish Inquisition
I admit that Reksio wasn’t an important character in my childhood. When it comes to cartoon idols, I loved Filemon the Cat most of all, and later I became crazy about Dogtanian. Reksio was always somewhere on the periphery of my interests, and I didn’t really appreciate him until much later. I was also late to discover one of the most unique phenomena in the history of Polish video games – a series of games about Reksio produced for many years by Aidam Multimedia. I don’t know how it obtained a license to produce games about the adventures of this good-natured pooch, but from the beginning of the series it’s clear that the creators were given a lot of freedom. In the opening scene of Reksio i Skarb Piratów (Reksio and the Pirate Treasure), the character of Reksio is no longer guarding a backyard, but riding a surfboard over the waves of a tropical ocean.
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'Reksio and the Pirate Treasure', photo: author's archive
The story’s tone here is completely different than in Reksio’s TV adventures – there’s a narrator who interrupts the story every so often and changes its trajectory (to which the images on the screen constantly adapt). The self-referential jokes end when Reksio is tossed by the waves onto the shore of a mysterious island. At this point, the first riddle needs to be solved – this is done with the help of a bumbling crab and an octopus which asks to be brought ashore quickly because it’s expecting an important phone call from Rzeszów. A bit later we meet a tribe of hens living deep in the jungle, which worships the Cottage Cheese God and fears the impending ‘Cheesageddon’. But Reksio i Skarb Piratów remains a rather cautious attempt to change the cartoon dog’s image. The real madness begins in the next game of the series – Reksio i UFO (Reksio and the UFO). Here, the crazy network of connections gets really complex – while battling a cruel space dictator (who is simultaneously a chicken and a copy of Darth Vader), the characters end up in a bakery called La Résistance where there’s a poster depicting a long-haired mole in a beret, with the caption ‘Resistencia para siempre’.
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'Reksio and the UFO', photo: author's archive
This is no longer the character of Reksio as we remember him from our childhood, but Reksio reworked through the imagination of the game’s producers, who first enthusiastically watched his adventures on television and then, ten years later, watched episodes of Monty Python’s Flying Circus with the same amount of enthusiasm. In Reksio i Wehikuł Czasu, there even appears the famous line, ‘Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition’ – this time, of course, delivered by three moles in red cassocks, who then add: ‘Well, we made an appearance.’
Although children certainly won’t catch or understand all the jokes here, they can enjoy the atmosphere of joyful anarchy in which the storyline might turn in an unpredictable direction at any moment, pulling off a few tricks as it unfolds. We also have a cast of memorable characters – grumpy Kretes the Mole, who becomes Reksio’s closest companion, and the above-mentioned dictator, who renounces his evil intentions. When his former evil urges return, his friends calm him down with a gentle but clearly resounding refrain: ‘Nu, nu, nu!’
If you do some digging on the Internet, you can discover that video games featuring Reksio have become a cult phenomenon over the years. To this day, their fans continue to discuss the superiority of some parts over others (the common view is that the first instalment of five games, released between 2000 and 2006, is better than the later two instalments of Reksio i Miasto Sekretów (Reksio and the City of Secrets). I decided to find out if they still work well today as games to play with a child – as it turns out, my six-year-old is delighted. Plus, they’re exposing him to intelligent, unfettered humour. It’s a part of a well-rounded education that’s as important as the multiplication table.
Ambitious attempts
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'My Memory of Us', photo: author's archive
Many games are still being developed for younger audiences in Poland. There are quite a few which, following the example of contemporary picture books and theatre for children, try to touch upon difficult and painful topics. One of them is the game My Memory of Us, nominated in 2018 for Polityka’s Passport Award, which makes a risky attempt to present events related to the Holocaust in a fairy-tale style. Nazis are replaced by an army of robots, and armbands with the Star of David are replaced by red clothing that stands out against black-and-white visuals (and alludes to the famous red coat from Schindler’s List). This fantastical narrative frame is justified here by the fact that we’re dealing with an old man telling his story to a child – in a way that allows the child to understand, and not just feel frightened. How successfully My Memory of Us handled this representation of the Holocaust remains a matter of debate. The game has an important precursor – it clearly imitates the strategy adopted by Jacek Dukaj when dealing with martial law in his novel Wroniec; this connection is all the more significant because the creative director of My Memory of Us is Jakub Jabłoński, who illustrated Wroniec. In the game, he also succeeded very well in balancing the imaginative aspects and the horror of the world the game depicts. The Holocaust is a more difficult and sensitive topic, however, so one may wonder whether the simplifications perhaps go too far here. In any case, My Memory of Us remains a very interesting attempt to inform children about issues that are disturbing even for adults.
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'My Brother Rabbit', photo: author's archive
My Brother Rabbit is an adventure game in which traumatic events are also transposed into a fairy tale reality. The older brother of a seriously ill girl tries to comfort her by telling a story about a sick plant that’s being cared for by a plush rabbit – the girl’s beloved toy. The visuals are cute and colourful, but the serious theme often emerges from beneath this facade – as the disease progresses, syringes and laboratory equipment become more prominent in the candy-coloured setting. In the final scenes, the little protagonist comes close to death during an operation while her terrified family waits in the corridor – all of this manages to be told in a fairy tale format. The game’s main scriptwriter, Daniel Gizicki, who also writes texts for comic books, is very good at telling stories through images.
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'My Brother Rabbit', photo: author's archive
Unfortunately, it’s impossible to find interesting video games for children on bestseller lists. A decision to produce a good, well-crafted, ambitious game for children in today’s game market requires a large dose of madness – and frugal spending in order to offset the financial results. Developers of such games must compete with huge game companies that are able to offer their products to consumers for free – in exchange for advertising and the possibility of making in-app purchases. With free competition operating on such a scale, it’s simply impossible to prevail without additional support. When looking for interesting entertainment for their children, parents aren’t likely to turn to video games because smaller, simpler games aren’t designed to enrich a child’s development – they exist merely to give parents some peace and quiet. The game market for children needs a conscious consumer (who will be able to distinguish high quality from colourful banality) and more sophisticated channels for reaching the consumer – ones in which an interesting game won’t disappear in a flood of cheaper rubbish. This is impossible in large shops such as Steam, Google Play and Appstore. Many developers are trying to transition to a subscription model that would also be available for schools and kindergartens – but only time will tell whether this approach is viable.
The moral of the story: whenever we can, let’s spend more time looking for high-quality games for our kids rather than settling for the first free option. It’s important for the people who make the games and also, above all – for the kids.
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