ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

Somehow, my six year old daughter wound up really enjoying ToME. At first I showed her the game at bedtime, but she quickly wanted to play it on her own. Her requests to play ToME on my computer became fairly regular.

We recently got her a computer. (Local university surplus store made this cheap.)

She has Windows 8 on her computer. She wanted it upgraded because it wouldn't initially play ToME. She was briefly distracted by the games in the Windows Store... but she fairly quickly returned to her desire to play ToME.

The past couple of days all she's wanted to do was play ToME all day.

It makes me wish the te4 account stuff had a "child account" option... something less social and more secure. Right now, I've just not logged in or created an account, but I don't know how long that will last...

Cheers,
Steven

Wow, crazy! How far has she gotten? Has she said what she likes so much about it?

There may be other roguelikes she'd enjoy if you want any tips!

I doubt many girls play ToME to begin with. It's kinda amazing that a six years old would play. The game is pretty complex. It must feel rather unfair to her. Even after playing this game for aeons, I still often have no idea of how I end up dead. q.q

An account doesn't really have to be social. Just deactivate the chat prompts in the game options and remove the chat hotkey.

I've asked her what she likes most about it. Honestly, she told me she likes running around and killing things. I can't blame her for that, as that's what I liked when I was introduced to Roguelike games as a kid...

I think the graphics help, honestly. It's not visually boring, but then it doesn't try to be hyper-realistic. She has suffered from anxiety since she was a wee child. (We got her therapy for some of it because it was going to impact her ability to function in preschool.) The tile-based graphics are enough to be fun, but not enough to freak her out.

I've told her that people can use the T-engine to write their own games. She's looked at the Javascript programing on Khan Academy, but I'm not sure how much sank in. Still, it might not be that long before she's asking me to help her make an add-on...

If her interest keeps up, I suspect we'll end up donating some money for her birthday specifically to unlock the Exploration mode. She doesn't really like losing all of her stuff when she dies.

surprised someone so young would like such a complex, nuanced game. Usually at the younger ages they go for the coolest graphics above all else. I was playing Atari/Amiga/game boy at that age

What race/class does she play?

eh, i was about that age when i was introduced to Nethack back in early 90s ... never got far, prehaps to gnomish mines if i was lucky... But still found it quite enjoyable to play

Right now, I'm encouraging her to stick with the simpler classes. She's had some luck with the Berserker.

I got hooked on Roguelike games when I was about 8. I learned to program so I could cheat at the DOS version of Moria.

Of course, that was before you could create an add-on to give yourself novel birth equipment...

I remember when I first started playing games - one of which was Castle of the Winds. I'm not surprised someone young is getting hooked on a tile based roguelike; specifically one where you fights and trounce lots of evil tiled enemies. I'm sure it helps as well that Tales of Maj'Eyal also has an Adventurer and Exploration Mode to use as well.

As a note, you should be able to turn off the global chats from the menu; if that is an issue for you.

As others have said you can just remove chat key & disjoin chat channels.

As for your daughter playing the game .. AWWWW that's so cute ! Makes me smile

Child's tears for the dark god \m/ !

I remember how I enjoyed Der Langrisser in a similar age. The gameplays are interesting, the cut-scenes are cute and cool, and there are latitudes of character developments.

And I guess another intriguing part of ToME is its worldbuilding. There is a unique flavor of Eyal world. Many cool things are included into the games and they don't fit bad. And of course, being a berserker enable you to roll on numpad to kill, and that's straight and fun.

Wow. Is your daughter a genius or a prodigy? When I was 6 years old I probably wouldn't have been able to figure out Dungeons of Dredmor, let alone ToME.

Introduce her to Stone Soup or Nethack! If she figures those out I really will feel stupid.

TOMEfanatic wrote:Wow. Is your daughter a genius or a prodigy? When I was 6 years old I probably wouldn't have been able to figure out Dungeons of Dredmor, let alone ToME.

Children get exposed to computers and games at a much younger age these days. That's my excuse anyway ;)

Grey wrote:

TOMEfanatic wrote:Wow. Is your daughter a genius or a prodigy? When I was 6 years old I probably wouldn't have been able to figure out Dungeons of Dredmor, let alone ToME.

Children get exposed to computers and games at a much younger age these days. That's my excuse anyway

I agree with your point, though in truth, I'm 33 and was exposed to computers at a very early age. I sort of grew up with them. Of course, they were ugly CRT monitors with floppy disks. I remember this racing game I loved as a child. Looking back on it, it was a black and white, stay between the lines sort of game.

Kids these days have it lucky. Had I seen Crysis 3 as a kid I would have freaked out.

No they do not ahve it lucky, it is so easy now that they do not need to try and understand stuff abotu the computers and soon it'll look like magic to most :/