So I was on a walk with my family, and I noticed I had (in the change in my pocket) two quarters, two nickels and two pennies.  Time to dust off my memory of Nighttime Animals Save the World with my five-year-old son. D.

First game, D. was playing Ralphie the Squirrel.  Ralphie was up in a tree, and couldn't get down (look, a five-year-old just framed himself a Kicker!) but we had to be moving on, and I couldn't let the game stay in that tree forever (had to get home for dinner!)  So we quickly resolved the tree situation, and I posited a magic green cloud that was raining down frogs (and, later, pinching crabs) on the city.

Quoth I:  "I bet that by the time we get to the grocery story Ralphie can figure out where the cloud is coming from!"
Quoth D.:  "Daddy!  I know where the cloud is coming from.  I had a magic green cloud machine, and I turned it on, but I didn't know how to turn it off.  I shouldn't have turned it on.  It got lost in the clouds, and now nobody knows where it is, and that's where the clouds are coming from.  Now I've got to stop it, because it's all my fault."

As my wife said:  "Wow ... maybe that Jung guy was on the right track."  Because, really ... where the hell did a five-year-old who's only been exposed to children's shows and such get the idea of The Big Mistake, much less the tortured hero trying to undo his past wrongs?  I'm pretty darn sure that he didn't pick that up from Dora the Explorer.

Oh ... another quick hint:  Just as you should not let the protagonist be stuck in a tree, lest you should be stuck there until the story is resolved, never, ever let your protagonist be trapped on top of a moving vehicle.  I had to chase a bus for two freakin' blocks, because D. insisted that Ralphie hadn't gotten off yet.

When Ralphie had successfully found the cloud machine and turned it off (me:  "I thought you didn't know how to turn it off!"  D:  "Daddy!  I don't know how.  But Ralphie does."  me:  "Oh ... of course") we moved on to the exciting adventures of Tally the Racoon.  Tally was climbing on some electrical wires, to get from place to place.

D:  "Hey!  He shouldn't do that!  Maybe he gets electrocuted!  Show me your coin."

So, yeah, D. called for the mechanics, and lost.  Tally got electrocuted.  I determined that his hair was all frizzy and strange looking, and that he had to do something about it before going to the Racoon ball.  D. deep-sixed my idea.  "I've got a magic comb, with wings, and it flies around Tally and makes his silly hair into wonderful hair."  Okay, fine.  So then I had the magic comb get suddenly sucked away, along with all of the other magic things in town (like the magic ukelele and the magic purse) by the Bad Guys.  I said they were headed in the direction of the grocery store, and Tally could probably follow them if he wanted to.

D: "No, daddy.  Tally doesn't do that."

Uh ... yikes!  Until this evening I never realized how necessarily railroaded a game of Nighttime Animals Save the World becomes if you're actually out doing errands!  Luckily, D. immediately leaped to my rescue.

D:  "Instead he's going to go straight to the Bad Guys house, and put fire on them with a fire-making thing, until they stop stealing the magic."
Me:  "The Bad Guys house is next to the grocery store."
D: "Vamonos, Daddy!  Let's go!"

And that was when I decided I had to write this up as an Actual Play report.

The real topper, though, came as we were walking home (after I played one more game where I was pretty uninspired, and then finally begged off on a fourth).  Daniel says "You know what, Daddy, I'm going to make a game called 'Farm Animals Save the World.'  It will be like 'Nighttime Animals Save the World' but it will have all farm animals."

We discussed the matter, and D.'s opinion is that the following is the roster of normal farm animals:

• Pig.  Special Ability:  Spray people with mud.
• Chicken.  Special Ability:  Egg Shooter
• Rooster.  Special Ability:  Cock-a-doodle-do really loud.
• Cow.  Special Ability:  Breathe fire.
• Bat.  Special Abilities:  Fly.  See with its ears.
• Superhero pig.  Special Abilities:  Fly.  Super strong.  Go through walls.  Shoot ice.  Run really fast.
• Prairie Dog.  Special Abilities:  Dig tunnels underground.

Very funny and very awesome.

I'd like to add something apart from 'That's really cute,' but I can't.

It looks like a hard game to run.

It's a very hard game to run. I can't in good conscience recommend it.

-Vincent

Tony,

Damn, all y'all game designers got smart kids.

Explain this bit where you had to chase the bus for two blocks again. You mean like-- you, Tony, went jogging down the street ahead of your family?

I like your child's new indie game design, although I'm a little hung up on fire-breathing cows.

I had not yet completed the rendezvous with the rest of the family.  It was just me, pulling D. in a wagon.  So yeah, there was jogging (and hauling) involved.

Though, it must be admitted, if I hadn't had the wagon I would have picked D. up in order to chase the bus.  He can be very insistent, and I'm a soft touch.