PLAYBOOKS: FOR THE internet

Aliens Land

Guide a flying saucer through increasingly difficult levels as you collect "power-ups" and avoid harmful obstacles.

Game play alone results in modest improvements in real-world executive skills. Please refer to our Playbook Tutorial, general coaching and comprehensive guides to transfer game skills to sustainable real-life behaviors.

QUICK FACTS

Game Type: Adventure
Platform/Console: Internet
How to Find It: Aliens Land
Other Requirements: Adobe Flash Player
LWK Recommended Age: 5+

 

This Game is Good for Kids Who Need Help With:

• Staying focused on a task in a public place or any other area with numerous distractions (sustained attention)
  
• Adjusting an established routine or action to accommodate change (flexibility)
  

What You Need to Know About the Game:

Reading ability is only required for the instructions. The game is very simple and easily learned within minutes.

How to find it:
http://www.addictinggames.com/aliensland.html

Controls, game basics, and instructions:
The ship is controlled using the arrow keys. Left and right make the ship move in those directions respectively, and the up arrow keeps the ship in flight.

Solutions:

No walkthroughs exist for this game. The game revolves around finding a unique way to get by obstacles, so imitating a pre-existing strategy would detract from the core concept, the learning and the fun.

This Game Helps Your Kids With Sustained Attention

This game is good for kids who need help with staying focused on a task in a public place or any other area with numerous distractions, because they must:

• Be able to notice and stay focused on multiple sources of information at once. Each level, especially the later levels in the game, can seem very complicated at first. But if the player takes time to look at each obstacle individually before seeing them all in the larger context of the entire level, it will be simpler to play. As you can see in the screenshot, there are many things in the level to distract players.

Talking Points:

• When were you able to decipher the pattern of a hazard?
• What strategies did you use to prevent yourself from becoming distracted while you analyzed the pattern of a particular obstacle?
• How is focusing on a specific task in “Aliens Land” like reading in a public place with lots of distractions?

Making it Real:

• Model one’s efforts at refocusing, demonstrating to children how it is easy to become distracted by other things, but one often needs to direct oneself back to what one was doing. For example, while doing a project or chore, verbalize your thoughts about other things that you want to be doing, such as reading a book, getting some exercise, or playing a game, and then verbalize how you refocus to complete the chore. For example, “I need to finish emptying the dishwasher, and then I can go to the gym.” Help children to observe that being distracted by thoughts or ideas is not uncommon and how to use self-instructional strategies to complete tasks. Prompt them to use these self-instructional strategies when confronted with numerous distractions.

This Game Helps Your Kids With Flexbility:

This game is good for kids who need help with adjusting an established routine or action to accommodate change, because they must:

• Adjust their strategy, sometimes overhaul it completely, when new obstacles appear. What worked in an earlier level may not work later due to either a new obstacle or a change in an old one. For instance, in the screenshot below, players cannot simply fly around and collect powerups freely as they did in the first level. Strategy must change to accommodate hazards such as the flying round object. If the player's ship collides with it, protective shields will be lost. Kids who could simply fly right through gaps in the first level must now avoid hazards bouncing around the area. They need to first look at the pattern of the hazard and then look for a point to safely get by the hazard. Failing to avoid the hazard will lead to damage to their ship and sometimes death.

Talking Points:

• When were you able to recognize and adapt to a dramatic change in the layout of a level?
• How did being flexible in the way you flew your ship help you to change your existing strategy?
• How is changing your plan in “Aliens Land” like rearranging your free time schedule to accommodate the additional challenges of a new school year?

Making it Real:

• Help children to understand how their inflexibility may prevent them from finding a range of correct solutions to a particular problem. Model a type of inflexible behavior that results in getting stuck and, perhaps, a sense of frustration. For example, keep performing the same incorrect activity on your computer, so that you get stuck. Make a point of saying to the child, “The computer keeps getting stuck.” Many children, who are often more knowledgeable about the computer than their parents, will be able to demonstrate how to fix the problem for you. This opportunity for you to talk about how you were stuck using the same strategy and needed help to find a new solution will facilitate discussing inflexible problem solving on your child’s part.