PLAYBOOKS: FOR THE NINTENDO DS

Animal Crossing - Wild World

In Animal Crossing: Wild World, kids create and look after their own small town. They will need to manage their character’s funds, create and maintain relationships with non-player characters, and care for the environment and their own homes in order to be good neighbors.

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: Simulation
Platform/Console: Nintendo DS
Number of Players: 1 (can be multi-player)
ESRB Rating: E (Everyone)
LWK Recommended Age: 8+
Buy Now From: Amazon.com

 

This Game is Good for Kids Who Need Help With:

• Setting goals (planning)
• Planning activities (planning)
• Solving problems (planning)
• Keeping track of things (organization)
• Tidiness at home and school (organization)
• Homework completion (organization)
• Staying interested (goal-directed persistence)
• Staying motivated (goal-directed persistence)
• Judging time needed for completing tasks (time management)
• Finishing one thing before starting another (time management)
• Understanding social cues (social thinking )
• Judgment in social situations (social thinking )
• Getting along with peers (social thinking )

What You Need to Know About the Game:

Wild World content is appropriate for all ages, but young children may find it difficult to play with the amount of reading that is involved on a regular basis. You may consider trying out the game with your younger children to determine whether or not they have the basic reading skills required to play on their own.

Animal Crossing: Wild World is a video game made for the portable Nintendo DS system. It is a sequel of sorts to both Animal Crossing for the Game Cube and Animal Forest for the Nintendo 64. Unlike most games, Wild World does not actually have a plot or any one particular goal for players to meet; in fact there is no real way to “beat” the game at all! This type of simulation game is meant to give players complete freedom over their own goals.  Kids can do anything from upgrading their house, to searching for every type of fossil, fish, and bug in town, to making friends with all of the animal neighbors. It’s all up to the player!  It is also possible for kids to connect with their friends through a local wireless (DS to DS) or the Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection. From there they can visit each other’s towns to trade items, fruits, or just say “Hi!”

Solutions:

For parents who would like a walkthrough, many great fan-made (and free!) walkthroughs can be found on the Internet. We recommend you try searching at www.gamefaqs.com.

This Game Helps Your Kids With Planning::

This game is good for kids who struggle with setting goals, planning activities, and solving problems, because they:

• Plan where to plant trees and flowers throughout their town. Decorating the town well is actually a very important aspect of Wild World. Evenly distributing the right amount of trees and flowers across the town will make its rating go up so more animals will move in and stay. The player will also receive important gifts from the town hall for having a perfect town rating. Having too many trees or too few will lower the town rating, so careful planning is important.  Also, if players plant their flowers correctly, they can produce rare and expensive flowers that cannot normally be bought. For example, placing a standard white rose and a red rose next to each other might produce a pink rose. Pink roses are worth more Bells (money), but are never sold by Tom Nook. 

• Create smaller successive goals. For example, players who would like to obtain the Golden Watering Can must first purchase a watering can, an axe, and a shovel. They then need to plant or chop down trees so they have a reasonable amount of green distributed through the town. After that they must purchase as many seeds as they can and start planting flowers in lots of different places. The entire process may take a few days, a few weeks, or even months. As soon as their town receives a perfect rating from its inhabitants, the player must keep their town in excellent condition for sixteen days with daily weeding, watering, etc. The town hall will then award the player with the watering can for their efforts. 

• Save Bells to buy house upgrades, pay off their mortgage, and buy new tools, decorations, clothes, and items. Just like any in any real life situation, budgeting is important if the player wants to progress.

• Decorate their houses to impress the Happy Room Academy (HRA). The HRA is most impressed when players collect items of the same set; for example a player who decorates their house with the Regal furniture, Regal wallpaper, and Regal rug will get a higher HRA score than a player who decorates with Regal and Exotic furniture.  Therefore, it is important for the player to plan to look for the pieces of their set and buy those whenever they are available. Crafty players will also use Feng Shui to impress the HRA and to improve their chances of getting items and money (it’s a fairly complicated process that is explained in most online walkthroughs), so again, planning where to place furniture is a good idea. 

Talking Points: 

• How did you know where to plant trees and flowers in your town? 
• How did planning help you to get a good town rating? 
• How is planning where to put flowers and trees like being able to anticipate future problems based upon current actions?
• How did you get [this golden tool]? 
• How did planning help you to eventually get this item? 
• How can working for a golden tool help you to think about setting long- and short-term goals?
• How do you get lots of bells in Animal Crossing? 
• How did planning help you to buy new tools, decorations, clothes, house upgrades, and items? 
• How can saving up for items in Animal Crossing help you to think about planning and saving for something you would like to buy?

Making It Real:

• Encourage planning for a family trip. Check weather forecasts with your child in order to think about what type of clothing he/she might want to bring on the trip. Have him/her generate a list of clothing, toys, books, and other materials that he/she would like to have with him/her during the family trip. Ask him/her to think about how much money he/she would like to have and perhaps find a way to earn the money prior to going on the trip. Encourage him/her to talk about the materials and things that are most important for him/her to take with him/her on the trip.

• Plan together with your child about what he/she needs for school. Compile a list of school supplies such as pencils, notebooks, markers, backpacks, lunchboxes, and other materials. Help your child make a list of what he/she would like and then plan together which are the most important items for him/her.

This Game Helps Your Kids With Social Thinking:

This game is good for kids who struggle with inability to understand social cues, poor judgment in social situations, and difficulties with peers because they:

• Maintain relationships with each of their animal neighbors. Neighbors may get upset and move to another town if players are mean to their neighbors, do not speak to them often, do not send them any letters, or forget their get-together plans. On the other hand, if players are nice to their neighbors, talk to them often, and send them gifts, they may receive gifts in return. Unfortunately, there are some neighbors who are always a little mean and snobby no matter how nice you are to them; the important thing to remember is that you have been kind, even if they aren’t always so pleasant themselves (valuable lesson for kids to learn in real life)! 

• Understand the moods of their neighbors. If an exclamation point appears over the animal’s head it means he or she would like to talk to the player; if black swirls float over the animal and he or she is frowning with their head down it means that he or she is upset and not in the mood to converse; if he/she is singing with musical notes floating up into the air, it means that that animal is happy (and sometimes in a particularly giving mood); if the animal’s eyes open wide and chiming sound follows, it means that he or she is surprised; and so on. If the player tries to talk to an animal who is upset, it will refuse to talk and may even get angry with the player. In contrast, happy animals may just feel like giving away a piece of furniture, wallpaper, clothing, or a rug. 

Talking Points:

You might try asking your kids about:

• What did you need to do to establish a positive relationship with your neighbors?
• How did maintaining your relationships with them help you to get new items? 
• How does making friends with Animal Crossing neighbors help you to think about making friends easily?
• How do you know if your neighbor is happy, sad, or angry? 
• How does understanding their mood help you to get along with your neighbors? 
• How can understanding your neighbors’ mood help you to accurately assess the emotional tone of a conversation?

Making It Real:

• It may be useful to conduct brief role-playing with your child prior to introducing him/her to a new situation. For example, if your child is to meet a group of children whom he/she does not know, it may be helpful to practice introducing him/herself and learning to ask one or two appropriate questions of his/her peers. 

• Use a digital camera or digital video camera to record a range of social interactions.  Later, review the pictures of video with your child, while asking your child to describe his/her “reading” of social and emotional cues. Provide the child with hints and specific observations that you might have, such as facial expressions, physical gestures, tone of voice, eye contact, or movement, that may have predictive value.