Digital Kodomo BASE's Instagram is, I must confess (not that it was ever a secret), usually posted by AI. I, the human, rarely look at Instagram. That day, I happened to open it and had a sense of déjà vu: "Wait, I know that kid..." It was a photo of a boy who comes to Houkago Lab, our after-school lab, sitting at a laptop. The post was by his mother (original post).
"Isn't this a true story?"
According to the post, he started coming to Houkago Lab in the spring. His home is four or five kilometers from the venue, and he makes the long trip every week. At first there was a period when he mostly played games, but lately he is absorbed in making them and builds a new one almost every week. He gives instructions to AI to build the program, and since it never turns out right the first time, he keeps re-instructing it until the game is finished. That is how his mother described it.
The night before, she played a game he had made and was surprised. The game was about "how to get from leaving work, through the train commute, to home without building up stress." A day when she had accidentally boarded a crowded train with a stroller had become a game, just as it happened. Besides "Commute Mode," there is an even harder "Mom-and-Baby Outing Mode." She wrote that she laughed wryly: "Isn't this a true story?"
"Sort of" won't make a game work
At Houkago Lab, children sometimes make games with AI. When they do, in about an hour they usually finish something that can really be played. Adults who come to visit are surprised by that first. Games the children post are added to the AI Game Plaza, and the collection keeps growing.
But what moved me was not how good the game was. In her post, his mother wrote something like this: her son tends to use vague words and often brushes off his feelings as "sort of," so this may be good practice in putting things into concrete, logical words.
AI only builds exactly what it is told. If the result is not what you pictured, you have to explain in your own words what is different, and give the instruction again. "Sort of" won't make a game work. Week after week, he has repeated that rephrasing and given shape to what was in his head.
And what he made was not an adventure in some faraway world, but a scene from a hard day his mother had. Turning someone close to you's "trouble" into something people can play is, I think, the heart of making things.
Children who play, and children who make
His mother's post included one more thing that made me happy. At Houkago Lab the curriculum is basically free: some children finish by playing games, others just practice typing. That's fine too, because they learn how to use the computer. He himself went through a period like that.
Each child decides how to spend the time. Time spent playing is not wasted. Once their hands get used to the computer, some children naturally start wanting to make something. He was exactly one of them.
Next Wednesday, I'd like him to let me play his game at Houkago Lab. Can I clear "Mom-and-Baby Outing Mode"?
Digital Kodomo BASE runs Houkago Lab every Wednesday and Furatto Lab for children who find school hard. For details, see A Place for Children.