While many parents are in two minds about letting young children play video games, studies would seem to indicate that they do, when used in moderation of course, improve hand–eye coordination, problem-solving skills, and the ability to process information.

With this in mind, a Thai developer has just released a free life simulation game, “Friendship21s” which, it says, is designed to boost young children’s EQ and their social skills.

The free game, developed by Mirin Innovation, is essentially a graphic adventure with a lot of missions and mini-games, all of which are designed to teach young children to interact with others while building communication skills in daily life.

The game’s development was financed by the firm called Chiang Mai Charles Michels as a way to give back to society. The company says the game aims to teach youngsters to interact with others and be conscious of their duty to help others through missions and conversations with game characters.

 

It is a single-player game so all game characters are AIs or robots that interact with the player as programmed.

To play the game, which is available for both Android and iOS platforms, you need to download and install the game software. The Android version requires about 150 megabytes of download. You then name your character and select its gender sex, hairstyle and outfit.

 

During the game, you or your child can further change the hair style by tapping on the dressing table in the bedroom and change clothes by tapping on the closet. More decorative items will be earned on completing missions.

The game, which has colourful graphics, starts with the player being a member of a family that has just moved to a small town.

The main goal is for the character to get to know and make friends with all the characters in the town. The player must carry out missions assigned by neighbours or NPCs (non-playable characters).

 

All in all, there are 200 missions from 20 types NPCs to carry out. For example, one of the first missions is to buy toilet cleaner for mother and your child will have to walk the game character to a shop in town. If your kid knows how to read a map, it won’t be hard to navigate through the town to the shop.

Certain missions need game coins and these can be earned by playing a lot of mini games inside the  main game.

Your child will get to learn about the problems faced by characters in the game and must find out how to help them through talking with them. He or she will have a book to record the characters befriended and each character has a bar to show friendship level from minus 100 to 100.

 

As part of the game’s interface, your child will be given tablets and a bag.

The bag is for keeping items in the game. The Key item tab is for storing items needed for completing certain missions while the Seed tab is for storing seeds for growing and the last tab titled just Item is for keeping other kinds of things found in the game.

Tap on the tablet and six menus come up – News, Photo, Column, Contact, Map and To Do.

 

In news, you get to read announcements and various activities of the games while the To Do provides a list of missions that have been assigned. The completed missions will be moved to the “Complete” tab.

The Photo is a book for collecting photos of animals you will encounter while wandering in the town.

The column is for keeping articles from flyers and pieces of inscribed stones found in the town.

 

The map is useful for navigating as it gives current location in the town. And when you use the map while standing at a bus stop, it will show all available bus stops in the town. Tap on another bus stop mark on the map and a bus heading to the selected stop will turn up.

Interact with an NPC to buy or sell items and give the character a gift. The coins earned from selling items can be used to buy other items so that you can complete the assigned missions.

The 10 mini games are to teach the child to practise concentration, memory, observation as well as imbuing in him or her a voluntary spirit to serve the society.

 

The mini games include a garbage sorting game, one that involves cleaning a temple toilet and a restaurant where you have to memorise the food orders from three customers at a time. Pictures of ordered dishes are displayed for just three seconds. The florist mini game also tests the memory as it requires you to memorise the colour of flowers ordered by a customer and learn to mix colours to paint flowers to fulfil the order.

Find out about the game at Facebook.com/Frienship21s.

Key Specs

– Developer: Mirin Innovation

– Game type: Single-player life simulation

– Available platforms: Android, iOS

– Android requirement: Version 4.1 or later

– iOS requirement: iOS 8.0 or later

– Price: Free