Watch What It's Like Playing Astro Bot With a Four-Year-Old and Eight-Year-Old
My children have been asking to play Astro Bot, so I recorded our experiences together and took notes about what it's like playing games with young kids.
In late August, I wrote about my family’s summer of very few video games. That trend has mostly continued because the weather has remained unseasonably warm, but there has been one exception to this rule: Sony’s new 3D platformer, Astro Bot.
Astro Bot is a terrific platformer and a wonderful toybox. It rewards players—children and adults alike—asking “what if?” when exploring. More of than not, curiosity has a prize. Maybe it’s in the form of spinning gold coins, maybe it’s a cute little animation.
But Astro Bot knows you’re watching, and tries to anticipate what you might do.
It is also, in many ways, a simple platformer. It does a lot with a little, especially in later levels, but Astro Bot’s moveset is tiny. Astro Bot, as a character, can jump, punch, spin punch, and hover. That’s basically it. The other abilities Astro Bot gains are superpowers tied to individual levels, but when it comes to the basics of moving around the world, it’s shockingly restrained compared to modern Mario games.
Part of my mission with Crossplay is to convey the experience of playing games with children, navigating their use of technology, and reporting on issues that intersect with those subjects. When my children aren’t interested in games, one falls short.
With Astro Bot, they’ve been asking to play. Both of my daughters, ages eight and four.
Realizing chances like this don’t always come along, I recorded our experiences playing Astro Bot, because I think it’s illustrative of what Astro Bot does well, does poorly, and the different ways children react to figuring out how a game works.
#1: Youngest Child Playing Astro Bot
This first video is my youngest playing Astro Bot for a stretch before bed.
You’ll notice a few interesting themes that repeat over the course of this video:
Child: “Which one is punch? Circle?”
She often cannot remember where buttons are or what actions they do. Modern controllers are complicated. Astro Bot, thankfully, is slower paced and not every enemy will immediately kill you. My daughter was often looking down at the controller, trying to remember which button does what, and then trying to execute the action.
In Astro Bot, there are certain special moves that will prompt the game to put a brief video onscreen to demonstrate how to perform an action on the controller. It’d be nice if there were kid-friendly interface elements that surfaced more of that information all of the time, rather than her relying on asking me for help. It’d look gaudy but helpful!
Child: “I can’t look at him.”
This came up a lot. It’s already hard for her to remember what button does what, but when the character wasn’t accidentally facing an enemy, she would get frustrated that she’s remembered the right button but cannot execute what it’s supposed to do.
This is even worse with a 3D camera that’s controlled on a wholly separate analog stick. Astro Bot tries to compensate for this with an accessibility feature that reorients the camera behind the main character by tapping circle, but 3D cameras are already abstract ideas for a young child. I’d really have preferred a mode where the camera is always locked behind the main character, and only budges if the player initiates it.
When I flipped on the ability to reorient the camera, she never remembered to use it.
Child: “I want a coin.”
There’s a reason Nintendo has left collectible coins in Mario, even if they are functionally useless and platformers don’t have lives anymore. It’s just fun to collect them, if done right! It emphasizes what’s cool about platformers. Over and over, my daughter was motivated to keep playing simply to pursue coins. She was able to figure out combining moving forward with jumping because she wanted to grab a coin.
Child: “Can you punch him for me?”
Often, my daughter would hit a wall on putting strings of moves together and ask for help. I wish Astro Bot had a mode like Super Mario Galaxy, where a second player could be involved in the action. Regardless, it’s a good controller passing game, especially because compared to Astro’s Playroom, Astro Bot is much more of a pure platformer.
Me: “Hold punch and back up slowly.”
When the game couldn’t pick up on the necessary repeated tutorialization my four-year-old required to have an idea fully stick into her brain, I would step in and walk her through what to do next. At times, I would nudge an analog stick to keep her lined up properly, but there’s a fine line between giving your child space to figure it out on their own and recognizing they might cross a frustration line and stop playing.
Child: “I’m holding it. Why does he keep going down?”
We had trouble when superpowers would be introduced, because it was a new button to remember, but it fundamentally changed how the character operates. To my daughter, just as she was gaining confidence on how the world worked, it shifted.
In the end, she ended up finishing the first level, largely on her own. Proud Dad!
#2: Oldest Child Playing Astro Bot
Another night, my oldest wanted to give things a go. The problem was that Dad (me) had been playing a bunch of Astro Bot recently and was working through a much harder level. I warned my daughter that it might be too much, but she insisted.
What’s below is a recording of her and I playing the game, with additional commentary on what to do courtesy of her sister hanging out on the couch with us.
Me: “What’d you do?”
Oldest Child: “Don’t worry about it.”
It’s fun to watch my oldest play because she has a more foundational confidence with games and controllers, which means she can also get up to some light trickery.
Youngest Child: “Do you want Daddy to do it?”
[pause]
Oldest Child: “Help me, Daddy!”
You can see the gap between the two here. The moment there’s friction, my younger daughter’s first instinct is to seek help. My oldest daughter, however, gives it a few beats to see if she can figure it out. When she can’t, though, she reaches for assistance.
Oldest Child: [falls and dies]
Youngest Child: “You’ve got this one!”
It’s nice when Dad doesn’t have to be the one pouring on the light encouragement! But also, my youngest can watch her sister, the person she looks up to the most, as she fails—and tries again. She’s watching her hover, jump, and move between platforms, while fighting enemies. It’s not just something Dad does! Her sister can do it, too.
And by extension, maybe she can do it, too.
Oldest Child: [frustration noises]
Me: “I told you that you can’t kill him that way.”
Oldest Child: “I didn’t punch him! I was using my superpower!”
Me: “Superpower doesn’t work on that guy.”
Oldest Child: “Then what does?”
Me: “Holding square! I told you!”
It’s here where you can sense a little frustration on both sides. Repeatedly, I’ve instructed my daughter how to deal with a specific sequence, but she’s decided to joke around instead. Which is fine! You should play the game however you want!
But eventually, the joking ends and there’s frustration over how to progress, and I begin to tire over explaining what to do and being ignored. It’s not helpful that, again, this is a much later stage than what I would normally allow my daughter to play—she should be running around in the game’s first two worlds. But it shows how the lines shift over time on when (and how much) you want to help your kid as they age up.
She does, understandably, give up.
Oldest Child: “Can I have ice cream?”
Youngest Child: “Can I have cold fruit?”
Eventually, everyone had enough, and we wind down the night with evening snacks.
#3: Youngest Plays Astro’s Playroom
This last video is a bonus. Like I said, Astro Bot is more of a platformer platformer, in which very young audiences can have a little fun, but it quickly leaves them behind. Astro’s Playroom is more accommodating, so on a whim, I loaded up Astro’s Playroom for my four-year-old, to see if she might have a little more luck playing. I was right!
The video below, then, is a recording of that experience:
Cute, right?
Have a story idea? Want to share a tip? Got a funny parenting story? Drop Patrick an email.
Also:
I started playing Astro Bot with my youngest over sleep difficulties. She would come watch me play if she was having trouble sleeping, then she asked to play.
Of course, then she thought it was cool to stay up late, so in the past few days, she’s been faking having “sleep difficulties” and trying to hang out with me.
Last night, I almost said “okay” because it was so cute, but said no. But I am looking forward to staying up late tonight another night and playing Astro Bot.
"I wish Astro Bot had a mode like Super Mario Galaxy, where a second player could be involved in the action."
This isn't exactly that, but you can connect another Dual Sense controller and help your daughter with the tough parts. It came in an accessibility update not long ago.
https://nerdschalk.com/add-second-controller-ps5-playstation-5/
I just want to say how much I appreciate the part about you getting frustrated. So much parenting media presents anything remotely like that as a parenting failure, which is pretty disingenuous! And it rings doubly true for anyone who has tried to teach a highly opinionated kid how to do something in a game. This felt way more honest, and I think is important to put out there.