I was fortunate enough to have be invited to the beta testing of Cublings.com so, I wanted to give my readers an exclusive sneak peek at this new web game tailored for children!
An Overview
Cublings.com is a browser based web game that teaches children about animals by using: games, quizzes, and integrated facts. Also, children can learn responsibility by caring for their “Cublings”. The Cublings are your “pets” that you care for by feeding, bathing, and walking.
Moving around the world is “point and click”, whereas, you point your mouse where you want to move and then click to move. It’s very simple to navigate around the areas. All areas have “NPCs” that you can interact with. NPCs that you can interact with will glow purple when you hover your mouse on them. Each NPC offers a game or quiz the player can take to earn coins or items.
Cublings is free to play but offers a cashshop. The game features Anime inspired graphics, 6 different areas to explore and many ways to customize your game.
Gameplay
Cublings is tailored for younger children so the process is very simple as far as getting started. Players will create a custom avatar that will represent you in the world and also a Cubling, that will be your pet. There are a few options to start with, I choose a monkey as my first pet. You can unlock more pets by getting a “Cublings Language”. These Cublings are available in the cash shop for $4.99 each.
There are two central areas, “My Room” and “Hub”. My room is your own area where you can store items, care for your pet and even cook! I haven’t quite figured out the cooking feature yet, all the ingredients I have tried to use don’t seem valid. The Hub is the central area of NPCs that will help you start your journey and play games. Here you will learn how to play the games and get a few free items if you are lucky. Some of the games were a tad tricky to figure out at first and some were just downright silly, but all in all, the NPCs games were very original and creative games.
You can earn items and coins from playing games and interacting with the NPC activities. These coins can be used to purchase items at the store for your pet. The games are available in the arcade and feature titles like: a generic version of Tetris, Pacman and Space Invaders. I played Mahjonng and scored quite a few coins off that. It was mildly entertaining.
In Cublings, you are able to interact with other players via a chat system. The chat system that is used only allows certain words and phrases to be used. “Testing” is not an approved word :) The chat system is very limited, but was built that way as an added safety measure for children. Players can interact with each other in an controlled environment.
The rest of the gameplay seems to follow the same pattern. The overall goals of the game are to teach children about animals, caring for them, and even a little about money management. The in game monetary goals are to collect items, earn coins, and score high points in games.
My biggest issue with the game was load time between scene changes and the lagging that seemed to be created when there were more then a few people in the Hub area. But being in Beta still, I am sure that will improve as time goes on. At least, I hope so.
Summary
Overall, I like the game. The entire concept, the safety features and graphics make it perfect for young children.
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{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
Oh my god! This is fantastic! I guess you must be a professional (or at least skilled) writer for making such great posts!
i loved this game. there are a couple good reasons why this game is great.
Wow that’s such a nice games for kids.. My little cousin would love this so much.. Thanks for the info ^^