Tiny Diggers – An iPad Construction Truck Game for Kids Age 2-5

A couple of weeks ago I had the chance to once again bask in the warm glow of UNO on Xbox Live while visiting James. UNO is probably the best casual game on the system, and with a flick of the wrist James had set up an open UNO room for his fiance sitting next to him and his future brother-in-law on the west coast to play a few hands and chit chat on the headset. Another few seconds of tweaking and he’d switched on the Vision camera and the two of them were showing video feeds in the box where the player’s icon used to be. She got to chat with her brother and see her adorable nephew at the same time, and it was really nice to see how easy it was to set up.

The room, however, was an open room. James urged them to set up a closed one. A few moments after their conversation started, people started popping in from all over, effortlessly taking over the AI’s hand. As soon as they saw video, many of them turned on their own cameras, and the terrible unwashed masses of online gamers were unveiled.

From the littlest of kids playing with a completely out of focus camera pointed at one corner of their head, to the pair of little jocks sitting together making fun of the others on the screen, to the single guy with a headset on grimacing and focusing with laser intensity on the game, to a video pointed at the player’s kid sister lounging on a bed reading a magazine, these Live people came in all shapes, sizes, and mood swings. It was more than a little scary, and James urgently reset the game session to a private setting lest his future wife’s nephew see or hear something he really shouldn’t.

For me — someone without an Xbox 360 — these demonstrations of how easy it is to set these things up shows how far-reaching this technology can be across age groups and gamer types. It’s pretty impressive stuff. It also underscores how creepy it can be when you’re up against someone’s scary mug on the screen instead of just hearing them whine in the earpiece asking you over and over again why you just said “Uh oh.” when you died in an online shooter.

But if you’ve got friends from across the country or around the world, I can completely see how it would be great to get together, play some cards, and just shoot the breeze with the cameras on.

As for playing with strangers? Turn the camera off so I don’t have to look at you, thank you very much.