I’d suggest that anyone who sets out to “design for the other” as an
altruistic or political gesture, as a kind of gift or recuperative
gesture, is going to fail even worse than the male geek designer who
normally only makes games for male geeks but who has been assigned to
make a game for someone else. That’s the kind of impulse that produces
turgid, repellant stuff that has had all the fun and joy sucked out of
it and that functions as a caricature. It’s especially deadly when it
comes to children’s games: the absolute worst are the ones that have
been designed by someone whose main ambition is to be socially
responsible and “educational”. Then come the horribly licensed properties.
The key is, as Liz and Tim imply, is build model worlds for the
children to explore and create in, not linearized presentations. The
best children's software - Zoombinis, Zap!, SockWorks and Cocoa do this.
