Tips for Playing the Game with your Child

How to Play a Computer Therapy Game for Children of Divorce

In a chaotic situation such as divorce, it is particularly helpful for children of divorce to be able to express their creative ability as a way of mastering a situation which they experience as being beyond their control.

“Earthquake in Zipland” enables children to use inborn creativity as a way of finding solutions to the challenges of the Quest and indirectly to the negative effects of divorce on the child.

The use of games as a therapeutic tool encourages children to become more flexible in their thought processes thus becoming “unstuck” from ideas or thoughts that keep them focused on the past and prevent them from seeing the future.

As children are generally quite resilient, playing “Earthquake in Zipland” with your child can help you tap into your child’s natural strengths and resources, to better cope with the new demands and challenges of life.

Before playing Earthquake in Zipland:

1. Read the free Parent’s Guide “What DIDN’T You Say?” in order to understand the game, what it has to offer and your role as the parent. When playing the game with your child, try to focus their attention on the topics and episodes which you feel are most relevant.
2. Throughout the quest, the main character, Moose, keeps a Journal describing his experiences and feelings. One of the fastest and most effective ways to join your child in the game is to simply open the Quest Journal and read it with him, allowing him to answer the questions. Use the Journal as a way to elicit your child’s feelings and facilitate communication.
3. It is recommended to keep the Full Game Walkthrough handy in order to offer tips to your child whenever you feel it is necessary.
4. Prepare your child with the basic features of Earthquake in Zipland as an interactive story:

¨      When speaking with characters, the player will usually receive dialogue options on the bottom of the screen. The child can then click on whichever option he would like in order to continue the conversation. Some episodes will display movies where the dialogues will run automatically.

¨      Keep in mind that certain dialogues throughout the interactive story may offer helpful hints or deliver valuable objects needed in order to continue with the game.

¨      The player can pick up objects using the left mouse button, and look at objects using the right mouse button.

¨      Objects found along the way can be used in different scenes, with characters, or on other objects.

¨      Whenever in need of help, the player can try writing in the Quest Journal in order to get hints or turning to his parents (the Crystal Balls on the top of the screen.) Note to parents: The journal will offer a hint once more than 10 words are written and then clicking on “I need help”.

¨      Most dialogues can be skipped by pressing ‘Enter’ though that is not recommended unless the child has already heard a dialogue once all the way through.

Hints/Clues Throughout the Game:

Throughout the game the player can turn to different places for tips or hints as to how to proceed with the game. Other than the full game walkthrough available for download above, certain clues can be found by writing more than 10 words in the journal and then clicking on “I need help”, by turning to the Crystal Balls on the top of the screens (The King and Queen), and by placing the “Grain of Sand” on the Moose – which will offer words of wisdom or clues from the Oyster character.

View a video explanation of the basic game features here. (second video on the page)