Understanding

4 & 5 year old players

May 2021
Contents
• Developmental characteristics: 4 year olds & 5 year olds
• Sample children
• Additional questions
• Maps and wayfinding
• Instructions
• Further reading

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The developmental gaps are significant
• Children develop significantly between ages 4 and 5 years old. There
will be large differences in their abilities through this age bracket
• Remember - a game designed for less developed players will also be
playable by more developed players, and will result in a greater
number of potential players (and buyers)
• However, it’s tricky to create a game that is appealing and interesting
to this age bracket. Your biggest design challenge will be creating a
game that these developing players are able to both understand and
play
Developmental
characteristics:
4 & 5 year olds

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4 year olds
• Are developing fine motor skills (early stages at this age, can do tasks
such as string beads, place puzzle pieces and colour inside lines)
• Focused on winning when playing games
• Are becoming aware of, and learning how to interpret, other people’s
feelings (empathy)
• Developing friendships (often has one, or even several, “best friends”)
• More likely to be willing to share and take turns with others
• Looks to adults for help when stuck
4 year olds
• Wants to make decisions of their own (such as choosing clothing or a
snack)
• Understands the concept of numbers, and is able to count (but may
not be up to 10 at this point)
• Can name some colours
• Has some concept of time (now, before, in the future), but also asking
“when?” regularly
• Is aware actions lead to consequences, interested in “how?”, able to
predict and guess
4 year olds - language development
• Understand 2,500-3,000 words approximately
• Average spoken sentence approximately 4 words long
• Can describe something that has happened to them, or tell a story
5 year olds
• Continued development of fine motor skills (use zips, button buttons)
• Want to engage socially (make friends, please them and receive
praise)
• Often actively want to help others
• Able to articulate feelings more effectively (e.g. “I don’t like sitting to
eat my meal”)
• Often want to play with friends away from adult supervision for the
first time
• Able to count to 10
5 year olds
• Can recognise most letters of the alphabet
• Know the purpose of household objects, such as money, food, or
appliances
• Are more able to distinguish fantasy from reality but enjoy playing
make-believe and dress-up
• Able to follow 3 step directions and multi-step unrelated commands
• Understand relationships between objects (e.g.“the boy who is riding
the dragon”)
• Use the future tense (e.g.“Let’s go to the zoo tomorrow!”)
5 year olds - language development
• Understand 5,000+ words approx
• Able to express needs and wants in their speech and words
• Able to understand positional vocabulary (“on top of”, “next to”, etc)
• Average spoken sentences approximately 6 words long
• Able to understand longer sentences
• Can carry a meaningful conversation with another person
There will always be exceptions
• There will be natural variance within the
population (so 50% will be more
developed, while 50% will be less)

• This document is intended as a guide for your design - you shouldn’t

follow these restrictions religiously, but remember every time your
design pushes past these guidelines you both challenge your audience
but also risk alienating a proportion of your players
Sample children

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How you could use these examples
• Check design decisions against them - “will xx like this?”, “which
example is this for?”
• Keep using them - design decisions will be made throughout
development, don’t put away and ignore the personas after this round
of design
• Update them when you learn more about your audiences
Jamie - aged 4
“Can I play that again?”
• Needs encouragement
• Impatient if he hits a barrier (he won’t ask for help, and is
likely to give up)
• Relies on visual and audio cues, doesn’t read
instructions
• Needs regular praise
• Happy to repeat, playing the same segment again and
again

Image credit: School Strike 4 Climate

https://flic.kr/p/2aazypJ
Jamie - aged 4
• Why they play - Success at play (winning), mastery
• Defining characteristics
• Control is very basic, can adjust one finger at a time, cannot reach
shoulder buttons, doesn’t like to use the control sticks
• Cannot read entirely reliant on visual and audio cues
• Playing games with parents supervising
• Won’t play anything he doesn’t understand straight away
• Won’t explore new locations without prompting
June - aged 5
“I love making friends with ponies!”
• Quickly asks for help when struggling
• Prefers visual and audio cues
• Needs help reading
• Likes encouragement
• Enjoys helping others and ‘making friends’ with NPCs
• Happy to explore, but often gets disorientated as a
result

Image credit: Brian Smith

https://flic.kr/p/XVXcDA
June - aged 5
• Why they play - Brand (she loves MLP), exploration
• Defining characteristics
• Control is very basic, can adjust one finger at a time, cannot reach
shoulder buttons, doesn’t like to use the control sticks
• Slow reader can read very short, basic on-screen instructions, but
prefers not to
• Playing games with parents nearby to help
• If she doesn’t understand what’s needed straight away will ask
parents for help (sometimes they’re doing other tasks and can’t)
Additional questions

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Maps and wayfinding
• Children appear to pathfind best navigating in environments with clear
landmarks
• Verbally labelling and showing the landmarks (i.e. “go past this old
tree”, and use a tracking shot past the tree facing the destination)
improve performance further
• Always give directions from the player character’s perspective
(children struggle to switch perspective from their viewpoint)
Maps and wayfinding
• Young children do not enjoy uncertainty - give
directional clues quickly
• Show the player where they need to go and what
they need to do. Don’t leave them to feel lost for
long (if at all)
• Working out how they achieve that is for the
player, but guessing what to do will drain
enthusiasm rapidly LEGO DC Super Villains
guides the player with
collectables
Maps and wayfinding
• Ensure players are able to remind
themselves of the path they should take at
any time - this should be a clear visual
summary players are able to access at any LEGO Jurassic World keep a tally of
point what the player is looking for on-
screen at all times - could this be
• While a map could be used, remember adjusted for landmarks passed?
younger children may struggle to understand
their perspective in it (where north is, which
way they’re facing)
Giving instructions to young children
• Don’t rely on written instructions
• Audio cues can be useful, but again shouldn’t be the only source of
instructions
• Visual cues to accompany audio/written instructions is best
• These cues need to be clear and timely (show what needs to be done,
show where on the controller the buttons needed are)
Giving instructions to young children
• Use visual cues alongside text
• Show the player visually when they need to
do

Untitled Goose Game uses no text at all,

only visuals to indicate character needs

Gigantosaurus uses both text, and a

visual animation to show players
what they need to do, they also
highlight the buttons mentioned in
relation to the controller
Giving instructions to young children
Overcooked shows
• Give rapid feedback, so players know players what items
when they perform an action that are needed above,
makes progress, and when they and as items are
added they are
perform an action that doesn’t immediately
removed
• Keep feedback clear, and work to
minimise the chance of
misunderstanding what action has
caused progress

LEGO Jurassic World clearly ticks off

items as they are found/completed
by players
Thanks
Please let me know if you have any questions

This information was drawn from academic and online research

and my own experience of 10 years playtesting with children

Alistair Greo

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Further reading

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To learn more
• C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital
• Very Well Family
• Home Speech Home
• The development of wayfinding abilities in children: Learning routes with and
without landmarks
• Enhancing wayfinding in pre-school children through robot and socio-cognitive
conflict

• … I also referred to some classic developmental psychology books and leant

on my own experience of 10 years playtesting with children
22 December, 2020 28