The next stop on our Homeschool Crew Voyage is out of this world! No really, it is not of this world, it is in a virtual world! We will be visiting Wigglington and Wenks. As members of the crew, we were given one month free membership upgrade to Wigglington and Wenks.
I must admit, we are not a gaming, or virtual world type of family. So we do not have a lot of experience with other games. So I cannot look at this through any other lens, than that of a mom trying something out for the very first time.
I set up an account for my 10 year old daughter. And we worked through the 'world' together. The premise is simple, your child is a virtual explorer, traveling the world finding historical characters who have forgotten who they are. The child then needs to find a list of items ( think scavenger hunt) to help them remember who they are. Along the way, they will play fun games, travel to other countries and learn a little bit about those countries while they are at it.
While traveling the world your child will collect many different objects. Some are historical, some are just for fun!
This is a virtual world, so your child is not in this world all alone. There are other players that are logged in at the same time. Which enables the children to interact with each other.
While playing games your child earns Rollars that they can use to buy costumes and islands, etc..
Now, I don't allow a ton of time for my children to spend on computer gaming, etc... So, in all honesty, my daughter did not spend hours and hours playing this. But over the month that we played it, she did spend several hours on it over many days.
She did enjoy it. And asked to have a turn to get on the computer to play it. So that should tell you that it is engaging.
However, there are a few cons, that I would want to know up front, if I were reading a review.
The chat feature makes me nervous. Now, my daughter was not exposed to anything questionable, and in fact only one time did someone want to 'chat' with her. I just wish there was a little bit more control in the chat arena. Perhaps options, in a parent section, whether you will allow your child to participate or not. That way there is the option to use that feature if it is something you are comfortable with. Or you can turn it off, if you are not.
The only other item that I would want to mention, is that this is indeed a secular company. So if you are trying to shelter your child from certain worldviews, you need to know that they would be exposed to them here. You could use this as a time to start conversation. But that would be up to you.
Now, as I mentioned at the top of this review, we received a one month free membership upgrade.
You can experience the basics of Wigglington and Wenks for free. Which would be my suggestion, try it out for free and if it seems to fit for your family, then you may want to purchase the upgrade. You can read all about the differences in memberships by clicking here. The price of the membership per player is $5.99 per month. However they do offer discounts for 3, 6 and 12 month memberships. You can read about that here.
And you can learn all about this virtual world by clicking here.
For us, this is a luxury that we could not afford to maintain, even if my children LOVED it! She did enjoy her time visiting this virtual world. And anytime we spend on it in the future, would be using the free account, with parent supervision.
Please take a moment to see what my crew mates have to say about this interesting world, by visiting our crew blog.
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