In past reviews, I have mentioned that I am a major proponent of education through games. There are still only a few games on the market which cater to childhood development, but thanks to Sofia Dickens and people like you, there may be one more: Q’s Race to The Top: The Board Game.
Basic Information
Players:
Ages: 2 – 12
Time:
Estimated Delivery: November – December 2014
Location: Santa Monica, CA
Game overview
From the Campaign
The Game
In the board game “Q’s Race to the Top,” children can help Q race to the top of his tree house by answering questions and performing fun actions. The questions are designed to promote feeling identification and verbalization, manners, social skills, creative thinking, balance, and coordination.
Storybook Series
Q is a dusky leaf monkey who lives with the Wunder Family. Even though Q has a high I.Q. and inspires us with his genius antics, he often makes mistakes by not reading social cues, acting impulsively, or hurting people’s feelings. The first storybook in the Q series,Q’s Wild Ride is an action-packed adventure that gives us a lesson about interpreting other people’s emotions and thinking before we take action.
Q, his parents, and siblings Redmond, Mila, and Nugget have been brought to life by a talented storyboard artist named Brandon Jeffords from Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs 2 and Smurfs 3.
What is EQ?
The campaign for Q’s Race to The Top did not really provide all that much information on EQ, how it compares to IQ, and why it is so important. However, that’s fine. It isn’t necessary to bog down the campaign with a psychology lecture. However, for those who are interested, here is a brief discussion on the topic.
First, if you simply Google EQ, you may end up with a discussion on encephalization quotient. What we’re talking about here is emotional intelligence. There are five categories of emotional intelligence: self-awareness, self-regulation, motivation, empathy, and social skill. Having weaknesses in any of these skills can not only make us less successful, but can also make us more stressed. However, with a high EQ, people, even those with average IQ, can be far more successful than those with very high IQs. [1] What’s important to know is that EQ is not fixed.
While some people may naturally have higher EQs, one’s EQ can be improved. The ability the brain has to restructure itself is called neuroplasticity. However, neuroplasticity declines with age. This is one reason why children can learn a new language so much more easily than can an adult. This is why children’s games are so important. They will have the biggest impact on fundamental development of skills necessary later in life.
Campaign Specifics
Goal: $25,000
Pledge Tiers: 14 tiers ranging from $5 to $1,000
End Date: Thu, Sep 11 2014 1:35 PM EDT
Funding Type: Fixed
Chances of success
Children’s games that really focus on learning through play are still far and few between and I think that those on Kickstarter are quite interested in helping new children’s games like this enter the market. $25,000 is not a small goal for someone’s first campaign, but it is not unreasonable either, especially if Sofia can show progress being made on the development.
My one concern is with the lack of initial attention paid to the campaign. The campaign went through a soft launch phase. However, most Kickstarter campaigns receive the bulk of their supporters within the first few days and the last few days. While the campaign seems to have managed to bring in quite a bit of support from friends and family, Sofia really needs to start bringing in support from the average person scanning through Kickstarter campaigns.