One of Jon’s favourite Christmas presents (thanks Grandma and Grandpa!) is Wii Music, a music game for the Wii console.
We weren’t sure how he was going to take to it, because we had no idea what level it would be at. Another popular music game that we tried once, Guitar Hero, is difficult for Jon—it requires very precise rhythms and accuracy in mashing buttons on a fake guitar. (Though he enjoyed the game’s music. Do we have a nascent heavy-metal fan in our household?)
In Wii Music, you basically mime an instrument using your Wii remote—guitar, piano, violin, tympani, or a myriad of other instruments—which creates music. Your rhythm and smooth (or not) motions determine how tunefully the music comes out. In some sections of the game you can choose your instruments and lay down separate tracks (percussion, harmony, melody lines) and combine them together to make a complete performance. Well-played tracks come together as a tuneful piece; badly-played tracks, well, don’t.
Since we initially knew very little about the game we read a few reviews in the gaming press, which were mainly negative. However, as it turned out, this didn’t matter much. A lot of Wii Music is not really “game-focused”, i.e. you don’t win points or beat other people by playing well. You mainly get personal satisfaction for having played well (you can save your favourite performances as videos, so you can watch your Mii avatar sawing or pounding away. This tickles Jon no end, and he’s already saved dozens of performances of himself playing songs in various instrumental permutations. Wii Music is probably closer to Play-Doh or Lego in that it leans more towards creative exploration. That’s a concept that works for us!