My Kid and the Dragons Franchise

I haven't done a lot of parental blogging recently, so I thought I would write up what was honestly a pretty minor moment—but that is how I envision this blog, so there you go.

Last Wednesday, I picked up my six-year-old ("Kid One") from their aftercare program. Sometimes Kid One doesn't tell me anything  about their day, but this week, they were nice and chatty. Among other things, they informed me that they had come up with a new Dragons game. I later learned my wife knew about these games, but I didn't. The newest is the twelfth installment, Dragon Claws. When I asked if these were things they wrote or drew, they informed me that no, they just dreamed them up. There's the original Dragons (when I called it "Dragons 1" at some point, I was corrected that it was just Dragons), and then Dragons 2 through Dragons 11. Dragons 5 and 6 are "Dragons Mega" and Dragons 7 through 9 are "Dragons Mega Mega."

Apparently they play these games at recess with their friend (whom I'll call "Connor"). When we got home, it was a little early, and they had missed the recess component of aftercare because I picked up Kid One a bit earlier than mom usually does, so I suggested we play a Dragons game outside. They said I could pick which one, but when I said start from the beginning, they said they didn't remember the original Dragons, so we played Dragons 2 instead.

In Dragons 2, there's a dragon and a warrior; I was the warrior, and they were the dragon. (When Kid One and Connor play, Connor is usually the warrior as well.) First I had to defeat the dragon, then I captured the dragon in my dragonball and registered it to my dragonphone. After that, we battled together against a number of threats (the ones I remember are the flying "Rampagers") and the dragon, originally named "Attacker," evolved a couple times.

Obviously you can identify what their inspirations are! I was struck how Kid One is very obviously my kid, in that they look at systems of narrative and break them down and figure them out. They have already figured out the structure of a game franchise! I love seeing them enthusiastic  and energetic and imaginative; I had to do very little prompting, they mostly told me everything that was happening and came up with all the ideas. I was pretty tired, so we left off once we finished Dragons 2, but I am promised that our progress and characters will carry over into Dragons 3 when we play it!