As a kid, my favorite educational experiences involved some sort of tactile learning—digging for fossils with my fellow Boy Scouts, trudging through muddy lo’i patches to harvest taro (an edible Hawaiian root), and slicing open frogs and fetal pigs in Biology class. I’m the classic have-to-touch-everything personality, a practical nightmare for museum staffs everywhere.

Considering this, I wasn’t much of a gamer, except maybe a brief fascination with the Legend of Zelda. Imagine my surprise when I came across a new online game, The Time Tribe, from Thundersnow Media, at the recent Digital Kids Conference here in New York City. The Time Tribe can be a classic gaming experience (it’s also free), but with a subscription the adventure game can become a tactile experience with monthly mailings, including letters written by characters in the game, mysterious wax-sealed envelopes, a wearable “timekey” from each time travel adventure, and pages from journals. [Read more...]