Wiglington and Wenks

We were given a trial subscription to the online game Wiglington and Wenks as part of the TOS crew.  I was pretty excited about this because both of my kids enjoy playing video games so I thought they would enjoy this review.  I had never heard of this game but I was anxious to have a game that actually taught the kids something instead of just wasting time. 

Wiglington and Wenks is a children's story book series by John Bittleston,  It was then turned into a virtual World that is intended  to help students learn more about  history, geography, landmarks, inventions, nature, wildlife, the environment, and much more.   The recommended ages are 7-14 years old.  I had to make an avatar in the beginning and I wasn’t aware that this was the one Griffin would be playing with.  He wasn’t too happy with the little girl I made.    The object of the game is to travel to different continents and learn about different people in history.  

You start your child off by setting up a free account.  This is available to anyone.  If you would like to have access to more locations, games and interaction, you can purchase a membership to become an Elite Quest Traveler. 

COST FOR MEMBERSHIP:

• Monthly: $5.99
• 3-Months: $16.99
• 6-Months: $29.99
• 1-Year: $59.99

We were given a one month subscription as an Elite Quest Traveler.

Griffin was excited to start playing because I generally don’t allow him to play online games during the school day.   He got frustrated very quickly.  He was unable to find his way to the museum which is where you are told to go to get started.  After several minutes, with both of us looking, he finally found it.   Even when we found characters (we found very few) we didn’t really know what to do with them.  We tried clicking on them, clicking everywhere around them, to no avail.   My son is very game-savy and gave up rather quickly because he just couldn’t get this to work. 

I roamed around and even though I didn’t really understand what I was doing, I did notice that the  graphics are amazing in this game.  

Things I like about Wiglington and Wenks:

• Graphics are amazing.
• Historical content instead of just “fun”.
• Free version
• You can report foul language.

Things I didn’t care for:

• Evolutionary content: although we have introduced this to our children, as a Christian parent, I don’t really care to have this in a historical game.  There are far more important people in history that could have been included instead of Darwin. 
• Chat features:  although there are safe guards in place, they are not good enough to keep foul language and innuendos from being used.  Kids are smart enough these days to get around safety features such as no numbers (they just type them out), no email addresses (just used the “at” instead of the @ sign) and other features they have used.  
• Too hard to get started: I feel like there should be better instructions on how to get started.  We got frustrated very quickly and even though I looked at it more than once, my son didn’t care to play again after the first time.
• I don’t really care for games where adults and children are allowed to interact freely.  There is no way to tell who your children are talking to and I feel like it would be too easy for someone to try to become friends with children in a virtual world like this one where there is not enough moderation of what is said. 
• I think once someone has been reported more than once and it is a valid reason, they should no longer be able to play the game.  Of course, this isn’t fool proof because they can always just sign up for a new subscription.

So, while I really wanted to like this, I feel that it did not work out for our family.  Please read what the other crew members had to say about this online game and then decide for yourself it this would be something your family might benefit from. 

You can check it out for yourself at www.wiglingtonandwenks.com.  There is a video you can watch on their website.

** Please note that I received a one month membership at no cost to Wiglington and Wenks in exchange for my honest opinion in this review.  No other compensation was provided. Thank you TOS and Wiglinton and Wenks for this opportunity.