Wiglington and Wenks' Virtual World (TOS review)

I have reposted this because of the update.

UPDATE TO THIS POST: I wrote this review in March after my children had played on the site a few times and it felt like we had gotten the gist of what it was about. I did mention at the time that some parents would find the free chat feature a downside, and in fact it has become such an issue that W&W has apparently introduced a limited-chat feature (pulling comments from a pre-set menu rather than writing your own) for children 13 and under. At least they seem to be listening! Unfortunately, I can't see how this will keep younger children from observing the freestyle comments of the older children and adults who use this site--it's possible to "ignore" other characters, but to me that's a bit like locking the barn door after the horse runs away. I am also not overly impressed with the attitude that the owners of the site have shown in their correspondence and comments with members of the Review Crew around this issue. My children will no longer be visiting this website.

Treehouse Review Week

The Travels of Wiglington and Wenks Website, by Wiglington and Wenks Worldwide Pte Ltd.
What it's about (including video)
Parents' Corner

"Probably the most massive virtual world for kids to date, The Travels of Wiglington and Wenks features more than 100 fun-filled educational real world and imaginary locations from the past, present and future.

"Parents can look forward to a safe site for their children where they will be learning about history, geography, landmarks, famous people, inventions, the environment, animals and more."--from the website

Among fun things to do online, my Squirrelings rated the Wiglington and Wenks website a winner. (Wiglington and Wenks are the two water rats in the graphic above.) It combines the Carmen SanDiego-type-world-tour, find-the-bad-guy, collect-the-objects storyline with the familiar avatar-buy a house-buy stuff-play games format. You trot your person around the world, get a (non-realistic) pet (after you go to Madagascar and qualify for pet ownership), give Beethoven back his sheet music, throw water balloons at people, put money in the "bank," check out an art gallery in Singapore, buy a souvenir at a Wild West trading post, meet Charles Darwin, solve the secrets of the magic maps, and plan a party for your W&W friends, once you're bought an island and furnished a house. And that's just the start of it...W&W is still fairly new, but it's big and getting bigger.

This site allows pretty much unlimited chat (via word bubbles) between players' characters, although it is moderated and filtered to block profanity, and there are ways of reporting abusive language. The chat feature may be a downside for parents who prefer a limited-dictionary format or who would prefer that their child not "talk to strangers" at all, although the simplest way around that would be to allow the child to follow the quest but not socialize. An email explained that "We do have a filter system put in place that currently kicks players out immediately without warning for profanities. We are constantly improving on this filter as we go along. Also players will be able to set ignore list in our upcoming release in over the next 1-2 weeks where they can immediately set players they do not wish to be in contact with out of their sight. We are also coming up with a parental portal section where they could see the status of consolidated accounts under the parent's email to know if they are being banned, active, etc."

You can create an account and play on W&W for free; however, there's also a paid membership option which gives you basically more of everything: you can get into more rooms, have more friends at a party, buy "things" in certain restricted shops, and meet more of the historical figures. That last one, we didn't know about until we ran into it. We were given a one-month paid membership, which Crayons is using, and Ponytails also has a free account. Crayons has been able to get into the room where Galileo hangs out, but Ponytails can't get in there. This seems kind of confusing, since our understanding of the "quest" is that you're supposed to find the historical figures who have gotten lost in time and who show up here and there as you travel, and you have to bring each of them certain items (like Beethoven's sheet music) to help them regain their memories and put things back as they should be. Obviously there's lots to do and learn on this site even if you can't connect with all the characters, but it doesn't seem clear from the beginning that you're not going to be able to completely solve the puzzle without a membership. Perhaps I'm still misunderstanding this, but in that case I think it would be helpful to explain some of it in the introduction to the site. [UPDATE ON THE QUEST QUERY: OK, now I understand that part...helping out each historical figure is a "quest" in itself, rather than being one piece of a larger search.] We also could have used a bit of help after first logging in: we were told to "take our character to the museum" to learn more about the W&W quest, but in spite of walking "her" around the town square a few times, we got no further than the Diner. One of the other Crew members told us which street to take out of the square, otherwise we might still be walking around there.

We also have been experiencing a small technical problem that the W&W people haven't been able to help us with: the Squirrelings keep getting booted back to the log-in screen at inopportune times, sometimes several times in a session (and usually right when the most exciting thing is happening or they're just about to win a prize). Some kind of Squirrel quirk, I guess, because it doesn't seem to have been a problem for anyone else.

The only real downside to a site like this is that it can quickly suck up a lot of computer time...ask me how I know. But you don't have to spend hours on it at a time to have some fun...or maybe learn something. Check it out, and watch out for water bombs.

Price of membership: US$5.99 for a month's membership; $59.99 for a year; other options available. "Rollars" (W&W currency) and virtual credits can also be purchased for "actual money."

For more reviews of this website, see the Review Crew Home Page.

Dewey's Disclaimer: A free membership to this site was provided for purposes of review. No other payment was made. The opinions expressed in this review are our own.