Parents' Guide to

Backyard Engineers

By Jenny Bristol, Common Sense Media Reviewer

age 10+

Catapult-based physics with repetitive play, comic violence.

Game Linux , Mac , Windows 2013
Backyard Engineers Poster Image

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this game.

  • Backyard Engineers Game: Screenshot #1
  • Backyard Engineers Game: Screenshot #2
  • Backyard Engineers Game: Screenshot #3

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What’s It About?

In BACKYARD ENGINEERS, players use engineering and problem-solving skills to take revenge on neighborhood bullies. Kids begin the game by working through several tutorial levels that teach players how to design, position, and operate catapults that fling water balloons at their antagonists. After the tutorial levels, kids try to design the best catapults possible to douse the bullies while using as few turns, movement steps, and balloons as possible. Before beginning to lob their balloons, kids design their catapult in the best way for that level, after they get a look at the current playing field. Each level has a different formation of enemies that can best be defeated by a certain kind of catapult or a combination of catapults. Players need to avoid hitting dogs while knocking down the bullies' hit points with splashes and direct hits.

Is It Any Good?

Our review:
Parents say: Not yet rated
Kids say: Not yet rated

This game does a good job of introducing kids to the ideas of design and iteration, the repeated testing of a design. It's fun to try out different catapult designs and to find ones that work with decent range and accuracy. But as the game goes on, it's too easy to rely on the same design over and over. It's possible to finish the game with top marks on all levels without changing designs more than once or twice. There's also no narrative progression; each level just presents a new puzzle to solve using the proper catapult combinations and the right moves. Bullies keep showing up to get soaked. Since building an effective and relatively efficient catapult can be done fairly easily, the lack of progression either through story resolution or increased stakes makes gameplay feel a bit stale. Backyard Engineers could've taken great steps in highlighting the challenges of engineering and construction, but its lack of depth makes the gameplay all wet.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

  • Families can talk about bullying and how best to confront it. Are there specific ways to defuse bullying in schools and in neighborhoods? Why do you think some people bully others?

  • Talk with kids about how learning with technology can help them solve real-world problems. How could you use critical thinking and design, along with technology, to produce the result you need to address certain issues?

  • Discuss building your own complex machines out of household parts. What are the machines going to be used for? Do they need to be complex, or can you make them simpler?

Game Details

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