Kin Valley is a social networking site focused on connecting children with their friends and family in a safe and controlled environment.
While there, I led the design team on the upcoming Pets expansion, wherein valley goers could attain a variety of pets to populate their houses and keep them company. Regular maintenance (feeding fish, walking dogs, cleaning up after cats, etc.) in the form of mini-games was designed to help teach kids responsibility while bonuses could be earned through learning about animals and how you might take care of them from third party sources (normally partnered sites and children's books). Carrying forward the responsibility theme, real world chores, such as walking the family dog, could be signed off on by parents to count towards their in-game equivalent. All of this helped to level their Caretaker Score which unlocked piles of new pets as it increased, eventually letting kids earn the right to keep mythical or extremely rare pets (such as a phoenix or Siberian Tiger) if they were diligent.
Alongside this were, of course, the hundreds of cosmetic and helper items that one would expect. Collars for your dog, tank clutter for your aquarium, scratching posts for your cat, mazes for your gerbil, and so on were all available for purchase with the in-game currency (and, of course, cash), a fair amount of which could be earned from the same responsibility and education fostering activities that were already available.
