Mini-Guide: Trove

LQ: 8.5


Brain grade: 9
Fun score: 8

Game Type: , ESRB Rating: Everyone 10+ Platform/Console: , , , , LWK Recommended Age: 10+ Thinking Skills Used: , Academic Skills Used:

Mac  |  PC  |  PlayStation 4   |  Steam   |  Xbox One

Trove is a Minecraft-style, MMO (massively multiplayer online) fantasy role-playing game. The player picks a character class and then finishes quests and dungeons, fights monsters, and collects loot and materials. Much like Minecraft, Trove offers the chance to dig and craft. Unlike Minecraft, it also lets the player complete quests and face epic monsters. There is also a Trove community, a chat box, and a chance to make friends, build clubs, and submit player creations. The player can, however, easily play the entire game without interacting with any of the other Trove players. Parents should know that Trove features in-game purchases, as well as buy bundles and subscriptions for new character classes and mounts, increased bonuses, and materials. Trove also contains fantasy violence and has online access to other players. We stand by the ESRB rating of E 10+ and (as always) suggest parents engage their children in gameplay and conversations about the game.

Trove helps kids practice and improve the following skills:


Getting started and then maintaining attention and effort to tasks.

TroveTrove requires players use their focus skills in multiple ways, from ignoring external distractions to shifting their focus from short-term tasks (fighting) to long-term tasks (crafting). Fighting and crafting require different toolbars, mouse buttons, and strategies. Because it is possible to find an enticing monster or material, or even stumble upon a sub-quest, while working at the larger quest, a player who does not stay focused on the dungeon (or material) they are questing after will spend much longer than necessary to complete a quest. A player who cannot maintain the appropriate attention on the quest task will find that they can rarely complete the quest and end up missing out on bonuses like loot chests, equipment, experience, and crafting materials -- all of which are necessary to advance to new worlds, characters, and mounts.


Understanding our own actions, thoughts and feelings.

Self-awareness is extremely important in a massively multiplayer online role-playing game like Trove. The multiplayer chat function requires the player to be able to exhibit conversational social skills such as introductions, discussing shared interests specific to the game, and sharing knowledge gained through game play. In-game socialization also allows a player to improve their ability to communicate thoughts and feelings. For example, if a player is having trouble completing a new quest, it's important for them to be able to state what the quest is, why they are having trouble, and that they need help. Success in Trove also relies heavily on a player's ability to reflect on, assess, and analyze where they are on quest progress, where monsters and dungeons are, what other players are doing, and where mineable crafting materials are located. A player lacking self-awareness might find that their character dies more frequently, which uses up resources quicker and results in a loss of magic items found since the last death. An unaware Trove player will also find quests that they struggle to complete due to a lack of knowledge and support that they could have gained through use of the chat function and interaction with other players.


Trove requires the player to engage in a lot of reading. Quests, descriptions of equipment, crafting recipes, and world descriptions and requirements all need to be read in order to find the best options for achieving the quest goals or the player's personal goals. It is also very important to be a confident reader -- or to have a nearby adult to help when needed--in order to participate in the chat function, which includes not only English speaking players, but also players that speak other languages from all around the world. This could easily become confusing or frustrating for a player that does not understand this and is not able to identify the difference between unfamiliar English vocabulary and words in another language.

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