The Association of Family Gamers aims to provide support and information to families that are looking to play video games together in healthy, entertaining, imaginative and stimulating ways. It does this through its website www.familygamer.co.uk by providing Reviews, Guides, Editorials and Recommendation Lists for all new games. It also provides a printed Family Gamer magazine for it's members that contains the season's gaming highlights.

The association consists of local grass roots families with an interest in video games. Grandparents, Parents, Teenagers, Juniors and Infants all bring their own angle on video games. Local meet-ups and play-sessions are complimented by the website and magazine where members both share and discuss their experiences without jargon or assumed prior knowledge.

Membership costs GBP10 quarterly, for which members receive a daily email of new reviews, guides and editorials as well as a regular printed Family Gamer magazine detailing the season's best games. Members can also contribute their reviews for publication and enter family gaming contests.

Please contact our Membership secretary for more information.

This Family Gamer website was designed by parents themselves, and is themed around the idea of a family tree, with the slogan 'Games Coverage the Grows With You'. An absence of jargon combines with its grass roots nature to create an unusual and appealing place for families to discover video games.

Whilst the site was in development, parents were asked what questions they had about the games their family played. Some just wanted shopping recommendations, so we provide new and recommended games lists. Others wanted a resource to help them understand the games their family played, which we now provide through the Rough Guides. Some just wanted to share stories about their gaming experiences, now catered for via our anecdotal reviews. Finally, some wanted more substantial commentary and mature discussion on the issues surrounding video games, so we created space for this in our regular editorials.

Upcoming games list: Here we keep track of the new games that may interest families. This is where each game's story begins. A distant speck on the radar slowly looms into view as we learn more about the game from the developers, publishers and PR representatives.

Rough Guides: Our guides answer the basic what, how, why, when, where and who questions about each game. What is the background to the game, of what genre is it part, how is it unique in this genre, why do people play it, when and where can it be played and how long is needed and finally who is ideally suited to enjoy the experience.

Reviews:Our reviews are anecdotal, context driven and result from one individuals appraisal of a play experience. We are happy for them to be biased accounts, as is any such writing. We keep our writing concise and avoiding jargon to save your time and effort when reading. Although length isn't our main concern we for reviews to be around 800 words.

If nothing else our reviews should be narrated opinions from each author's particular niche of expertease.

Editorials: Our editorials are the inside track on the community. Here, we can go to town on a particular subject, where there isn't space in a review or guide. We have a chance to expand upon and mull over themes that have arrisen as we've played our games.

Recommended games: These are games we have lived with for some time. We've tracked them through the New Hot Family Games list, covered them in our Guides and Reviews. Out of the hundreds of games that come through our door each month, these few games have stood up to this rigerous test to arrive here.