Flying games haven’t always been my strong suit. But at GDC 2010, I seemed to do fairly well with Kid Adventures: Sky Captain for the Wii. I’d hope so since — as the name implies — it’s meant for kids.

Sky Captain is a cartoony flight simulation game targeted for kids 12 and under that looks good and handles like a dream with the Wii-mote. The game is played by holding the Wii-mote horizontally and tilting it to go up, down, left or right to maneuver your planes.

There are seven planes and a UFO, but you only start with one plane and must unlock the rest. In the preview I played, all but the UFO were usable. The planes I could see in my hangar were cute and fit the cartoony theme, including a jet plane, bi-plane and even a gyrocopter. The various planes have various skills and strengths, and it took a few tries before I chose the best plane suited for me. Once I did, though, it was on. Other than the planes and UFO, you can also unlock customizable skins for your planes. There are also achievements to earn, which will add to replayability.

There are three zones (islands) in Sky Captain and about 40 missions, ranging from races to flying through hoops, shooting down targets or taking photographs. You can also perform various stunts to boost your score. There’s no violence in Sky Captain, though, so you won’t be shooting anything living. I don’t think I had enough time to explore the target-shooting mode, though. I primarily stuck to flying my plane through hoops and racing the clock. One mission I had was to fly over sheep that were on a railroad track to clear the tracks. It was the first thing I did, and I hadn’t yet figured out the controls and objective, so I crashed into more than a few sheep. It got them off the track, at least.

Luckily, there’s no death penalty in Sky Captain. And since it’s a kids’ game, you won’t see any fiery crashes. You’ll only have to restart missions if you take too long, or you can restart them mid-mission if you think you’re doing too poorly. There are a lot of obstacles to avoid while flying — trees, houses, mountains. In one zone, there’s a volcano into which you’ll have to fly and avoid the lava and walls. It reminded me a bit of the flying carpet scene in Aladdin. By the time I played this portion of the demo, I had gotten fairly good at controlling my plane. Although, I did get burned by lava a couple of times.

I like the cute graphics in Sky Captain and think they’re appropriate for kids. The three zones are all islands surrounded by water and have cities, houses, trains and various other objects or places around which you can fly. One thing that was pretty neat is that in the ocean, you could see pirate ships and even whales. The houses and towns were fun to see from both above and in between buildings. In one zone, there’s a carnival, and you have to fly through a Ferris wheel, which is a stunt that’s both fun and a challenge.

Sky Captain will have a tutorial, and there are arrows to guide you on your path for your missions. There will be multiplayer and co-op modes for two players ... local play only, though. I really enjoyed the time I had playing Kid Adventures: Sky Captain. The preview I played wasn’t the finished version, but I think it will be a good game for kids and won’t be too difficult. It should have plenty to keep them occupied for hours and present enough of a challenge that they will want to come back to beat their own scores. Look for Sky Captain to be available June 15, 2010.