Edutainment

[Skyblade]

Ah, educational games. During the earliest of my days, these were my games. Oh, I played others, but these were the ones which were mine, the first games gifted to me, that I owned instead of playing after my dad finished with them.

So many old classics and nostalgic memories.

Perhaps the greatest of them were the Super Solvers series, a old PC series that combined quirky graphics, exploration, observation, and logic with a soundtrack built around some of the most recognizable classical music to create a fun experience that I still remember fondly.



How many of you remember the old edutainment games from the early era, and which ones do you recall as the best?

[Pete for President]

I remember a game that was on the school computer where you had to fly a UFO to various cities or countries in the world. The name of the location would pop up and then you had to fly to right place. It was a game to remember topography. I liked that one.

[Pike]

Word/Number Munchers
Oregon Trail
Odell Lake
Murphy's Minerals
This bug breeding game that I can't remember the name of

[Scotty_ffgamer]

Oregon Trail was by far the best one that I have ever played. The only other ones I can remember playing when I was a kid were the Jumpstart games, Math Blaster, and Mario Teaches typing, though.

[Bolivar]

Oregon Trail, Carmen San Diego, and Mario Teaches Typing. Ironic, that last one, given Nintendo's current public refusals to release games on any non-Nintendo platforms.

Oh, and smurf, Dinopark Tycoon! I'm guessing it counts, even though games like it and Oregon trail are kinda just simulators... man we lost our minds over that game...

[Freya]

I loved the Blaster games! As a kid this one i had the most/difficulty with. Could be cause i was doing the years 9-12 at 6 hahahaha Older siblings had it and I wanted to play too.

[Skyblade]

Math Blaster Mystery was my favorite of those, which is odd, because it's a fairly late installment (and was way, way too easy for me). But the look, the atmosphere, and the characters were all fantastic.

[Loony BoB]

Operation Neptune
Logical Journey of the Zoombinis
Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?

Everything else is rubbish by comparison.

[Pike]

Operation Neptune
Logical Journey of the Zoombinis
Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?

Everything else is rubbish by comparison.

Confirmed for not playing any of the games in my post

[Loony BoB]

I've played Oregon Trail. It's a good game, don't get me wrong, but when it comes to an educational focus, I always found those three games to be absolutely awesome. They taught me as a kid (well, Zoombinis was when I was 15 so it didn't teach me so much), while Oregon Trail just didn't feel like it taught me anything. Bloody fun to play, though. If I were to consider Oregon Trail an educational game, I would probably also consider Civilization an educational game (and SimCity, and Flight Simulator, and Dwarf Fortress, and that one Noah and if you really want to push 'educational' to wider audiences then there's also the Noah and the Ark version of Wolfenstein 3D they once made xD). They teach me about how to play the games but I don't feel a huge amount of education coming out of them. Perhaps I'm focusing more on "in your face" games.

Also, I hope you're not suggesting that those three games I mentioned aren't some of the best games to have ever been made.