Apologies, I've been pretty busy lately at work which is normally where I post these from! Not to mention that whole transferring ownership of EoFF thing being quite the distraction, Ciddies and FFXIV too.

36. The Logical Journey of the Zoombinis
PC, 1996


When I was 15 I got my leg broken through Extreme Footbraking. This resulted in me spending a lot of time in a hospital bed, and after a while they felt I should be given some kind of entertainment. What this meant is they would wheel a computer desk next to my hospital bed and I would play the crap out of the Logical Journey of the Zoombinis, which is one of the greatest educational video games of all time. I don't care that it's easy, I love logic puzzles so much that it didn't even matter that the game was probably aimed at a notably younger generation.

This game was a genuinely fun and simple way for me to pass time back then, but I look back at it fondly for being exactly that - a fun time waster. It had a bit of a "gotta catch 'em all" thing going on with it, with the town buildings you could collect or something (I think? It's been a while) and of course there was the Lemmings aspect of "gotta save 'em all" too. While I don't think I'd opt to play this game ahead of some of the other games on this list these days, back then it was the kind of easy thing I needed to destress with and it did the trick perfectly. I imagine if I'd played it when I was closer to eight years old then I might have actually considered it ahead of other games, too!