Creative Games sans Violence?

jolyon_jnr asks: "I'm looking for games to use in an unusual educational setting: a school within a Juvenile Detention Centre. I don't set policy, so the 'no violence' is a fixed criteria. I want to engage students' creativity and problem solving skills, without using 'boring educational software'. I've thought of Lemmings and The Incredible Machine. What other suggestions can you offer? Please bear in mind that most students have very low literacy levels, but will learn if motivated sufficiently."

Comments

hmmm

[TechnoVooDooDaddy]

any of the Sim-lines (SimCity, SimRollercoaster, SimGolf, etc..)

Lemmings is "no-violence"?

[kaisyain]

I guess you forget the part where they all explode. If that counts as "no-violence" you should have very little problem finding games.

Or you could try any of the many puzzle games out there: Tetris, Bust-A-Move, etc. There are plenty of adventure games that don't feature violence, as well.

Some Examples

[MarcoAtWork]

Sim City 3000 (or 2000 if your hardware is not powerful enough)

Rollercoaster Tycoon (my wife's favorite)

Railroad Tycoon II

carmen sandiego

[bigpat]

I liked Where in the world is carmen sandiego... put them on the other side of the law.

http://www.learningcompany.com/SubCategory.asp?C ID =244

Retro games

[MSBob]

Retro games should fit the criteria you specify. I don't know about their educational value but most will certainly meet the "non-violence" criteria. The ones that come to my mind include: Tetris, Manic Miner, Pirates, Boulder Dash etc. Often times they are more exciting that todays offerings and are pretty cost effective to purchase.

For a modern collection of PG rated titles try most things published by Nintendo. Actually Mario 64 was an excellent game in itself and a pretty challenging one too.

Hope this helps.

Text adventures

[Cosmicbandito]

Why not help them increase their literacy level while they have fun? There are plenty of text adventures that are non-violent and engaging. Any of the infocom titles would be an excellent choice, with the exception of HHGTG. That one might be a bit frustrating. As an added bonus, these games will run on the simplest of hardware and don't require frequent fixing. Also, it might foster a sense of community among your juveniles, forcing them to share solutions to puzzles.

Droidworks

[Chelloveck]

Lemmings qualifies as non-violent? The game where those cute little guys can fall off cliffs, be fried by flamethrowers, blown up, drowned, decapitated, and squished? That Lemmings? :-)

Anyway, I recommend Droidworks. You build droids to solve various puzzles, then pilot them in an over-the-shoulder view. My kids love it.

What about sierra?

[MusicGeek]

How about the King's Quest games. If I remember correctly at least the first four were non-violent, although the owl in KQ IV sometimes made me want to kill somebody.

Any adventure game

[dagashi]

Monkey Island 2, 3 and 4 are all great games where you have to think quite a bit... and best of all, you get to laugh too.
Don't miss out on Grim Fandango either.
All above from LucasArts.

I also enjoyed playing the Qing's/Space/Heroe's Quest games (Sierra) alot.
The Dig(LucasArts) is also a great adventure game not to be forgotten!

They're all non-violence.

Ambrosia SW

[Anonymous Coward]

For those Mac-heads out there, Ambrosia Software has a wealth of great quality games that have minimum system requirements and contain little or no violence.

http://www.ambrosiasw.com

There are Several

[cnladd]

The "Where in the * is Carmen San Diego" series is one of the best. Another common one that I've seen used in several schools was "Oregon Trail". If literacy levels are a concern, you may want to try some of the several text adventures out there. There are several good ones that are made for younger people - and having to read and type may be a great help to boost those literacy levels.

The various "Sim" games are, of course, excellent. I'd recommend Sim Earth, as it was intended to be purely educational. Sim City is, of course, a good one. Finally, though it can be considered slightly violent, depending on how you look at it, Civilization II would be an excellent choice for a strategy game.

Lego Alpha Team

[trichard]

Lego Alpha Team is a game that makes the player solve spatial puzzles to continue to the next level. The puzzles require the player to place special blocks that change the direction of movement of the on-screen characters.

In effect, you "program" the movement to accomplish a specific goal. In fact, the playing process reminds me a great deal of programming. Kind of an edit-run-debug sort of process. You have unlimited time and lives to complete the puzzles (unlike actual programming, I guess).

All of this is wrapped up in a action/adventure story-line which keep it engaging. My eight-year-old son loves this game and I enjoy playing it too.

Check out the game's home page and a review at Kid's Domain.

trichard

Hoyle's

[remande]

There is an entire Hoyle's series of computer games, based on non-tech standards. Hoyle's Word Games is a good vocabulary builder. Hoyle's Board Games and Hoyle's Card Games build math and general strategic skills.

The Bridge Building Game!

[ObligatoryUserName]

I've recently been consumed by the non-violent fun found in Bridge Builder (fulfill all your secret engineering fantasies), as well as the cartoon physics motorcycle puzzle game. Bridge Builder is Free (as in Beer), and the motorcycle game has an 18 level shareware version.

Sokoban

[Tet]

The title says it all. Sokoban is great for encouraging people to think about the consequences of actions, and to plan ahead.

A current alternative

[GoofyBoy]

with pretty pictures and music is Railroad Tycoon II.

They are coming out with a rerelease Sept 20th.

Excellent non-violence, competitive game.