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..)

Re:hmmm

[garcia]

I wonder if The Sims would have a good or bad impact on them. Would they want to have the families fail and fight or would they learn from the positive growth of the people within the game?

It would be interesting to see how each child would react.

Mindrover

[Evangelion]

Cognitoy makes an excellent (and engrossing) game called Mindrover, in which you have to design and program a vehicular robot to do certain things (follow waypoints, chase another robot, or destroy the opposing robot).

I don't know if a vehicle-on-vehicle rocket launcher qualifies as 'violence' or not (since these are very clearly toy robots going at it), but it's certainly an awesome game, even apart from it's educational value.

Loki has also ported it to Linux, and thier port is flawless.

I know it sucks, but...

[Spagornasm]

Did you consider any of the Myst series? Those can engage the eye candy requirement, and also help them develop complex problem solving skills...that is, if they understand different bases and number theory :-)...

Re:I know it sucks, but...

[Nate Fox]

How much of a market is there? I am in the very early stages of creating a video game as part of a class (gotta love liberal arts colleges...) and I keep hoping that we can create something along the lines of the Myst series- interactive, engaging, immersive and fun. But look at the market right now. There is nothing that does not have an emphasis on violence.

It seems to me to be a bit nearsighted to say that all the games out have an emphasis on violence. When, in fact, some of the top selling games of ALL TIME have been those with the least violence. Myst was #1 for something like 2 years, even though DOOM, Quake, and others came and went. Then Roller Coaster Tycoon came around, and it camped out on the top of the list for quite some time. Now, I'm no game expert, but I know there's almost always one or two games that are in the top 10 of the month that are not based around violence. Even to the extent of something like Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1/2, or even Gran Tourismo. Granted, they aren't quite what you're talking about (I'm much more inclined to play mind games than coordination games - thats why I play sports in Real LifeTM), but they're non-violent alternatives.

By the way - PLEASE continue to develop your game. We need more Mystish games. Don't let numbers discourage you! Where would we be if Linus looked at the market share of MS/Novell (10 years ago), and said, "Screw it - whats the point? It'll never be that widely used."

Re:I know it sucks, but...

[Arandir]

Well, if you don't make any mistakes in the Myst games, there is no physical violence (other than an occasional imprisonment). But if you make a mistake, watch out!

In Riven you can get shot dead. In Exile you get your brains bashed in.

I just finished playing Exile a few days ago. I made a mistake. I trusted the poor guy. Then he rushes up and bashes my brains in with a stone axe. The rest of the game was quite peaceful, mellow, psychodelic, etc, so when this happened it was quite a shock. Very violent in the context of the game.

Low literacy levels?

[liquidweb]

To suggest a solution as well as a direct statement of their literacy, I'd suggest anything in the "You Don't Know Jack" series. Seriously though good stuff.

Re:Low literacy levels?

[JabberWokky]

The biggest problem with any trivia game is that it requires that you learn the trivia in your own time, and it does not really teach any information.

Having taught in a "school within a school", I can tell you that what seems to work for your mental frame does not translate. That is *not* to say that the students are dumb... in fact, some of the single mothers and drug addicts (yes, Florida throws them in together; genius) are well read and/or were good students before they entered the alternative systems. Also, they get all the nice new computer systems.

There is hope for these kids, but even more than "mainstream" students, you have to focus on their individual issues. And (and I hate this as much as you do), you have to pick which ones to give up on to focus on the ones you *can* help.

Bah - there's a reason I *used* to teach. Maybe I will again... but not until I feel I can do it without becoming irrevocably cynical.

--
Evan

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

Re:Some Examples

[MarcoAtWork]

But....

any of the games could be used to simulate violence (even the ones you suggested)

in TIM you can do nasty things to cats, mice and fishes
in lemmings you can nuke them all
in SimCity you can build a city and destroy it
in RCT you can build rollercoasters that crash
I assume that in RRT you can get trains to crash as well

Please take this into consideration when picking your title. Note, I am NOT saying that people would use the games to do these things, but the possibility is there, and if it happens you (or whomever approved the games) might have some explaining to do, so I suggest that in your proposal you explain that creative games could *theoretically* be used to simulate violence, even if that's obviously not the aim of the game itself.

Oregon trail.

[Bad_CRC]

Worked great for us oldtimers. :D

Re:Oregon trail.

[NetJunkie]

Someone should do a survey to see what percentage of current IT (in the right age range) staff played Oregon Trail in school as a kid. I bet it's at least 90%.

I know I did...and almost bought the newer release a while back just for fun.

Old board games:

[pallex]

Chess, backgammon, go.
Scrabble, trivial pursuit.
Kensington (if thats available in computer form)

Re:Old board games:

[Zachary Kessin]

A study done a few years ago showed that High School kids (It may have been Jr High) that were on a Chess team "The Raging Rooks" Did better on tests and got better grades than average. Chess is a good thing to teach kids. And lets face it in 50 or 60 years will anyone still know what SimCity is? People will still be playing chess which in one form or another has been around for 1000+ years.

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.

Myst, Riven, etc.

[Alpha_Geek]

The Myst family of games is completely non-violent and requires problem solving skills. I think they could be along the lines of what your looking for.

Games

[Registered Coward v2]

Some good ones:

Roller coaster tycoon
Flight Sim 2000
Pipe dream (an old water puzzle game where you built plumbing to see how many pieces you could use.)

Have you looked at any of the old text adventures: Activision has a CD with a number of old Infocom games such as Zork, which while they do have fighting (Sometimes), it's all text and not very graphic. Great puzzle solving games. Frotz, a free interpreter for text adventure games, has a pretty good following, with a number of games available.

Finally, have you considered plain old Legos?

How about multi-player civilization

[Anonymous Coward]

and tweak the settings so economic cooperation is rewarded more than conquest. Could also have additional materials so that when they discover some new technology, you can go into it in more depth than the program does.

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.

Sokoban

[Wolfgar]

This is a great little addictive game where the object is to push boxes through a maze to designated destinations without getting any of them stuck (e.g. pushing one into the corner...you can't push it out of there)

mudding

[Cederic]

Get them into mudding. Find a mud that focusses on exploration and quest solving, rather than fighting. Then it meets the non-violence criteria.

Several advantages to muds (MUD, MUSH, etc:
- boosts literacy (text only feedback means you HAVE to read)
- teaches you to type fast
- social interaction
- intelligent inquisitive types will want to learn how to extend the mud == learning to code == gaining rather useful skills
- people will try to figure out how to cheat. This is healthy - it means they are applying creative thought.
- making the kids admin the mud puts them in a position of responsibility

~Cederic

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.

Adventure games!

[ZaMoose]

Almost any King's Quest ('cept the last 3d one... that sucked), any Monkey Island game, Grim Fandango, Sam & Max (well, I guess any LucasArts adv. game except for Indiana Jones and the Infernal Machine. Not so good). All teach puzzle-solving logic with a good sense of humo(u)r.

I second the Carmen Sandiego series as well as the 0ld Sk00l Oregon Trail. Mmmm, buffalo...

I recall a Sim-like game involving running a beer distributorship. Could prove interesting (except for the polka-influenced soundtrack. *shudder*)

Also, does X Pilot count as violent? You could bill it as A "gravitational physics/particle interaction simulator".

Then there's always SameGnome... *grin*

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.

Hackers/Atari ST

[Quila]

There was a game called "hackers" or something like that for the Atari ST where you go rummaging through computers of big bad corporation to figure out and stop their world domination plot. It took a good amount of problem solving, and it was fun.

Plus you get to indoctrinate the juvies on corporate evil.

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.

Re:go back to yesterday

[Mister Black]

Teach 'em Java

The US Constitution expicitly prohibits "cruel and unusual punishment". I would expect other countries to have the same sort of provisions.

some good games, somewhat educational

[room101]

Here are some good ones, the educational value is subjective, and of course, ymmv.

as mentioned before, sim* (city, etc.) Teaches management/juggleing; also, life isn't always "fair", you just take life as it comes.

also mentioned: mindrover (maybe too advanced--don't know what age group target--but a great game. Teaches engineering/scientific thinking, and trial and error. Great one for "learning by doing".

rollercoaster tycoon, et al. (all "tycoon" games are pretty good, you have to run your own [fill in the blank], very mind engaging) They would probably like the rollercoaster tycoon the best, but they are all good and teach organization and management. Fun to watch your theme park flurish.

train simulator (new, never played it, got good reviews)

homeworld/homeworld cataclysm (maybe these have "violence", but no blood and guts, so depending on your defininition... the ships just blow up, Star Wars style, so G-rated violence.) teaches organization and resourse allocation.

Hope these help.

A few I hope will work

[Dark Paladin]

I'm trying to define "no violence" as anything that might insite the kids to riot. So here's my short list:

1. Myst/Riven/Myst III (well, if you get around Myst III's copy protection). Games with lot's o' puzzles, interesting plots, and should keep them engrossed for awhile and make them think.

2. The Longest Journey - another adventure game, but really, really good. Yes, the main character does have an underwear scene, but it's tame.

3. Gadget Tycoon - teach folks how to run a business. A little on the hard side, but interesting.

4. Tritrys - I've known many a person to be addicted to this one.

5. Lode Runner. 'Nuff said.

That should get you started. Most of your "non-violent" games are going to be of the adventure/puzzle variety. I'd also see what the limits of "non-violent" are - would 4X games (like Starships Unlimited) count? Racing games (Mario Kart - sounds stupid, but loads of fun) might also be up the alley.

Sokoban

[Tet]

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

NO!

[alta]

great, just we need a bunch of kids stuck in fantasy land when they get out of the joint. I can see it now, they get released, what do they do?

Go north
go north
go east
pick up stick
beat old man
You've gained experience!
You've looted 3 silver pieces!
Go east
go east...

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.