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What's In an Educational Game?
An anonymous reader writes "I work at a non-profit whose mandate is to increase science literacy and awareness. One of the methods that we've started exploring is in making free, online educational games. Our target demographic for the games is kids aged 8-12, but there is no reason the games could not also appeal to a broader age range. What would you look for in an educational game? Does length and depth of gameplay matter to you, or would you rather play a trivial game with subconscious educational value?"
maybe your games can remedy the lack of critical thinking skills that's turning the average person into such a dumbass who's so easy to take advantage of by large businesses and governments
Consider this idea for an educational RPG-based game: Imagine for a second you're at the home of Rob Malda. He's having breakfast with his long-time lover Michael Simms and the two are - of course - bickering like an old married couple. With me so far? Good. Michael ruffles the NY Times paper and coughs under his breath. Rob butters his toast and lights another Parliament. From under the table a mischievous cackling is heard. In a high, feminine falsetto, Rob asks Michael who's under there.
"Oh that's just ESR. He's been under there all night." Michael says and goes back to his paper. Sure enough, ESR crawls out from under the table dressed in women's thigh-high stockings (black) stiletto pumps and negligee. There are purple bruises under his left eye just at the cheek bone and what can be construed as crusted drying semen on the corners of his mouth; ESR has - apparently - had a rough night, indeed.
Ever since Eric Raymond had raped him at his house in Holland and later again at Slashdot New Year's Eve party, Rob Malda has had ESR living with him off and on. Michael doesn't care for the arrangement but who cares? So, sleeping until four or five in the evening, ESR would wake and surf the 'net for pictures of young, boyish men and call and talk tearfully to Hemos on the phone. He ignored Slashdot, thinking himself above editing tech-news, while his Open Source stocks slipped. Depression and anxiety had Rob so entirely that it seemed he would never again enjoy life. He had truly hit bottom.
Last night, Rob had forgotten his birthday but Hemos managed to coax him out for a night on the town across the state in Detroit. After their little road trip, the pair went on a shopping spree, took in a movie, and ate dinner at a very chic and expensive restaurant. After stopping for ice cream, the two friends headed to Rob's favorite Detroit night spot, the Malebox Bar. There they wasted no time dancing to the latest hard house remixes and downing shot after shot of watermelon Jolly Rancher drinks.
As time wore on and mix after mix pounded the dance floor, Rob and Hemos began feeling tipsy and decided to take a break in the club's arcade. The two fought through Mortal Kombat, went back and forth in Altered Beast, and played a couple rounds of Spy Hunter. The conversation had slowly turned to MAME, an Open Source program that emulated dozens of arcade games by means of illegally pirated ROM files, as they began playing Rampage. Rob and Hemos had gigs and gigs of illegally pirated ROM files.
"It's ludicrous playing video games here when we have MAME on our systems at home," Hemos said as he punched Rob in the back of the head and jumped halfway up a building.
"Yeah," Rob said as he smashed a tank. "But you can't get any action sitting at home playing video games like you can here."
"Too bad there's no way to pick up guys and play MAME at the same time," Hemos said as he ate a bathing woman and burped. "That would be the best."
"Yeah, that would be pretty great," Rob said.
Rob stopped climbing the building he was on, leaving Hemos to smash the building and jump away before it collapsed. Rob fell on his butt and lost some life.
"Rob, are you okay?" Hemos asked while button-mashing Rob's character into oblivion. "Rob?"
Hemos continued speaking, but Rob wasn't there. His eyes were wide and glazed, focused elsewhere. He was smiling weird and crooked as the game showed in reverse in his eyes. Hemos finally turned to look at Rob.
"Robert Hubert Malda!" Hemos yelled, hands on hips in frustration. Not waiting for a response, he reached out and pinched his friend's elbow. He didn't like that look in his eyes it always meant something bad was about to happen. Rob came to, shaking his head and stepping back from the game, which was now blinking GAME OVER at him. He turned and looked at Hemos, who was fuming.
"Jeff, uh, I'm sorry. I guess I zoned out there for a minute," he said as he looked around the bar. "I, um. I'll be right back."
"Jesus Christ, Rob!" Jeff
Civ games and, especially, Colonization (still among my favorite games ever) are effective teaching games because whenever you hit F1, you get a bit of historically-relevant fluff text as well as the help text. Most people will read it just out of curiosity.
"You can either have software quality or you can have pointer arithmetic, but you cannot have both at the same time."