Educational Games Don't Suck

Far from it.

Here be the thread for everyone's favorite games that taught you a thing or two.

The way I see it, Carmen Sandiego was the grandmammy of great educational games - challenging, informative, difficult and addictive, that even adults could be challenged by (at least before remakes and sequels dumbed it down). I also have fond memories of the Mathematic Megaman Math Blaster series.

And also:

edited 30th Aug '11 5:27:50 PM by KnownUnknown

While not actual "education games": Age of Empires.

edited 30th Aug '11 5:28:22 PM by SoberIrishman

Carmen Sandiego FTW. Also, I'm quite partial to the Logical Journey Of The Zoombinis, a game I also grew up with.

edited 30th Aug '11 5:36:08 PM by EarlOfSandvich

Rome Total War taught me a lot about history. And quite a bit of it turned out to be factual.

Anything from Humongous Entertainment was fun. The Jump Start series was great too.

Uncharted Waters - New Horizons for the SNES counts as educational?

edited 30th Aug '11 7:07:18 PM by Narmer

Would Typing of the Dead count? I know that's how I learned to type properly. Maybe if I still played it I wouldn't typo as often.

Seconding the love for Zoombinis.

Except the third one. That one sucked.

Anyone else here played the Cluefinders series? Those were also pretty awesome.

...Now you guys are making me nostalgic and wanting to play games for which I have lost the disc.

edited 30th Aug '11 7:38:47 PM by dmboogie

Does Kid Pix count? When I was in Elementary School, I loved playing this zany art program when they let us on the computers. I can't tell you how happy I was years ago when I was told that I actually had an older version of it. The dark blue iBook G3 I have came with a bit of a newer version of it as it use to belong to school, which also made me extremely happy. I loved it so much that a few years back I bought one of the newest versions of it. Still love that program to this day.

Who the hell says educational games suck? I'm fairly certain every American on the internet looked forward to Oregon Trail days in elementary school.

Creatures. Not strictly educational, but if you bother to look into the information about chemistry it provides you with, you can actually learn a few things about real-world biochemistry. I know what ATP is because of Creatures!

I still remember the old Jump Start games, the 3rd one was especially good.

Cluefinders, the Jumpstart series, Humongous Entertainment, The Magic School Bus games, Zoombinis...

No wonder I like games so much. They were my childhood.

Aside from Oregon Trail, Math Blaster and...I'm pretty sure it was called Treasure Mountain were my go-to games.

And Nanosaur, but I don't think that was educational — it was just accidentally preinstalled on the iMacs in second grade and no one in the class ever wanted to get rid of it.

OH LOOK WHAT CLEVER CHIILLDRRRENNN!!! SCHE THEM STUDY? WATCH THEM LEARN?

Haven't played Jumpstart in years, (Last time I played it was when I still had my Windows 95 computer with me), but I remember it being pretty damn good for an educational game. I have blurry memories of Zoombinis as I haven't played that in years either, but from what I played of it on Windows 95, it was pretty good.

Are you referring to I.M. Meen?

edited 31st Aug '11 12:31:17 AM by HappyComputerist

Yep, I haven't played it, though. I did play those jumpstart games a lot when I was little.

Super Solvers and Doctor Brain were two of my favorite series.

Also Reader Rabbit. I actually learned to read through that series.

edited 31st Aug '11 8:42:55 AM by stevebat

I loved Reader Rabbit and Cluefinders in elementary school. There were also these CAT games, that I don't remember the names of, that helped me a bit in history.

Oregon Trail is hilariously bloodthirsty in ways that you can't get away with in games with more detailed graphics. Sorry, little Bobby, but your family died of pneumonia and/or drowned in the river while you were off skinning that bear carcass, better luck next time.

Personally I'm very fond of Bookworm Adventures, even nabbed 'em on Steam for a nice cheap price. There is no battle system, no matter how educational, that you cannot make fun by nailing it to an rpg level up design. Although they also reminded me how dreadfully inferior I am at finding word patterns, somehow, despite the fact that I'm pretty good at spelling words!

I also played Cluefinders and Reader Rabbit though I had learned to read before I played them.

I'm one of the few who didn't hate Donkey Kong Jr. Math. Mavis Beacon had some okay games too.

I also barely remember playing a few games with the Fisher-Price brand on it, forgot their names. I vaguely remember pirate ships and cars you can decorate and print.

Also I remember playing some kind of interactive dictionary from DK. Wow, nostalgia.

Carmen Sandiego, Zoombinis, Jump Start (especially 3rd grade), Magic School Bus, Reader Rabbit, Cluefinders, and Yukon Trail were some of my favorite games.

I really liked Magic School Bus.