Good AND educational games for children?

[Eldariel]

So I've been wondering... Educational games tend to be pretty damn boring and terrible as a rule. I don't what it is about it but when the it is about learning math or whatever, the designers seem to forget all the basics of actually making the game engaging, rewarding, interesting, etc. Hopefully there are exceptions I'm not aware of (feel free to point them out!) but as it stands, I find it more fruitful to look on the other side of the coin. Games that actually teach useful knowledge or skills implicitly and randomly. I'm using the term "games" in the broadest sense here; I don't care if it's a live action, tabletop, board, computer, console, choose-your-own-adventure, or whatever as long as you could broadly categorize it as a game. And I'm mostly looking for stuff that helps with things you'd normally have in school curriculum; obviously things like social skills, basic linguistic competence, reading people, and such are important too but those take less specialized tools, I find.

A couple I've had personal experience with:
1) Civilization: While not that historically accurate, the tech tree is broadly based on the progression of things in real life and things enabled by the techs are somewhat historical. Not only that, but it's a great way to learn some of the great rulers and civilizations in history (of course, newer versions are less west-biased). The tech tree itself definitely gave me some insight into what lead to what (here in the west) and why certain discoveries were important, especially with the Wiki tidbits about each tech in e.g. Civ II.

2) AD&D (or pre-3e D&D editions in general): Far as math goes, there are few better ways than playing a magic-user casting Fireballs and Lightning Bolts in AD&D. Lightning Bolt is pure geometry to multihit certain targets while Fireball filling a fixed volume makes it quite the space calculation exercise. There are few other interesting nuances like THAC0 and such which at least force one to consider inverse relations and do some slightly unintuitive math (good for you since past a certain point, math can get quite unintuitive). Of course, it's a b

3) Old school Sierra adventures: For learning a language, there's nothing quite like trying to play a game with a parser solving riddles and picking out details in conversations and such. We had quite the blast trying to play King's Quests, Police Quests and such back in the day.


So, that's a few off the top of my head. The main problem here is that I'm asking this for a currently 2 year old and none of these are exactly in the right category for a toddler. I do know where to head down the line though, and it's of course good to have some advance planning. Here's looking for ideas for younger kids, and of course a broader set for older ones would be helpful as well.

[Triaxx]

Unfortunately the last one I know of that fit was a DOS game with shape matching and basic math skills and a space ship you took to new places as it got harder. No clue at the name now though.

[Narkis]

The historical Paradox games (Crusader Kings, Europa Universalis, Victoria, Hearts of Iron) while not entirely accurate, can be pretty great for learning some basic history of their period and making it more interesting than dry lists of dates and names. Definitely not suitable for a young child though.

[Spore]

Minecraft might be a candidate. It improves spacial vision (which many kids lack, a cornerstone in understanding geometry). It teaches very basic craftsmanship (you need wood for a door, they don't magically appear at your doorstep that way). It enforces creativity.

Worms might be weird but it teaches about geometry and physics. Cities: Skylines is very fun and educational. Guacamelee teaches about mexican folklore. Super Meat Boy teaches hand-eye coordination.

Honestly pick fun games that might (or might not) provide an additional benefit. Sometimes kids just want to play a game. The ones I've mentioned are fun and can provide a benefit.

[Eldariel]

Minecraft might be a candidate. It improves spacial vision (which many kids lack, a cornerstone in understanding geometry). It teaches very basic craftsmanship (you need wood for a door, they don't magically appear at your doorstep that way). It enforces creativity.

Worms might be weird but it teaches about geometry and physics. Cities: Skylines is very fun and educational. Guacamelee teaches about mexican folklore. Super Meat Boy teaches hand-eye coordination.

Honestly pick fun games that might (or might not) provide an additional benefit. Sometimes kids just want to play a game. The ones I've mentioned are fun and can provide a benefit.

Minecraft is a rather good one, and one I didn't think of immediately. It certainly provides some interesting avenues above and beyond what occurs in most games of the type (and something like Terraria too, in the same vein).

Hand-eye coordination games are a dime dozen so there's hardly a need to worry about that. Mostly I'm looking for options to extract extra value out of the time beyond what most games provide, because things like hand-eye coordination, reading, social engineering, and some degree of economics and numeric optimisation will probably be dealt with in any given MMO/MOBA style game or FPS or whatever.

But there's much more potential value to be had in different fields, and I'd rather use those in lieu of education than default to the rather boring and mostly pointless memorization of encyclopedias. I'm assuming he'll play anyways so I'd rather offer him some games that are both, engaging and useful at the age.

[Amechra]

Unfortunately the last one I know of that fit was a DOS game with shape matching and basic math skills and a space ship you took to new places as it got harder. No clue at the name now though.

You're thinking Math Blasters. I think.

How old is the kid in question?

[Eldariel]

You're thinking Math Blasters. I think.

Thanks for the pointer to both of you (Triaxx and you)!

How old is the kid in question?

So, that's a few off the top of my head. The main problem here is that I'm asking this for a currently 2 year old and none of these are exactly in the right category for a toddler. I do know where to head down the line though, and it's of course good to have some advance planning. Here's looking for ideas for younger kids, and of course a broader set for older ones would be helpful as well.

Though I'm more so planning things to introduce down the line rather than things to introduce right now as he's still busy learning to speak. Still, games that would fit a 3-5 or 5-7 year old would be welcome as I have pretty much nothing for that category.

The historical Paradox games (Crusader Kings, Europa Universalis, Victoria, Hearts of Iron) while not entirely accurate, can be pretty great for learning some basic history of their period and making it more interesting than dry lists of dates and names. Definitely not suitable for a young child though.

Aye, those are probably in the same category as the classic world builder 4x games. I'm thinking I might also want to introduce some city builders such as Cities: Skylines (as Spore mentioned, thanks!) or something as classic as Sim City. For that matter, other Sim-games and in general money management games are probably of interest (something where boardgames may serve well too now that I think about it; Modern Art for example seems pretty interesting in this regard as well as Settlers of Catan-style resource management games).

[Squark]

Kerbal Space Program comes to mind if you have a budding rocket scientist. I'd be wary of Crusader Kings, though; That game is notrious for leading to... unpleasantness that would put a hypothetical War of the Roses involving the Borgias to shame. That's not how it has to be played of course; You could just quietly unite Ireland while watching the rest of the world's shenanigans. Or try your hand at some historical situations. But the game does include things like incest, murder conspiracies, and mutilation.

[spectralphoenix]

As far as old school (so to speak) games go, Math Rescue and Word Rescue are Apogee platformers targeted at younger children where you solve math problems or identify words with pictures while fighting aliens. They're available on Steam if you want to have a look.

[Amechra]

Alright, for a little kid (or, actually, in general)? I'd go for puzzle games more than anything else. Something like, say, Laser Tank might be good?

If you can find and/or run them, the Super Solvers series is pretty darn good. I think you can find all of them on the Internet Archive? Same goes for the Carmen Sandiego series.

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Keep an eye out for games that you can play with them, too.

[heronbpv]

Same goes for the Carmen Sandiego series.

This brings back memories... anyone remember the old animation series?

As for recommendations, for some reason I can't remember anything new. This list has some good ones, but as I said, most are very old (think DOS and Win95).

[Triaxx]

Yes, I am. Oh, the Nostalgia.

[danzibr]

On iOS there’s a bunch of vocab, matching, memory, sight words, sounds, etc games appropriate for 2 year olds. My kids enjoyed them. One of the main reasons we got an iPad 7 years ago.

[J-H]

My 5 year old enjoys watching me play Factorio, and we've had some good discussions about steam power, power lines, things being made from multiple parts to make other things to make still more complex things, etc.

[Winthur]

The games I have the most vivid memories about at 3 years old were Mortal Kombat 3 and The Incredible Machine 2.

Mortal Kombat 3 should be educational for you as a parent, Eldariel, because I'm a perfect example of the type of human being no one should ever grow up to be, and also serves as a good example of parental neglect - to put it more succintly, good parents don't let their child play Mortal Kombat 3*. It also fails to teach anatomy (multiple ribcage eruptions from full body explosions) and problem-solving skills because the 3 year old me would resort to spamming Sheeva's down-up stomp attack.

For the child, The Incredible Machine seems to be at least an interesting sandbox / creative / problem-solving game and it has a cheap sequel / spiritual successor available here. Basically TIM games were about solving problems using zany Rube Goldberg's cube contraptions; most levels in the "campaign" mode were just sets of puzzles that gave the player a restricted amount of elements and asked them to find a solution. The cool thing about TIM is that as a kid, I would often end up doing something that the developers didn't intend me to do and I would have spare parts left thanks to that.

I haven't played Contraption Maker myself, but it has high ratings on Steam and all reviews leave a commendable comparison to TIM.

*If you don't want to raise a noob you obviously start them off on Street Fighter or at least an ArcSys game

[Gray Mage]

When I was a kid I really liked the Logical Journey of the Zoombinies. It's more logic/set theory based, but it's very approachable (it only starts increasing in difficulty when you begin mastering each section) and most of the puzzles are intuitive of what to do. I was about 6 to 8 when I first played it, I think.

There are app/steam versions. The steam version has a bug in the late, late game (it doesn't make it unplayable, but it does change how you solve the puzzle, which is annoying, but it makes it easier after you know it). I've played it this year for nostalgia's sake. Although the levels on easy were a breeze, on the higher difficulties the later levels still posed a challenge.

[Cespenar]

I think you could play just about any complex yet non-sexual and non-violent game next to a watching 2-4 yo and they'd end up learning quite a lot of stuff, especially by your explanations.

For 5 and onwards, similarly, give them a game like that and just watch them try to unravel it. I think most 80s and 90s gamers grew up like that anyway.

[Lord Torath]

Dragon Box is a good app that teaches the basics of Algebra.

Dragon Box: Elements is the Geometry version.

[Thomas Cardew]

It might be pure nostalgia but I remember enjoying the Treasure Island games from the The learning company, the math blasters series, Super solvers, and number munchers. I'd have played those all day as kid if I could, but even educational video game time was limited back then.

There's also the Dr. Brain games but those are more just puzzles.

[Giggling Ghast]

Might I suggest going to the Sesame Street website? They actually have a lot of free games for pre-school children.

https://www.sesamestreet.org/

[Cikomyr]

I discovered Battle Chess at age 5-6, and man did it teach me to play chess.

I mostly played just to see the fight animation tho.

[danzibr]

I discovered Battle Chess at age 5-6, and man did it teach me to play chess.

I mostly played just to see the fight animation tho.

Man that was a sweet game. I played it on the 3DO. Will never forget it.

[Blackhawk748]

Stronghold was a game that taught me the basics of resource management and basic tactics as well as good base building. It's also really good at teaching patience as there isn't a fast forward button so you gotta actually wait for stuff to finish.

There was also some game from like the late 90s or early 00s that was climbing some magical mountain. I wish I could recall the name cuz it was actually an educational game, but it was truly fun from my memory.

Oh, and Lemmings. Lemmings is great

Edit: Found it! It was Treasure Mountain!

[Lvl 2 Expert]

I stumbled upon an online game called Cellcraft today. It's a decent starter on cellular biology and immune respons disguised as a "defend the whatever"/army management game. That's more upper half of highschool kind of knowledge, sure, but it still counts.

As a kid, I further more loved loved loved Word Rescue The first part is shareware and even found available for online play these days (see the link in the previous sentence), the full game is apparently still being sold through Steam for 5 bucks, 27 years after release, now playable through Windows and MacOS without using Dosbox. It's a platformer about matching words to images. I didn't speak a word of English, so it can't be that hard, because I think I was pretty decent at it. There was also a Math Rescue game, but I think I decided that it looks different so now it sucks pretty quickly.

Edit: Holy crap, I just learned Word Rescue has difficulty settings. On "ages 10+" you actually don't get enough slime to get all the baddies and you need to lure them into the danger drops. So that's what those are for! I feel kind of challenged trying this.

We also had a semi-decent game about telling time from around the same period. the exercise itself was pretty boring, but you were rewarded with animations about a sheep and a wolf or something that ranged from super short and pretty meh to nearly a full Loony Toons short. For the life of me I can't remember or find what it was called though, plus it would probably be very disappointing by today's standards.

[gelikakonig]

Kids Educational Game 5, Minecraft, Math land, Logic Land. Those are suggestions from techbigs.

[Glimbur]

We're enjoying thr Peaceful Kingdom line of games with our 4 1/2 year old. Generally you draw a tile and make a decision with it, choose an owl to move or place a path on the map or whatever. Sometimes the tile advances the sun/ogre/board instead. Some basic optimization and they are cooperative.

Outfoxed is also a fine board game. You have to determine which fox stole the pies and you either look at foxes or get clues about them. Some deductive reasoning, a little like Clue but cooperative and simpler.

[Beleriphon]

For video games The Castle of Dr Brain and the Island of Dr Brain are both classic Sierra educational/puzzle solvers. I'm peronally saddened the hinted a Moonbase of Dr Brain never game to be. Castle is mostly logic/math, Island is science/chemistry, and I guess Moonbase would have been physics and space stuff.

Both have difficulty settings that go from basically Grade 1 to First Year University for a good number of the puzzles.

Otherwise The Learning Company Games are a hoot. Midnight Resuce! involves wandering a school, taking pictures, dodging cray robots, reading stuff to learn about Master of Mischief (ie. the bad guy), and finally using critical thinking to figure out which robot MM is hiding into defeat him. Outnumbered! uses similar style play but with math. Other titles involve basic physics puzzles (mind you these are circa 1995ish, so they have set solutions rather than a physics engine) or problem solving.

[Kareeah_Indaga]

I remember enjoying Operation: Neptune as a kid, but IIRC the difficulty of the math increased very quickly compared to the amount of gameplay.

And this is probably out of line of what you're looking for, but for basic art the alchemy system of the old Might and Magic games (VI - VIII) is useful for primary and secondary colors.

[Erloas]

For toddlers there are a *lot* of games, and what makes them interesting for a little kid has nothing to do with what makes a game interesting for older kids or adults. Recognizing colors and shapes, learning letters, etc. are all just the sort of things they should be learning around that time. Even just basic coordination to control the games is important. In those cases what you're probably mostly looking for is games that they find interesting, and since there are piles of them for free on phones and tablets there is no reason to not try a whole bunch of them.

Later than that... it is going to come down to the kid, you can't dictate what they're going to find interesting, you do have influence but they'll like what they like. I think in that case the most important thing to do is show them games that you like but that won't be too hard for them. There are a lot of tasks we think of as very simple, but are actually complex, we've just learned them so thoroughly that we forget that. Trying to get them to play a game that is too advanced for them is likely to drive them away rather than making them learn. Even if no one part is overly complex, if there are a dozen different things going on at the same time that can add up to too much. I think most 4x games end up like that, and when any given kid can handle that is unknown, but it is more of "it will be clear when they can play the game" than it is give them this game early and they'll learn how to play it.

Games that involve critical thinking and problem solving are overall probably the best bets, but those are almost gone in modern game design (at least if you're playing at the level kids are playing). I'm sure there are some still being made, but probably indy games that I haven't found. I'm not sure how well some of the old style adventure/puzzle games survived. Portal is one of the newest that I know about and they aren't exactly recent.

[Maryring]

I remember playing an old game, Backpacker, which was basically a game about travelling around Europe and answering quiz quesstions. I loved that game though, so might be worth a shot.