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 Posted: Tue Aug 12, 2008 7:44 am
Biological_Warfare Very nice. Sometimes though, I feel the industry is limiting themselves. They could create games that would help review for like AP English or something like that. Much better in my opinion then reading the books and around the same cost. Educational games have limits and unknown to most people I know EXIST IN NUMBER. Most people don't buy them because the educational aspect is far too upfront. Full review games are as bad as digital flash cards in my mind. If you focused on one thing like typing or vocabulary, it could work and retain fun. So, there is that missing link of games that provide an educational aspect as part of the game. Most of the time it's best to go and have no idea that they are learning.
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Posted: Tue Aug 12, 2008 10:46 am
True, but I still say that a little fun would be better than just reading the guide books, I mean, they're horrid. I probably would have practiced them more if they were in game form.
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Posted: Wed Aug 13, 2008 8:13 am
Oh, I agree absolutely. Educational games are a good thing, and they could really improve people's enthusiasm for learning, but the industry needs to figure out a different way to do them. We need more stuff like Oregon Trail (or Amazon trail) which doesn't try to cram subject matter down the gamer's throat. It's all in there, but it's a part of the background in the game world.
Lately, the only educational games that I've seen have been either digital flashcards in a pretty package or hybrid arcade/trivia, neither of which works. A kid's not going to wade through trivia to get to the arcade part when they could just google 'flash arcade games' and digital flash cards are only mildly more fun than the papery sort.
Part of the problem, I think, is that companies looking to develop educational games think of it only as developing an educational utility. They hire people with credentials in education to work on the creative half of the project, then they hire programmers to write the software. If they'd just hire an actual game designer and then have their team of educators consult with him, good things could happen.
I would love to see Valve produce a study-aid for physics or Sid Meyer make an AP prep for history. But as long as there's just a bunch of teachers wrestling with the question "how do we make learning look like a game?" nothing good's gonna get done.
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Yeah, I realize that comes off kinda cynical, but my dad's been assigned to a number of educational game projects and none of them were things that I'd play if they weren't homework.
Also, from what I've seen of AP English guidebooks...they need to be replaced. Really bad. If you could one day design a game that does that, I will tip my hat to you.
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