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So to make real genius kids, throw away those Baby Einstein videos, ditch the "brain training" apps, and just play. What would the play curriculum be? Minec

So to make real genius kids, throw away those Baby Einstein videos, ditch the "brain training" apps, and just play. What would the play curriculum be? Minecraft Portal 1 & 2 The Talos Principle Infinifactory What else? I'm thinking something that involves a fourth spatial dimension or causality manipulation would also be good. I'd recommend Spellbreaker if I thought kids would tolerate text-only games these days.

dymk 7y ago
Baba is You Factorio Shenzhen IO 7 Billion Humans / Human Resource Machine
javajosh 7y ago
The Incredible Machine, Lemmings, and just playing around with Logo were pretty awesome for problem solving fun, I think, back in my day. As for messing with causality, Braid comes to mind. To expand perspective, and for the sheer beauty of it, Gorogoa. Almost any RTS will give you a good feel for simple differential equations, combinatorics, economics, and a little game theory. I used to mess around with some incredible indie content on Kongregate, especially puzzle games, some of which were truly innovative and wonderful. (Too bad it is so hard to monetize awesome little indie games! Good luck to poki.com, itch.io, and their ilk!) But the best foundation for the mind, I think, is to keep younger kids IRL, let them make up their own games, and keep it physical and outside as much as possible. Much of our human consciousness involves moving around abstract space, analogous to physical motion, and so learning to move and think IRL is vital to developing consciousness, wherever it may eventually play.
NoodleIncident 7y ago
Maybe I'm just salty that I didn't figure out you could pick up laser redirectors without breaking the connection until after beating the game, but The Talos Principle always seems out of place in these lists. I've always seen it as a game focused on its story, which by necessity involves puzzle-based gameplay; but I've never thought that the puzzles were that good. In particular, it feels like the game actively discourages you from using 3D spatial reasoning, in favor of the puzzles being about using the tools you have to collect more tools. Most of the puzzles could have just been a 2D top-down perspective.
- logfromblammo 7y ago
  The puzzles needed for the low-effort ending are all like that, but some of the puzzles required for the 100%-completion ending are literally outside the box, requiring you to use tools from multiple discrete puzzle zones together, or to liberate tools from their zones to use in a portion of the level outside the puzzle fences. Additionally, there are multiple Easter eggs peppering the game that take some amount of subversive reasoning to see or touch. There's a "solve the puzzle as presented" level of reasoning, and there's a "break the puzzle" level of reasoning. Some puzzles have a "get the tetromino" solution, a "get the star" solution, and a "get somewhere I shouldn't be able to reach" solution. For instance, have you found the Space Core, from Portal 2, in The Talos Principle?
umvi 7y ago
Zoombinis
mcv 7y ago
If that's your list, I clearly need to check out The Talos Principle and Infinifactory. Minecraft and Portal are easily my son's favourite games. He seems to have lost interest in Roblox, Baba is You was fun but didn't really catch on. He also enjoyed Braid, but many of the puzzles there were a bit too hard for him at the time. Maybe we should try again. And he's taken an interest in all the Supermario games now.

dymk 7y ago

Baba is You Factorio Shenzhen IO 7 Billion Humans / Human Resource Machine

javajosh 7y ago

The Incredible Machine, Lemmings, and just playing around with Logo were pretty awesome for problem solving fun, I think, back in my day. As for messing with causality, Braid comes to mind. To expand perspective, and for the sheer beauty of it, Gorogoa. Almost any RTS will give you a good feel for simple differential equations, combinatorics, economics, and a little game theory. I used to mess around with some incredible indie content on Kongregate, especially puzzle games, some of which were truly innovative and wonderful. (Too bad it is so hard to monetize awesome little indie games! Good luck to poki.com, itch.io, and their ilk!) But the best foundation for the mind, I think, is to keep younger kids IRL, let them make up their own games, and keep it physical and outside as much as possible. Much of our human consciousness involves moving around abstract space, analogous to physical motion, and so learning to move and think IRL is vital to developing consciousness, wherever it may eventually play.

NoodleIncident 7y ago

Maybe I'm just salty that I didn't figure out you could pick up laser redirectors without breaking the connection until after beating the game, but The Talos Principle always seems out of place in these lists. I've always seen it as a game focused on its story, which by necessity involves puzzle-based gameplay; but I've never thought that the puzzles were that good. In particular, it feels like the game actively discourages you from using 3D spatial reasoning, in favor of the puzzles being about using the tools you have to collect more tools. Most of the puzzles could have just been a 2D top-down perspective.

logfromblammo 7y ago
The puzzles needed for the low-effort ending are all like that, but some of the puzzles required for the 100%-completion ending are literally outside the box, requiring you to use tools from multiple discrete puzzle zones together, or to liberate tools from their zones to use in a portion of the level outside the puzzle fences. Additionally, there are multiple Easter eggs peppering the game that take some amount of subversive reasoning to see or touch. There's a "solve the puzzle as presented" level of reasoning, and there's a "break the puzzle" level of reasoning. Some puzzles have a "get the tetromino" solution, a "get the star" solution, and a "get somewhere I shouldn't be able to reach" solution. For instance, have you found the Space Core, from Portal 2, in The Talos Principle?

umvi 7y ago

Zoombinis

mcv 7y ago

If that's your list, I clearly need to check out The Talos Principle and Infinifactory. Minecraft and Portal are easily my son's favourite games. He seems to have lost interest in Roblox, Baba is You was fun but didn't really catch on. He also enjoyed Braid, but many of the puzzles there were a bit too hard for him at the time. Maybe we should try again. And he's taken an interest in all the Supermario games now.