4 ms·
It seems the author is not thinking about games (educational or not) in the common sense, but in way broader terms: > A video game is just: > > (a) a simulatio
by hrktb 6y ago
It seems the author is not thinking about games (educational or not) in the common sense, but in way broader terms:
> A video game is just:
>
> (a) a simulation of reality
> (b) with fast feedback loops.
I’d agree with both of you.
“Educational” games are a hard sell. I’m a parent and the educational mini-games pushed by school is boring to death and won’t stick with my kid. It’s hard to articulate, but the underlying principle of trying to teach a specific thing doesn’t go well. Yet the ones that I found that seemed to work ok had way lower “educational” focus, and it was hard to recommend over any other standard game.
Then simulations stick very well.
Minecraft is a barebone one and “teaches” a ton of true and untrue stuff. Racing simulations stuck, flight simulator stuck, hell even lego simulator stuck. I see animal crossing in the same vein, and am trying to find a serious fishing simulator as a beginner’s guide to fishing. And kids can spend hours on Streetview for the same reason.
- eru 6y agoThe original Sim City also comes to mind. It teaches a lot, but is still fun.
- anthk 6y agoNow it's libre, Check Micropolis. Also lincity/linticy-ng are great too, even more for a climate changing world.
- tasogare 6y agoI spend hundreds of hours on this series (from 2000 to 4) and I love it yet I don’t think I learnt much out of it. "People and companies want low taxes", "nuclear power plant are dangerous" and "wind power is inefficient", that’s pretty much it. Also when I was kind I wasn’t really able to build a good city. I understood years later this is because the game expects cities to be built in the US fashion: big residencial/commercial/industrial zones separated from each other, linked by roads, lot of roads. And square based layouts. That was totally different from where I lived so I’ve always found the cities layout that works in the game where very artificial. So there wasn’t too much to learn about city planning.
- dragonwriter 6y ago> Also when I was kind I wasn’t really able to build a good city. I understood years later this is because the game expects cities to be built in the US fashion: big residencial/commercial/industrial zones separated from each other, linked by roads, lot of roads. And square based layouts. It...does not. It uses and underlying low-level simulation model which can be satisfied lots of different ways, but what you describe is not one that works particularly well for it.
- eru 6y agoWell, in Sim City you can't mix residential and commercial on the same square. And the bigger buildings need more than a single square, I think. In real life, I very much like having shops on the ground floor of residential buildings. Very convenient for me.
- eru 6y agoFunny enough, the three 'things' you learned out of it ain't even all true. :) Still a great game! I played mostly Sim City 2000.
- ImaCake 6y agoI'd argue that micro controllers and educational/programmable robots fit into this category as well. They allow the kind of play and learning that makes them both engaging and valuable for education.
- hrktb 6y agoTotally. The lego technic sets are a boon in that respect, mindstorms being a very good entrypoint to programming (“telling a machine to do stuff on its own”) in particular, and to engineering in general. The new Spike set looks promising.
- OGWhales 6y agoThe author even mentioned how games designed to be educational are usually boring and not well received.