5 ms·
Oregon Trail, Lemonade Stand, and Where in the World is Carmen San Diego were basically my holy trinity of educational games. The other educational game I reme
by actually_a_dog 5y ago
Oregon Trail, Lemonade Stand, and Where in the World is Carmen San Diego were basically my holy trinity of educational games. The other educational game I remember, which was probably far more important than the three of these put together was some random typing game. I had a keyboarding speed of around 80wpm before I hit high school from playing that one.
BTW, you can still play them here:
* https://archive.org/details/msdos_Oregon_Trail_The_1990 https://archive.org/details/msdos_Oregon_Trail_The_1990
* https://archive.org/details/msdos_Lemonade_Stand_1999 https://archive.org/details/msdos_Lemonade_Stand_1999
* https://classicreload.com/where-in-the-world-is-carmen-sandiego.html https://classicreload.com/where-in-the-world-is-carmen-sandi...
- lordnacho 5y agoCivilization. Nothing taught me more history, hands down. Bunch of leaders to read about, bunch of civs, techs, cities, wonders.
- lr4444lr 5y agoNot to mention the tradeoffs of different government types.
- hereforphone 5y agoA lot of the differences between _____ types in this game were based on the opinions of the authors.
- ethbr0 5y agoThe difference between zero and history-with-bias is more important than the difference to neutral-bias, which a kid probably wouldn't be equipped to unpack the nuance of anyway.
- Cd00d 5y agoI once tried to make a socialist paradise in SimCity, but the game moved all my town's people out due to high taxes.
- memco 5y agoThere was recently a story here about sim city that discussed some of these limitations: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27593081 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27593081. If you search for sim city on HN you’ll find several more. In addition to emergent functionality that we don’t foresee when we create a program there’s this other side of impossible functionality that we also embed in the design that we sometimes don’t realize.
- hereforphone 5y agoAre there any real-life approximations of this situation?
- jerf 5y agoHonestly, just the idea that there are tradeoffs is a lesson worth teaching. That's a lesson plenty of people haven't learned.
- thaumasiotes 5y agoIn Civilization, implementing Democracy reduces governmental corruption in all cities by 100%. It will more than double your GDP unless you were already a Republic. It is not possible to be competitive in research production unless you are a Republic or a Democracy, which is an interesting interpretation of classical history.
- cproctor 5y agoI recently translated the original 1971 Oregon Trail BASIC source code into Ink (https://unfold.studio/stories/10782/ https://unfold.studio/stories/10782/). It was my first time working with GOTO statements and hopefully my last.
- geitir 5y agoThe game that taught me typing was trying to respond quickly to trolls in WoW
- ethbr0 5y agoIRC My typing speed tripled.
- liveoneggs 5y agoCarmen San Diego was just so good
- mkmk 5y agoHow about Number Munchers?
- analognoise 5y agoNumber Munchers was the SHIIIIT! Thanks for the flashback!
- throwawaycuriou 5y agoMavis Beacon Teaches Typing? I remember an Amiga version which had a mode where had a crude visualization of racing other cars as you typed.
- dawnerd 5y agoWe had to do weekly sessions in Mavis all the way through middle school. I checked a couple years ago and they were still around.
- samatman 5y agoThat was the one for me, PC AT version but it had the racing game as well. Tied with Turbo Pascal for best lifetime payoff on an EXE running on that computer. Commander Keen has to get the ribbon for hours spent, though, unless it was Empire (hat tip to Walter Bright!)
- homero 5y agoI played the very old SimCity
- ethbr0 5y agoThe Learning Company stuff absolutely boosted my vocabulary (and ability to solve word puzzles). Treasure Mountain - https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=tTrNVwAKtLk https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=tTrNVwAKtLk Treasure Cove - https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=jF5s9_GFQPI https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=jF5s9_GFQPI And a few more random memories: The Incredible Machine - https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=pTbSMKGQ_rU https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=pTbSMKGQ_rU Pirates! Gold - https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3BRS331lGc0 https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3BRS331lGc0 Battle Bugs - I guess what would now be RTS? But with a lot of tactical / positioning elements. So really typical 90s "trying to figure this new type of game out" - https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=HKGHlL5jySU&t=8m17s https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=HKGHlL5jySU&t=8m17s
- darepublic 5y agoAncient empires was my favourite of the learning company titles. Had a soundtrack of chiptune classic songs including a gnossiene by Erik Satie that I first encountered in this educational dos game
- sp332 5y agoYou can play these in your browser now, although there's no guarantee how well they will work. Leave a review! The emulator settings can be tweaked individually for these, and the emulator software itself is getting updated all the time, so it helps the admins and devs know what to focus on. Treasure Mountain https://archive.org/details/msdos_Super_Solvers_Treasure_Mountain_1990 https://archive.org/details/msdos_Super_Solvers_Treasure_Mou... Treasure Cove https://archive.org/details/msdos_Super_Solvers_Treasure_Cove_1994 https://archive.org/details/msdos_Super_Solvers_Treasure_Cov... The Incredible Machine https://archive.org/details/the_incredible_machine_1992 https://archive.org/details/the_incredible_machine_1992 Pirates! Gold https://archive.org/details/msdos_Pirates_Gold_1993 https://archive.org/details/msdos_Pirates_Gold_1993 Battle Bugs https://archive.org/details/msdos_Battle_Bugs_1994 https://archive.org/details/msdos_Battle_Bugs_1994
- teawrecks 5y agoZoombinis was set theory for kids
- nickjj 5y agoThere was also Solomon's Key https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solomon%27s_Key https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solomon%27s_Key. Breaking down problems and solving real time puzzles was educational in its own way.
- furgooswft13 5y agoOh God, that game. Ugh, the music of the NES version is permanently seared into my mind.
- mambodog 5y agoif you prefer the macintosh version: https://jamesfriend.com.au/pce-js/mecc/oregon-trail.html https://jamesfriend.com.au/pce-js/mecc/oregon-trail.html