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Education Entertainment Games

G-rated Simulation Games? 179

Posted by Cliff from the fun-games-for-kids-in-school dept.
jhl at school asks: "I am a Math and Technology teacher at a middle school, in rural Maine, where all of our 7th and 8th graders are given iBooks that they can use. What they are allowed to do with them is kept within strict limits, and it must be educational. I stay with then after school, and during this time they are allowed to use them for fun -- within limits (no violence, and nothing sexually explicit). I bought a copy of 'The Sims', at the kids' request, but the principal says it's too racy (polygamy is allowed, characters can climb into bed together, and so forth). What simulations our out there, where these kids can play in virtual environment, but keep it G-rated as my principal would like. Alternately, might there be some information to help the argument that 'The Sims' has educational value? I've found nothing I thought was objectionable - but this is a very conservative community. Thanks on behalf of my kids, who could use a little fun."
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G-rated Simulation Games? More

G-rated Simulation Games?

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  • Sim City? (Score:4, Informative)

    by shane_rimmer ( 622400 ) on Thursday March 11, 2004 @09:41PM (#8538594)
    What about Sim City? [amazon.com]
    • I second that. Beyond that, are you open to games other than simulations? What about puzzle games or other educational games? I'm not familar with what's available for the Mac, but given their history in the classroom there must be a ton of educational stuff out there, and some of it may even be free.
    • Sim City, Civ 3, Age of Mythology, Age of Empires...they are all good.

    • Re:Sim City? (Score:3, Informative)

      by orangetang ( 751537 )
      Sounds like one of those silly communities where Civ3 woudl be to 'violent'. Sim City, Roller Coaster Tycoon, and other along those lines are you best bet. The newest Sim City is actually a quite challenging.
    • Hard Hat Mac
      Oregon Trail
      Every child should cut their teeth on an Apple II with these ancient games!

  • Mental note... (Score:4, Funny)

    by QuantumG ( 50515 ) <qg@biodome.org> on Thursday March 11, 2004 @09:41PM (#8538598) Homepage Journal
    sneak more porn into future Maxis titles.

  • Kid friendly games (Score:3, Insightful)

    by almaon ( 252555 ) on Thursday March 11, 2004 @09:44PM (#8538622)
    How bout Sim City 4? Other than the occasional fires, tornados and alien attacks, it's pretty passive and very educational.

  • Incredible Machine? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Netbrian ( 568185 ) <netbrian@ao[ ]om ['l.c' in gap]> on Thursday March 11, 2004 @09:44PM (#8538624)
    Might I reccomend the Incredible Machine Contraptions? There is nothing remotely offensive about the game, it can be EASILY argued to have educational value (it's more or less a puzzle game, along with basic physics), and should be both cheap and easy on the computers.
    • Nothing remotely offensive!? I'm sure a luddite would disagree.

    • Re:Incredible Machine? (Score:2, Informative)

      by Svet-Am ( 413146 )
      I would whole-heartidly agree. I still play The Incredible Machine and The EVEN MORE Incredible Machine to this day. However, I am pretty damned sure that there has never been a Mac release (except for maybe the original Incredible Machine).

      I know that Mac versions of most of Maxis' SIM games can be found for the Mac, such as SIM City, SIM Life, SIM Earth. You just need to keep your eyes peeled. Chips & Bits (www.chipsbits.com) is a pretty decent mail order retailer that still carries a fair bit of

  • Chromatron is eductional, fun, and addictive (Score:4, Informative)

    by Cecil ( 37810 ) on Thursday March 11, 2004 @09:48PM (#8538657) Homepage
    Chromatron [silverspaceship.com] is a puzzle game of lasers (no, not the killing kind), optics, and geometry. It runs on Mac or Windows. The first 50 puzzle version is free, additional puzzles can be had for very cheap.

    It's also *challenging*. If you only have an hour or so per schoolday with the kids, this'll probably last until the end of the schoolyear. :) Give it a try.

  • You need more information (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward

    I'm getting a little tired of all these half-thought-out questions being posted to Ask Slashdot. We're willing to help provided you have a well-defined request.

    I've found nothing I thought was objectionable - but this is a very conservative community.

    Your first task is to more fully understand what is acceptable to this community. You clearly don't have a grasp on this, yet you ask us (who know even less about the community) for suggestions. Until you can come up with a detailed list of what is not a

  • Lemonaid tycoon (Score:3, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 11, 2004 @09:48PM (#8538663)
    I think it's a fun littly game. I am 100% sure there is nothing objectionable in it, educational wise it teaches kids how to run a small business maybe? at the very least there is basic math in it you could point out.

  • Off the top of my head.. (Score:4, Informative)

    by molo ( 94384 ) on Thursday March 11, 2004 @09:49PM (#8538672) Journal
    Off the top of my head, some of these may be a bit dated.

    Also from Maxis: SimCity, SimAnt

    Something from the Test Drive series (its physics! You may want to avoid the "hot pursuit" series)

    Conway's Game of Life

    One of those universe/solar system simulations - I forget the name.

    I'm sure there's plenty more out there. Good luck.

    -molo
    • Hot Pursuit is Need For Speed, no ?

    • Re:Off the top of my head.. (Score:5, Informative)

      by Thornae ( 53316 ) on Friday March 12, 2004 @08:32AM (#8542097)
      One of those universe/solar system simulations - I forget the name.
      Possibly because there's more than one name to forget... (=

      Let's see, for general touring around the Solar system and neighborhood, there's nothing quite like Celestia [shatters.net]. Hours of fun, and very pretty to look at.
      Noctis [anywherebb.com] is also similar, but set in a fictional universe.
      For more pretty pictures, but less interactivity, see The Solar Journey [indiana.edu] homepage or the Solar System Simulator [nasa.gov]. Also The Nine Planets for Kids [nineplanets.org].
      Naturally, kids aren't that interested in just flying around. Well, Orbit [head-crash.com] lets them blow each other up in space, but with realistic physics and visuals. Once that gets boring, you can let them fly a space shuttle to the ISS with Orbiter [ucl.ac.uk]. Beware, though. Orbiter is no simple game - you actually need to know how space flight works [nasa.gov]. There's also the Microsoft Space Simulator [the-underdogs.org], which Orbiter has more or less superseded.

      If you're not looking to get that far off the ground, FlightGear's [flightgear.org] an excellent flight simulator in which you can fly everything from the original Wright Brothers' craft right up to concept superplanes.

      More links, mainly astronomy related, here [t-online.de], here [geocities.com], here [obspm.fr], here [nineplanets.org], and here [cornell.edu].

      Finally, you might wish to try browsing the Tucows Games site [tucows.com] and Freshmeat's game section [freshmeat.net] (you'll need to login to make full use of Freshmeat).

      Good luck, have fun searching.

  • tranquility (Score:5, Interesting)

    by presearch ( 214913 ) * on Thursday March 11, 2004 @09:50PM (#8538677)
    We've got just the game you're looking for: tranquility [tqworld.com].

    It's totally abstract, non-violent and highly mathematical. We have several schools that play tranquility
    as a group activity. Download the game and give it a try, then drop us a note on our site support form and
    we'll set you up with free accounts.

    You know, for kids!!

  • What is this world coming to? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Gilk180 ( 513755 ) on Thursday March 11, 2004 @09:53PM (#8538723)
    It almost makes me sick to think that school officials would have a problem with The Sims for those reasons.

    I have never played, but the fact that they are concerned that characters 'may' do some things that aren't PC (that's politically correct, not personal computer) doesn't seem like such a big deal. The characters follow the players lead. If they are led to get in bed together, the player obviously had some idea what was going on before. It's not too likely that they would suddenly discover the existence of males and females who get into the same bed by playing the game.

    Saying the Sims is harmful to the students is like saying that they are harmful to themselves. If they don't have dirty little minds, they won't run into these things. If they do have dirty little minds how does this affect them?

    Children who grow up in a sheltered environment are often unable to properly adapt to the real world when they are forced into it.

    Let the flames begin!
  • Hitchikers Guide To The Galaxy text adventure. Develops thinking skills?

  • As I know everyone will say Roller-Coaster Tycoon (Score:4, Interesting)

    by KNicolson ( 147698 ) on Thursday March 11, 2004 @09:54PM (#8538735) Homepage
    I'd vote for Transport Tycoon. The lower skill levels are very weak AI (can you set the number of CPU opponents to zero?) but the integrated traffic management skills are still needed even there. It's perhaps just a little slow-paced, especially at the beginning, so takes a while to get to an "interesting" point, although you could always give them a saved game you prepared earlier.

    Railroad Tycoon II has pre-set scenarios and perhaps looks better than TT, but I never got into that game quite so much.

    Oh, if the Sims is too racy, good old SimCity might be OK - ISTR that there is specific educational information available for it.
    • Gotta agree, I spent so may hours learning all the tricks in that game, and pushing the system. I even remember coming up with a way to make intelligent switched multi-track networks despite the game's limitations.

      My roommate I've been living with for about 6 months used to be a Sim City 2000 junkie. I turned him on to TTDX and he's been playing that ever since :P

      And no, I don't think you can play without an opponent, but the AI usually doesn't cause much worry early on in the game. As for the slow sta

    • Transport Tycoon Deluxe is awesome. I still play it occasionally.

      But make sure you get the unofficial patch [ttdpatch.net]. It fixes bugs, extends limits that were mostly in place for memory / resource reasons, and adds some gameplay improvements (all of which can be turned on or off).

  • Perhaps (Score:3, Informative)

    by nelsonal ( 549144 ) on Thursday March 11, 2004 @09:56PM (#8538747) Journal
    Railroad Tycoon 2, it's got a ton of history about railroad development. There are a bunch of tycoon games in this one's footsteps, some are better than others.
    Alpha Centari, is a different take on civ, there is some battle, (not bloody as I recal but there is some fighting).
    If you have an older group I'd suggest wall street raider, especially if they finish a unit on the stock market. Graphics are poor but the game is quite fun. There used to be an excellent risk like game with more updated country borders, the rest of the gameplay was very similar to risk, it was quite fun too.

  • Wolfenstein ET is the best tool (Score:5, Funny)

    by superpulpsicle ( 533373 ) on Thursday March 11, 2004 @10:01PM (#8538790)
    It teaches you math. Fragging and Tking.

    It teaches you history. Nazis vs. Allies.

    It teaches you physics. Fire that panzer up close.

    It teaches you physical Ed. Your wrist will be tired after 10 hrs of wolfing.

    It teaches you art. Watch that blood splat.

    It teaches you chemistry. Stab someone with that poision needle.

  • I frankly reccommend the free Bridge Builder [bridgebuilder-game.com] or any of its 3-d brethren [chroniclogic.com].

    I mean, unless watching a few blocks representing a train plummet into a river counts as violent.

  • Zoo Tycoon? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by BFedRec ( 257522 ) on Thursday March 11, 2004 @10:20PM (#8538938) Homepage
    I've seen a few of the other Tycoon games mentioned but not Zoo Tycoon. Somebody picked it up for my son and it's pretty tame, but still pretty interesting. I guess that you can have troubles if you let the Lions live with the Antelope (somebody gets eaten), but I don't think THAT would spark parental/principal problems.

    CharlesP

    • Re:Zoo Tycoon? (Score:3, Informative)

      by martinde ( 137088 )
      Definitely not - it's not at all gory or anything like that when lions eat in Zoo Tycoon. I've played Zoo Tycoon with my 5 year old and I'd say it's completely G-Rated, and it's entertaining to boot.
  • That would be a great title to let them play. Simulated theme parks which they can control and build new rides etc. Kind of like Sim City but on more of an 8th grade type level, they would love it. Click here to check it out. [amazon.com]

  • Sim Tower (Score:4, Interesting)

    by justanyone ( 308934 ) on Thursday March 11, 2004 @10:25PM (#8538971) Homepage Journal
    Sim Tower is kind of old but it's very good.

    You optimize a building. you can put a hotel, restaurants, shopping mall, movie theater, subway stop, elevators, condos etc in and you get revenue streams from it. it's great for seeing who can make the most money and why. Of course, this is for bigger kids (2nd grade minimum, probably 4th grade is better).

    The other one is Sim Safari, which optimizes a game reserve. you can put in a variety of animals, but you need to buy services of a game specialist, guide, build a hut, hire drivers, etc. The fun part is that you get to learn what animals can live together (it's designed to be very educational without being too in-your-face about it).

    I liked it, too, but I liked sim tower more.

    Sim city was pretty good. My dad was a city manager and he loved the idea of it because it simulated all the strange things that could happen in municipal planning. Of course, Godzilla walking thru town is possible in the game but not real life, but even in the game it is rare. Most of the problems are bad street design, lack of firefighters, etc.

    The interrelatedness of things is a big thing to teach. The fact that any large system involving many competing interests has multiple solutions, and sometimes the fact that people disagree or that they don't work perfectly is normal.

    Lots of uneducated people all around the world (not just in the U.S.) think that there are simple solutions to the world's problems, and the Sim games show that this isn't true and, intuitively, why not.

    • Re:Sim Tower (Score:4, Informative)

      by robson ( 60067 ) on Friday March 12, 2004 @12:31AM (#8539811)
      Sim Tower is kind of old but it's very good.

      Ooo! Also Simfarm [mobygames.com]. Great little game, completely nonviolent and stealth-educational. Semi-abandonware; if you can't find it for sale, you might still be able to find it online somewhere.

    • Sim Slashdot!

      Maintain a minimum population of trolls!

      Never ever lern 2 spel!

      Praise shoddy design and white-heat-inspiration hacking as "visionary" and "wave of the future"! Imply that any project concerned about quality over features is "slowing down" and losing its developer base!

      Find wildly biased opinion pages and report them as if they were news! Abuse your position as editor to add snide immature comments as part of the story!

      Report them again a few hours later!

      Isolate the only actual

  • Civ 3 or FreeCiv (Score:4, Insightful)

    by miyako ( 632510 ) <miyako AT gmail DOT com> on Thursday March 11, 2004 @10:26PM (#8538975) Homepage Journal
    FreeCiv [freeciv.org] supports OS X with Fink. I would think this would be a great game for the kids to get together and play. It would teach history, let them learn about ancient technologies etc.
    If you feel like paying money, you might also think about getting Civilization 3 [civ3.com], I've never played this game myself, but I recall Civilization II had a lot of good historical information about various technlogies and epochs in history. I would assume that this version would have something like that as well.
    If you have any windows machines you might also consider exposing them to Alice [alice.org], not it's not American McGee's twisted (and quite fun) game, but a project from Carnegie Mellon to teach kids about 3D and Game Programming.
    • Civilization isn't educational like Carmen Sandiego is. I mean, in Civ, you can have Ghandii (living in Italy) start a global thermonuclear war with the Zulus (who live in the Americas).

      I only say this because that was the scenario when I once played (maybe I was the Greeks, i cant remember...)
    • FYI. Alice is available for Mac OS X here [aspyr.com] from top-notch game publisher Aspyr. Though I'm not sure it would fly in the poster's "very conservative community"
  • Because The Sims isn't so much a simulation as it is a charictiture of it's environment. When I think of a simulator I think of a flight simulator such as Flightgear [flightgear.org]. I'm not sure flightgear would keep young ones entertained for very long. But if by simulation you mean something like The Sims, then just about any other Sim-related title should suit you. There's SimCity, SimAnt, SimEarth (might be a problem if you're in a state that forbids the teaching of evolution). Some open source alternatives would be:
  • Educational, fun, and free!
    • In what possible way is NetHack educational? What are kids going to learn from playing it?

      Throwing tripe at wild animals makes them love you?

      Shopkeepers have powerful magical forces, and must never be pissed off?

      It's okay to eat people if you tin them first?

  • Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Thursday March 11, 2004 @10:59PM (#8539191)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • Hard call. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Kris_J ( 10111 ) * on Thursday March 11, 2004 @11:15PM (#8539297) Homepage Journal
    Of course the Sims isn't educational. I assume you're not letting them anywhere near the on-line service either; Google for Sims and Prostitution. I also think your definition of "simulation" looks a little narrow. Flight Simulator is more what I think of when you say simulation than The Sims, but I'm "old skool". It could even be considered educational. However, it is incredibly boring. Most of the other simulators, using the classic definition, focus either on racing (eg; Accolade's Test Drive series) or shooting things (eg; A10 Tank Killer -- anyone remember that?)

    The more modern definition of "sim" that you seem to be using typically doesn't include anything of any redeming educational value. Most of the rules of the world are so simplified that behaviour within the sim is borderline random or very easy to effect by doing something seriously unrealistic. You'd get about as much educational value out of Monopoly as you would out of Railroad Tycoon. You could try looking at word and puzzle games. There's a "Wheel of Fortune [gamefaqs.com] game for the Mac, but I would imagine that a room full of kids would go through the library of puzzles pretty quickly.

    My final suggestion might be a little out of your scope: Robocode [ibm.com] or Corewars [sourceforge.net] -- Kids develop their own little programs that battle it out in a virtual arena. The second is a little more abstract than the first. At the very least it will teach them how to program.

  • I've got one for you... (Score:3, Funny)

    by JavaLord ( 680960 ) on Thursday March 11, 2004 @11:37PM (#8539448) Journal
    I stay with then after school, and during this time they are allowed to use them for fun -- within limits (no violence, and nothing sexually explicit).

    Hmm, did you try pong? Actually lunar lander might be ok for them.
  • Games are rated-- it sounds like you want games rated eC or E. You can see full descriptions of the ratings on the ESRB [esrb.org] site.

    -m

  • Ambrosia (Score:3, Informative)

    by Johnny Mnemonic ( 176043 ) <mdinsmore&gmail,com> on Friday March 12, 2004 @12:07AM (#8539642) Homepage Journal

    Ambrosia [ambrosiasw.com] has a line of games that I think would be kid safe; Uplink is fun and challenging, and no violence or nekkid, but maybe it simulates "hacking" too closely. "Nova" is a Space Trader game, so simulates some economic theory. I don't recall anything offensive in it, but you have a pretty low bar, too.

    There's also iConquer from KavaSoft [kavasoft.com], a RISK-alike that is very like.

    Also try Apple's Product Finder [apple.com]; it reminds me that there's several good racing/skating games that aren't offensive, and lots and lots of strategy games. There's even a "kids" section from which too chose.

    Good luck! And try posting to some of the Apple lists! [apple.com] I think many of us Mac IT folk are interested to know how this thing is shaking out in Maine.
    • EV Nova? Non-violent? Uhh, my quad capacitor-pulse-laser equipped Scarab and fleet of captured Fed Carriers beg to differ. So do the numerous planets that I've dominated.

      Combat rating: Terrifying.

      I don't think you played it long enough...

    • Re:Ambrosia (Score:2, Insightful)

      by CFTM ( 513264 )
      Uplink isn't really hacking though, it doesn't teach you anything about system manipulation (and how boring that can be). It's more a problem solving game. You have a set of tools and you need to figure out the best way to do a project ... I only played the demo though, although I enjoyed it quite a bit.

  • Check out Orbiter (Score:4, Informative)

    by arkham6 ( 24514 ) on Friday March 12, 2004 @12:10AM (#8539660)
    This program is an excelent, free space simulator. Fly the Apollo 11 mission, launch the space shuttle and dock at ISS, or for real fun, launch a probe from earth, have it gravity assist around venus, and go out to the outer planets. The physics seems very realistic and real world. Math will for sure be a huge help in this. The main site is Here [ucl.ac.uk], and also check out Dan's ORbiter page, with many great addons and sound updates here [dansteph.com]. For a great video of orbiter in action (But without any view of the controls or the mathmatics involved) check out video 3 [mustard27.free.fr] from this page.

    Did I mention its all free as in beer?

  • A few options (Score:2, Informative)

    by ckafura ( 633003 )
    As mentioned, SimCity would be a good choice. Also SimTower or even SimLife. A few more: - The online Yahoo! game Text Twist would be good for building vocabulary. - Oregon Trail is a classic. - Any of the historical strategy games (Civil War Generals 2, Empire Earth, etc.) - World War II Fighters is a good flight sim with a strong historical component. (And patriotic to boot!) - Number Munchers for math skills? FYI, I actually used The Sims to do a science project in middle school.

  • Any non-violent mods for QIII? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by gozar ( 39392 ) on Friday March 12, 2004 @12:16AM (#8539699) Homepage

    If you can't find any non-violent mods for Quake 3, have the students create one.

    The could create the own map, their own non-violent weapons... You'd have to call them something other than weapons. Maybe a non-violent game of tag... Or water balloons.... The hand to hand combat could be pillows for a pillow fight.

    Or want about some non-violent mods for Never Winter Nights?

    • Nerf Arena Blast is a non-violent Unreal-engine based game. UT's mod tools are easier to use, if you want to let your kids crack at coding (its still tricky tho - its a Java-style custom OOP language). The uber-oop system of the Unreal engine makes it very easy for collaborative work too. A little too nasty for middle-schoolers to code in tho.

      Still, not educational other than the tools. Maxis in general owns the educational games - unfortunately, their new owner is running them out of that business and

  • Wild Divine (Score:5, Informative)

    by SaXisT4LiF ( 120908 ) on Friday March 12, 2004 @12:23AM (#8539737)
    Although probably a bit more expensive then you were probably planning on spending, you might want to consider The Wild Divine Project [wilddivine.com].

    From the site: The Journey to Wild Divine is more than a computer adventure. It integrates a personal spiritual quest with an innovative biofeedback interface and high-end multimedia production. The result is an unparalleled and fulfilling "Inner-Active" experience.

    Basically, you explore the virtual world and learn to complete tasks that require you to learn to control your pulse and breathing rate using a biofeedback system.

    I haven't played it... but it certainly looks cool
    • Has anyone played this? At $150 a seat it's expensive.
      I can't tell from the page what it's play style actually is.
      Kind of like Myst with biofeedback control?

  • Creatures (Score:5, Informative)

    by jefu ( 53450 ) on Friday March 12, 2004 @12:31AM (#8539808) Homepage Journal
    I don't know just what kind of state Creatures [gamewarede...ment.co.uk]is in, but it is a great simulation of, well, "creatures" that hatch from eggs, grow up, mate, make more eggs and so on. You get to teach them to talk, to eat and whatever.

    OK, they do "mate" but its about as asexual a mating as you can get (ok, they don't get "married" so I guess it will offend those who are easily offended). And the creatures aren't human and I'm not entirely clear on the specific doctrine of offense involved. Do these people require that chickens marry before they mate?

    The players do get to raise the kids - and those kids are not always the best behaved of creatures so it can be an interesting process. Rather more demanding than the "carry an egg around for a week" type thing that has been popular.

    Who knows - it is possible that if there are enough people who demand that everyone adhere to their particular mating rituals that maybe the makers would add in a "you must be married to have eggs" option to make using the game possible. Naturally (and I mean that word quite literally) that also raises the questions of the death of a partner, adultery, divorce and what not. Not to mention heaven and hell (and purgatory and beatrice and ...).

  • Whatever happened to Oregon Trail?? That was the hot game back when I was a kid (on the Apple II).

  • pretty much anything cvilian (Score:3, Informative)

    by corian ( 34925 ) on Friday March 12, 2004 @01:17AM (#8540170)
    Pretty much all the major non-military sims out there would work for you.

    MS Flight Simulator
    MS Train Simulator

    The most violent you can get is crashing, but even so, nobody gets hurt. You see, that's the whole point of simulation!
  • In my day, it was all about Where in the USA/World is Carmen Sandiego and The Oregon Trail on the Apple IIe's we had in the computer lab. I think we also used Logo for a while.

    Although, judging from today's anal society, I'll bet your principal would have an objection to the 2-bit hunting scene in Oregon Trail.
  • Hi, I'd highly recommend you check out Bridge Construction Set [chroniclogic.com] by Chronic Logic. There's a free demo available for Windows AND Linux.

    (Lifted from the website)
    In The Bridge Construction Set(aka Pontifex II), Building a bridge that doesn't break is what its all about, although watching your bridge creation break and plunge a train into the watery depths below can be half the fun. In the Bridge Construction Set you design and build bridges and then stress test them to see how your creations hold up under pre
  • get soldier of fortune 2 and one of the several paintball mods. pretty colors and no real deaths. use one machine as the server and let them lan!
  • ?But that isn't g-rated since you can kill Bambi.

  • A few suggestions (Score:4, Interesting)

    by 0x0d0a ( 568518 ) on Friday March 12, 2004 @04:36AM (#8541142) Journal
    Note that I'm not considering OS in this. These are general suggestions.

    * Anything in the "programming game" genre. When doing this, a player designs a robot to go through some kind of puzzle or challenge (or theoretically fight, though as much of this is rather abstract, it may work under your violence issues). The original game in this genre is "Core Wars" (despite the name, if you consider this violent, I will be impressed), where little bits of code struggled desperately to try to control more memory. There are other games in this genre, like "Mindrover". I found a quick list of games in the genre here [mcgill.ca]

    * There are a number of simulation games that would work. Most games in the sim genre really *are* okay. The SimCities have been in the educational market forever for a good reason (makes me realize how dated my educational software knowledge is, though). For Linux, Lincity is good -- plays quite different from SimCity, with distribution of goods and power more of an emphasis than utilitiy coverage.

    * Many puzzle games can be considered educational. Go to Info-Mac [mit.edu] or another Mac software site and look under "Puzzle". I'm personally rather fond of sobokan and clones, where one pushes boxes around in a "warehouse" into proper locations. It's untimed, but fun.

    * The Simple End User Linux (SEUL) project maintains a lot of links to software (including educational software) for Linux. Open source software has a way of getting ported, and I suspect you'll find that a fair amount works on OS X. Take a look here [richtech.ca]

    * Ultimately, I'd say that web-browsing can be an awfully educational experience (seriously, I've learned so much of what I know from the Internet that it's nuts -- almost anything you want to know is out on the Web somewhere), more so than most "educational" games. If they have a laptop, they can browse the web, no?

    I never thought much of the whole brand of "educational" software. The ones that simply included some interesting facts, like Oregon Trail or Sim City, seemed to provide a relatively low amount of knowledge for the amount of effort that gets put into them. The ones that made you do math quickly to play the game just doesn't seem to help real-world math skills much. When I learned to do math rapidly in my head, it was not using a video game.

    The Web is a fantastic research tool -- boy, it's irritating when teachers try to discourage students from using any Web sources. As a matter of fact, I'd consider having a web browser always available to be one of the most valuable educational resources available. When I didn't know what a word meant, my mother always tried to train me and my siblings to go find a dictionary and look it up. The problem is that it's a real pain in the ass to do so, especially if I'm comfortably reading a book. If I have a nice, fast, stable-and-not-swapping system with a web browser up that doesn't need to run through a modem (most people used to get this in university for the first time), I'd very inclined to look up words and concepts that I'm interested about. Just recently, I read an article on "The Onion", a decidedly non-educational piece of satire that alluded to the Dauphin, some sort of French nobility. I got curious. I never, ever would have done this if I had to use paper encyclopedias, because of the effort involved, but I read up on the Dauphin, and ended up reading for much of the day about French political and military history.
  • Pangea Software [pangeasoft.net] have a lot of fun games for kids. Take a look at Enigmo [pangeasoft.net], it's a great puzzle game.

    There is also The Incredible Machine [sierra.com] but it may only works on OS 9.

    If you want something a little more "arcade", you can find on GarageGames Marble Blast [garagegames.com].

    And FroGames will soon release a fun racing game : MiniOne Racing [frogames.com]. (ad)
  • Anyone remember SimEarth and SimAnt? Both of these were educational, fun, and appropriate for all ages.

    There was even a cheat in SimAnt to become the spider and go raid the rival ants' colony.

    I don't know how easy they would be to come by these days though. You could look on some of the abandonware sites:

    http://mac.the-underdogs.org/

  • Any of the Citybuilder games from Impressions might fit the bill; Caesar 3 (Ancient Rome, obviously), Pharoah/Cleopatra (Ancient Egypt), Zeus/Poseidon (Mythic Greece), and Emperor: Rise of the Middle Kingdom (Ancient China).

    Yes, there's war, but it's bloodless in depiction.

  • The guy who wrote Porrasturvat ("Stair Dismount") [slashdot.org] now has a version with trucks [jet.ro]. It will definitely keep their attention for a day or so, and it uses a very realistic physics model.
  • From the header article:

    What simulations our out there...

  • Oregon Trail [amazon.com] was one of my favorite games when I was younger. It's definitely considered educational. You learn how to plan for the future, and have to make decisions weighing time, health, and money. Also, from reading the Amazon review, I see that it builds reading skills - amazing the things we take for granted.
  • You *a* copy of Sims for HOW many kids?

    Don't mod this funny, the BSA will render it 'insightful' soon.

  • non-violent sims (Score:2, Informative)

    by Bobtree ( 105901 )
    The "G-Rated" restriction cuts out almost everything that attempts to model the Real World, seeing as it includes procreation and death by nature. Thank goodness the children can be protected from education about real world problems [note: this is sarcasm].

    SimCity is obviously a good candidate (though you may need to disable the in-game disasters, depending on how strict you want to be).

    Tropico would run a very close second in my book, excepting that you're a dicatator and can issue some serious edicts (
  • 'The Sims' educational value is that it is a simulation of individual people in their daily life in a family and a neighborhood. In playing the game the player learns how to manage a person's life and relationships appropriately and learns some consequences of good and bad management.

    The player has to balance the actions these Sims (individual people) take over the days and weeks in the game. You have to make sure they go to work and get paid, so that they can eat and pay the bills. They have to do a c

  • Pharaoh & Cleopatra (Score:2, Interesting)

    by J-Teixeira ( 761725 )
    Since SimCity 4 seems to be covered already, I'll throw in my 2-cents for one of my favorite games of all time. Pharaoh (and it's expansion, Cleopatra) is a very challenging, educational and fun game from the city building series created by Impressions and published by Sierra. There is some violence since the game tries to combine RTS games with Sim games, but the majority of game play is city building. (It's pretty hard to get away from violence 100% in historical games.) I'm not sure if this game was p

  • Since they're iBooks... (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Roogna ( 9643 )
    Be sure and check out Enigmo, at Pangea [pangeasoft.net]
    It's a puzzle game, and highly addictive.

    Also, it's pretty unoffensive, but involves some good strategy play, Spaceword Ho! at DeltaTao Software [deltatao.com]

    pop-pop is a great knockoff of the classic breakout, at Ambrosia Software [ambrosiasw.com]

    And of course, as people have mentioned, there's always Sim City :) Also Zoo Tycoon, published on the Mac by Aspyr [aspyr.com] is pretty un-offensive I'd think.

    All these companies, with the exception of Aspyr (who publishes a lot of the triple-A ports),

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