Educational games that you liked ish, sort of.

edited May 2010 in Games
Im not sure why my dad bought me and my sister a spectrum when we were kids but for my mum it was a way to boost my failing education. She would invest in numerous edutainment programs from maths to English and everything in between. Mostly they didnt improve my education but some of them were quite good, heres my faves.


Hot dot spotter. (Maths type game)
World flags.



Damn it that should say games in the thread title. This keyboard has a dodgy m key!. (Dont worry - amended - psj3809)
Post edited by 1980-20.. on
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Comments

  • edited May 2010
    My cousins and me used to play Mapgame, and we had some good challenges there! It is a spanish game using maps, about spanish geography.
  • edited May 2010
    It's got to be Survival. It was perhaps a bit rough round the edges and could have benefited from some slicker programming and presentation, but the game was rather well thought out and I rather enjoyed it.

    The rest of the Science Horizons series were also pretty good, for the most part. Cargo and Magnets are also decent games in their own right, aside from any educational value they might have.
  • edited May 2010
    I can remember spending hours and hours playing a lemonade stand simulator which I guess must've been part of a larger educational package.
  • edited May 2010
    Type Rope is quite fun, gets really hard once you get about 8-10 levels in, type of difficulty that would make a little kid cry :D
    Every night is curry night!
  • edited May 2010
    Yeah, Survival is excellent, and I've always loved it, but I wouldn't exactly call it educational - no more than Valhalla - (which helped me heaps!)

    Recently of course I played the Biblical Pluderwust game (Clever Clogs: History Mystery.)

    But overall, I guess it'd have to be Orm and Cheep - Narrow Squeaks
    http://www.worldofspectrum.org/infoseekid.cgi?id=0009150

    or at a push, Hansel and Gretel
    http://www.worldofspectrum.org/infoseekid.cgi?id=0011768
  • edited May 2010
    Graz wrote: »
    Yeah, Survival is excellent, and I've always loved it, but I wouldn't exactly call it educational - no more than Valhalla - (which helped me heaps!)

    Shhh... It's got an E code on the box, therefore it's educational. ;)
  • edited May 2010
    Does Scrabble count?
  • edited May 2010
    jdanddiet wrote: »
    Does Scrabble count?

    Naah, it's got a G code. Mind you, it's probably of at least as much educational value as anything else mentioned so far and a great game into the bargain.
  • edited May 2010
    1980-20.. wrote: »
    Damn it that should say games in the thread title.

    obviously these games didn't have that much of an effect on you. :-P
  • edited May 2010
    mile wrote: »
    obviously these games didn't have that much of an effect on you. :-P

    I think i already said that nnnnnnnnnnnnghhh. :smile:

    1980-20.. wrote: »
    Mostly they didnt improve my education but some of them were quite good, heres my faves.

  • edited May 2010
    Graz wrote: »
    But overall, I guess it'd have to be Orm and Cheep - Narrow Squeaks
    http://www.worldofspectrum.org/infoseekid.cgi?id=0009150
    [/url]


    Yeah, I remember my Mum going through a phase of "computers are for eduction", so she brought loads of these kinds of games, mainly for my youngest brother. This is the one that I remember the best, becasue it came in a plastic box and not a normal tape box, plus, it had clear instructions for transfering it to Microdrive and how to load from that.

    Also, the only other game that sticks in my mind is Sum Scruncher...

    http://www.worldofspectrum.org/infoseekid.cgi?id=0009189

    Even I enjoyed playing this one...
  • edited May 2010
    Yeah, I remember my Mum going through a phase of "computers are for eduction", so she brought loads of these kinds of games, mainly for my youngest brother. This is the one that I remember the best, becasue it came in a plastic box and not a normal tape box, plus, it had clear instructions for transfering it to Microdrive and how to load from that.

    Also, the only other game that sticks in my mind is Sum Scruncher...

    http://www.worldofspectrum.org/infoseekid.cgi?id=0009189

    Even I enjoyed playing this one...

    I nearly bought Orm and Cheep instead of the Avalon/Dragontorc boxset. Pwew, that was a "narrow squeak!" :D

    Not heard of Sum Scruncher, but it looks like the sort of game they'd have in schools. (I was terrified of the School computer!)

    Surely though, the most famous name goes to: First Steps with the Mister Men Surely everyone knows that one?
  • edited May 2010
    Aye, I liked Survival too. And it was amongst the first bundle of games we had, so I played it a fair bit.

    Totally non-Speccy (apologies), but I loved the Carmen Sandiego games on the Megadrive (I think Where In Time... was the one I played the most). :smile:

    Oh, and Granny's Garden on the BBC. :D
  • edited May 2010
    You can get 'Granny's Garden' for the Speccy as well. It's in the archive here.

    (They had it on the Link 480Z when I was at Primary School. The key-eating monster from the lake asked if it could have my key to eat, so I told it to eff off and the program locked up and said "please get your teacher". I reset the machine and pretended it crashed.)

    'Make A Chip' was pretty good. I played with it a bit when I was a kid, but got bored as it was a bit dry and nothing blew up.
  • edited May 2010
    The only games of this type I ever played on the speccy were little games that came with the 16/48 magazine. They were mostly pretty good and involved things like maths stuff, balancing up beakers of liquid, doing wiring diagrams and wot not. I suppose they had titles.
    I stole it off a space ship.
  • edited May 2010
    Grunaki wrote: »
    You can get 'Granny's Garden' for the Speccy as well. It's in the archive here.

    (They had it on the Link 480Z when I was at Primary School. The key-eating monster from the lake asked if it could have my key to eat, so I told it to eff off and the program locked up and said "please get your teacher". I reset the machine and pretended it crashed.)

    'Make A Chip' was pretty good. I played with it a bit when I was a kid, but got bored as it was a bit dry and nothing blew up.

    I thought Granny's Garden was denienced? They had it for the BBC at my primary school, I just remember the 2 screens where you had to pick a tree for some reason, and big red or purple blobby thing called Hachoo that jumped up and down whilst having a fit (but I think he was supposed to be sneezing :lol:).

    Hope it's not denienced might try swearing at it :D

    Don't know if me or anybody else tried it at school now? :lol:

    EDIT: Oh Bugger! It is denienced :(
    Every night is curry night!
  • edited May 2010
    I thought Granny's Garden was denienced? They had it for the BBC at my primary school, I just remember the 2 screens where you had to pick a tree for some reason, and big red or purple blobby thing called Hachoo that jumped up and down whilst having a fit (but I think he was supposed to be sneezing :lol:).(

    The PC version of Granny's Garden is still being sold and used in UK schools these days.

    I always liked Podd on the BBC Micro...
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G090ju-DpqU

    in which you used to complete the sentence with a verb to make Podd do something.
  • edited May 2010
    I remember playing a few of these on the BBC like Grannys Garden and Fletchers Castle. The only one I had for the spectrum was 'Paddington and the Disappearing Ink' (I was given it for a birthday - I didn't buy it!)

    It was basically a collection of separately loaded mini 'games' including a primitive word processor, but the one mini game which I remember best was a geography quiz on South America, which educated me on such things as the GDP of Peru, the population of Bolivia in 1983, and the capital city of Paraguay etc etc. I don't think it was the original goal but, some of the information has actually served me well in pub quizzes in later life.
  • edited May 2010
    Grunaki wrote: »
    'Make A Chip' was pretty good. I played with it a bit when I was a kid, but got bored as it was a bit dry and nothing blew up.

    Shame it's soooo hard to find a copy these days ;)
  • edited May 2010
    Strident wrote: »
    I always liked Podd on the BBC Micro...
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G090ju-DpqU

    in which you used to complete the sentence with a verb to make Podd do something.

    Oh my god!! I'd completely forgotten about that... good call.

    *takes a stroll down memory lane*
  • edited May 2010
    They had a BBC with Podd on it in the 'Dome of Discovery' in Blackpool Tower.

    I remember being about 10 and was highly disappointed when it wouldn't accept stuff like 'Podd can shit' or 'Podd can die'.
  • edited May 2010
    Grunaki wrote: »
    I remember being about 10 and was highly disappointed when it wouldn't accept stuff like 'Podd can shit' or 'Podd can die'.
    Podd can EXPLODE worked, though. :)
  • edited May 2010
    survival, make a chip
    and can i say some animal thing on the horizons tape Oo

    edit :- evolution, thats the one
    Professional Mel-the-Bell Simulator................"So realistic, I found myself reaching for the Kleenex King-Size!" - Richard Darling
  • edited May 2010
    Yesssss! get in, back of the netttttttt!. Some one has kindly changed the thread title so i dont look so stupid.
  • edited May 2010
    kingdom on the BBC
  • edited May 2010
    Civilization on the Amiga. Taught me history stuff I didn't know. Aparently, Zulus were unafraid of responding to nuclear annihilation with chariots. And archers were perfectly capable of taking down battleships.
  • edited May 2010
    at school we had a spec 48k and we were allowed to play some train simulator. can't remember the name.

    also I think either on spec or BBC (as well as Granny's Garden and Podd as mentioned), some game where you have to fire a rock over some wall from a catapult and make it land on your opponent's catapult or if you missed it was their go. is there a game like this on the spec? had a look in the archive but there is no game called 'catapult', can't think what else it would be called tbh
  • edited May 2010
    1980-20.. wrote: »
    Yesssss! get in, back of the netttttttt!. Some one has kindly changed the thread title so i dont look so stupid.

    Oh and those educational Gaelords were so amusing :p
    Every night is curry night!
  • zx1zx1
    edited May 2010
    Civilization on the Amiga. Taught me history stuff I didn't know. Aparently, Zulus were unafraid of responding to nuclear annihilation with chariots. And archers were perfectly capable of taking down battleships.

    I was the same, found out a lot about various things in history. The same goes for Colonisation (also on the Amiga). The manual had tonnes of info on the early explorers and histories of the various native Indian tribes, very interesting.
    The trouble with tribbles is.......
  • edited May 2010
    I found the copy-protection scheme on Civilization just as educational as it was redundant...it shows you a picture of a cannon, and asks what two technologies are required to create it. Maths and Pottery? The Republic and Horse-riding? or Gunpowder and Metallurgy? I don't think I require a manual to get this one...
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