Educational  Computer Games
The aim of educational computer games is to get kids to have fun while learning art, politics, sports, science and entertainment. There is a place for the seemingly mindless fun that is provided by Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo. It is plain to see that video games are at least a small part of the entertainment budget of any household where fun, competition and spectacle are appreciated. However, educational games are developing right alongside the first person shooters, the tycoon games and the RPG's (role playing games); just to name a few types. Games with an educational side can be enjoyable as well as challenging. That learning can be fun, is the promise of educational

Playing an educational game

Little girl playing with an educational game

game makers. Learning can be fun for children when they are really engaged in the learning process, actually not wanting to be taken away from it.

The Educational Game Market

An ideal educational game may be characterized as one that teaches a skill that is useful outside of the game, and sells like crazy. And, maybe not in that order. One that did not cut it was called "Zap!" by Edmark, for Windows and Mac. Zap! would let players put on a music show, though that was just the payoff in this educational game designed to teach youngsters ages 8 to 12 about light, sound and electricity.

The pretext of this cartoon-style game was that most of the equipment for a concert is broken and the player, as "guest director," must help repair it. The game then posed a series of increasingly difficult questions. With enough correct answers, another piece of equipment would get fixed. The more equipment, the more elaborate the concert. In the electricity section, players were quizzed about ways to build and complete circuits. In the laser laboratory, the task was to position a series of mirrors, prisms and lenses so that a laser beam strikes a target. "Zap!" offered the right blend of humor, challenge and help.

For example, Surge, one of the three hosts, would inquire to know who judges an electrical baseball game (answer an amphire) and what sign you would find in a resistor's home ("Ohm Sweet Ohm"). Obviously Surge dragged his feet across too many carpets. If you asked for help, the game provided increasingly detailed hints.

Those hints became important because the higher-level problems (there are at least 22 per topic) could become devilishly complicated. ("Zap!" also gave parents handy access to a special on-screen control that would allow them to track each child's progress through the lessons, or choose which problems will be presented.) "Zap!" may not have been the most electrifying educational board game ever made, but most kids who tried it were sure to get a charge out of it.

Marketing Educational Games

More than a little time and money has been spent by video game companies in the hopes of being able to provide educational games that are both marketable and that kids can enjoy. Ideally, even while playing the games, youngsters would be learning without it seeming as though they were sitting in a classroom. This is an elusive goal, as games that teach kids in the home environment are not wished for and neither are they purchased in anything like the volume of the mainstream video and computer games. Who could not guess that in the choice between education and entertainment, the inevitable pick is for the stimulation and escape offfered by entertainment.