Dec 13, 3:00 am
When I think of “educational games” I always kind of wrinkle my nose because that doesn’t sound like any fun. Then of course I remember Number Munchers and Oregon Trail, both of which occupied most of my third grade and both of which I remember fondly--I get that far-off look, sigh a little, and settle my chin onto my hand to reminisce. Oh those mischievous troggles.
But that’s school, right? Educational games outside the classroom can’t possibly be any fun. Except then my memory pops in again with a little wave and reminds me that even before I played Myst I played another game that would definitely fall under this category: The Secret Island of Dr. Moreau Quandary. I don’t even know where my mom got this game. For all I know we inherited it with the computer. I’ll bet my mom got it from an old gypsy woman and it actually had secret powers. Years later I overclocked this same machine to run EverQuest--no ordinary computer could handle that. I think I even had a Voodoo PCI card. You remember those?
Anyway, the premise of Dr. Quandary (I assume everyone in the world is familiar with Number Munchers and Oregon Trail already) is that you meet this creepy Dr. at a fair and win a doll from a shooting range, EXCEPT IT’S NO ORDINARY DOLL. You get turned into the doll and teleported to Dr. Quandary’s secret island! To get back you have to solve a series of puzzles--from assembling shapes into… bigger shapes to prime number games that can pretty much only be won by accident. Each time you beat a puzzle you earn some ingredient for the magical elixir that will return you to your body and, presumably, the real world.
For a game that’s supposed to teach things I remember having an awful lot of fun with it--you can see why I started in the puzzle game genre when I graduated to big girl games.
I have pondered my condescencion towards educational games a few times to decide why it is I look down on them, and I think it’s because I’ve largely come away with the conclusion that most of them lack what the fun games are supposed to have. I couldn’t tell you what this “most” is, since I have certainly enjoyed those I’ve got my hands on, but there always seemed to be something a bit dirty about mixing fun and learning.
I can’t say I’m terribly surprised to see Nintendo leading the charge to change this idea and create games that allow non-gamers to play games while learning at the same time so they don’t actually realize they’re playing games. That’s the problem with non-gamers (and apparently this gamer too) : they don’t seem to realize that games and learning are not mutually exclusive. I’ve been playing Big Brain Academy for months and months--how long has it been out? I’ve played it for that long, and enjoyed it greatly because it told me my brain was getting heavier. I totally forgot that I think educational games are dumb!
Segue.
Yesterday I went to get my eyes checked for new glasses. You didn’t know I used them, eh? I didn’t. I conveniently lost the pair I got in high school because I didn’t care for them and never replaced them. However, since I have an upcoming trip to Australia in which it would be great to see the things I’m going to see, I decided it was time to get lights shined through my retinas. I had to take a train and, in a panic, borrowed a DS (mine was tragically left home charging) and picked up 2 games from Ubisoft: My Word Coach and My French Coach. Truly, one of my greatest fears is to be bored. Wait until I pack for a 13 hour flight across endless water.
During the trip--before my eyes got dilated to alien proportions, I learned new words interregnum, aberrant, and facile. Later in the night when my vision cleared sufficiently I decided to dedicate myself to a lesson in French. I do work for a French company. The least I can do is try to speak it at a 3 year old level. After a quick test I got skipped ahead to lesson 11 (guess I’ve picked up something after all!) where I learned nice greetings like “comment se va,” and “bon journee.” BON JOURNEE! Cool thing about French Coach is that you can actually record your voice saying a phrase and play it alongside the french tutor to make sure you’ve got it right. I still can’t get the hang of pronouncing “Aller,” but that will be for another practice session.
Turns out I enjoyed both of these games quite a bit, and I’m coming around to the idea that so-called-games like My French Coach could be the next big thing for learning languages. Certainly nothing can replace a real tutor, but being able to record and compare your audio and interact with the lessons is a far sight better than the DVDs and books I have lying scattered unused around my house.
It’s kind of cool to feel like I’m learning again, without the over-air-conditioned classroom and inevitable napping-while-still-listening-in-case-of-pop-quiz skill development. I’m still turning around the “wait, learning...fun?” revelation in my head because it’s kind of a big concept, but if companies keep feeding me entertaining interactive tools through which I develop new skills, then I might be convinced to come around.
- jinx
when your walk on role becomes a major part
