Educated Guests

By Emily Short

The best game designers are superb teachers. They introduce complicated systems gradually and accessibly. They use images, sound, and layout to help the player retain a wealth of information about the game world. They require the player to make active use of knowledge gained, build on it to arrive at new conclusions and strategies, and perhaps collaborate with other players.

So why are so many educational games so bad?

A Google search for educational games turns up depressing results: remaindered copies of the adventure games Chemicus and Physicus; a dumbed-down version of the venerable Oregon Trail, now available on the iPhone; the old lemonade-stand game, creakily re-implemented in Flash; a very large number of rudimentary flashcard games for arithmetic and the letters of the alphabet.