most educational (free) games?

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dirkfanick · Post by **dirkfanick** » Wed Sep 21, 2011 4:30 pm

I like games where I can learn something on the way:

like: http://freeciv.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page

I also like wolfenstein3d but that seems to be a german abstraction and it's only a very few things i learned from that.

the_mgt · Post by **the_mgt** » Mon Oct 24, 2011 11:44 am

Do you mean historical education? I can only remember a few from about 20 years ago and they are not free:
https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/ ... andiego%3F
https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/ ... uterspiel)
Most of the Ralf Glau games have some historical background and teach you some historical stuff, but I don't know how accurate. Since you are from germany, I think you know about Der Patrizier and all that stuff.

http://cultivation.sourceforge.net/ is a nice but small game about corporation and ecology. I started to write an ebuild, but it does have some issues. If you are interested, I can send it to you.

Post by **John R. Graham** » Mon Oct 24, 2011 11:57 am

They all run on the Mac.

- John

dirkfanick · Post by **dirkfanick** » Mon Oct 24, 2011 1:12 pm

Hm... quite old ones.

A bit like defender of the crown: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defender_of_the_Crown

Awesome graphics for that days.

In portage there are some more games:

Headless-WYSIWYG: emerge glob2

Warforpower: emerge warzone2100 (not really that educational)

Beneath a Steel Sky: emerge bass (nice story btw) http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/c ... ky_-_2.jpg

But all these games are also quite old.

Will report new ones if I meat them.

What I am looking for is a game or simulation that reflects mass human behaviour and the destruction of nature until they die of it.

I could also read storys and listen to songs about that but sometimes it's just fun to "play" it.

krinn · Post by **krinn** » Mon Oct 24, 2011 2:24 pm

well, for educational while playing, try gabriel knight II (yeah old game), i remember learned place and events while playing it (it's an old windows game, i doubt an ebuild exist for it, but it goes abandonware, so anyone might play it now)

you may try openttd, nice graphics, ebuild exist, not really educational, economy is easy, but have lot of nice features that could teach some about trains, economy...
Hardly educational at first, but if you assume defende of crown is, then openttd will.

the_mgt · Post by **the_mgt** » Mon Oct 24, 2011 11:16 pm

dirkfanick wrote: What I am looking for is a game or simulation that reflects mass human behaviour and the destruction of nature until they die of it.

Thats exactly what Cultivation is about:
You play one of many gardeners on an island, you claim some land, plant and harvest some fruits. You can also poison your neighbors plants or corporate with them. But you don't play a real human...

There were some simulations designed by psychologist Dietrich Dörner were you choose how to develop some village in africa (Tanaland) or a town somewhere in germany (Lohhausen). But they are probably far away from free. You might want to read up on them just for fun.

I am still thinking about 2 games of which I can't remember the names...

dirkfanick · Post by **dirkfanick** » Tue Oct 25, 2011 4:38 pm

Cultivation looks a bit childish in graphics for me - but however: I'll try it someday.

SimCity is about economics and crime too. Even big Monsters:

http://cache.kotaku.com/assets/images/k ... dzilla.jpg

Simutrans is also in portage, but it has neither monsters nor angels:

http://www.simutrans.com/

Human robots without religion, abstraction or reflection?

Graphics are ancient but for free.

The morals and educations about that and what brings up human-life and what kills society or individuals are not mentioned directly, but if you think and feel about it, it will maybe avoid all of this in reality.

Even if I get feared like after playing commercial max payne.

For now freeciv (free) or civilisation (commercial) seems to be the most educational game for me. This games could be massivly extended with marx, bakunin, handys, computers, drm's, soul-thievery and all of the above.

also:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Majesty:_T ... ingdom_Sim

emerge majesty-demo

or:
http://glest.org/en/index.php

emerge glest

Asch · Post by **Asch** » Wed Oct 26, 2011 8:09 pm

These are commercial, but you may like them too:

Koei's Romance of the Three Kingdoms is a very good franchise about civilization, war and Chinese history. It has old as well as recent titles.

Uncharted Waters, also from Koei, is also very nice, albeit a bit far from the "mass human behavior" scenario, but the historical background (although at times a bit inaccurate) can be very enchanting. I also heard there is a recent MMO version of that.

Chimerica: another old game for the list. It is about a fictional in Latin America during cold war. Focus is on the political side of things, but still a VERY interesting game. IMO, it could resemble a text-based political game, but check for yourself.

Fallout Series: A game which has for scenario post-nuclear-armageddon Earth. Seems to ponder on how would it be like if WW2 had ended in nuclear armageddon.

Those and Civilization (mainly IV and V) are very good and content-rich games. Final Fantasy VII could also be counted as an allegory to environmental disaster.

Such games can be found for a low price now, as they have been released for some time now. Those very old can be found for cheap at www.GOG.com <- a site that sells very old games.

Although those games can be nice interesting, they sometimes tend to be inaccurate and/or biased. To really learn something I would enroll to a Social Sciences course at an university or Fachhochschule - if they really do have something similar. It is true that in those places there may be also be biases, but can also be considered, if you have enough free time. Also, they may count professionaly.