The Evolution of Educational Games: From the 90s to Now

Math Blaster was a fast-paced, space-based game where users had to solve math problems to earn resources and tools to complete space missions. For example, users would have to solve fraction equations to earn laser ammunition to blast away asteroids. Released in the early 90s, Math Blaster took off as an extremely popular educational game due to its action-packed and engaging design, and could be found in elementary school computer labs all over the country at the time.

Thanks to the great advancements of the internet, kids can access various math-based games on one website. Math Playground gives students access to math games, logic puzzles, step-by-step instructional videos, and a variety of problem solving activities. Due to the variety of games available on Math Playground, students can play games based on their own learning level, helping to provide a personalized educational gaming experience that many older educational games could not offer.

The Oregon Trail was perhaps the most popular educational game of the 1990s. Often utilized during history and geography lessons, Oregon Trail was set in the 1800s, and challenged users to travel from the east to the west with just a wagon. Players had to find supplies such as food and medicine and overcome difficulties such as crossing dangerous waters and finding enough supplies to survive cold nights. Oregon Trail gave users a more memorable history lesson than any teacher or book could have, as players experienced losing characters to realistic tragedies such as sickness and accidents.

Minecraft is often considered the “New Oregon Trail” as it has taken off with just as much, if not more, popularity than its 1990s comparison. Similar to the Oregon Trail, players of Minecraft explore a world of varying terrains and environments and look to gather materials and tools to build and “mine” buildings and structures. Users must also find food by hunting animals or planting vegetables. In some versions, players might also have to survive from attackers and other dangerous scenarios. Unlike The Oregon Trail, Minecraft also teaches kids how to code by enabling players to create add-ons that allow them to design new types of building blocks or invent new games. With coding becoming a necessary skill for many different career fields, games like Minecraft have helped kids learn the skill early, and in a fun and engaging way.

A bitmap drawing program originally created for Macintosh, KidPix allowed kids to draw on a digital canvas. KidPix tools such as paintbrushes, colored pencils, and erasers allowed users to express their creativity and design skills on a computer, which for a 90s kid was much more exciting than drawing on a piece of paper.

In the 21st century, creating and designing involves more than just drawing pictures. Now, students are learning to create through coding, and games like ScratchJr help minimize the “intimidation factor” of learning these complicated skills. ScratchJr is an introductory programming game that enables young children to create their own interactive stories and games. Players snap together graphical programming blocks to make characters move, jump, dance, and sing. Characters can also be modified in the paint editor, and users are able to add their own voices and insert photos of themselves into the game. Using programming blocks, players can make their characters come to life.

Created in 1990, Treasure Mountain made learning algebra seem much less of a daunting task. The ultimate goal of the game was to collect coins and treasure to bring to the top of Treasure Mountain. With each equation solved, players became that much closer to reaching the top. In addition to the fun and engaging premise of the game, Treasure Mountain’s bright graphics were also advanced for the time, helping to add to the excitement of playing the game. It’s safe to say nearly every elementary school student looked forward to playing Treasure Mountain when they had “computer time”, as it was easy to forget that learning math was the purpose of the game.

Like Treasure Mountain, Math Ninja is an action-packed math game that asks players to use their math skills to defend their tree house from a hungry tomato and his robotic army. Players are face with addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division math problems that they must solve to keep their tree house protected. Dissimilar to Treasure Mountain, Math Ninja is an iPhone/iPod touch game, which allows students to play the game anywhere. With mobile games such as Math Ninja, students can be engaged in learning math both in and outside of school, whereas older games such as Treasure Mountain were only accessed in school.

Gizmos and Gadgets was a 90s science computer game that helped students learn skills such as how to balance a scale and how to construct circuits, machines and magnets. The ultimate goal of Gizmos and Gadgets was to win 15 races in different vehicles that players had to create by solving puzzles and physics problems. With each problem solved, players earned a vehicle part. Physics isn’t an easy subject to learn, but Gizmos and Gadgets made it fun for students to learn about the basics of simple machines, magnets, electronics, and forms of energy.

Similar to Gizmos and Gadgets, the goal of Rocket Math is to build a rocket with parts earned by solving different math problems. Once the rocket is built, players take their finished rocket ship into space, where they encounter 56 different math missions. Unlike Gizmos and Gadgets, Rocket Math is available in app form, allowing students to practice their math skills on their tablets and smartphones.