In newest Amiga Future there is interview of David Pleasance and he mentions there (as have mentioned elsewhere too I think), how Amigas had to be marketed to two crowds at same time.

First you had to market it to kids, and kids would just be interested in the games.

But kids don't actually buy their Amigas, but it is their parents that do the actual bought, and for parents you had to convince how Amiga is educational machine.

And at least in my case that was so true.

For I remember how I couple of times did a Christmas wish list, which in practice contained just a list of 10 most wanted games, but, it wasn't enough to just tell the name of the game / software, but I also had to explain my parents what was the point of those games, and for this I was naturally figuring out some educational aspect of those games.

I would really like to get hold of those lists now, since I am wondering what kind of educational aspects did I find on games. For most games in those lists were adventure games, so they were easy, they would always contain the aspect of learning English, and which was very much true too.

For example, I got Kings Quest 1 at about Christmas 1991 maybe, and it surely made me forced me to learn English, first of all kept using dictionary to find out the descriptions of things, and then used dictionary to find out how to tell the character to do some things. For I might have wanted to use broom to sweep the floor, but I had no clue how to say that in English, so book in hand and learn!

I do remember that for Civilization I used "learning history" as the point, but I wonder what did I use for Railroad Tycoon for example.

Also I am wondering if there were some not so educational games there that I still figured out some educational aspect in hopes to convince my parents to buy it, from which I get to the point of this post.

I suppose I am not only one who was in position of trying to convince his parents about how every game on earth had some educational aspect, and I wonder if some of you still remember what kind of educational arguments did you use for your games in hopes to get your parents to buy them for you?

Point being, that for example Civilzations History and adventure games English language learning aspect (for non English speakers) were both actually very valid arguments, so I wonder did someone figure out an educational aspect to something like a Super Frog, and one that is actually a valid one?

What all kinds of educational aspects did you find for your games?

@Bugala

Pirates Piratopedia and Civilopedia really did help improve knowledge of history and English :D

However, classic educational software did exist, mostly for children
https://www.lemonamiga.com/games/list.php?list_genre=Educational&list_sub_genre=Children

Motivation for parents was partially some jobs like word processing, home acccounting and later Internet, could be done. Aside of that not spending money on arcades / being too much out in possible not so good company :D

Last edited by vox on 28-May-2024 at 03:49 PM.

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Future Acube and MOS supporter, fi di good, nothing fi di unprofessionals. Learn it harder way!

@Bugala

i never found education motivation in classic Amiga games.

Only "educational" genres games teaching something not only for childrens, but for also many adults. For non english speaker are very important to know grammar, speeling and typing. Yes, are designed for kids, but are so funny also for parents or adult that want to know the language.

Luckely there are many edu games that teach not only english, but other language in every aspect.

Adventure games i always played that localized in my language (Italian) and rarely played with english language (i have never played, for example, with Sierra adventures).

I played some english adventure, but i searched mostly those were in Italian.

Last edited by Seiya on 01-Jun-2024 at 04:00 PM.
Last edited by Seiya on 01-Jun-2024 at 04:00 PM.

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@Bugala

Me and my brother learned English (somewhat broken in my case) by playing Amiga games. Even today when some of my relatives say playing video games is a waste of time I remind them of their somewhat weak knowledge of any language other than Czech.

Well, I agree children should not play video games all the day, it is a hard task for all parents to find a right measure in this.