Hey guys, I need an idea, for an interactive game that enhances learning, so a game that could be used at School/College/University/Museums which teaches the user something. Im not looking for anything complicated, something pretty simple.
I seem to have hit a mental block, and cannot come up with anything…
Would appreciate any ideas anyone could put forward.
Many thanks
A learning game? Do you have a target audience, because you can actually just cater it to them. As for learning, I’d probably go for something simple to program, like “Find 5 synonyms for this word”, or even a “Find the meaning of this definition.”
It doesn’t have to be complicated in order to make people learn. It just has to show people something thy might not know. Usually if you pick a decent enough topic in history, you will be sure to get that learning in. Also, you get the choice on whether to make it interactive or text based.
A win-win situation? :persecutioncomplex:
Seems like a pretty broad spectrum: school to university to museums. What do you need the ideas for? If you can narrow it down you´ll get better answers…
Anyway, here´s a simple idea for a math game: The player get´s 5 cards with numbers and signs like “+3”, “5", “/2”, "(-1)” and why not include parenthesis cards. Then the player get´s two numbers: one is the starting number and one is the goal number. Then the player has to use his or her cards to reach the goal. It seems like a nice way to learn how basic math works and order of operations. You could also add a two player version where you can counter the other players cards, like putting parenthesis around two of his numbers, changing his plan.
If you want a game for a museum: spread out QR codes all around the museum and make an quiz app. Get the player to use the phone to answer some questions about stuff in the museum. “What is the period called when T-rex lived?”, and then you get A,B,C,D,E type answer. If you know the answer you can press A (or whatever the right answer is) or you can go to the T-rex in the museum and scan a QR code and watch a short info movie about T-rex. And you get the answer while you´re learning. You could use this for school classes like a competition: the group with most correct answers in shortest amount of time win.
Don’t forget puzzle games. They are also “learning” games.
You can get inspirations from the Jumpstart PC game series, or some cult-classic puzzle games, like The Incredible Machines.
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Its extremely hard to get creative with such a broad question. In pretty much the same way it is much harder to think of an answer to “think of something funny” than to something like “think of something funny involving a car, a couple of horses and ice skating”. Often creativity and brainstorming is much more fruitful if there are constraints. So the first thing you could do is to simply constrain yourself. As others have said "School/College/University/Museums " is extremely broad, and “teaches the user something” is also very broad. A first step could be to choose for example “museum” and for “something” fill in a constraint like: “something that helps visitors understand what kind of things you can see in a painting” (i.e. use and balance of of colors, shapes, whatever). Maybe that will help you get going.
The Typing of the Dead is a fine example of a fun educative game, if I ever saw one. 
I think the trick is to find a fun way to present the educational information to the player. Using existing game genres as TTOTD does could be a way to get a fun educational game.