Educational Games
Games 4 Ed
The following task required me to play several educational related games and make an analysis about them. Out of the given list of game my teacher recommended me to play for at least 30 minutes, I choose to play: coffee shop (cool math games), ravenous and the Oregon trail. If you haven’t heard about them, no worries, I will provide a brief explanation of what they are about.
Ravenous
What does it consist of?
You play as a raven who is on it’s journey flying through the sky. On his journey, the raven encounters obstacles, wind which makes the raven lose its energy. Yes, energy. The raven has a certain amount of energy he can use to fly jump and walk. But at some point if he doesn’t recharge, the raven would eventually die of exhaustion. But how does he regain the energy? During the game, there would be food on the ground for him to consume which would recharge back his energies lost during his venturing. In able to consume the food, you must land on the ground and walk next to the food. As soon as you are very close to the suspicious food, he would start eating until there is no more food left or you move from the spot. If you pass the food, you can move back, but keep in mind that you are wasting energy.
What I think
In my opinion, the game was not entertaining. The game scenario seemed kind of depressing, it made the raven look depressed and I felt kind of overwhelmed. I had trouble moving the raven, as I had to click many times to flap its wings and after a while it got very annoying which bored me. The game mechanics seemed basic, the layout, the instructions were simple. All of these aspects about the game didn’t convinced me to keep playing more to I just wasted my energies to see what happens, and apparently died. So I stopped playing giving the game a rate of 1.5/10.
The Oregon Trail
What is it about?
A classic educational computer game, developed by Don Rawitsch, Bill Heinemann, and Paul Dillenberger in 1971. The player is on his journey as he guides the settlers on a wagon from Missouri to Oregon. As days pass by during their long journey, they would encounter several obstacles which would affect their time spent and their health conditions in their travel. Obstacles and difficulties such as: hunger, sickness, broken wagon parts, thieves, crossing the rivers, weather and more factors were the things which made this game challenging and interesting. If your willing to know more about the game, check out my following blog post about the Oregon trail, “The Oregon Trail Game Review”.
My opinion
Honestly, I enjoyed the game. I had fun venturing this very long journey towards Oregon. Each time it was game over for me, I still wanted to do better than before, to correct my mistakes, to improve and advance more during the game. Also this game is actually educational, there is real U.S. history within the game, which made me realize some things I didn’t know about. I recommend that you should give it a try. I rate the Oregon trail a 7.5/10.
Coffee Shop
What about it?
You are the one who is in charge of the business. Your goal is to make as much profit as you can by selling your hot delicious coffees. But, it’s not as easy as it sounds. There are many factors you must keep in mind to gain great profits from your business. Depending on the money you have to invest on your ingredients for the coffee could affect your sales. The pricing and the quality of the coffee is very important to keep in mind. The weather conditions can also affect your sales and what is left after the day can cause money loss.
How to play
You’ll be given a certain amount of money for you to invest on the coffee ingredients for the day. You’ll need to buy: cups, sugar, tbsp of coffee and milk. There will be three options for each of the things you need to buy before you start the day. Those options are for you to decide if you would like to purchase a small amount of the items or more amount of the items. If you spend on the option with the greatest amount of units,each unit would be a few cents cheaper than the smaller amount. After you have decided what to buy, then you can set the amount of each ingredient you would like to add in the coffee. It could be: 1 cups of milk, 10g of sugar, 2 tbsp of coffee, it’s up to you and then set the price for the coffee. Another thing to keep in mind is that, when you are preparing for the day, there would be a weather diagnostic for you to look at because this affects if people are in the mood for a coffee in the morning.
Now that you have stated to sell your coffee, the only thing you could adjust during the time you are open and in business, would be the price of the coffee. There would be times where you notice a few people want to buy your coffee and if you don’t sell it by the end of the day, your milk will spoil and your sugar can eaten by ants. This means you’ll need to lower your price so that you at least get something by the end of the day.
Game mechanics
I consider the game to be a simulation of a real life small coffee business. It is not exactly as real life, but it has the idea, the main concepts involved to gain your profit. You have to calculate the amount of items needed depending on your surroundings, area and other factors. Same as real life situation, you organize a list where you keep track of the outcomes and the incomes.
It is also a strategy game, in a way that you must plan carefully the money you are going to invest in before you open your shop and start selling. If you invest too much, set the prices too high and have a poor quality of coffee, well… there will be greater loss of money.
Is the game educational?
The game actually came educate you to calculate and estimate how to maintain a small business. If you wanted to be more precise with how much you would earn for one cup of coffee sold, you math skills are put to test. It would be more efficient than just guess what you think you should add to the coffee and price it because you felt like it. Overall, the game can be useful to educate yourself in a more enjoyable manner which is great because it’s not boring.
What I think about the game
It was okay, it is not my type of games so that might be a factor why I didn’t like the game, but it wasn’t bad. Keeping in mind the type of game it is, based on more educational purposes, the game mechanics were good, the graphics seemed they were elaborated with details. The difficulty is moderate, not too hard nor not too easy. When I first started to play, I had no idea how much to spend on the ingredients and how to price the coffee. I have my coffee flavor preferences but by the looks of it, the characters of the game didn’t like my coffee. After I managed to pass through several days, I kind of got the hang of it. In my opinion, I rate this game a 6/10.
The following task required me to play several educational related games and make an analysis about them. Out of the given list of game my teacher recommended me to play for at least 30 minutes, I choose to play: coffee shop (cool math games), ravenous and the Oregon trail. If you haven’t heard about them, no worries, I will provide a brief explanation of what they are about.
Ravenous
What does it consist of?
You play as a raven who is on it’s journey flying through the sky. On his journey, the raven encounters obstacles, wind which makes the raven lose its energy. Yes, energy. The raven has a certain amount of energy he can use to fly jump and walk. But at some point if he doesn’t recharge, the raven would eventually die of exhaustion. But how does he regain the energy? During the game, there would be food on the ground for him to consume which would recharge back his energies lost during his venturing. In able to consume the food, you must land on the ground and walk next to the food. As soon as you are very close to the suspicious food, he would start eating until there is no more food left or you move from the spot. If you pass the food, you can move back, but keep in mind that you are wasting energy.
What I think
In my opinion, the game was not entertaining. The game scenario seemed kind of depressing, it made the raven look depressed and I felt kind of overwhelmed. I had trouble moving the raven, as I had to click many times to flap its wings and after a while it got very annoying which bored me. The game mechanics seemed basic, the layout, the instructions were simple. All of these aspects about the game didn’t convinced me to keep playing more to I just wasted my energies to see what happens, and apparently died. So I stopped playing giving the game a rate of 1.5/10.
The Oregon Trail
What is it about?
A classic educational computer game, developed by Don Rawitsch, Bill Heinemann, and Paul Dillenberger in 1971. The player is on his journey as he guides the settlers on a wagon from Missouri to Oregon. As days pass by during their long journey, they would encounter several obstacles which would affect their time spent and their health conditions in their travel. Obstacles and difficulties such as: hunger, sickness, broken wagon parts, thieves, crossing the rivers, weather and more factors were the things which made this game challenging and interesting. If your willing to know more about the game, check out my following blog post about the Oregon trail, “The Oregon Trail Game Review”.
My opinion
Honestly, I enjoyed the game. I had fun venturing this very long journey towards Oregon. Each time it was game over for me, I still wanted to do better than before, to correct my mistakes, to improve and advance more during the game. Also this game is actually educational, there is real U.S. history within the game, which made me realize some things I didn’t know about. I recommend that you should give it a try. I rate the Oregon trail a 7.5/10.
Coffee Shop
 |
| Link |
What about it?
You are the one who is in charge of the business. Your goal is to make as much profit as you can by selling your hot delicious coffees. But, it’s not as easy as it sounds. There are many factors you must keep in mind to gain great profits from your business. Depending on the money you have to invest on your ingredients for the coffee could affect your sales. The pricing and the quality of the coffee is very important to keep in mind. The weather conditions can also affect your sales and what is left after the day can cause money loss.
How to play
You’ll be given a certain amount of money for you to invest on the coffee ingredients for the day. You’ll need to buy: cups, sugar, tbsp of coffee and milk. There will be three options for each of the things you need to buy before you start the day. Those options are for you to decide if you would like to purchase a small amount of the items or more amount of the items. If you spend on the option with the greatest amount of units,each unit would be a few cents cheaper than the smaller amount. After you have decided what to buy, then you can set the amount of each ingredient you would like to add in the coffee. It could be: 1 cups of milk, 10g of sugar, 2 tbsp of coffee, it’s up to you and then set the price for the coffee. Another thing to keep in mind is that, when you are preparing for the day, there would be a weather diagnostic for you to look at because this affects if people are in the mood for a coffee in the morning.Now that you have stated to sell your coffee, the only thing you could adjust during the time you are open and in business, would be the price of the coffee. There would be times where you notice a few people want to buy your coffee and if you don’t sell it by the end of the day, your milk will spoil and your sugar can eaten by ants. This means you’ll need to lower your price so that you at least get something by the end of the day.
Game mechanics
It is also a strategy game, in a way that you must plan carefully the money you are going to invest in before you open your shop and start selling. If you invest too much, set the prices too high and have a poor quality of coffee, well… there will be greater loss of money.
Is the game educational?
The game actually came educate you to calculate and estimate how to maintain a small business. If you wanted to be more precise with how much you would earn for one cup of coffee sold, you math skills are put to test. It would be more efficient than just guess what you think you should add to the coffee and price it because you felt like it. Overall, the game can be useful to educate yourself in a more enjoyable manner which is great because it’s not boring.
What I think about the game
It was okay, it is not my type of games so that might be a factor why I didn’t like the game, but it wasn’t bad. Keeping in mind the type of game it is, based on more educational purposes, the game mechanics were good, the graphics seemed they were elaborated with details. The difficulty is moderate, not too hard nor not too easy. When I first started to play, I had no idea how much to spend on the ingredients and how to price the coffee. I have my coffee flavor preferences but by the looks of it, the characters of the game didn’t like my coffee. After I managed to pass through several days, I kind of got the hang of it. In my opinion, I rate this game a 6/10.
Comments
Post a Comment