The 10 Best Video Games That Tricked You Into Learning

Carmen Sandiego was our first crush.

January 3, 2014

Image via Complex Original

Video games are for relaxing.

Most players, if they had their way, would prefer to keep their learning separate from their gaming. Every now and then, however, a rare game arrived that was both educational and fun. Usually, a player didn't buy an educational game on his or her own - it was a game uploaded onto an elementary school computer, or it was a birthday present from a well-meaning aunt or grandparent. Here are ten games that tricked you into learning.

You may not cop to loving these games in public, but it's okay - we understand, and we won't tell.

10. Rocksmith

System: PC, Playstation 3
Date: 2011
Teaches: Guitar Playing

Guitar Hero was fun, but it promoted false confidence - even an 'Expert' level axeman couldn't play "Smoke on the Water" on a real guitar. Rocksmith did everything a great educational game was supposed to - it taught, it entertained, and it offered the opportunity to be a real guitar hero - at least, for those who were willing to practice. It might have hurt the fingers to play Open G rather than Red, Green, and Yellow, but no one ever got phone numbers with a plastic guitar.

9. Typing of the Dead

System: Arcade, PC, Sega Dreamcast, Playstation 2
Date: 1999
Teaches: Typing Skills

The zombie craze has gotten out of hand in the past few years, and in no way is that a bad thing. With that craze came a plethora of zombie games - most of them good (Dead Rising, Telltale's The Walking Dead), and some of them awful (The Walking Dead: Survival Instinct). Typing of the Dead was both stupid and brilliant. A player typed in words and phrases to pull off headshots, and the phrases increased in difficulty as the game progressed. For those who had to look at their fingers to type, Typing of the Dead provided incentive - there was no bigger motivation than a flesh eating monster.

8. The Incredible Machine

System: PC
Date: 1993
Teaches: Physics, Spatial Reasoning

It's a Rube Goldberg contraption gone bonkers! The Incredible Machine was for every kid who loved Pee-Wee Herman's breakfast machine, and thought to himself, "I can do that." At its core, however, the physics were consistent, and the game held to its own internal logic. The basketball didn't bounce the same way as the tennis ball, and the conveyor belts had to be turning in the right direction. The Incredible Machine taught that trial and error is vital, and that cats can be enslaved for menial tasks.

7. Mario Paint

System: Super Nintendo
Date: 1992
Teaches: Arts, Animation, Music Composition

At first glance, it was a glorified Microsoft Paint, but Mario Paint, with its snazzy looking Nintendo Mouse, was so much more. It had an animation studio, a music composer that let a player craft his own 16-bit tunes (what was up with the pigs and babies?), and a truly addictive mini-game, "Coffee Break," where the player was pitted against hundreds of bugs, armed with nothing but a flyswatter. Mario Paint introduced the field of graphic design to thousands of kids, empowering them to create their own worlds rather than living in other people's.

6. Number Munchers

System: PC, Mac
Date: 1990
Teaches: Basic Arithmetic

Sure, the graphics weren't spectacular, but this was the best way to learn the addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division tables. Number Munchers was a Pac-man homage - the player ate math problems instead of pellets and avoided Troggles instead of ghosts. Which equations added up to 12? Four times three? How about seven plus five? Rudimentary? Yes, but not if the player was eight years old, and not if the player was in a hurry.

5. Sim City

System: PC, Mac
Date: 1989
Teaches: City Planning, Multi-Tasking, Taxicab Geometry

Every Sim City player remembers his first, horrific, abortive attempt at a city. It probably used a coal plant, it probably had a burnt out residential district, and the roads were probably falling apart, because screw that Transportation Advisor and his threats that "YOU WILL REGRET THIS!" Pretty soon, however, every Sim player realized that running a city was more than just building parks and schools - it required infrastructure and financial planning. Most importantly, it required running water, which somehow got lost in the shuffle. The Sim City franchise taught players how to multi-task from an early age, and it graded players by how far the buildings stretched into the sky.

4. Where in Time is Carmen Sandiego?

System: PC, Consoles
Date: 1989
Teaches: World History

There's an interesting concept called the 'grandfather paradox' - if you go back in time and murder your grandfather, would you cease to exist? If so, then how could you have gone back in time? Where in Time is Carmen Sandiego? dealt with none of these sorts of dilemmas - Carmen stole something, and you plowed along after her in your time machine, probably destroying millions of historical events in the process. At some point, you had to wonder if you were doing more damage than good. Time? was harder than World?, because it wasn't enough to know that you had to go to France - was it France in the 1800's or France in the 1900's? You had to choose carefully - your grandfather may have depended on it.

3. Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?

System: PC, Consoles
Date: 1985
Teaches: Geography, World History

The Carmen Sandiego series was all about fine balance - if the player caught the crook before getting the warrant, the crook went free. If the player couldn't get the warrant before time ran out, then catching the crook didn't matter. There was also the matter of backtracking - if the player headed to the wrong destination, he would have to travel to his previous location before finally traveling to the proper one. Irritating, but appropriately punitive - after all, stealing the Great Sphinx is no laughing matter.

2. Math Blaster

System: PC, Sega Genesis, Super Nintendo
Date: 1983
Teaches: Mathematics

Inspired by 1950's science fiction, when robots were clunky and aliens were little green men, Math Blaster was based on learning incentives - solve the math to power the gun, and use the gun to take down the baddies. Math Blaster split its time evenly between problem solving and platforming/shooting, and this made it successful for so many kids. Development company Davidson would later release spinoffs such as Reading Blaster and Science Blaster, but nothing gained the popularity of the original.

1. Oregon Trail

System: PC, Mac, Handhelds, Mobile
Date: 1971
Teaches: History, Multi-Tasking

A teacher, fittingly, created one of the greatest educational games of all time. Actually, to hell with the qualifiers - it's one of the greatest games, period. In Oregon Trail, the learning was seamlessly embedded into the gameplay: the geographical locations, the distances from one fort to the next, the consequences for poor decisions. Over time, however, some decisions became requirements. Maintain a steady pace. Always rest. Never shoot more than 200 pounds of meat. And never, ever fjord the river.