Educational Computer Games From Your Childhood That You Totally Forgot About

Who among us hasn't watched in dismay as the members of our wagon train slowly succumbed to the hardships of dysentery? Well, virtually, anyway. There was probably something to learn in Oregon Trail, but for most people the game was just a frantic side scroller with intermittent bouts of sweet 3D-hunting. Or rather, what passed for 3D in 1990.

In the decade between 1985 and 1995, geography and culture educational video game Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego? sold more than 4 million copies, spawned two sequels, and was adapted game show. Even for kids who didn’t care about foreign cultures or geography (see: average children living in the United States during the '90s), Carmen Sandiego was a big hit thanks to its mystery-style delivery and clever wordplay.

An entire generation of kids learned to appreciate puns thanks to the master thief Carmen Sandiego and her band of shady accomplices.

First released in 1989, SimCity slipped past most computer teachers for several years before they realized that the classic asset management title was simply too much fun for students. Before that time, students stumbled upon this gorgeous juggling act on their school’s Macs and promptly forgot all about the actual teaching going on around them.

SimCity was unlike anything gamers had seen before. You couldn't really win or lose. There was no violence. You simply tried to create a world that could run under its own steam. Maybe that entirely novel format was how creator Will Wright’s ambitious little title went on to spawn its own genre of video games.

The Number Munchers series of games had something to entertain both math kids and word kids... and just those kids. Players guided a weird, square creature around a grid while avoiding monsters and chomping down on the answers to various equations and word games. Being tricked into doing math was never this much fun.

Only the earliest Mac aficionados will remember Reader Rabbit, a series of games released from the '80s onwards that tried to teach kids the value of language arts skills. The bright, primary colors and energetic characters of the game entertained children as young as preschoolers while also teaching them how to read.  

In its purest form, Math Blaster! is an educational version of Asteroids. Players are presented with a math problem and then barraged with a series of possible answers. Their job is to aim the cannon at the correct answer and blow it out of the sky. It was simple, addictive, and fun.