IF for education/kids ?

[MeirZushnov]

Hi
I’m new to the whole IF domain, and i find it extremely interesting !

I’m looking for stuff that is targeted for children (ages 6-12), meaning, not too difficult, no harsh stuff - the aim is educational.
I’m hoping someone can point me to the right direction where to start searching?
thanks
Meir

[Alex (Alex Warren)]

We have an “Educational” category here textadventures.co.uk/games/tag/educational

When I’ve run workshops getting kids (aged about 8-14) into text adventures, I usually start them off with “Escape from Byron Bay” - a reasonably straightforward game that was created by a teacher. textadventures.co.uk/games/view/ … -byron-bay

[Dannii]

See these too:

ifdb.tads.org/poll?id=z9shyw6mdia3jdud
ifdb.tads.org/viewlist?id=kothb0hqbabhalbl
ifdb.tads.org/search?searchfor=t … 20children
ifdb.tads.org/search?searchfor=t … 0beginners

Good beginner games

I am sorry, if the subject has come up before, but i cant seem to find anything. Anyway; What good and beginner friendly games would you recommend? Just completed Lost pig, now that was a blast:-)

Good games for beginners?

I was just thinking, maybe we ought to try and compile a list of ‘newbie-friendly’ games, so that anyone coming here will have an idea of where to start. I believe the first IF game I played was HGttG, which in hindsight I would not recommend to someone just starting out. (That babelfish puzzle is murder, though luckily I stumbled across the rest of the IF Community while looking for a solution. ) Off the top of my head, I can think of Dreamhold and City of Secrets as being good …

ifdb.tads.org/poll?id=31drzgk9jx43bjz8
ifdb.tads.org/poll?id=ghpkqrgago11wjun
ifdb.tads.org/poll?id=f2vck2be4y82z7ms

Kid-friendly non-spatial Twine games?

As part of my job*, I’m planning a pair of weekend-afternoon workshops on interactive narrative for middle-schoolers (approximately 11- to 13-year-olds). The first one will focus on Twine, and we’ll be talking about branching narratives and variables. I intend to send out a pre-workshop email with some examples of stories the kids can play in advance to get an idea of the kind of thing we’ll be talking about. I’ll definitely include Town, because it’s very approachable and open-source. But i…

[desilets (Brendan Desilets)]

Here’s one teacher’s list.
bdesilets.com/if/?page_id=47

Hope it’s helpful.

Peace,
Brendan Desilets
“Teaching and Learning With Interactive Ficion”
bdesilets.com/if

[Healy]

Ryan Veeder’s Captain Verdeterre’s Treasure would be a good game for kids. There’s not much objectionable material (unless you think pirates are a no-no), and the resource management puzzle at the heart of the game could be considered educational. Also worth a look is So You’ve Never Played a Text Adventure Before, Huh, by the same author. It’s an IF tutorial, like the title suggests, and kids might find it a fun way to learn how to play parser-based IF, or text adventures.

Other than that, there’s always perennial favorite Lost Pig, as well as older games for children, like A Bear’s Night Out, or Mother Loose. If you’re teaching in a religious context, Cana According to Micah, a goofy retelling of the water into wine miracle, may be helpful as, say, an introduction to the Gospels. If you aren’t, then Sunday Afternoon, by the same author (his real name is Christopher Huang) would be a great look at late Victorian society from a child’s perspective, as well as World War 1.

Finally, there are a couple IF that center around wordplay; these may be too difficult or inappropriate for the age group you’re looking at, but I’ll list them off in case it helps:
Ad Verbum by Nick Montfort (mostly unrelated wordplay gags)
Shuffling Around by Andrew Schultz (anagrams)
A Roiling Original by Andrew Schultz (anagrams, sequel to the above)
Patanoir by Simon Christiansen (metaphors)
Goose, Egg, Badger by Brian Rapp (verbs that are also nouns, and vice versa)
The Gostak by Carl Muckenhoupt (game is in English but uses an entirely different vocabulary, hard to explain in such short space)
That’s far from an exhaustive list, but it should be a good start. I might come back later and recommend some choice-based/Twine IF as well.

[pocketapocketa]

Hi all,

I’m new to the forum and was coming here with just the same question (and to introduce myself). I played a few games as a kid, and I’m looking forward to setting up an interpreter and looking at a few of the games recommended here. I am also very much looking forward to looking over some of these games and getting the kids playing them in the school library I work at.

I have so far only glanced over the replies and it will take a while to work through the links etc. but thanks to all who contributed. I love the idea of using this resource with kids. I saw an article about interactive fiction and the reluctant reader and it sounds about right.

Thanks,

Rob

[desilets (Brendan Desilets)]

Hi, Rob,

For the past few years, I’ve been offering an interactive fiction club at the local public library. The ages of the participants has varied quite a bit, from eleven to eighteen, but the weekly sessions have usually been good, literate fun. These are the stories that we’ve used so far:

“Lost Pig”
“The Sleeping Princess”
“Mrs. Pepper’s Nasty Secret”
Wishbringer
Bronze
Arthur
Moonmist
Witness
Suspect
“Aotearoa”
“Robin & Orchid”
“Taco Fiction”
“Arrival”
“The Enterprise Incidents”
“Paper Bag Princess”
“Warbler’s Nest”
Winter Wonderland

Best of luck with your students.

Peace,
Brendan

[Sig]

I played through Lost Pig with my 6-year-old last Spring, which gave me the opportunity to teach him about maps and parts of speech and some other odds and ends. It was a pretty interesting experience; I wrote about it over here.

[cvaneseltine]

Interesting read, Sig - thanks for sharing that writeup!

[desilets (Brendan Desilets)]

Thanks for a fascinating account, Sig. It’s never occurred to me that “Lost Pig” would be especially good for the youngest readers, but it’s great that you found it so successful.

In your blog, you asked about other text adventure for early readers. Here are a few possibilities.
Mrs. Pepper’s Nasty Secret
Six
The Matter of the Monster
Wishbringer
Lost Islands of Alabaz

Have a great day.

Peace,
Brendan Desilets
“Teaching and Learning With Interactive Fiction”
bdesilets.com/if

[UnwashedMass]

I’m not sure if it’s referenced in one of the above links, but Nellan is Thirsty is a very early text adventure / puzzle game, possibly the first intended to be played by the very small. I am its only booster 8)

[furmansmith (furman h smith)]

Thank you, UnwashedMass. About 20 years ago (it is 22-Jan-2023 as I type this), Geoff Draper contacted me about upgrading “Nellan is Thirsty”. I was delighted. He made a point-and-click version (with audio) that is much more entertaining to the young than my old text version. He told me that it had been translated into Italian. I had no idea that it was so (relatively) widespread. Geoff wrote “The Art of Rewriting Old Games” for the 21-Oct-2003 issue of the LINUX JOURNAL. Day before yesterday, I mentioned it to someone and they googled “Nellan is Thirsty” and got many hits, including Geoff’s “Thirsty Nellan”. Tonight, I googled the same in order to see what he saw. I was amazed to see links in French, Russian, Chinese (I think), and Arabic. It is in tonight’s browsing that I came across your kind remark.

[pinkunz]

Since this is resurfacing, all of the TALP games on itch.io would be worth adding to this list, as they didn’t exist 8 years ago. (TALP, the Text Adventure Literacy Project, sponsored the Text Adventure Literacy Jams 1 & 2. Competitions about making games for text adventure novices with enhanced and even experimental in-game tutorials.)