Gamification is a major trend in education. Educators realize that if they don’t do something to engage the students on a higher level, they lose their influence and authority as teachers. They have to keep things fun for the learners!
Many teachers and parents are still afraid of games, though. They believe that the students get distracted and addicted. What most of them don’t realize is that with the introduction of educative games, the students can process and retain information more effectively. They develop important skills that boost their capacity to learn.
Even if they get consumed by the gaming process, what’s the worst thing that could happen? They might get interested in taking game development courses online and turning their passion into a career. That’s not bad at all.
For now, let’s talk about the top Indie games of educational value.
5 Best Indie Games PC: Teacher Approved
Privileged life is great! We have access to all the food we like, whenever we want it. We don’t need to grow our own food on farms; we get it ready to eat. But there’s a downside to that privilege: people stop appreciating the effort that goes into the production of everything we eat. A game can help them understand.
The player of Stardew Valley inherited an old farm from their grandfather. Now, they have to learn everything from scratch. They will have all kinds of responsibilities that change according to days, seasons, and years. They cannot accomplish everything in a day, so they will learn to set priorities.
This game is a realistic space simulator. It’s built on the principles of gravity, material interactions, collision, and climate. The players explore the space while understanding how these principles work.
Did you know that most students hated physics? The reason for this is simple: the lectures are stacked with formulas and information they need to memorize. They don’t understand most of what they read in the textbook or they hear in class. Only a small percentage of students in a classroom can visualize and understand how these principles work in reality. The remaining students rely on high-quality assignment assistance to get passing grades. It’s hard for them to study because they don’t see the practical side. This game helps them to overcome that issue.
This game allows you to build and manage your own space program. You can create spacecraft and operate them.
It’s a fun game that helps students to understand the complexity of space research. They learn to appreciate all the information about the Universe that they hear during the lectures. They understand what it took for scientists to get that information. And they want to learn it, so they could play this game more successfully.
Physics puzzles that look like childish crayon drawings? They work for most students! With this game, they see what it would be like if their drawings would become real objects. They can draw anything, and they will see it come to life on the game board. With ropes, wheels, levers, and other objects, the sketches will have to play with the rules of collision and gravity. It’s a great way for students to understand how the concepts of physics work in the world that surrounds them.
The graphics are a bit weird, but that doesn’t make the game less enjoyable to play. For young language learners, it’s perfect. This is how the story goes: a little girl is shipwrecked on a weird island. She has to explore it and find a way to communicate with the inhabitants if she wants to go back home. They speak a foreign language, so she has to learn it.
The languages you can learn through this game are Spanish, Russian, German, Japanese, French, Mandarin Chinese, Arabic, and English. The community contributes to the database, too. So far, Dutch, Icelandic, and Tlingit have been completely translated. You can get partial translations in many other languages, and you can make your own contributions.
Everybody Loves a Nice Game
The best Indie games 2019 are not a threat to a student’s intellectual growth. On the contrary - they help them develop particular skills that enhance the learning process. The games we listed above are educational in their nature. They are built with the intention for the player to learn something new. But even the “time-wasting” games, as teachers like to call action games, help students to develop skills of coordination and time management.
We should stop seeing games as something that prevents proper functioning. When we play the right games at the right dose, we’ll only benefit from them.
BIO:
Robert Everett is a gamer, blogger, and word traveller. He’s also an avid online learner. Robert used to be a lazy person who spent most of his days in front of the TV, but he learned how to be productive. Now he’s accomplishing a lot in a single day.