Real talk: I think learning is always fun. (Yes, I am absolutely a Ravenclaw. Why do you ask?) But when it’s a literal game? Then it’s even better, especially when you’re a kid. This is probably why there were so dang many fantastic educational '90s computer games — the rise of home computing (and, by extension, the rise of computing in the classroom) during the 1990s opened up a whole world of possibilities, including tons of ways to make learning a blast for the up-and-coming generations. And you know what? These games are still fun. And yes, I say that as a fully grown adult; don't knock going back and replaying the games you loved when you were 10 until you've tried it. Seriously.

As is often the case with the things we remember from the '90s, a lot of the games those of us who grew up during the decade filled our days with were originally developed and released long before the ‘90s. That's perhaps the reason '80s babies also have a certain degree of fondness for them; many of them actually dated back to the decade in which we were born. Some were part of long-running series, while still more of them received a number of remakes and reboots as technology improved. Though the graphics may be laughable now, just remember — once upon a time, they were the pinnacle of technological achievement.

1995 American Laser Games Fast Draw arcade game. Game, tube, andcabinet are in very good shape. Game is currently set to play at nocharge but can be set to charge a dollar a game or different amount. This game features REAL film footage and NOT animation. I believe the footage was shot at Old Tucson Studios outside Tucson, AZ. Mar 4, 2020 - Explore dhoughton's board 'TeXaS!!!!!' , followed by 352 people on Pinterest. See more ideas about Cowgirl party, Cowboy and cowgirl, Texas theme. Feb 01, 2020  The 100 Best Mac Games today. Perhaps you’re a casual gamer, or perhaps you are convinced your Mac is too old to play modern games. In any case, start with a few free games and see how it goes. I’m sure you won’t be disappointed. Do you think I missed a very good Mac game already available? Let me know in the comments section.

So, in the spirit of nostalgia, here are 15 computer games from the ‘90s that made learning incredibly fun. Most of them are available to play on the internet now, so in these cases, I’ve also included links to where they can be found — frequently either an app store or the Internet Archive’s glorious collection of browser-based, emulated DOS games.

Have fun, kids!

1. Number Munchers and Word Munchers

The Munchers series was created by the Minnesota Educational Computing Consortium — or, under a name with which you might be more familiar, MECC. I don’t know about you, but I have vivid memories of seeing those four letters scrawled across a huge number of the educational games I played at school; the company dated back to 1973 and was also responsible for games like the business simulator Lemonade Stand and the storytelling game Storybook Weaver.

The Munchers series' conceit was simple: They taught kids the basics of math and grammar. Number Munchers was originally released in 1990 for the Apple II, while Word Munchers had arrived a few years earlier in 1985. Gameplay-wise, both series functioned kind of like a turn-based version of Pacman; the object WAS to “eat” all of the numbers or words that correspond to the instructions on the screen (multiples of five, etc.) without getting caught by a Troggle.

What exactly are Troggles? No idea, but they're insatiable.

2. Math Blaster!

The original Math Blaster! was released in 1983 by the now-defunct developer Davidson & Associates, but it wasn’t until the ‘90s rolled around that the series really hit its stride. Between 1990 and 1999, a whopping 20 games were released in the Blaster Learning System — and somewhat astonishingly, a few more follow-ups trickled out between 2000 and 2008. Math wasn't the only subject addressed by the series; Reading Blaster!, for example,taught language arts. A Science Blaster! Jr. was also released at one point, but due to lack of popularity, it was the only entry in the series to tackle science-based topics.

Math Blaster! is available to play online now; additionally, a bunch of ports of the math-teaching game arrived as Android apps in October of 2013, so the series appears to be alive and well (if somewhat frozen in time).

3. Scooter’s Magic Castle

Like many early computer games, Scooter’s Magic Castle consisted of a relatively large environment full of what we now call mini-games. Released under Electronic Arts’ EA*Kids umbrella in 1993, the game involved players either assuming the role of or simply helping out an elf-like creature wearing a blue tunic, red sneakers, and a red baseball cap turned backwards (the '90s!) as they worked their way through a variety of activities. These activities were designed to teach everything from problem-solving to typing; you could even make terrible MIDI music by jumping up and down a set of colorful stairs.

Scooter's Magic Castle also has a super earworm-y theme song, so if you now have it stuck in your head for the rest of the day… sorry. My bad.

4. The Carmen Sandiego Series

No list of educational ‘90s computer games would be complete without an appearance by this mysterious, trench-coated criminal mastermind. The four major entries in the series — Where in the World, Where in the U.S.A., Where in Europe, and Where in Time — were all first released by Broderbund between 1985 and 1989; the deluxe versions of Where in the World and Where in the U.S.A., however, came along in 1992 and 1993, and as a result, it’s those versions that most ’90s kids remember so fondly. There was no better way to learn geography — and hey, Where in the World deluxe is playable at the Internet Archive, so it looks like I just figured out what I’m doing with myself this weekend.

Fun fact: A Facebook version of Where in the World was available to play in 2011; I’m not sure how I missed it, but it stuck around until 2012.

5. Kindercomp

I’m really dating myself here, but Kindercomp is probably the first computer game I remember playing. Initially released in 1983 by Spinnaker Software Corporation, it was exactly the kind of game that appealed to very young children: It consisted of six mini-games that taught kids their way around a keyboard by having them draw pictures, match pairs, and other simple activities. The one I remember is the 1984 version, but the Internet Archive has a whole bunch of ‘em available, so knock yourselves out. If you have a kid in your life who's around 3 years old, it might be a fun time to play with them!

6. Mario Teaches Typing

As a child in a house full of gamers, naturally I adored Mario Teaches Typing, which first hit the scene in the early '90s. One of a number of educational Mario games released between 1988 and 1996, it put the pixelated plumber to good work teaching us how to type. Hitting the correct key would prompt Mario to hit blocks, jump on Koopa Troopas, and more. Nintendo had almost no hand in the development of these games (a far cry from the tight hold the company tends to keep on the reigns of its properties nowadays), but they proved popular all the same.

I’ll be honest, though: I actually learned how to type by frequenting chat rooms. As a result, I can type an impressive number of words per minute; however, I definitely don’t use the “correct” fingers. Ah well. Whatever works, right?

7. Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing

Mario was second perhaps only to Mavis Beacon in the world of beloved typing programs — and what’s more, it’s still around: The first version debuted in 1987, and it has remained in production, continuing to get new and improved updates, pretty much ever since. You can download it for free right now if you like.

I was, by the way, absolutely devastated to learn recently that Mavis Beacon isn’t a real person. She was invented to give a face to the program in an era when human people weren't regularly associated with computer and video games (everything is a lie). 1985's The Chessmaster 2000had shown how effective putting a real person on the cover of a computer game could be; the wizard on the box was played by actor Will Hare, reported Vice in 2015. Mavis became the next incarnation of this strategy, as depicted by Renee L'Esperance.

8. 3D Dinosaur Adventure

Launched by Knowledge Adventure in 1993, 3D Dinosaur Adventure was little more than a glorified encyclopedia specializing in what we knew about dinosaurs at the time (much of which has since been determined to have been terribly, terribly wrong, even if the brontosaurus did make a triumphant comeback in 2015). That didn’t matter, though, because dinosaurs.

Also contained within 3D Dinosaur Adventure was a mini-game called 'Save The Dinosaurs' — which, to be perfectly honest, was downright terrifying. It required players to make their way through a series of maze-like hallways to find and rescue 15 types of dinosaurs before time ran out — and by 'before time ran out,' I mean 'before the comet that wiped out all of the dinosaurs crashed into the Earth, while you and the dinos were still on the planet.'

No pressure.

9. Odell Lake

Like the Munchers series, Odell Lake was created by MECC and therefore a fixture for many an elementary school computer lab. It debuted in the early 1980s, but it stuck around for long after that; it’s why so many of us ‘90s kids remember playing it when we were young.

In all honesty, it wasn’t really that exciting — all you did was swim around as a fish, trying to figure out whether you should eat, ignore, or run away from every other fish you encountered. I’m also not totally clear on why this was classified as an educational activity; Giant Bomb suggests it taught kids about food chains and predator/prey relationships, but I... clearly did not get that takeaway from it. But hey, I suppose survival skills are important, too, right?

Odell Lake is a real place, by the way; it’s in Oregon. Just, y’know, FYI.

10. Reader Rabbit

You know the old saying, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it? That’s pretty much the Reader Rabbit series in a proverbial nutshell: It’s so effective at teaching kids to read and write that it’s survived all the way since the first game launched in 1984. There's a huge list of Reader Rabbit titles scattered throughout educational computing history; at the series' height in the late '90s, six to seven titles in the line were being released each year. The output has since tapered off, of course, but the remarkable thing is that it's still around.

The last major PC release for a Reader Rabbit game was in 2010, but a number of titles have debuted since then as iOS apps. Many of the games are also, of course, available to play online courtesy of the Internet Archive.

11. Mixed-Up Mother Goose

Mixed-Up Mother Goose didn't have a ton of replay value; the point was to sort out all of the nursery rhymes that had gotten 'mixed up' and put them back in order, so after you did that once, your work there was done. However, the world in which the game existed was so delightful that I played it over and over again as a small child. Released by Sierra in 1987, with a handful of remakes appearing at regular intervals throughout the ‘90s, it was a point-and click adventure game that encourage problem-solving; it also gets bonus points for having tons of relatively diverse avatar options — something which was even rarer back then than it is now. (And, y'know, it's still a problem decades later, so that's... really saying something.)

12. Super Solvers: Treasure Mountain

I’ll be honest: I actually have no recollection of playing 1990’s Treasure Mountain, Treasure Cove, or any of the other Treasure titles in this series. Many other people seem to remember these games fondly, though, so I think they deserve an inclusion here. Like many educational games, 1990's Treasure Mountain — a creation of The Learning Company, like the Reader Rabbit series — involved solving riddles that led you to keys that unlocked each successive level. You also collected treasure as you went, returning it to the chest at the top of the titular mountain once you got there. A prize was awarded for depositing the treasure back into the chest.

Treasure Mountain and Treasure Cove both focused on general reading comprehension and basic math skills; however, other entries in the Super Solvers series tackled more specialized skill sets, including deductive reasoning and logic.

13. The Dr. Brain Series

Admittedly, I never played the fourth game in Sierra On-Line's long-running Dr. Brain series, and I wasn’t a big fan of the third — but the first two? Classic. The Castle of Dr. Brain, released in 1991, and the follow-up, 1992’s The Island of Dr. Brain, were a step up from a lot of the other puzzle-solving games out there; they were geared towards slightly older kids, so there was more to each puzzle than simply picking a matching shape or selecting the next number in a sequence. We’re talking intense logic puzzles that might stump even some adults.

Sierra merged with another educational game company, Bright Star Technology, following the release of The Island of Dr. Brain; the franchise was then handed over to a team from Bright Star, which might explain why 1995's The Lost Mind of Dr. Brain and 1996's The Time Warp of Dr. Brain were so different from the first two entries in the series.

14. Eagle Eye Mysteries

Like Scooter’s Magic Castle,1993’s Eagle Eye Mysteries and 1994’s Eagle Eyes Mysteries in London came to us courtesy of the now sadly defunct EA* Kids division of Electronic Arts. Unlike Scooter’s Magic Castle, though, they were meant for an older crowd. The games followed siblings Jake and Jennifer Eagle as they solved mysteries throughout first their hometown, then in London not — unlike a modernized, digital version of Encyclopedia Brown. If you were a pint-sized fan of whodunnits, this was the game for you; it helped you learn how to piece together different pieces of information until a complete picture emerged. A valuable skill to have, I feel.

15. Oregon Trail

Ah, yes: Oregon Trail, the game responsible for countless deaths by dysentery, many drownings of oxen who tried and failed to ford the river, and a plethora of memes. For anyone who grew up playing it, it's the gift that keeps on giving.

Speaking of people who grew up playing it, perhaps unexpectedly large swathe of the population falls into this category. Originally developed in 1971 and launched by MECC in 1974, roughly 20 versions of the game have been released since then — the most of which, believed it or not, arrived in 2018 as a handheld game similar to the Tiger Electronics games a lot of '80s kids grew up playing. Ostensibly, it taught kids what it was like to travel the Oregon Trail in a covered wagon in 1848; practically speaking, though, it mostly taught us about frustration.

Also: Never ford the river. Always caulk your wagon and float it.

Your oxen will thank you.

This article was originally published on

1. 1863 Chancellorsville
2. 3D Brick Bash
3. 3D Tic Tac Toe
4. 4D Boxing
5. A-10 Attack!
6. A-Train
7. Absolute Solitaire
8. Action Strategy Baseball
9. Adventure!
10. Air Traffic Controller
11. Al Unser Jr. Racing
12. Alien Invaders
13. Amazing
14. Amps
15. Ancient Art of War at Sea
16. Ants Afire
17. Aqua Blooper Piper
18. Aquazone Deluxe
19. Arena Games
20. Armor
21. Arthur - The Quest for Excalibur
22. Aspirin 2
23. Asterax
24. At the Carnival
25. Atomino
26. Autoduel
27. Awesome Craps
28. Awesome Sicbo
29. Backslash
30. Balance of Power 2
31. Balderdoush
32. Bandit Kings of Ancient China
33. Bard's Tale
34. Battle of Britain
35. BattleTanks
36. Bedlam 2
37. Bert
38. Bezique
39. Bill Elliott NASCAR Challenge
40. Billmo
41. Bird Race
42. Blackthorne
43. Block Buster
44. Blox Arcade
45. Bogus Guru
46. Bonkheads Deluxe
47. Border Zone
48. BreakThru
49. BridgeMaster
50. Bugs Bannis
51. Bunny Killer 3
52. Burning Rubber
53. Cabol 2
54. Caesar 2
55. CairoShoot
56. Canfield
57. Capitalist Pig
58. Carrier Command
59. Carte
60. Castles - Siege and Conquest
61. CCA - Commando Combat Arena
62. Chaos Overlords
63. Checkers Deluxe
64. Cheese Toast
65. Chessmaster 2100
66. Chessmaster 4000
67. Chrysanthemum
68. Citadel aka Adventure of the Crystal Keep
69. Civilization
70. ClassicTennis
71. Closure
72. Cobra Strike
73. Cogito
74. Colony
75. Columns
76. Command HQ
77. Cosmic Osmo
78. Crazy Cars
79. Creepy Castle
80. Crossword Wizard
81. Crypt, The
82. Crystal Crazy
83. Curse of Dragor
84. Cutthroats
85. Cyberblast
86. Cyclone 2
87. Daleks ET
88. Darkseed
89. Darts
90. Deadline
91. Deco
92. Deja Vu
93. Deliverance
94. Despair
95. Diamonds
96. Digital Messiah
97. Dogfight City
98. Donkey Doo
99. Doom 2
100. Double
101. Dr. Dumont's Wild PARTI
102. Dragon Maze
103. DragonBlade
104. Dropper
105. Dungeon of Doom
106. DungeonWorld 2
107. Dutil's NIM
108. Eat My Photons!
109. Eight Ball Deluxe
110. Empire Deluxe
111. Enchanted Scepters
112. Endure
113. Epsilon
114. Etchysketcher
115. Evocation - The Challenge (Evocation La Sfida)
116. F.A.S.Soccer
117. F1GP
118. FA-18 Hornet
119. FaceMaker
120. Factory - The Industrial Devolution
121. Falcon MC
122. Fidget
123. Final Doom - TNT Evilution
124. Firefall Arcade
125. Five Stones
126. Flauscer in Wiener Land
127. Flight Simulator 4
128. FlipSide
129. Fool's Errand
130. Fracas
131. Fred's Bowling Nightmare
132. Full Metal Mac
133. Full Tilt - Dragon's Keep
134. Full Tilt - Space Cadet
135. Fusillade
136. Galactic Empire
137. Galactic Trader
138. Game Parlor
139. Gang Wars
140. GATO
141. Gearheads
142. Gerbils!
143. Gizmos & Gadgets!
144. Glider 4.0
145. Gnop
146. Go
147. Gobliins 2
148. Gold Pusher
149. Gopher Golf
150. Grand Prix Circuit
151. Grand TETON
152. Grid Wars
153. Gryphon Bricks
154. GunShy
155. Halls of Montezuma
156. Happy House
157. HardBall
158. Harpoon Classic
159. Heart of China
160. Hellcats Over the Pacific
161. Heretic
162. Hexen - Deathkings of the Dark Citadel
163. Hidden Agenda
164. Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
165. Hobbit
166. Hole In One Golf (colour)
167. Holy Roller
168. Hot Air Balloon
169. Hotel Caper or The Rescue of Daring Drake
170. Hoyle Solitaire
171. Hoyle's Book 2 - Solitaire
172. Iago
173. Idin
174. InchWorm!
175. Incredible Toon Machine, The
176. Indy's Desktop Adventures
177. Infotron
178. International Tennis Open
179. Ishido (b&w)
180. Jack Nicklaus
181. Jetfrog
182. Jewelbox
183. Jotto 2
184. Joust
185. K'Kai Adventure
186. Karth of the Jungle
187. King
188. King's Bounty
189. Kings Quest 2
190. Kings Quest 5
191. Kubik
192. La Pierre Molle
193. Leather Goddesses of Phobos
194. Legions
195. Leisure Suit Larry 1 - In the Land of the Lounge Lizards (b&w)
196. Leisure Suit Larry 1 - In the Land of the Lounge Lizards (colour)
197. Leisure Suit Larry 5 - Passionate Patti Does a Little Undercover Work
198. Lembracs
199. Leprechaun
200. Links Pro
201. Lode Runner - Mad Monks Revenge
202. Loderunner - TLR - (colour)
203. Looney Lander
204. Lost Crystal
205. Lost Tribe, The
206. Lunar Rescue
207. LYRIQ Crosswords
208. Mac Boom
209. Mac Bzone
210. Mac Landing
211. Mac Missiles
212. Mac Vegas 1.3
213. MacAttack
214. MacBandit
215. MacCricket (b&w)
216. MacDomino
217. MacInooga ChooChoo
218. MacJack
219. MacMasterMind
220. MacMoorhuhn 2
221. MacPork Barrel
222. MacSlot Colour
223. MacStones
224. MacSurgeon 2
225. Man Hunter San Francisco
226. Manhunter New York
227. Mantra 2
228. Mario Is Missing!
229. Mario's game gallery
230. Maze Wars
231. Microsoft Arcade
232. Midnight Rescue!
233. Might And Magic 1 - The Secret of the Inner Sanctum
234. Might And Magic 3 - Isles of Terra
235. Mille Bornes
236. Minotaur
237. Mission Starlight
238. Monkey Island - Secret of Monkey Island, The
239. Monopoly
240. Moonmist
241. Moria
242. Mortal Pongbat
243. Mountain of Mayhem
244. Mouse Stampede
245. Muehle - MÅhle
246. Mutant Beach
247. NetTrek
248. NFL Challenge
249. Ninja Boy
250. Nobunaga's Ambition
251. North Atlantic 86
252. Number Munchers
253. Odyssey - The Legend of Nemesis
254. Oids
255. On the Contrary 2
256. Onslaught
257. Operation Desert Storm
258. Operation Tsunami
259. Out of the Sun
260. OutNumbered!
261. Oxyd
262. Oxyd Magnum
263. Pararena
264. Particle Man
265. Patriot Command
266. Patton Versus Rommel
267. Peg Leg
268. PegLeg 2
269. Pentominoes
270. Per Oxyd
271. PGA Tour Golf
272. Phrase Craze
273. Pipe Dream
274. Pirates! - Gold
275. Planetfall
276. Plundered Hearts
277. Pool Of Radiance
278. Populous
279. Power Players
280. PPC Gallery
281. Prince Of Persia
282. Psion Boy
283. Psychotic! Part 1 - The Escape
284. PT109
285. Push-Push
286. Puzzler
287. Pyramid of Ert
288. Quagmire
289. Quelle
290. QuickSlip
291. QuoVadis
292. Radical Castle
293. RChess
294. Reaper Arena
295. Red Baron
296. Reversi
297. Ricochet
298. Risk Deluxe
299. RoboSport
300. Rogue
301. RubikSolver
302. S.C. Out
303. Sail Away
304. Sammy the Cyclebot
305. Sargo Noidz
306. Sargon 4
307. Schmoozer
308. Scrabble Deluxe
309. Scruffy 2
310. Secret About Box
311. Secret Of The Silver Blade
312. Shadow Keep
313. Shadowgate
314. Shanghai 2
315. Sherlock - The Riddle Of The Crown Jewels
316. ShufflePuck
317. Siege Of Darkwood
318. Sim Ant
319. Sim City 2000
320. Sim City Classic Final
321. Sim Farm
322. Sim MIR
323. Simple Wrestling Sim
324. Sitting Duck
325. Sky Shadow
326. Slabbers
327. Slug-Man TVG
328. Snake Byte
329. Snavely!
330. Soi
331. Soldiers of The Sun
332. Solitaire Mania
333. Space Adventure
334. Space Cab
335. Space Madness
336. Space Quest 1 - Enhanced
337. Space Quest 3
338. Space Rogue
339. Spaceway 2000
340. Spectre
341. Spectre VR
342. Spelling Blizzard
343. Spelunx and the Caves of Mr. Seudo (colour)
344. Spin Doctor
345. Squirrel combat
346. Stained Glass
347. Star 'Roids
348. Star Flight
349. Star Trek
350. Star Trek - Rescue
351. Starbound
352. Starlight Casino
353. Stella Obscura
354. Step On It!
355. Stratego (colour)
356. StuntCopter
357. Sub Battle Simulator (colour)
358. Super Maze Wars
359. Super Munchers
360. Super Tetris
361. Suspect
362. Swamp Gas
363. Sword of Sodan
364. Technomaniac
365. Test Drive 2 - The Duel
366. Tetris 2000
367. Theme Park
368. This Aint Othello
369. Tom Landry's Strategy Football
370. Tracker
371. Transarctica
372. Transylvania 2
373. Treasure MathStorm!
374. Trinity
375. Triple Yahtzee
376. Trist
377. Tron 2.0
378. TropicIsland Pinball
379. Trust and Betrayal - The Legacy of Siboot
380. Twilight's Ransom
381. U-Boat
382. UMS 2 - Nations at War
383. Uncle Fudd's Treasure
384. Uninvited
385. Valkyrie
386. Vette
387. Videx Fun Pak
388. Warlock
389. Wave 15
390. Weird Melvin
391. Wheel of Fortune
392. Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego
393. Where in Time is Carmen Sandiego
394. Willy Beamish
395. Winter Games
396. Witness, The
397. Wizardry
398. Wizardry 6 - Bane of the Cosmic Forge
399. Wolfenstein 3D
400. Wolfpack
401. Word Munchers
402. World Builder
403. Worms
404. Xenia
405. Xyphus
406. Yacht-3D
407. Yukon Trail, The
408. Zone of Avoidance
409. Zork Trilogy and Planetfall