Games, Education and the BBC Micro

There's been a bit of fuss recently about games affecting learning. I for one am in favour of "interactive" learning, although I think arguments about online clans for games like Halo encouraging Team Building are taking it a bit too far.

I started reminiscing about the "good old days" of the BBC Micro in schools and some of the games I used to play. Younger readers may well scoff, at the 8bit power of the BBC Micro, but some of the classic games like Yellow Brick Road, Transylvanian Terror, Martello Tower....and Granny's Garden really left an impression. Mainly because you could never have enough time to finish them and the teacher dragging you off because it was end of break or something equally as annoying.

All this started me thinking, despite crap graphics, the soul of those games - and their purpose - as learning tool must still be alive somewhere. So I set out on a quest to see if they still existed and to see if they were still useful.

After hunting for literally minutes I had acquired a BBC Emulator. For the uninitiated this lets you run old images (also called ROMS) of BBC Micro software on your PC or MAC. After a lot more searching - over the next three days I managed to find ROMS of all the old games I wanted to play again. Let me tell you folks, they are all out there, and they are as good as ever.

After getting too excited about having found Transylvanian terror, I decided to try the games out on my 3 year old son, he was a good test as he hasn't learnt to be put off by crap graphics on games yet. We started with Granny's Garden and he is really into it now and wants to play it all the time (and is learning lots!).

So for any parents out there, or those who need a brush up on their basic skills, or even a Retro enthusiast, this is where to go. I'm sure there are newer equally exciting things out there but the teletext graphics and lack of mouse really absorb you into the games.

Have Fun!