Best Serious Game

The Logical Journey of the Zoombinis is an educational puzzle video game developed by TERC and published by Broderbund in 1996. The game tasks players with guiding a group of small, blue creatures called Zoombinis through a series of obstacles by solving logic-based puzzles. These puzzles rely on at...

PhET Interactive Simulations is an education project founded in 2002 by physicist Carl Wieman at the University of Colorado Boulder. It provides free, interactive simulations covering subjects including physics, chemistry, mathematics, earth science, and biology. The simulations are designed for lea...

Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego? is an educational computer game released by Broderbund in 1985. Players take on the role of detectives pursuing the titular thief and her henchmen across international locations, using geographical clues to determine their next destination. The game spawned a s...

Cart Life is an independent retail and life-simulation game created by Richard Hofmeier. It follows street vendors trying to maintain their businesses and personal lives, with play organized around practical decisions involving work, travel, money, fatigue, and relationships. Its restrained presenta...

DragonBox Algebra 5+ is an educational video game developed by the Norwegian studio WeWantToKnow and released in 2012. The game is designed to teach young children the fundamental mechanics of algebraic equation solving. It utilizes a system of visual matching and isolation with cards and monsters o...

iNaturalist is an online biodiversity observation platform and social network launched in 2008. Users upload photographs or sound recordings of plants, animals, fungi, and other organisms, along with location information, and other members help identify them. The resulting observations can support b...

Plague Inc. is a real-time strategy simulation released in 2012 by the independent studio Ndemic Creations. The player designs and evolves a pathogen, manages its transmission and symptoms, and attempts to spread it globally while governments and health systems respond. The game simplifies epidemiol...

Minecraft Education is a version of Mojang's sandbox building game designed for classroom use, launched in 2016. It includes tools for teachers such as classroom multiplayer management, non-player characters for instruction, and camera and portfolio features for student documentation. The software a...

Scratch is a visual programming language developed at MIT’s Media Lab. It allows users, primarily students in K-12 education, to design interactive projects through drag-and-drop blocks. This system simplifies coding concepts and encourages creativity in developing games, animations, and digital sto...

Every Day the Same Dream is a short, browser-based art game released in 2009 by developer Paolo Pedercini under his studio Molleindustria. The game is a satirical critique of modern corporate culture and the alienation of routine office work, utilizing minimalist pixel art graphics. Its objective re...

Phylo is a browser-based citizen science puzzle game developed by researchers at McGill University and launched in 2010. The game tasks players with manipulating colored blocks to optimize multiple sequence alignments of DNA, RNA, and proteins. By crowdsourcing these puzzles, Phylo leverages human p...

World of Warcraft’s “Corrupted Blood” event provides a unique environment for studying infectious disease spread. Blizzard Entertainment’s massively multiplayer online role-playing game simulated a pandemic within its player base in 2005. Epidemiologists analyzed the resulting data to understand hum...

SimCity 4 is a computer game that simulates urban development and management. It allows players to design and oversee cities, grappling with issues like traffic, zoning, resource allocation, and citizen satisfaction. The game's complexity provides an engaging platform for learning about the principl...

Twine is an open-source tool enabling creators to design and develop interactive narratives without coding experience. It’s notable for its accessible browser-based platform ideal for crafting branching stories and games. It’s particularly useful for writers, educators, and designers interested in...

Labyrinth: The War on Terror is a strategic simulation designed to educate players about counter-terrorism efforts. Developed with input from intelligence professionals, it challenges users to manage resources and make critical decisions mirroring those faced by agencies like the CIA during complex...

DragonBox Algebra 12+ is an educational video game developed by the Norwegian company WeWantToKnow, designed to teach algebraic concepts through puzzle-based gameplay. Building upon earlier entries in the DragonBox series, the game covers advanced mathematical topics suitable for students aged 12 an...

DragonBox Numbers is an educational mathematics game developed by WeWantToKnow and released in 2015. Designed to teach young children foundational arithmetic and number sense, the software represents quantities as colorful, stackable creatures known as Nooms. By physically manipulating these digital...

Seterra is an educational geography quiz program created by Swedish developer Marianne Wartoft in 1998. Its exercises use maps and location-based questions to help learners identify countries, regions, capitals, cities, bodies of water, and physical features. The program is aimed at students, teache...

"We Become What We Behold" is a free, browser-based simulation game released in 2016 by independent developer Nicky Case. The game functions as an interactive model of media influence, tasking the player with photographing specific behaviors within a small, diverse society. By selectively choosing w...

Project Discovery: Human Protein Atlas was a citizen-science minigame introduced in EVE Online in 2016 through a collaboration involving CCP Games, Massively Multiplayer Online Science, and the Human Protein Atlas. Players examined fluorescence microscopy images and classified patterns showing where...

Foldit Standalone provides an engaging way for individuals to participate in scientific research. Developed by the University of Washington, this serious game challenges players to solve protein folding puzzles. Successfully predicting protein structures contributes to ongoing biochemical studies an...

The Sims is a popular sandbox simulation game utilized in educational research to explore player behavior and decision-making within simulated environments. Its notable flexibility allows researchers to study social dynamics, resource management, and skill development. It’s particularly useful for i...

Slice Fractions is an educational puzzle game released in 2014 by the Canadian studio Ululab. Players guide a mammoth through environments containing lava, ice, and movable objects, solving physics-based problems that represent concepts such as fraction equivalence, comparison, and ordering. It was...

ERPsim is a business simulation platform developed at HEC Montréal that uses SAP enterprise resource planning software as its operating environment. Participants are organized into teams that manage virtual companies, making decisions related to procurement, production, pricing, and sales within a s...

Project Discovery is a citizen-science activity incorporated into the online game EVE Online by CCP Games. Players complete data-classification tasks presented through an in-game interface, while aggregated results are supplied to scientific research projects. Different versions have used datasets f...

Where in the U.S.A. Is Carmen Sandiego? is a 1986 educational adventure game developed and published by Broderbund Software. As an ACME detective, the player travels across the fifty states tracking the villainous V.I.L.E. henchmen to ultimately apprehend the master thief Carmen Sandiego. The gamepl...

Harpoon is a modern naval warfare simulation and wargame based on the rules and scenarios developed by Larry Bond. It models engagements involving surface ships, submarines, aircraft, missiles, sensors, and electronic detection rather than abstracting combat to a simple exchange of combat values. Th...

"The Uber Game" is a 2017 text-based interactive simulation developed by the Financial Times to explore the economic realities of the gig economy. Players assume the role of an Uber driver navigating a representative week of work, making decisions about working hours, vehicle rentals, and route acce...

The Harvey Cardiology Patient Simulator provides a clinically relevant environment for medical students and trainees to practice cardiovascular assessment skills. Developed by the University of Miami, this simulation utilizes authentic heart sounds, pulse dynamics, and clinical presentations to trai...