Playfully learn guitar, programming, game design, languages and blind ten-finger printing.
Play is the best teacher. True, playing most educational projects is more boring than flipping through a school textbook. However, there are still interactive entertainment in the world that can not only provide new knowledge and skills, but also entertain. During a pandemic and abnormal frosts, mastering something useful is the very thing.
Learn to play the guitar
There are many musical games, but things of an applied nature, in the spirit of a music editor Songs2See, supplemented by a simple game mode, or Synthesia for piano, I would not count. The same applies to numerous rhythm games, which are not so much about music as about timely keystrokes. And nonsense like Rock band or Guitar Hero it has nothing to do with it: learning to play the guitar with them is like learning to drive in GTA, except that the sense of rhythm can be slightly tightened.
Rocksmith. In this mini-game, you need to pull the correct strings in time to prevent the cowboys from reaching the bar
It turns out that Rocksmith, in fact, there are no analogues. After all, this is not some kind of arcade fun, but a real simulator. The game is unique in that, as a controller, it uses not plastic toys with buttons stylized as instruments, but a real guitar, on which you need to play real songs. The presence of an instrument (an electric guitar, and a bass, and even acoustics are suitable) is the only mandatory requirement in terms of hardware. Theoretically, you can even play with a microphone, even if it requires serious troubles with sound tuning. It’s better to splurge on a branded cable: buying one is not a problem today.
Basically, Rocksmith is a virtual guitar studio where you can do everything or almost everything. There are built-in lessons, mini-games, and a pedal constructor, in which you can adjust absolutely any sound or take a ready-made one from The Beatles, even from Sepultura. If you want, train with the metronome. If you want, score points in mini-games. If you want, learn songs in a mode similar to the notorious Guitar Hero. And if the compositions from the original game and almost one and a half thousand DLC are suddenly not enough, on the PC you can always find custom songs from users: from Civil Defense to openings to your favorite anime.
Of course, Rocksmith is technically outdated (and in principle has always been far from perfect). And although it lacks many elementary features, such as recording the tracks played, it has no competitors. There is only one problem: Rocksmith 2014 Edition – Remastered now in its sixth year, support has ended, and there is no need to wait for new DLCs. However, the developers are working on some unannounced project, so fingers crossed.
At Rocksmith, you can feel like a real rock star during a stadium concert
Learning to touch typing
Of course, typing with ten fingers without looking at the keyboard is nowhere near as cool as cutting dashing solos. However, for a journalist, copywriter, translator, and indeed any person forced to write a lot, this skill is extremely useful. And in order not to master some “Solo on the keyboard” through force, it makes sense to turn to games, among which there are many really worthy ones.
The Textorcist: The Story of Ray Bibbia is really hardcore stuff
Let’s say gloomy, crazy and funny at the same time The Textorcist: The Story of Ray Bibbia stylized for projects of the 16-bit era. Only here, unlike the console classics, everything is tied to a set of text: even to get into the settings menu, you need to type the word “settings”, and to close it – “close”. Moreover, it will not work just like that for your pleasure, because at times a real bullet hell is happening on the screen, when you need to simultaneously write something and dodge the shells of the next boss. It turns out to be surprisingly fun – only the Russian language is missing.
Epistory – Typing Chronicles is extremely cheerful and cute for a keyboard simulator
Or take a fabulous Epistory – Typing Chronicles… This is a bright and colorful story of a girl who rides across the fantasy world on a huge fox, fights enemies and puts in order the universe stylized as origami. Outwardly, there is a cross between The legend of zelda, Paper mario and Tearaway… To perform some action (for example, to destroy a mob), you need to quickly write the desired word. And to do this, of course, it is better to blindly – otherwise you cannot follow what is happening on the screen.
Contrary to most analogs, the Russian layout is also available here. True, sometimes the prompts on the screen show the wrong keys that you really need to press. And the font, in which the role of the letter “Y” for some reason is played by “Y”, leaves much to be desired. However, it seems to be the best keyboard simulator game with QWERTY support. In addition, adaptive complexity is provided here: if something does not work out for you, Epistory will offer simpler templates for the set. And if it seemed to you a little, go to Nanotale from the same studio – even being in Early Access, it is able to entertain just as well.
The Typing of The Dead: Overkill looks gloomy, but it is quite possible to while away the evening with benefit.
Here’s another interesting example: The Typing of The Dead: Overkillbased on the legendary railroad shooting range House of the dead and turns it into … a text shooting gallery. Also in the style of grindhouse films. To quickly knock out the brains of the walking dead, you need to fill in the inscriptions that appear on the screen in time. Of the chips – cooperative multiplayer for two players and several thematic DLCs, one of which completely changes all words to obscene swearing. And partly in Polish. The original, by the way, is included in the kit, so if you get tired of knocking on the buttons, you can just pick up the mouse.
Learning to program
Projects in which you can learn coding are predictably the most: after all, programmers make games much more often than linguists or musicians. Therefore, I decided to focus on just a few titles that seemed to me the most interesting and similar to games, rather than interactive basic textbooks.
TIS-100. Don’t be fooled by looks: this game is much deeper than it seems
First of all, both programmers and simply sympathizers should pay attention to studio projects Zachtronics: very minimalistic but deep and varied puzzles. True, in order to enjoy them to the fullest, you need to already imagine the basics of programming and be ready to dig into the manuals that often come with the game. Laconic TIS-100 is a multi-threaded assembler simulator, Shenzhen I / O allows you to build electronic circuits and program them. IN EXAPUNKS we use the same assembler to program nanobots and hack everything from game consoles to government agencies.
Want something more intuitive and understandable for a non-programmer? IN Opus magnum you can tinker with alchemical transmutations until you lose your pulse, and in Infinifactory – with an automatic factory, which, at the behest of alien masters, creates everything in the world, from solitary confinement cells to canned whale food. In terms of content and appearance, all these games are very different, but equally exciting. Moreover, each has a plot, and sometimes quite a good one! So there is definitely a sense to overcome the high threshold of entry.
7 Billion Humans. Nobody said it would be so easy
Want something simpler? No problem. Human Resource Machine and its continuation 7 Billion Humans look much friendlier than most competitors. The funny visual immediately sets you up for a frivolous mood, and the tasks are mostly simpler than in the TIS-100. Nevertheless, it is not boring to spend time with benefit here, and you will have to smash your head over the optimization of some algorithms. After all, it is one thing to simply solve a puzzle, and quite another to do it in the minimum number of moves.
Hack ‘n’ Slash is more of a puzzle game than an RPG
For those looking to get out of the puzzle plane, there are even near-real RPGs out there. For instance, Untrusted, the Continuing Adventures of Dr. Eval – pseudo-graphic “roguelike” in the style of the original Rogueto be traversed with JavaScript. Or ideologically close, but already quite graphic Hack ‘n’ Slash, where you have to delve into the intricacies of Lua scripts, use bugs and hack enemies – without this you cannot pass it. Or while True: learn (), whose hero realized that he understands coding worse than his cat, and now must master machine learning to create a feline-human translator.
Else Heart.Break () is good in itself, apart from the main gameplay idea
And take a stylish and damn atmospheric Else Heart.Break ()? Here hacker simulator, RPG and point-n-click quest are so successfully intertwined that it is impossible to separate them. In the slightly psychedelic world of this extravagant game, literally everything from the refrigerator to the flower pot can be hacked (and thus improved). To turn water into an energy drink, a hut into a palace, and an ordinary door into a teleport, it is enough to have a special device and minimal skills in working with the local programming language SPRAK. As a result, the programmer turns into a real wizard – and, as usual in near-cyberpunk works, into a fighter against the system. In fact, even without coding, Else Heart.Break () would remain a very worthy project – and with this mechanic it turns into a completely unique thing.
Will it be too little? Other options are the sea. Quite unpretentious CodeMonkeydesigned primarily for children. Mighty MMO RTS Screeps, the frightening appearance of which is compensated by the rich possibilities. Cute, uncomplicated and completely free GridLight… The choice is huge. It just needs to be done. Of course, even after completing all these games, you are unlikely to become a professional programmer, but you will definitely learn something new about machine logic, systems thinking, and generally get an idea of the main aspects of coding. And this, in general, is already quite good.
Learning languages
But with games for learning foreign languages, things are not so good. More precisely, there are a lot of games, but these are mostly free crafts in Flash or HTML5: crosswords, variations of Scrabble, “Hangers” … On the other hand, this is not so scary, because video games in foreign languages themselves perfectly pump the necessary skills. Through The Witcher 3 you can tighten up Polish, in visual novels – Japanese, and, say, Gta can be a good trainer for learning modern American English. In general, leisurely “conversational” genres are best suited for this purpose: RPG and point-n-click adventure, where you can calmly read dialogues and descriptions at a convenient speed. Fallout: New Vegas, Persona 5, series Deponia – choose what you like.
Disco Elysium is sometimes very demanding on the player’s linguistic skills
But of the “big” games, the best for language learning is Disco Elysium… There are three reasons for this. Firstly, there is simply excellent English, full of complex vocabulary, humor, idioms and other squiggles that cannot be found in textbooks. Secondly, the Russian version has recently been released, and the translation may not be perfect, but it is done at least well – especially for such a large, multifaceted and text-based game. Thirdly, it provides for instant switching between languages at the touch of one button, so there should be no gaps: if something is not clear, you can instantly switch to Pushkin’s language and spy on the translation. Of course, for learning a language from scratch, Disco Elysium is completely unsuitable, but it is quite suitable to add pepper to your academic English.
Higurashi When They Cry. To switch to Japanese, press “L”
The function of switching the language “on the fly” is also in some visual novels, like KARAKARA, Higurashi When They Cry or Muv-Luv… True, most often only Japanese and English are available to choose from. Such games do not always have a translation into great and mighty. And if there is, then most often it is very amateurish, and even made on the basis of the English version, which itself does not shine. So this is at your own peril and risk.
We learn everything at once
Well, okay, languages, guitars, coding and typing are, of course, great. But what, deep down, does every gamer want? Make your own game, of course! To do this, you can master coding. Or turn to free game engines like Unity or GameMaker: Studio – it requires a minimum of programmer skills, but working on your own project is still far from fun. Another thing is games that are designed to make games like Super mario maker or Littlebigplanet… The pinnacle of such projects is undoubtedly Dreams.
Everything can be done in Dreams …
The last piece of the studio Media molecule – direct, by and large, the heiress of her own LittleBigPlanet. Only the possibilities here are much wider. There doesn’t seem to be a single aspect of game development that can’t be tackled in Dreams… Sprites, 3D models, textures, materials, levels, physics, logic, texts, music – this is a real combine in which you can create a video game of any genre and immediately test it. Moreover, each of the possibilities is described in detail (and the most important ones are accompanied by video instructions and interactive tutorials), the interface is intuitive, and everything works very fast even on basic PS4… Don’t want to make games? Don’t be scary: do digital sculpting, write symphonies, design your own worlds, or just play with the creations of other users. There are more and more interesting things in the built-in store every day.
Of course, you can not count on top-end graphics here, and it is not always convenient to control the process from a gamepad. PlayStation exclusivity automatically cuts out a ton of modding and export / import options for different file formats. It will take quite a lot of time to master even the basic functionality, and in general Dreams works mainly according to the “entertain yourself” scheme – but those who want to will have a good time. A unique thing, which has no analogues, and most likely will not be.
In general, there are not so few really useful interactive entertainment – and among them there really are full-fledged games, without any discounts on the educational essence. You just need to decide what exactly you want to pump – and go ahead. Go for it!
