October 2021: Our Puddle Hopping app has received thorough and well-written reviews at Free Apps For Me and Apps Like These:
Free Apps For Me Puddle Hopping review
Apps Like These Puddle Hopping review
Please visit their site at https://freeappsforme.com/
Our Puddle Hopping app has been selected as a ‘Hidden Gem’ in a feature blog:
Underrated Trivia Games To Play On IOS Devices
Thank you, GameKeys!
Our Science 8 app (published under Ideate Games, our app and R&D imprint) is mentioned in a feature article: Top Education Related Games (Hidden Gems) by Kevin White. The article can be found at
Forest Fire!
Funded! Forest Fire! was fully funded through Kickstarter (thank you all!) and has been released for sale.
Forest Fire! was inspired by a little boy who loves fighting fires. The game is set in a densely wooded yet populated area where forest fires often occur. When fires start, players work together to put them out and save houses and schools from destruction.
Players use several different fire fighting approaches – bulldozers, water, helicopters and chemical extinguishers.
As the game progresses, environmental factors like wind and drought increase, affecting the frequency, intensity, and spreading speed of fires, simulating the effects of climate change.
See here for ordering information.
Immune Force
In Immune Force players experience the power and ingenuity of the body’s natural defenses and the variety of microbial dangers it faces.
This game is now available for purchase at TheGameCrafter.
The game takes place in a human body, where players cooperate to mobilize the immune system, harnessing macrophages, neutrophils, Killer T-cells, vaccines, treatments, antibodies, and bacteriophages, fighting a continuous onslaught of over two dozen types of bacteria, viruses, fungi, parasites, and cancers.
The game has a large board with a schematic body, 68 cards, and over 100 pieces that represent the microbes and the immune system cells.
Each of the different microbes and immune defenses act approximately in accordance with current scientific and medical understanding.
Concepts may be complex, but game play is simple enough to be fun for all ages. The game is mostly luck, but plenty of variation and opportunities for simple strategy in the placement of pieces and management of treatment cards.
Mixed-Up Museum
As part of my exploration of putting educational (especially student-created) content into simple games, I am experimenting with 3D games, to see if they are more compelling for the history content. I created a simple 9-room ‘museum’ with different images/objects on each wall.
Five of the 36 are misplaced (item does not match the description) and the task is to carry the items to the correct wall of the correct room. Rooms are arranged by date to help in route planning.
The game is very much a beginner 3D effort, I am just learning the 3D game environment.
This game could be used for student projects — it will accept a spreadsheet of content that a student could create and have an instant simple game. This version has 8 of my own topics.
The game works, though the visual design is plain. You can download the Mac, Windows, and Linux versions of the game:
Browser: https://www.ideategames.org/mum/museum.html
Windows: https://www.ideategames.org/Museum_win.zip
Mac: https://www.ideategames.org/Museum_mac.zip
Linux: https://www.ideategames.org/Museum_linux.gz
Threads — Classroom version
See our separate page describing how to play a simple connected-history game in history class.
Serendipity Machine
This is more a whimsical creativity stimulus than a game, although we are working on a simple game version. This will be released as an app. It is available now in open Beta, and named Meanderings.
The app simply creates a random walk based on the simplest word matching from one topic entry to another. You set the starting topic (choice of 11 topics at the moment) and the ending topic, and the app finds a random path between.
The idea is that randomly mashing ideas together like this sometimes stimulates a serendipitous idea, even possibly can help solve a problem. But even if it doesn’t, it is fun and makes me smile every time.
Zero-Sum
Zero-Sum is in play testing, available in Google Play as an alpha. We are still evaluating if it is worth the effort to make it a multiplayer app with remote players.
Zero-Sum is a complex macro-economics strategy game for multiple players. Each player runs a country and sets financial priorities, which are then played out on a global stage with or against the other players.
A valid macro-economics model underpins the game, driven by the card choices of the players. Players can also alter the economic model to suit their beliefs or preferences.
Players can choose to go for a competitive win (financial trade balance), or a “Economic Fairness” win (those in power (wealthy) are responsible for providing opportunity for those less fortunate — low unemployment and low wealth gap), or an “Industry” win, or a “Standard of Living” win (low cost of living with high consumer spend). Is it possible to achieve more than one?
Detailed rules are available here.
The Wiki Murders
Really a game about history. Given 12 historical locations around a fantasy village square, 10 historical figures (suspects who are also witnesses) in 10 of those locations, and 6 historical objects as potential weapons, figure out who was the murderer in what location using what instrument.