Minecraft has so many great learning capabilities are there more games like it? Yes, there are!
If you’re looking specifically for education games pertaining to health, education, science, and more serious games are your best friend.
Games for Change
Games for Change is a non for profit institution that specialises in supporting the development and marketing of serious games. This database includes information on a plethora of serious games, allowing you to search specifically for serious games that fit your needs.
Quick Tip: Make sure to make use of the ‘More Filters’ button located right next to the search bar, from here you can search specifically for games aimed at a particular age group or games addressing certain areas!
Games For Change. (2020). Featured Games. Retrieved from https://www.gamesforchange.org/games/
Is this Game too violent for my child?
There are thousands of video games out there and some are not appropriate for children, making it hard for parents to decide what games their child can play. Luckily there are databases that provide parents the means to quickly analyse and determine whether a video game is appropriate for children.
Commonsense Media
Commonsense Media is a non profit institution that provides in depth analyses on video games and their pros and cons. This database provides Parents accounts of the explicit content and potential benefits within thousands of video games.
Quick tip: The filters located on the left side of the screen make it easy to search for a particular media type (Click the checkbox for ‘Video Games’ to filter out all content except games!).
Common Sense Media. (2020). Search. Retrieved from https://www.commonsensemedia.org/search/
The Australian Classification Database
The Australian classification database allows you to quickly look up any video game title to determine its classification category.
Quick tip: After searching for a title, use the navigation information on the left side of the screen to filter for specific classification types. For children, it’s best to filter down to the G and PG ratings as they are considered the most appropriate for children.
Australian Classification. (2020). Classification Database. Retrieved from https://www.classification.gov.au/search/title?search=Minecraft
Journals Relating to Games and Health
These peer-reviewed Journals are a great source of academic analyse on the benefits of video games and digital media.
Tips for Searching in Journals: Trying using the Boolean operator AND to narrow down your results. E.g. try searching for: “Video Games” AND “Health”. This will hopefully provide you with plenty of great references to read about video games and health.
Games for Health Journal
The Games for Health Journal is a peer-reviewed journal focusing on studies discussing the health benefits of interactive digital media.
Mary Ann Liebert, Inc. (2020). Games for Health Journal. Retrieved from https://www.liebertpub.com/toc/g4h/9/4
Loading
The journal Loading provides excellent resources on the benefits of serious video games. Serious video games are developed for more than just entertainment and broach areas such as education, mental health, and science.
Loading. (2020). Current Issue. Retrieved from https://journals.sfu.ca/loading/index.php/loading