You might think you’ve found a clever way to get them to learn, but kids see right through educational board games. And while some do a good job at hiding their true nature, c-Jump — which teaches programming concepts — does not.
The $25 game has players racing to get down a mountain the fastest, hence c-Jump which is meant to be a hilarious pun on Ski Jump. But not that hilarious. While they advance across the board basic programming concepts like “if”, “else”, and “switch” are used, giving players an introduction to computer languages while they try to take advantage of shortcuts to the end.
But since being a computer programmer doesn’t sound as exciting or glamorous as being a hippopotamus feeder, I suspect that getting kids to play a round of c-Jump over more popular educational games like Hungry Hungry Hippos will require some stern coercing from their parents. [ThinkGeek via Coolest Gadgets]
light487
Friday, December 16, 2011 at 9:50 AMHrmm.. I dunno.. looks kinda fun.. but then I’m from the age of computers that you had to program yourself, if you wanted to play a game, when I was 5 years old.. :)
MrAndyPuppy
Friday, December 16, 2011 at 10:47 AMWow – completely random coincidence that the one person commenting on this article would turn out to be my brother. :)