School House Download (1991 Educational Game)

This educational title combines various themes from the school classes. It proposes to study the subject in a play manner. The themes presented in the game are:

Beginner's Alphabet

Alphabet Master

Math Master

Algebra Challenge

Arithmetic Challenge

Time Challenge

Chemistry Challenge

World History

U. S. History

U. S. Geography

The game is intended for two players. One of computer opponents (Dr. Genius, Ava Ridge, or E.Z. 2Beat) becomes the second player in case of one human player, or two human players try to beat each other at hot seat. A time limit (short, medium, or long) can be used.

Gameplay is flown in following way. Each player receives certain number of items related to the theme. Players take turns using their items to make lists in which earlier items come before later ones. Correct decision leads to removal of the item from own box, and new item is added otherwise. Player's goal is to be the first to get all the items out of own box.

School House is an excellent edutainment title whose concept was very innovative for its time. Although there are over 30 mini-games spanning a wide range of subjects, they all use the same gameplay set-up: two players compete to fill in the blank table with items on their lists that match the given criteria. To give some examples to make this clearer: in one arithmetic game, you are given a list of equations with one unknown variable you must solve (e.g. X+2=4). Your goal is to type the equations in the order of X's magnitude, from lowest to highest. So in this case if 2 is the lowest number among all equation answers, you would have to write "X+2=4" to remove it from your list. Then it's the other player's turn to type something from his/her list. You would then proceed with writing the next equation whose answer is the next smallest number, and so on until your list is empty. The other player (human or computer) has his/her own list to take care of. The first player to clear the list is the winner.

The ingenuity of School House is that this basic gameplay is applied to a whole range of subjects, from math to history to science. The only thing different is that the criteria is modified to fit each subject matter. For example, in "inventions" game you must type the names of inventions on your list in the order of oldest to newest. The game even has multiple difficulty levels in the form of 3 different opponents, some of whom will make more mistakes than others (therefore giving you more room for mistakes).

School House is a fun program that will keep both kids and adults entertained with its innovative gameplay, with the added bonus of honing typing skills. Lack of graphics is just about the only downside for this excellent old game.

How to run this game on modern Windows PC?

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