The Learning Company (TLC) was an educational software company founded in 1980 in Palo Alto, California and headquartered in Fremont, California. The company produced a grade-based line of learning software, edutainment games, and productivity tools. Its titles included the flagship series Reader Rabbit, for preschoolers through second graders, and The ClueFinders, for more advanced students. The company was also known for publishing licensed educational titles featuring characters such as Arthur, The PowerPuff Girls, SpongeBob SquarePants or Sesame Street.
Educational software is a term used for any computer software that is made for an educational purpose. It encompasses different ranges from language learning software to classroom management software to reference software. The purpose of all this software is to make some part of education more effective and efficient.
Robot Odyssey is a programming game developed by Mike Wallace and Dr. Leslie Grimm and published by The Learning Company in December 1984. It is a sequel to Rocky's Boots, and was released for the Apple II, TRS-80 Color Computer, and MS-DOS. Most players have found it challenging. The player is readying for bed when, suddenly, they fall through the floor into an underground city of robots, Robotropolis. The player begins in the sewers of the city with three programmable robots, and must make their way to the top of the city to try to find their way home again.
Rocky's Boots is an educational logic puzzle game by Warren Robinett and Leslie Grimm, published by The Learning Company in 1982. It was released for the Apple II, CoCo, Commodore 64, IBM PC and the IBM PCjr. It was followed by a more difficult sequel, Robot Odyssey. It won Software of the Year awards from Learning Magazine (1983), Parent's Choice magazine (1983), and Infoworld, and received the Gold Award from the Software Publishers Association. It was one of the first educational software products for personal computers to successfully use an interactive graphical simulation as a learning environment.
Challenge of the Ancient Empires!, also known as Ancient Empires is an educational computer game created by The Learning Company in 1990 for both MS-DOS and Macintosh. It is designed to improve history, logic, and problem solving skills in children ages 7 to 10.
Treasure Mountain! is an educational video game published by The Learning Company in 1990 for DOS, Windows and Macintosh. It teaches children aged five to nine reading, basic math, and logic skills. Treasure Mountain is the third installment of the Super Seekers series.
OutNumbered! is an educational video game published by The Learning Company in 1990 for both Windows and Macintosh PCs. It is aimed at children ages seven to fourteen and is designed to teach children mathematical computation and problem solving skills.
Treasure Galaxy! is an educational computer game published by The Learning Company in 1994 for both Windows and Macintosh. It is aimed at children ages 5 to 9 and is intended to teach children reading, basic mathematics and logic skills. Treasure Galaxy is part of the Super Seekers games.
Richard Scarry's Busytown is a 1993 educational video game that was developed by Novotrade for preschool gamers. It was released for DOS, Macintosh, and Sega Genesis. This game was based on the series of Best...Ever! series of VHSes distributed by Random House's home video division preceding the TV series' The Busy World of Richard Scarry that was produced by CINAR and Paramount Television. It was remade in 1999 by Pearson Software for Microsoft Windows and Mac OS, with the visuals and animation updated to resemble that of The Busy World of Richard Scarry, and the dialogue re-recorded with Boston actors.
Injured Engine is a game released for the Apple II and Commodore 64 by Imagic. The player must diagnose problems in a simulated automobile engine. The game aims to teach how engines work and how engine parts relate to each other. It was created by an auto mechanic and a graphic artist. Imagic demonstrated it at the 1984 Consumer Electronics Show.
An educational video game is a video game that provides learning or training value to the player. Edutainment describes an intentional merger of video games and educational software into a single product. In the narrower sense used here, the term describes educational software which is primarily about entertainment, but tends to educate as well and sells itself partly under the educational umbrella. Normally software of this kind is not structured towards school curricula and does not involve educational advisors.
Booty is a platform game published in 1984 for the Amstrad CPC, Commodore 64, Commodore 16, and ZX Spectrum. The game was one of Firebird's initial releases.
Stickybear is a fictional character created by Richard Hefter and an edutainment series starring the character headed by Optimum Resource. The character was a mascot of Weekly Reader Software, a division of Xerox Education Publications.
The Treehouse is an educational point-and-click personal computer game developed for DOS and then ported to Macintosh and the FM Towns, with Windows versions arriving later. Following the success of The Playroom, Broderbund created The Treehouse, which provides more content and furthers the user's ability to explore. First released in 1991, most copies were sold in educational supply stores rather than mainstream stores that sold computer software; it included a sing-along cassette tape. It was re-released in 1996 for Windows 3.1 and Windows 95. Although the Windows version has the same general activities, the characters, interface, and locations are different.
There have been a variety of Sesame Street video games released for video game platforms. Most of the Sesame Street video games were published and developed by NewKidCo.
Spelling Jungle, also known as Yobi's Basic Spelling Tricks or Yobi's Magic Spelling Tricks, is an educational adventure game created by Bright Star Technology and released by Sierra in 1993 for both Windows and Macintosh PCs. The program is designed to strengthen reading, spelling, and logic skills in children ages 7–10.
Learning with Leeper is a 1983 game developed and published by Sierra On-Line. Similar to Learning with FuzzyWOMP (1984), it teaches colours, numbers, and the alphabet to players. It reuses the character from the Sierra On-Line game Lunar Leepers
Jenny's Journeys is an educational video game published in 1984 by MECC for the Apple II. From a first-person view, players use a compass and a map to navigate a car containing the protagonist, Jenny, through a pixelated town. The player, acting as Jenny, provides directions at each intersection while the car's owner, 'Aunt Jenny', rides along. The objective of the game is to successfully travel from point to point while using the map. There are three levels of difficulty.
Reader Rabbit's Ready for Letters is a 1992 video game and the fifth game of the Reader Rabbit franchise. Although a spin-off title, it is designed for ages 3 to 6 to teach prereaders about becoming literate and phonics.
Gertrude's Puzzles is a educational video game for the Apple II, Commodore 64, and IBM PC compatibles released in 1984 by The Learning Company. It is a sequel to the game Gertrude's Secrets. Gertrude's Puzzles was designed by Teri Perl. Gertrude's Puzzles, like Gertrude's Secrets, consists of a series of rooms, each of which contains a logic or categorization puzzle to solve using shapes and colors.
