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10 titles that prove gaming is a force for good

Don't be evil

10 titles that prove gaming is a force for good
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| Minecraft

Every couple of months, another news story comes out that vilifies games as evil or gamers as socially inept young men, hunched over their joysticks, alone in darkened rooms.

Just the other day, psychologist Phillip Zimbardo was on the radio, saying video games were crippling young men and causing a "crisis of masculinity".

But we've heard this stuff a thousand times before. Zimbardo has added nothing to the argument and is simply repeating tired old stereotypes to make scary-sounding conclusions.

We want to debunk these ridiculous myths, and mobile - with its creative developers and slew of social games - offers perhaps the best examples to do so

So here's some games Zimbardo, and many others, really ought to play before making ill-educated comments about our hobby.

Draw Something
By OMGPOP - buy on iPhone and iPad, buy on Android

According to Zimbardo, one of the key problems with spending too much time gaming is that it's easy validation. You do it alone, so you're rewarding yourself for zero real effort.

I'd like to see him extend that argument to a creative social game with few rules and in which there's no reward for winning. The only reason to keep playing it to enjoy engaging your imagination. Or to laugh at the efforts of your opponent to do the same.

Minecraft: Pocket Edition
By Mojang - buy on iPhone and iPad, buy on Android

I guess mentioning Minecraft in response to criticism of video games is our own cliche. Yet the fact remains that it's a handy, all-in-one refutation of almost every argument commonly made.

One of the most popular games of the planet involves almost no violence and extensive amounts of inventiveness and social co-operation. It's been used in countless educational projects to great success.

If your kids are holed up in the bedroom playing Minecraft instead of watching trashy TV, it's probably something to be encouraged.

Bounden
By Game Oven - buy on iPhone and iPad, buy on Android

One of the alternative activities Zimbardo recommends is dancing. So he's obviously not taken the fractional second required to find all the dancing games out there.

He's especially not found Bounden, a dancing game that requires two people playing together. Interacting and co-operating to make art while playing a game.

We didn't like it all that much, citing an unfortunate marriage of demanding goals and clumsy controls. Yet we admitted it had moments of magic. So have many other players and critics across the internet.

Pandemic
ByF2Z Digital Media - buy on iPhone and iPad

Here's another game where you have work alongside other players to win. Only rather than exercising your physical muscles, Pandemic exercises your mental ones.

It's a co-operative strategy game where the players compete against the game engine. That engine represents a grab-bag of vile diseases. Your job is to get together and discuss a clever plan to save the world.

Tiny Games
By Hide and Seek Productions - buy on iPhone and iPad

We might be cheating with this one a little bit, since it stretches the definition of a mobile game. Rather than playing directly on the device, it asks you some questions about your surroundings and then suggests a physical game you can play.

All the games are unique, designed especially for this app. And it functions as any peripheral you might need for the game like a spinner or random letter generator.

The only thing not included are other players. To get those, you'll need to employ all those social skills Zimbardo thinks gamers are lacking.

Monument Valley
By ustwo - buy on iPhone and iPad, buy on Android

Ok, I think we've made the point that games can be a social experience. Let's move on to how even solo games can be a positive force.

Take Monument Valley. With its incredible puzzles playfully blurring perception and reality. With its haunting, ambiguous story rich with allegory. With its creative, inclusive visual design. There are few elements of education it fails to touch on.

In point of fact we played it as a family, exploring the puzzles together. But you can learn almost as much playing solo.

DEVICE 6
By Simogo - buy on iPhone and iPad

Here's another game with education value that's worth playing alone just so its creativity can amaze you. Device 6 looks like an old-fashioned text adventure. Except here, the adventure text draws your environment, creating maps and clues.

It's another game that can you can explore on multiple levels, as both a puzzle and piece of literary art. Plus of course, it's good reading practice.

Ryan North's To Be Or Not To Be
By Tin Man Games - buy on iPhone and iPad

Speaking of education, literary art and reading practice, how about some classic Shakespeare in gamebook format? If that's not enough, how about making it a clever, multi-tiered format of a play within a play?

How about making it funny? Full of pathos? Reverential to the source material? And yet it still manages to be accessible and enjoyable to an audience of any age.

If Zimbardo knows of a better way to instill passion for England's greatest writer among bored, cynical teens, I'd love to hear it.

Toca Band
By Toca Boca - buy on iPhone and iPad

The app store is full of poor titles for children that are little more than digital babysitters for tired parents. Fortunately, there are a good number of excellent titles too, full of imagination and creativity.

Toca Band is one.

Like all the best things made for children, it's just as much fun for adults. You chose a selection of weird and wonderful musicians to play together and create a tune, plus a soloist you can control yourself.

The result is an incredible music machine with huge potential variety yet in which you can never play a bum note. If there's anything that can gather the whole family round an iPad, it's this.

Papers, Please
By Lucas Pope - buy on iPhone and iPad

Gaming is often accused of lacking morals, of fostering a lack of empathy. Papers, Please is perhaps the finest refutation of that argument.

As the protagonist, you're caught in an ethical trap. On one hand you need a job to provide for your family. On the other, that job is the hideously amoral task of processing immigration applications for the desperate.

It lets you explore your own ethical boundaries in a way no other medium allows.

Matt Thrower
Matt Thrower
Matt is a freelance arranger of words concerning boardgames and video games. He's appeared on IGN, PC Gamer, Gamezebo, and others.