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Get Children Into Science

Science can be a subject that many of us see as something for other people. Physics, Chemistry and Biology is something for the nerds, geeks and highly intelligent children at school and not for us or our children.

"Science is an incredibly important subject that many students never fully grasp. Knowledge of chemistry or other sciences is necessary to solve many real-world problems, but the way it's taught now often fails to capture students’ imaginations, discouraging experimentation and discovery."

That quote from the creators of Happy Atoms inspired this list of games. It's true not just about their game that unlocks the wonder of chemistry, but about many other games that often get children doing science without even realising it.

This can be the simple chemical puzzle-solving of a game like Sokobond. It can be the embodied understanding of gravity and momentum in real-time physics games like Portal. It can be the way different elements combine properties in games like Zelda Breath of the Wild. It can even be gaining a sense of scale of the universe in a game like Everything.

This list includes 75 games from the last 16 years, with 1,783 likes. They come from a range of different genres and play-styles and are all good games if you want to fall in love with science.

List Details

PEGI Ratings: PEGI 3 to PEGI 18
ESRB Ratings: ESRB EVERYONE to ESRB MATURE 17+
Australian Ratings: G to MA 15+
Genres: Action, Adventure, Battle, Brain Game, Collecting, Communication, Creative, Fighting, Narrative, Physically Active, Platform, Point-and-Click, Puzzle, Race, Rhythm, Role-Play, Sequencing, Shooting, Simulation, Sports, Stealth, Strategy, Traversal and World Building
Total Likes: 1,783

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Stormworks: Build and Rescue

Release Date: 28/02/2018

Out Now: Mac and PC

Skill Rating: 11+ year-olds

Components: 3D Third-Person, Blocks, Open World and Weather

Stormworks: Build and Rescue is an open-world adventure where you design, build and pilot your own air-sea rescue service. You create programmable vehicles using its block-building system and pilot them into dangerous situations to rescue stricken...

The Legend of Zelda: Breath Of The Wild

Release Date: 03/03/2017

Out Now: Switch and Wii U

Skill Rating: 10+ year-olds

Components: 3D Third-Person, Cartoon, Day and Night, Open World and Weather

The Legend of Zelda: Breath Of The Wild departs from the previous Zelda formula with the scale and depth of its world. You walk, fly, ride and climb your way through a landscape that varies in climate, terrain, inhabitants and vegetation. Weather and...

Subnautica

Release Date: 11/04/2016, updated in 2018

Out Now: PC, PS4, Switch, Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S

Skill Rating: 10+ year-olds

Components: 3D First-Person, Day and Night and Open World

Subnautica is an open-world adventure where you explore the ocean on an alien planet after crashlanding. You collect resources and fight creatures to survive. This enables you to establish an underwater base, gain new craft and equipment and explore...

Everything

Release Date: 21/03/2017, updated in 2019

Out Now: Mac, PC, PS4 and Switch

Skill Rating: 3+ year-olds

Components: 3D Third-Person and Open World

Everything is an unusual game that simulates a world where you can become any object. It sounds strange and not much fun, but the enjoyment is in discovering how small or how big a thing you can become. From tiny atoms to whole planets and everything in...

The Long Dark

Release Date: 22/09/2014

Out Now: PC, PS4, Switch and Xbox One

Skill Rating: 11+ year-olds

Components: 3D First-Person, Cartoon, Day and Night and Open World

The Long Dark is a thoughtful exploration-survival game where you have crash-landed in the icy Canadian wilderness after a global disaster and must find a way to survive. Through exploring, crafting and fighting you must look after your body...

Terra Nil

Release Date: 28/03/2023

Out Now: Mac, PC and iOS

Skill Rating: 11+ year-olds

Components: 2D Overhead, Grid and Open World

Terra Nil is a strategy game where you use clean technology to bring back life to a barren world. It's a city-building game where you aren't building a city at all, but a clean thriving ecology. It raises interesting themes of how humanity plays an...

Supraland

Release Date: 09/03/2018, updated in 2020

Out Now: PC, PS4, Switch and Xbox One

Skill Rating: 10+ year-olds

Components: 3D Third-Person

Supraland is an adventure game that involves exploring, running, jumping, solving puzzles, and fighting monsters. You play a member of the Red Village and you must discover why the Blue Village has sabotaged your water supply. Your character is a...

Spyder

Release Date: 21/03/2020, updated in 2021

Out Now: Apple TV, Mac and iOS

Skill Rating: 7+ year-olds

Components: 3D Third-Person

Spyder is a puzzle adventure where you play as Agent 8, a small 6-legged spider-robot that was designed by a British spy agency for attempting to stop an evil organization. You explore the world and can use your sticky legs to walk over any surface or...

Wobbledogs

Release Date: 11/03/2022, updated in 2023

Out Now: Mac, PC, PS4, Switch and Xbox One

Skill Rating: 4+ year-olds

Components: 3D Third-Person, Cartoon and Open World

Wobbledogs is a pet simulation where your dogs not only need care but are rapidly mutating different behaviour and appetites. You breed new dogs (from eggs), create and decorate a home for them, feed them and see how they evolve.

JellyCar Worlds

Release Date: 10/12/2022

Out Now: Apple TV, Mac, PC, Switch and iOS

Skill Rating: 5+ year-olds

Components: 2D Side-On and Cartoon

JellyCar Worlds is a puzzle game about a car made of jelly traversing a squishy world. You use the physics properties of the car and the objects in the world to get from A to B. It's an action puzzle game that stands out for the joyous novelty of a...

Portal

Release Date: 10/10/2007, updated in 2022

Out Now: Android, Mac, PC, Switch and Xbox 360

Skill Rating: 8+ year-olds

Components: 3D First-Person

Portal is a puzzle game where you manipulate the world around you to move through increasingly complex chambers. By creating two connected portals- if you walk into one, you walk out the other- you must move yourself around the rooms to escape. It...

No Man's Sky

Release Date: 10/08/2016, updated in 2022

Out Now: PC, PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S

Skill Rating: 12+ year-olds

Components: 3D First-Person, Day and Night and Open World

No Man's Sky is a space simulation about exploring endless planets and galaxies. It invites you to take your spaceship to explore and colonise a universe rich with diverse planets, creatures and fauna. Facing so vast a space is daunting at first, but a...

Factorio

Release Date: 14/08/2020, updated in 2022

Out Now: Mac, PC and Switch

Skill Rating: 10+ year-olds

Components: 2D Overhead, Grid, Open World and Pixels

Factorio is a construction strategy game where you crash-land on an alien planet and must harvest resources to create industry to build a rocket to escape (or fall in love with running your factory and stay on longer).

In Other Waters

Release Date: 03/04/2020

Out Now: PC and Switch

Skill Rating: 9+ year-olds

Components: 2D Side-On and Open World

In Other Waters is an underwater exploration game where you play an Artificial Intelligence assistant to a stranded xenobiologist in a mysterious alien ocean. The world is not seen except through the instrumentation available to you. This creates a...

Elite Dangerous

Release Date: 15/12/2015, updated in 2016

Out Now: PC, PS4 and Xbox One

Skill Rating: 11+ year-olds

Components: 3D First-Person, 3D Third-Person and Open World

Elite Dangerous is a new version of the classic 1980s space game Elite. Like the original it’s a space exploration, trading and combat game that provides a huge and rich universe rather than a specific story. You can trade goods, become a bounty...

Opus Magnum

Release Date: 08/12/2017

Out Now: PC

Components: 2D Side-On

Opus Magnum is a puzzle game about assembling machines to convert spherical chemicals into different compounds. Each challenge can be tackled by creating different machine configurations, and each is awarded points on how compact, quick and efficient...

Getting Over It with Bennett Foddy

Release Date: 06/11/2017

Out Now: Android, Mac, PC and iOS

Skill Rating: 10+ year-olds

Components: 2D Side-On

Getting Over It with Bennett Foddy is a strange game about movement and momentum. You are tasked with climbing a mountain. However, your only means of locomotion is a hammer that can stick to objects and drag you forwards.

Astroneer

Release Date: 16/12/2016, updated in 2019

Out Now: PC, PS4, Switch and Xbox One

Skill Rating: 10+ year-olds

Components: 3D Third-Person, Day and Night and Open World

Astroneer is an open-world space adventure where you colonize planets by creating habitable structures, farming and mining resources. There is no specific story, although the challenges of each planet give rise to struggles of achievement to placate the...

Potion Craft

Release Date: 21/09/2021

Out Now: PC and Xbox One

Skill Rating: 9+ year-olds

Components: 2D Side-On and Hand-Made

Potion Craft is a puzzle adventure game where you create potions in an ancient looking workshop to send you bottle around the map. You combine ingredients, fire and water to move your bottle along the map to the target location and brew a potion to help...

Endless Ocean

Release Date: 09/11/2007, updated in 2010

Out Now: Wii

Skill Rating: 6+ year-olds

Components: 3D Third-Person, Day and Night and Open World

Endless Ocean (Endless Ocean: Blue World in the US) and its sequel Endless Ocean 2: Adventures of the Deep are versions of a diving adventure game where you explore the Manaurai Sea to identify different fish and recover artefacts. As experience is...

Hundred Days, Winemaking Simulator

Release Date: 13/05/2021

Out Now: Android, PC, Stadia, Switch and iOS

Skill Rating: 10+ year-olds

Components: 2D Overhead, Cards and Grid

Hundred Days, Winemaking Simulator is a strategy game about making wine. You control every aspect of a new Winery, choose vines, and learn how to grow them and when to harvest. You make decisions about the process with a simple interface that takes you...

Surviving Mars

Release Date: 15/03/2018

Out Now: Mac, PC, PS4 and Xbox One

Skill Rating: 11+ year-olds

Components: 2D Overhead and Day and Night

Surviving Mars is a colony simulation game based on the real geography of Mars. You build and maintain a liveable habitat while balancing resources and researching new ways to adapt to the hostile environment. You receive occasional rockets from Earth...

Beyond Blue

Release Date: 22/04/2020, updated in 2020

Out Now: Apple TV, Mac, PC, PS4, Xbox One and iOS

Skill Rating: 6+ year-olds

Components: 3D Third-Person and Open World

Beyond Blue is an underwater exploration game where you play Mirai, a deep-sea explorer and scientist. You see, hear, and interact with the ocean and the creatures in it as you discover an untouched world.

Eco

PEGI 7 Video Game Age Rating for Eco in UK and Europe

Eco

Release Date: 06/02/2018

Out Now: Mac and PC

Skill Rating: 10+ year-olds

Components: 3D First-Person, Blocks, Day and Night and Open World

Eco extends the resource-collecting and building of Minecraft by introducing environmental implications to your actions. Using resources like trees will erode the soil; mining might pollute the river; and each animal depends on another.

TerraTech

Release Date: 04/07/2018

Out Now: Mac, PC, PS4, Switch and Xbox One

Components: 3D Third-Person, Blocks, Day and Night and Open World

TerraTech is a construction game where you create vehicles to explore the environment, find resources and craft upgrades. It includes a modular building element where your decisions affect the performance of what you make. Each building block has its...

Splitgate Arena Warfare

Release Date: 24/05/2019, updated in 2021

Out Now: PC, PS4 and Xbox One

Skill Rating: 14+ year-olds

Components: 3D First-Person

Splitgate Arena Warfare is a movement-focused shooting game. Building on classic quick-motion gun battles, Splitgate adds a gun that can create portals between any two locations. This combines the frantic close-quarters arena combat that was popular in...

Balance - Power Grid

Release Date: 05/08/2016

Out Now: Android, Mac and iOS

Components: 2D Side-On

Balance - Power Grid is a puzzle game about power grids. You place cables, pylons and power generators to make sure there are no blackouts. Through a series of challenges you build power grids that are functional, and that produce the right amount of...

Kerbal Space Program

Release Date: 31/03/2016, updated in 2021

Out Now: PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S

Skill Rating: 9+ year-olds

Components: 3D Third-Person and Open World

Kerbal Space Program is a space flight simulation game. You direct a space program, staffed and crewed by aliens. It looks like a cute game for kids, but under its comic exterior is a hugely complex and engaging space simulation.

Learning Factory

Release Date: 18/02/2021

Out Now: Mac, PC, PS4 and Switch

Skill Rating: 13+ year-olds

Components: 2D Overhead, Grid and Pixels

Learning Factory is a strategy game where you automate an old factory. Unusually, this isn't to make money and conquer the world but a round about approach to understand cats. Peculiar backstory aside, the game tasks you with renovating the factory,...

Gravity Rush

Release Date: 09/02/2012, updated in 2017

Out Now: PS Vita and PS4

Skill Rating: 10+ year-olds

Components: 3D Third-Person and Open World

Gravity Rush is a running, jumping and exploration adventure game. You play as Kat, an amnesiac with the power to manipulate gravity. She uses this ability to help her community and uncover the mystery of her past.

QWOP

Release Date: 21/12/2010

Out Now: Mac, PC and Web

Skill Rating: 9+ year-olds

Components: 2D Side-On and Hand-Made

QWOP is a sports game with a difference. You have to control each limb of your virtual athlete. This changes it from a challenge of hitting buttons to using the touch screen or keyboard to deftly coordinate movement to gain forward motion. It's really...

Potion Permit

Release Date: 22/09/2022

Out Now: Mac, PC, PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S

Skill Rating: 7+ year-olds

Components: 2D Overhead, Day and Night, Grid and Pixels

Potion Permit is an adventure game about a chemist working to help village inhabitants get better from various ailments. You explore the world for ingredients and craft medicine by completing puzzles and mini-games. It stands out for the tension it...

Dish Life: The Game

Release Date: 24/02/2020

Out Now: Android, PC and iOS

Components: 2D Overhead

Dish Life: The Game is a puzzle narrative game where you play a stem cell researcher, managing a laboratory and growing stem cells.

Koral

Release Date: 16/05/2019

Out Now: PC and Switch

Skill Rating: 5+ year-olds

Components: 2D Side-On and Open World

Koral is a diving exploration game where you play as the sea current. This sounds a little odd, playing a flow of energy, but works brilliantly.

Breakwaters

Release Date: 09/12/2021

Out Now: PC

Skill Rating: 10+ year-olds

Components: 3D Third-Person, Day and Night, Open World and Weather

Breakwaters is an adventure set in an ever-changing oceanic world. Unlike other games, Breakwaters isn't satisfied with day-night and weather cycles, it stands out for the fluid mechanics of its water. You swim, sail, and fly to new islands using...

Little Mouse's Encyclopaedia

Release Date: 25/02/2019, updated in 2021

Out Now: Android, Mac, PC, Switch, Xbox and iOS

Skill Rating: 3+ year-olds

Components: 2D Overhead and Hand-Made

Little Mouse's Encyclopaedia is an adventure game where you play as a mouse exploring nature. On your way you encounter plants and animals along with encyclopaedia-style information about them. It's an interactive picture book where every interaction is...

Wildfire

Release Date: 26/05/2020, updated in 2020

Out Now: PC, PS4, Switch and Xbox One

Skill Rating: 9+ year-olds

Components: 2D Side-On and Pixels

Wildfire is a running, jumping and hiding game where you hide from (and distract) enemies to get through levels and complete missions. You have specific powers to start fires, freeze water, and move earth that offer different ways to solve the puzzle of...

Hyperbolica

Release Date: 14/03/2022, updated in 2022

Out Now: Mac, Oculus and PC

Skill Rating: 11+ year-olds

Components: 3D First-Person

Hyperbolica is a traversal game where the whole world bends the laws of physics. As you move around, everything seems to shift and fold in on itself as you discover space doesn't work like it does in the real world. It's a game created in non-Euclidean...

Kitty Q

Release Date: 08/10/2021

Out Now: Android and iOS

Skill Rating: 8+ year-olds

Components: 3D Third-Person and Cartoon

Kitty Q A Quantum Adventure is an escape-room where you use outside-the-box thinking to solve puzzles in an odd world with quantum physics themes. It's unusual not only because the puzzles are approachable and visual appealing but because they each...

RocketPuzzle

Release Date: Coming soon

Coming Soon: Android and iOS

Skill Rating: 10+ year-olds

Components: 2D Overhead and Grid

RocketPuzzle is a tile-based puzzle set in space. You push and hold blocks so their attached rockets can fire them into the matching coloured space stations. It's a small but tricky game with a retro aesthetic.

Curated lists:
Game genre:
Style of Play:
Components:

How long to play:
User-generated content:	No
Accessibility features:	Yes

Controls
Gamepad:
Mouse And Keyboard:
Touchscreen:
Motion:	Motion Aiming Motion Pointing Motion Tilting Motion Gesture Motion Camera
Remap Controls:
Button Combinations:	Holding Down Buttons Optional Rapid Repeated Pressing Optional No Simultaneous Buttons
Controller Vibration:
Sensitivity:

Getting Started
Onboarding Before Play:
Assistance Getting Starting:	Tutorials Practice Area View Control Mapping Assistance With Controls Reaction-Time Not Critical Low Pressure Adjust Speed No Jump Scares
Assistance For Progressing:	Guaranteed Progress With God Mode Bank Progress With Frequent Checkpoints Assisted Progress With Boosts Assisted Progress With Hints Assisted Recall for Characters Assisted Recall for Narrative and Dialogue Save Progress Anytime

Reading
Reading Level:
Text Visibility:	Large Clear Text High Contrast Text
Subtitles:
Captions:
Voice Acted:

Navigation
Clarity:
Head-Up Display:
Menu Navigation:

Visual
Contrast:
Interactive Elements:
Visual Distractions:
Audio Cues for Visual Events:
Narration for Visual Elements:
	Motion Sickness Friendly
Colour Options:
Play Without Sight:
Violence:

Audio
	Balance Audio Levels
Audio Events:
	Play Without Hearing

Communication
Player-to-Player Online Communication:
Online Communication Assistance:

Difficulty
Difficulty Options:	Simple and Full Version No Memorisation Advantage No Hidden Information No Deceit Advantage No Colour Advantage No Mathematics Advantage No Weighing Decisions

Getting Started
Assistance Getting Started:	Clear Manual Electronic Version of Manual Electronic Version of Manual for Screen Readers Getting Started Video Digital Version Reference Aid
Assistance Progressing:	Play Order Tokens (Or play order doesn’t change) Reaction-Time Not Critical Low Pressure Low Impact Catch Up Rule

Reading
Reading Level:
Necessary Text Visibility:	Large Clear Text on Board (Or no text required) Large Clear Text on Cards (Or no text required) High Contrast Text (Or no text required) QR Code For Text (Or no text required) Primary and Secondary Text Distinguishable (Or no text required) Information Orientation Clear Icons

Physical
Pieces:	Components are Distinguishable by Touch Components are Replaceable No Non-Standard Dice (Or No Dice) No Tiny Pieces No Paper Money No Sprawl
Cards:	Large Card Size Standard Card Shape Limited Hand Management No Excessive Card Shuffling No Right-Handed Advantage
Placement:	No Unbound Placement Player Components Not Shared No Fiddly Placement Easily Verbalised Actions

Visual
Printed Visibility:	Colour Blind Friendly Design Double-Coding Colour High Contrast Colours
Component Identifiability:	Outline Key Elements No Busy Backgrounds Easily Verbalised Game State No Close Inspection Disadvantage Playable Without Sight

Audio
Communication:	Audio Cues Mirrored Visually (Or no critical audio signals) No Pressured Reveals No Pressured Communication Playable Without Hearing

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Age of player:

In-game purchases:
Cost:
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Difficulty Options:
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Gender and Sexuality Choices:
Gender Representation:
Sexual Orientation Representation:

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Get Children Into Science

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