Science Adventure II

Experience what it was like when a computer in the nineties wanted to educate you, but didn't have what it took to be actual software. Science Adventure II is a DOS relic from 1993 that bills itself as an educational game, and truthfully, you spend most of your time reading text screens packed with facts about physics, chemistry, or biology.

It's classic edutainment, the kind we all knew from school computer labs. A guide walked you through thematic sections, and your job was to answer questions to progress further. Sometimes there was even a minigame thrown in — try to click your way through an avalanche of information by solving a small logic puzzle or picking the right answer from four options. Controls were simple: arrow keys, Enter, and you're done.

What passed for futuristic in the nineties hurts to look at today. A text interface with synthetic sound, graffiti-style graphics that tried to be cool but look like something randomly clicked together in Paint. The game felt like a long homework assignment your teacher forced on you to keep you entertained. At least it was an attempt — edutainment had industry backing, even if 90 percent of these games have gathered dust in archives by now.

A big part of that was the lack of actual substance in the descriptions. What exactly do you learn in Science Adventure II and why should it appeal to players when millions of better resources exist? That's a question nobody really asked back then. It was enough that you could be "at home on the computer" and "learning something" at the same time.

Today you play it in your browser more out of curiosity than principle. You want to see what didactic entertainment attempts looked like in the computer age, when the internet was just getting started. Or you're hit with nostalgia for school computer labs where you'd mess around with stuff like this, sorting information without really having much fun.