Puzzle Video Games

A few weeks ago Josh Tinley posted a handful of Friday readings. One of the articles he mentioned was concerning video games.

Give Grumpy Gamers What They Want is a cute little article concerning where video games are and aren't going. Now for why I'm mentioning it. The fourth point in the article concern's puzzle games, you know, "the sort of games where you wander all over and have to get the loaf of Pinochle Bread from the Demon Baker so that you can combine it with the Fedora of Unnatural Attraction to create the Yeast Golem to give to the Wicked Witch of the Financial Aid Office so she'll let you over the Bridge of Internal Suffering. " There are very few games of this sort anymore as the article mention. This makes me sad for a variety of reasons, partially because I'm a huge fan of those sorts of games ( Kings Quest is one of my favorite video game series of all time) but the more interestingly, in general, these are the sorts of video games that attract female gamers (as opposed to the classic I want to shot my friends sort of games).

I think there should be more puzzle games. I think that game manufactures should make them and market them correctly. One of the biggest things that draws people into computer science is video games. Many a talk concerning women in computer science brings up the point that guys play more video games and as a result, are more comfortable with computers and more likely to learn to program because they too want to write video games. I think one long term plan to aid women in technology involves making video games that girls want to play. And, even better, this would help game companies too because it’s a good growth sector. (There was an article about this in July 2005:
Programmers: Video Games Need a Woman's Touch)

If more girls played games, more girls would enter computer science which would be better for the entire field.