I believe the children (and zombies) are our future...

Most of the people who know me know that I love zombies. So, when I found a game by the good people at PopCap called Plants Vs. Zombies, my friends would know I am already on board.

The game pits you and your garden against a shambolic hoard of the undead. The zombies slowly walk across your yard and the various flowers, mushrooms, etc. that you can plant all have their own ways of stopping the zombies.

But here is the really amazing thing about this game: not only is it fun but I think it could make kids who play it smarter.

There is a phenomenon known as the Flynn Effect. Dr. James Flynn found that IQ scores were steadily rising at about 3 points per decade*. I think games like this one have something to do with that.

Think about Tetris which a lot of people my age played as a kid. It forces you to think fast and organize a bunch of blocks as they fall past your screen. You consider the future likelihood of getting a certain kind of block. You plan to do that thing where you wait for that one piece that is four long to drop so you can eliminate four lines at once. Essentially, the games is mostly visual/spacial.

But in Plants Vs. Zombies, there is much more going on. Each plant has a different attack each zombie has a different weakness. The game is set up like a chess board and so a kid would have to plan where to put the plants to counter the walking dead (essentially visual/spacial). Also, each plant has a cost. Kids would have to budget whether expensive powerful plants are worth giving up a bunch of smaller, cheaper plants. So the game teaches that there is an economic trade-off!

There are dozens of plants that you earn as a reward for completing. Clever kids will think about the costs and benefits (which are mathematically pretty simple applications of multiplication and division) not only in the moment but also they have to do an intertemporal maximization problem in order to defeat the waves of zombies! And they do this all without thinking it is a chore.

This game would be incredible for 6 to 8 year olds. The game could easily be modified to have the math element be a litte more rigorous to have an even bigger educational effect.

Also think about this: Nintendo games were around $50 in the early 90s. That is around $70 in today's terms. Plants Vs. Zombies is only $10! Perfect for getting your kids. You can get seven different games like this for your kids for the same cost 15 years ago. More and more kids will have access to games that maybe seem silly but are sutbly teaching them important concepts.

Awesome.


*Which means that a person with a 100 IQ score today would score in the top 2.2% of the population 100 years ago.