Old Jumpstart Computer Games Online

Last Updated: 2018.03.23

I don't have kids. But I run a small digital development business, so a few weeks ago when a friend asked if I could recommend any educational games for his girls, I decided to put together this guide.

Internet Killed the Edutainment Star

World Of JumpStart is an online gaming portal for kids where they can learn a lot of things while playing. The players are presented with The Jumpee Creator, an interactive menu where they are able to fully customize their in-game avatar, known as their Jumpee.

Here is the video game “JumpStart Adventures: 3rd Grade - Mystery Mountain”! Released in 1996 on Windows, it's still available and playable with some tinkering. JumpStart (known as Jump Ahead in the United Kingdom) is an educational media franchise for children, consisting mostly of educational games, produced by JumpStart Games.The series originally consisted of a series of educational PC games but has since expanded to include workbooks, direct-to-video films, mobile apps, and other media, including a massive multiplayer online game located at. 17 Computer Games All '00s Kids Played That Actually Taught You Useful Stuff. Computer games were your favorite teacher. By Connor Dunlap. Description: There. Educational Games from Knowledge Adventure. Knowledge Adventure has been making educational games for kids for over two decades. Working with child experts, developmental psychologists and educators, it produces games loved by parents and children alike.

Educational computer games seem to have lost their luster since the dot-com bubble burst. The ones on today's app stores are hard to pick through: some don’t teach anything, some aren't fun, and some are misleading product placement campaigns. To be fair, I imagine the economics of software development aren’t as conducive to producing fun educational games as they once were. But I would be glad to be proven wrong.

I played computer games throughout my childhood in what may have been the golden age of kids games. Like many developers I know, I first learned to use the command line when my dad showed me how to start a game on my own (in my case I think it was Asteroids on a 386). The rise of personal computing meant there was money to be made in software, and the competitive and technical challenges of creating more compelling graphics and interaction led to some innovative games before the euphoria of the internet swept everything up.

But as it turns out, many of the best games from that late 80s to 90s era are now available for free as ‘abandonware.’ Which is to say, they are no longer sold — or prevented from being distributed for free — because the respective operating systems and hardware they were built for are now obsolete in the retail market. And while there are already sites and how-to’s aimed at nostalgic 90s computer enthusiasts, most parents do not have the time to sift through all of that and then dig up the good games for their kids. Or at least, so I am told. 🙂

Getting Started

If you have a Mac or a Windows computer, whether you can setup an old one as a dedicated kids computer or you are glad to share your personal laptop, this guide should have you going in just a few minutes. If you are on a tablets or a phone, come back when you are on a computer with a keyboard.

Take a look through the recommended game list, try a few out, and when you're comfortable, let your kids try. On Windows, hold down the Ctrl (i.e. Control) key when you click on a link to open it in a new tab. On a Mac, hold down the Command key (the one with the ⌘ symbol) to do the same.

When possible, the guide links to the Internet Archive where you can play many of these games in your browser and download some as well. You can't save your progress between sessions in your web browser so the guide also links to My Abandonware for some of the games. The pages on My Abandonware are a little cluttered but find the blue Download Button with the english flag under the ‘DOS Version’ headline and click it to download the game.

Once you download the game, you can set it up for repeated play with an emulator, as is explained in more detail towards the end of this guide. Also, My Abandonware has PDFs of some of the game booklets, and Moby Games has scans of the boxes for most of them in the respective Cover Art section. The back of the box scan often has a concise introduction to the game.

Recommended Games

The games are organized by age group. Each entry includes a screenshot, a description, a list of relevant skills, and links to where you can play and/or download the games. The age groups are really just rough guidelines, so let your kids’ follow their curiosity, and they will have more fun and learn more.

Also, in most instances where games are part of a series, I have listed only one game, but other games in each series might fit with other age groups. And please note that many of these games make use of the escape key (esc in the top left corner of your keyboard) much more than most programs do today, and they often use older Windows-like controls (Ctrl-Q to quit).

And before we jump in, thanks to everyone who made these games and who have kept them accessible on-line!

Ages 3+

At this age, the best games require very little keyboard use and tend to focus on exploration and free learning. You won't really miss much by playing them in the browser.

Reader Rabbit Ready for Letters

As the back cover claims, Ready for Letters is a great first game for the little ones. No reading is required for navigation (beyond number recognition) but the player can start recognizing words, while helping make a cake for instance. The synthesized voices in this game were a big step forward. The Reader Rabbit series had a lot of hits across age groups, so be sure to explore the series if you are looking for reading games.

Skills: letters, sorting, exploring.

Richard Scarry's Busytown

Richard Scarry was a very prolific children’s book author and illustrator, and Busytown is an exploratory puzzle game with a rather cloying soundtrack filled with his characters. The animations and puzzles can be fun for kids. This game doesn’t seem to be readily available for download but there’s no progress tracking anyway. Just click around to play and explore in your browser.

Skills: exploration, puzzle solving.

The Treehouse

This game has a lot going on: puzzles, a synthesizer, little rodent-like avatars. It's a fun one for kids who are getting a little more comfortable with the computer.

Skills: basic math, vocab, sentences, animals, music.

Ages 5+ (Kindergarten-3rd)

Many of the best games for this age group involve more involved keyboard use and repeated exercises.

Math Blaster Plus!

With multiple sub-games, difficulty settings and math skills, Math Blaster Plus! can keep players across grade levels engaged for many sessions. Some of the games simply have a novel animations or interaction while others interrupt some sort of arcade game play with math questions. And it’s good prep for those Math Minute tests.

This franchise is still alive but I am not sold on their iOS apps.

Skills: arithmetic.

Kid Pix

This drawing studio has a wide variety of tools, sounds, and effects that make for a fun, open-ended experience. Even though there are many more drawinng programs available now, Kid Pix still stands out for its playful, synergistic approach to multimedia creation.

Skills: drawing.

Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?

So this game was a phenomenon, not least because it was one of the first games to feature a strong female lead (albeit as a villain). There were many, many games in the series (e.g. Where in North Dakota is Carmen Sandiego?) as well as a TV show but the structure never changed much. Gather clues and find the crooks, wherever they are. The original game came with a paper copy of The World Almanac and Book of Facts to aid the player’s sleuthing.

Skills: geography, problem solving.

JumpStart 1st Grade

I didn't particularly enjoy these games as a kid, but I may have been too old for them by the time they were on the market. There are many games in the series but none of the others appear to be available online.

JumpStart is also an active franchise, but like Math Blaster, the new games don't seem to hold up, at le

Old Jumpstart Computer Games