PC Games For Kids Free Download Archives

Adobe has announced that the Flash Player will come to the official end of its life on the last day of this year, December 31, 2020. News of the demise of an obsolete internet multimedia platform presumably bothers few of today's web-surfers, but those of us belonging to a certain generation feel in it the end of an era. First introduced by Macromedia in 1996, Flash made possible the kind of animation and sound we'd seldom seen and heard — assuming we could manage to load it through our sluggish connections at all — on the internet before. By the early 2000s, Flash seemed to power most everything fun on the internet, especially everything fun to the kids then in middle and high school who'd grown up alongside the World Wide Web.

Though now deep into adulthood, we all remember the hours of the early 21st century we happily whiled away on Flash games, racing cars, solving puzzles, shooting zombies, dodging comets, firing cannons, and piloting helicopters on classroom computers. We could, in theory, find many of these games and play them still today, but that may become impossible next year when all major web browsers will discontinue their support for Flash.

"That’s where Flashpoint comes in to save a huge chunk of gaming history," writes Kotaku's Zack Zwiezen. "Flashpoint uses open-source tech to allow folks to download and play a large list of games and animations. The full list contains just over 36,000 games and you can suggest new games to be added if something you love isn’t on here."

On Flashpoint's download page you'll find its full 290-gigabyte collection of Flash games, as well as a smaller version that only downloads games as you play them. "While Flash games might not be as impressive today, they are still an important part of gaming history," writes Zwiezen. "These small web games can be directly linked to the later rise of mobile and indie games and helped many creators get their feet wet with building and creating video games." In other words, the simple Flash amusements of our schooldays gave rise to the graphically and sonically intense games that we play so compulsively today. Now we have kids who play those sorts of games too, but who among us will initiate the next generation into the ways of Crush the Castle, Age of War, and Bubble Trouble?

You can find more information on the flash video game archive on this FAQ page.

via Kotaku

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Based in Seoul, Colin Marshall writes and broadcasts on cities, language, and culture. His projects include the book The Stateless City: a Walk through 21st-Century Los Angeles and the video series The City in Cinema. Follow him on Twitter at @colinmarshall or on Facebook.

The library may be closed, but there is plenty to read and listen to digitally. Our Children’s staff has gathered some of their favorite, too-good-to-miss digital books.

TumbleBooks

A collection of animated, talking picture books, suited for elementary school children, TumbleBooks take existing picture books and add sound, engaging animation, music, and narration to create stories that come to life for children.

Duck! Rabbit!by Amy Krouse Rosenthal
From the award-winning author of Little Pea, Little Hoot, and Little Oink comes a clever take on the age-old optical illusion: is it a duck or a rabbit?
Goodnight, Goodnight, Construction Site by Sherri Duskey Rinker
As the sun sets behind the big construction site, all the hardworking trucks get ready to say goodnight.
Mercy Watson To the Rescueby Kate Dicamillo.
To Mr. and Mrs. Watson, Mercy is not just a pig–she’s a porcine wonder. And to the portly and good-natured Mercy, the Watsons are an excellent source of buttered toast, not to mention that buttery-toasty feeling she gets when she snuggles into bed with them. This is not, however, so good for the Watsons’ bed. BOOM! CRACK! As the bed and its occupants slowly sink through the floor, Mercy escapes in a flash “to alert the fire department,” her owners assure themselves. But could Mercy possibly have another emergency in mind–like a sudden craving for their neighbors’ sugar cookies?

OverDrive/Libby

If you haven’t already, download Libby through your device’s App Store to access the library’s digital collection. Libby is super easy to use; it’s designed to get you reading as quickly and seamlessly as possible.

Start Now!: You Can Make a Differenceby Chelsea Clinton. Audiobook
For the youngest activists among us, a book geared just for them: full of facts, stories and tips on how to change the world read by the author, Chelsea Clinton. How can I eat healthy? What can I do to save endangered animals? Why do I need to cover my mouth when I cough? With information on problems both large and small, Chelsea breaks down the concepts of health, hunger, climate change, endangered species, and bullying, so that listeners can understand the world around them, and how they can make a difference in their own lives, as well as in their communities and the world at large. 

Blended by Sharon M. Draper. E-book
Eleven-year-old Isabella’s blended family is more divided than ever in this thoughtful story about divorce and racial identity from the award-winning and New York Times bestselling author of Out of My Mind, Sharon M. Draper.

Where the Mountain Meets the Moon by Grace Lin. Audiobook
Minli spends her days working hard in the fields and her nights listening to her father spin fantastic tales about the Jade Dragon and the Old Man of the Moon. Minli’s mother, tired of their poor life, chides him for filling her head with nonsense. But Minli believes these enchanting stories and embarks on an extraordinary journey to find the Old Man of the Moon and ask him how her family can change their fortune. Narrated by Janet Song.

Mrs. Smith’s Spy School for Girls by Beth McMullen. Audiobook
A girl discovers her boarding school is actually an elite spy-training program, and she must learn the skills of the trade in order to find her mother in this action-packed middle grade debut! Narrated by Kelsey Navarro.

Look Both Ways by Jason Reynolds. E-book
Jason Reynolds conjures ten tales (one per block) about what happens after the dismissal bell rings, and brilliantly weaves them into one wickedly funny, piercingly poignant look at the detours we face on the walk home, and in life.

You need a library card to access TumbleBooks and OverDrive. If you’re having troubles accessing either with your card, contact [email protected].

If you do not have a library card (and even if you do!), check out some of our favorite books read by celebrities through Storyline Online. The books also include activity guides you can do at home together.

Snappsy The Alligator (Did Not Ask to Be in This Book) by Julie Falatko, read by David Harbour, of Stranger Things
The Hula-Hoopin Queen by Thelma Godin, read by Oprah Winfrey
Guji Guji by Chih-Yuan Chen, read by Robert Guillaume

Review

The Ultimate RPG Archives is an important package not only because it contains an even dozen of the best computer role-playing games in history, but also because it's the first such collection where every single game within is still worth playing. Usually when a company throws together some of its older products and puts them back on the shelves, you get a decent game or two along with a bunch of fluff, which makes you realize just how much better games are now than they used to be. Not so in the Ultimate RPG Archives; all 12 games in the package remain enjoyable to this day, each in turn a testament to the timelessness of the genre.

Its contents represent over a decade's worth of top-tier computer role-playing games, more than half of which Interplay originally developed. The Bard's Tale series appears in its entirety: The trilogy composed of Tales of the Unknown, The Destiny Knight, and The Thief of Fate is present along with the full-featured Bard's Tale Construction Set. The Bard's Tale pioneered the first-person step-by-step computer RPG format, which would later appear again in Interplay's Dragon Wars, another solid entry in the Archives, which adopts the Bard's Tale formula to a grittier, more hostile game world. The only top-down RPG in the package is Interplay's Wasteland, which inspired the highly acclaimed 1997 post-nuclear RPG, Fallout (Fallout sold separately!). The last of Interplay's own additions to the Archives is Stonekeep, a pretty-looking dungeon hack, which was hammered on by critics and consumers alike when its lengthy development period culminated in its lukewarm 1995 release.

Even if Interplay were to go ahead and publish a package composed solely of its own role-playing games, the end result would be pretty solid. But it also secured the rights to five third-party RPGs, which make the Archives a truly superior value. New World Computing's Might & Magic: World of Xeen - which is M&M four and five seamlessly connected together - remains a creative, humorous, and exciting game. Sirtech's Wizardry Gold, a high-resolution remake of Wizardry VII: Crusaders of the Dark Savant, is deep and very challenging, with advanced NPC interaction and character development. But perhaps the greatest surprise in the package is Origin's Ultima Underworld I and II, both true-3D role-playing masterpieces and unparalleled to date in terms of scale and scope.

At first glance, Interplay does a commendable job of making the games accessible even on today's advanced hardware by supplying a helpful boot disk maker and a utility to temporarily slow your machine so the older games won't run too fast. On top of that, you get a massive volume of over 500 pages containing the original documentation of all 12 RPGs. However, all maps and reference materials originally included with these games are nowhere to be found, despite repeated reference to them throughout the documentation. This frustrating oversight won't affect your enjoyment of the majority of games in this package, but a few - namely the Bard's Tale trilogy - demand the use of these materials to answer copy protection questions in order to advance. The magic of the World Wide Web lets lucky gamers like you download the appropriate maps and code wheels from Interplay's web site, but those looking for a complete product out of the box will be out of luck.

None of these games is aesthetically competitive against the current standards. The Bard's Tale series and Wasteland look downright archaic. Even the once revolutionary Underworld games look well worn. But each and every game in the Archives has a distinctive personality about it, an attractive appearance, and a stylistic element that make you understand instantly why the game is still held in high esteem. Even Stonekeep fits right into this collection, as its old-style gameplay feels more appropriate among the similar genre pioneers than it did when the game was first released not too long ago.

Eleven of the 12 games in this set are played in the first-person perspective. Nonetheless they are all different and unique, and between their ranks they offer high adventure, great challenge, difficult puzzles, sly wit, all manner of monster and villain, and ultimately hundreds upon hundreds of hours of top-quality computer role-playing. Even with the missing reference materials, this is a compilation of the utmost quality and value, and it's certain to be one of the best purchases for your role-playing dollar this year.--Greg Kasavin

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