Old Kids' Games for G3 iMac?

January 2, 2007 6:33 PM

Help me find old Macintosh games for the kids. Specs and ages inside.

I have inherited a functional, Indigo iMac from the CRT era and have decided to use it as a kids' computer, in order to keep them off my laptop / wife's desktop. Here's what I've ended up with:

G3/350 MHz
320MB RAM
8MB VRAM
Mac OS X 10.3.9

I've scanned Google and this site, and have a couple of ideas, but I'd like to see if I'm the only looney who wants to keep a 6 (almost 7!) year old computer viable. I've tried some of the Flash sites for kids out there, and the performance is abysmal, so it's probably going to have to be local install for anything that's at all interactive.

Thanks in advance. Happy New Year!

-Zak-

posted by ZakDaddy to computers & internet (14 comments total)

This was found somewhere today. Could be perfect.
posted by grimley at 6:45 PM on January 2, 2007

If you have classic running on it:

http://mac.the-underdogs.info/

a great many great games are out there that will still run on it.

Thrift stores and such normally have oodles of older games collecting dust as well.

What age of kids? Our nine year old has been dragged into the jobs of the older Sim series and Civ series.

And, emulation will zip along on that mac as well, so that's another can of worms.
posted by jeribus at 6:46 PM on January 2, 2007

Zak-
There is a site which features Mac "abandonware" for download.

http://mac.the-underdogs.info

I have not searched the site, so I don't know if any of these are OS X games. You will have to put the legwork into it. But if there's enough here, it may be worth it to just install a fresh OS 8 or 9, and not worry about OS X.
posted by The Deej at 6:48 PM on January 2, 2007

Ok then. What jeribus said. (Missed it by that much)

Oh, I mean, I second what jeribus says!
posted by The Deej at 6:50 PM on January 2, 2007

And grimley too.
posted by The Deej at 6:51 PM on January 2, 2007

Nevermind how old the computer is, how old are the kids?

My 8 y.o. son has a blueberry iMac running OS 9, so no, it's not nuts at all to have a computer that old for kids' games (especially as the best edu games tend to be older releases).

Try looking for:

The Logical Journey of the Zoombinis (Broderbund)
Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? (Broderbund)
Freddie Fish series (Humongous)
Putt Putt series (Humongous)
Oregon Trail (MECC)
Math Blaster (Davidson)
Gizmos & Gadgets (The Learning Company)
Robot Odyssey [this one will need an Apple II emulator but it's so worth it] (The Learning Company)

Most of the above are available for a few bucks/CD at software liquidators, garage sales, goodwill and the like.

(note: I've listed the original companies who released the games. Due to a lot of mergers/acquisitions/failures in the educational software space a decade ago, the games may now be under a different company name. Get the older versions. Same gameplay, less code/graphics load.)
posted by jamaro at 6:57 PM on January 2, 2007

Cap'n Magneto!

Cap'n Magneto is a simple adventure game (with admittedly crude graphics); it was a favorite of mine when I was around 10 or so. The author has recently released a Carbonized version that runs on OS X.

In the puzzle games department, a couple of more recent games come to mind:

Snood - the most addictive puzzle game eva.
Tetris Max - Needs Classic to run, but nobody has ever made a better Tetris clone, IMO.
posted by killdevil at 7:12 PM on January 2, 2007

I guess Metafilter doesn't like FTP links. The link for Tetris Max should point to:

ftp://ftp.macware.org/pub/mac/Tetris_Max_2.9.sit
posted by killdevil at 7:13 PM on January 2, 2007

Low End Mac is a good general site for older mac resources - here's the software link.
posted by nanojath at 7:31 PM on January 2, 2007

Diablo II should work on it. You can still buy that new at EB's.

I'd like to see if I'm the only looney who wants to keep a 6 (almost 7!) year old computer viable.

HA! I have a C64 on my home network.
posted by krisjohn at 10:11 PM on January 2, 2007

Look for The Fool's Errand. If I remember correctly, it's now free and should run on Classic OS if you have it.
posted by Deathalicious at 12:01 AM on January 3, 2007

All -

I claim idiot. You can't have it, it's mine. My 3 daughters are 8, almost 6, and almost 2. Thanks for the answers so far!

-Zak-
posted by ZakDaddy at 4:43 PM on January 3, 2007

Holy smokes! A *networked* C64? I'm impressed.
posted by ZakDaddy at 4:44 PM on January 3, 2007

Glider Pro
posted by Zed_Lopez at 1:57 PM on January 4, 2007