A strange little side quest
Put Hamster Grid Multiplication next to the history of learning games and a few unexpected connections appear. The Oregon Trail began in 1971 when three student teachers created a computer simulation to help Minnesota schoolchildren learn American history. A second detail makes the picture even better: Pong was field-tested in California bars in 1972 and helped launch the modern arcade-game era. That long chain of experiments is part of why learning games still feels fresh when a game finds the right twist.
