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While we spend a lot of time covering the Best Mac games, tracking the newest Mac games is equally important. After all, they are the future of Mac gaming. Because of the hundreds of new Mac games popping up each month, we focus on quality and only highlight the games that deserve your attention.In addition, this page also covers the top upcoming Mac games for 2019 and beyond. This is a comprehensive index of turn-based strategy video games, sorted chronologically. Information regarding date of release, developer, platform, setting and notability is provided when available. The table can be sorted by clicking on the small boxes next to the column headings.

1. Mac Games Island Early 2000s Songs
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5. Games Island Mtg

Is it just me, or has it been a little… well, damp this summer? When it hasn’t been blazingly, unbearably hot, that is. Then again, given how snowy the winter was, we probably shouldn’t be that surprised (although I didn’t anticipate needing to hide from a tornado last week during a trip to Boston. Gee, that was fun). In any event, it seems like I need to come up with new activities to keep myself occupied every other day because of the substantial amounts of water that are constantly pouring from the sky.

Clearly what I should be doing is raiding my old stash of board games. Sure, it sucked being stuck inside during the summer because of shitty weather when we were kids; but with a couple of friends (and/or a willing parent or two), a bunch of snacks, and a stack of games like Guess Who?, Clue, Sorry!, and more at our fingertips, it didn’t seem quite so awful. We’d lose whole afternoons connecting four, building plastic mouse traps, and becoming real estate moguls — and we had a blast while doing it.

This Throwback Thursday, let’s all go dig around in our toy chests and see what we can unearth (complete with vintage commercials, of course), shall we?

1. Clue

Clue, $18, Amazon

Secret passages, tiny little weapons, a sprawling mansion, a murder mystery… Clue (or Cluedo, depending on where you grew up) was definitely my favorite board game growing up. First created in 1944 by British musician Anthony E. Pratt as a way to pass the time in air raid shelters during WWII, it officially launched courtesy of Parker Bros. in 1949. It only got better when I discovered there was an amazing movie based off of it — and did anyone else read the tie-in armchair detective book series inspired by it, too? Clue was the best. Hands down.

2. Hungry Hungry Hippos

Hungry Hungry Hippos, $33, Amazon

The version of Hungry Hungry Hippos I played when I was a kid had hippos of orange, green, yellow, and pink, but apparently the pink one — Happy — was originally a purple one named Lizzie. Who knew?

3. Guess Who?

Guess Who?, $17, Amazon

Guess Who? may have suffered from a lack of diversity, with the 1987 version featuring only five women to 19 men; even so, though, it was still a blast to play. I think we mostly liked flipping the characters we eliminated down, although it also gets points for having one of the most memorable ads of the ‘90s.

4. Mall Madness

Mall Madness (Collectible), $100, Amazon

Confession: I never actually played Mall Madness. Then again, maybe that’s a good thing; you can argue that it teaches valuable math skills or whatever, but let’s face it: It’s all about rampant consumerism. But hey, at least the electronic version talked to you, right?

5. Mouse Trap

Mouse Trap, $26, Amazon

Among those in attendance was Georgetown head coach. On January 11, 2018, after opposing coach James Schooler reportedly told him 'you're going to Georgetown to sit,' McClung scored 44 points against of at the Classic tournament in.

Did anyone actually playMouse Trap? I mostly remember setting it up so I could watch the Rube Goldberg contraption that factored so prominently on the game board in action. Maybe that’s just me, though.

6. HeroQuest

Hero Quest (Collectible),$165, Amazon

HeroQuest: Functioning as a gateway obsession for Dungeons and Dragons since 1990. My dad used to play this one with my brother and I — he was always the Dungeon Master, my brother usually played the barbarian and the wizard, and I was usually the dwarf and the elf. Why, yes, we were a nerdy family; why do you ask?

7. Battleship

Battleship, $15, Amazon

It may have been a supremely terrible movie, but Battleship was one heck of a game. And it’s old, too — the Milton Bradley version with the pegs and plastic boats first hit shelves in 1967, but it was played as a pencil-and-paper game for decades prior. This newspaper article from 1931 describes Salvo, the game on which Battleship is believed to have been based. TIL, right?

8. Candy Land

CandyLand, $13, Amazon

Like Clue, Candy Land has been around since the ‘40s. Unlike Clue, though, Candy Land was (somewhat hilariously) once involved in a dispute over an Internet domain name. Hasbro took an “adult content provider” to task for registering the domain name www.candyland.com; Hasbro, owning the trademark to the phrase “Candy Land,” won. Typing candyland.com into your browser now redirects you to Hasbro’s website. Fun fact!

9. Monopoly

Mac Games Island Early 2000s Songs

Monopoly, $22, Amazon

The stakes were always high for this sucker — you didn’t sit down to play it unless you had a lot of time on your hands — so it is perhaps unsurprising that Monopoly was responsible for ending more friendships than any other board game during our childhood years. The Westwood Studios CD-ROM version, with all its fancy animations, was pretty bitchin’, though. I also got a kick out of the fact that the AI players the game included were named things like Fox, Dana (X-Files for the win!), and Guybrush (any other Monkey Island fans out there?).

10. Connect Four

Connect Four, $11, Amazon

If you always thought Connect Four felt a little unfair, you’re right — the first player pretty much always has the advantage. Contrary to popular belief, however, this game was not invented by David Bowie. Just, y’know… FYI.

11. Snakes (or Chutes) and Ladders

ChutesAndLadders, $14, Amazon

You know, one of the coolest parts about my job is the fact that I get to keep learning neat stuff every day. Case in point: I just got totally lost in the rich history of Snakes and Ladders for about half an hour, and I could have kept going if I hadn’t pulled myself away. It originated in India, along with the games that would eventually be marketed in the U.S. and Europe as Ludo and Parcheesi; its first commercial release stateside, Chutes and Ladders, came in 1943 courtesy of Milton Bradley. The more you know!

12. Sorry!

Sorry!, $16, Amazon

Either the rules for Sorry! have gotten considerably more complicated over the years or I never played it right as a kid. When I attempted to play it recently, I glanced at the rules and realized I had no idea what any of them meant. Anyone else? Just me? OK then. Moving on. I will say, though, that Sorry! might be responsible for generations of #sorrynotsorry hashtaggers.

13. Life

Life, $17, Amazon

Like Monopoly, the Game of Life was not to be undertaken unless you had an appropriate (read: ridiculous) amount of time to devote to it. The video here, by the way, contrasts the commercials for the games from the ‘60s, ‘80s, and ‘90s. My, how the times do change!

14. Trouble

Trouble, $9, Amazon

I’ll be honest: The only reason I played this game was because I loved the noise the Pop-O-Matic dice roller thing made.

15. Mancala

Mancala, $10, Amazon

More things I learned today include the fact that “Mancala” is actually a whole genre of related games. The version that kept popping up in classrooms and at friend’s houses when we were kids has a less impressive history than most of the other, more complicated versions; called simply Kalah, it was invented by William Julius Champion Jr in 1940. Like Connect Four, it heavily favors the player who goes first; if you choose the right moves, you can win without ever giving up your turn.

16. Girl Talk

Mac Games Island Early 2000s Music

Girl Talk (1995 Edition), $40, Amazon

As was the case with Mall Madness, I don’t think I ever played Girl Talk; I did, however, play plenty of Truth or Dare, although thankfully Truth or Dare didn’t involve any “zit stickers” (way to body shame us from an early age, toy companies). Eagle-eyed viewers might recognize a young Jewel Staite in the ad shown here.

17. Operation

Operation, $20, Amazon

A traumatic experience with Operation as a very young child left me terrified of the game for years to come. I’m not kidding — I had recurring nightmares about it and everything. I actually had a visceral reaction the moment I loaded the commercial on YouTube. Needless to say, my rainy days as a youngster were not full of this particular game; maybe yours were, though. I’d rather play Alien Autopsy.

18. Crossfire

Crossfire (Collectible), $200, Amazon

No, not the CNN series Jon Stewart single handedly brought down in 2005 after a scathingly memorable appearance. Was the post-apocalyptic ‘90s commercial for this one awesome or what? I’m pretty sure that’s the only reason my brother and I ended up with this one in our toy chest. It was like Road Warrior, only with ball bearings.

19. KerPlunk

KerPlunk, $18, Amazon

Playing too much KerPlunk as a kid is probably the reason I grew into an adult with a bizarre obsession with onomatopoetic words.

20. Uno

Uno, $8, Amazon

OK, so technically Uno isn’t a board game — but go ahead and tell me that you didn’t while away at least a few rainy days with these brightly colored cards. Nothing was better than the feeling of knowing you had a Wild Card in your hand.

Images: Wiffle Gif; Giphy

Real talk: I think learning is always fun. (Yes, I am absolutely a Ravenclaw. Why do you ask?) But when it’s a literal game? Then it’s even better, especially when you’re a kid. This is probably why there were so dang many fantastic educational '90s computer games — the rise of home computing (and, by extension, the rise of computing in the classroom) during the 1990s opened up a whole world of possibilities, including tons of ways to make learning a blast for the up-and-coming generations. And you know what? These games are still fun. And yes, I say that as a fully grown adult; don't knock going back and replaying the games you loved when you were 10 until you've tried it. Seriously.

As is often the case with the things we remember from the '90s, a lot of the games those of us who grew up during the decade filled our days with were originally developed and released long before the ‘90s. That's perhaps the reason '80s babies also have a certain degree of fondness for them; many of them actually dated back to the decade in which we were born. Some were part of long-running series, while still more of them received a number of remakes and reboots as technology improved. Though the graphics may be laughable now, just remember — once upon a time, they were the pinnacle of technological achievement.

So, in the spirit of nostalgia, here are 15 computer games from the ‘90s that made learning incredibly fun. Most of them are available to play on the internet now, so in these cases, I’ve also included links to where they can be found — frequently either an app store or the Internet Archive’s glorious collection of browser-based, emulated DOS games.

Have fun, kids!

1. Number Munchers and Word Munchers

The Munchers series was created by the Minnesota Educational Computing Consortium — or, under a name with which you might be more familiar, MECC. I don’t know about you, but I have vivid memories of seeing those four letters scrawled across a huge number of the educational games I played at school; the company dated back to 1973 and was also responsible for games like the business simulator Lemonade Stand and the storytelling game Storybook Weaver.

The Munchers series' conceit was simple: They taught kids the basics of math and grammar. Number Munchers was originally released in 1990 for the Apple II, while Word Munchers had arrived a few years earlier in 1985. Gameplay-wise, both series functioned kind of like a turn-based version of Pacman; the object WAS to “eat” all of the numbers or words that correspond to the instructions on the screen (multiples of five, etc.) without getting caught by a Troggle.

What exactly are Troggles? No idea, but they're insatiable.

2. Math Blaster!

The original Math Blaster! was released in 1983 by the now-defunct developer Davidson & Associates, but it wasn’t until the ‘90s rolled around that the series really hit its stride. Between 1990 and 1999, a whopping 20 games were released in the Blaster Learning System — and somewhat astonishingly, a few more follow-ups trickled out between 2000 and 2008. Math wasn't the only subject addressed by the series; Reading Blaster!, for example,taught language arts. A Science Blaster! Jr. was also released at one point, but due to lack of popularity, it was the only entry in the series to tackle science-based topics.

Math Blaster! is available to play online now; additionally, a bunch of ports of the math-teaching game arrived as Android apps in October of 2013, so the series appears to be alive and well (if somewhat frozen in time).

3. Scooter’s Magic Castle

Like many early computer games, Scooter’s Magic Castle consisted of a relatively large environment full of what we now call mini-games. Released under Electronic Arts’ EA*Kids umbrella in 1993, the game involved players either assuming the role of or simply helping out an elf-like creature wearing a blue tunic, red sneakers, and a red baseball cap turned backwards (the '90s!) as they worked their way through a variety of activities. These activities were designed to teach everything from problem-solving to typing; you could even make terrible MIDI music by jumping up and down a set of colorful stairs.

Scooter's Magic Castle also has a super earworm-y theme song, so if you now have it stuck in your head for the rest of the day… sorry. My bad.

4. The Carmen Sandiego Series

No list of educational ‘90s computer games would be complete without an appearance by this mysterious, trench-coated criminal mastermind. The four major entries in the series — Where in the World, Where in the U.S.A., Where in Europe, and Where in Time — were all first released by Broderbund between 1985 and 1989; the deluxe versions of Where in the World and Where in the U.S.A., however, came along in 1992 and 1993, and as a result, it’s those versions that most ’90s kids remember so fondly. There was no better way to learn geography — and hey, Where in the World deluxe is playable at the Internet Archive, so it looks like I just figured out what I’m doing with myself this weekend.

Fun fact: A Facebook version of Where in the World was available to play in 2011; I’m not sure how I missed it, but it stuck around until 2012.

5. Kindercomp

I’m really dating myself here, but Kindercomp is probably the first computer game I remember playing. Initially released in 1983 by Spinnaker Software Corporation, it was exactly the kind of game that appealed to very young children: It consisted of six mini-games that taught kids their way around a keyboard by having them draw pictures, match pairs, and other simple activities. The one I remember is the 1984 version, but the Internet Archive has a whole bunch of ‘em available, so knock yourselves out. If you have a kid in your life who's around 3 years old, it might be a fun time to play with them!

6. Mario Teaches Typing

As a child in a house full of gamers, naturally I adored Mario Teaches Typing, which first hit the scene in the early '90s. One of a number of educational Mario games released between 1988 and 1996, it put the pixelated plumber to good work teaching us how to type. Hitting the correct key would prompt Mario to hit blocks, jump on Koopa Troopas, and more. Nintendo had almost no hand in the development of these games (a far cry from the tight hold the company tends to keep on the reigns of its properties nowadays), but they proved popular all the same.

I’ll be honest, though: I actually learned how to type by frequenting chat rooms. As a result, I can type an impressive number of words per minute; however, I definitely don’t use the “correct” fingers. Ah well. Whatever works, right?

7. Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing

Mario was second perhaps only to Mavis Beacon in the world of beloved typing programs — and what’s more, it’s still around: The first version debuted in 1987, and it has remained in production, continuing to get new and improved updates, pretty much ever since. You can download it for free right now if you like.

I was, by the way, absolutely devastated to learn recently that Mavis Beacon isn’t a real person. She was invented to give a face to the program in an era when human people weren't regularly associated with computer and video games (everything is a lie). 1985's The Chessmaster 2000had shown how effective putting a real person on the cover of a computer game could be; the wizard on the box was played by actor Will Hare, reported Vice in 2015. Mavis became the next incarnation of this strategy, as depicted by Renee L'Esperance.

8. 3D Dinosaur Adventure

Launched by Knowledge Adventure in 1993, 3D Dinosaur Adventure was little more than a glorified encyclopedia specializing in what we knew about dinosaurs at the time (much of which has since been determined to have been terribly, terribly wrong, even if the brontosaurus did make a triumphant comeback in 2015). That didn’t matter, though, because dinosaurs.

Also contained within 3D Dinosaur Adventure was a mini-game called 'Save The Dinosaurs' — which, to be perfectly honest, was downright terrifying. It required players to make their way through a series of maze-like hallways to find and rescue 15 types of dinosaurs before time ran out — and by 'before time ran out,' I mean 'before the comet that wiped out all of the dinosaurs crashed into the Earth, while you and the dinos were still on the planet.'

No pressure.

9. Odell Lake

Like the Munchers series, Odell Lake was created by MECC and therefore a fixture for many an elementary school computer lab. It debuted in the early 1980s, but it stuck around for long after that; it’s why so many of us ‘90s kids remember playing it when we were young.

In all honesty, it wasn’t really that exciting — all you did was swim around as a fish, trying to figure out whether you should eat, ignore, or run away from every other fish you encountered. I’m also not totally clear on why this was classified as an educational activity; Giant Bomb suggests it taught kids about food chains and predator/prey relationships, but I.. clearly did not get that takeaway from it. But hey, I suppose survival skills are important, too, right?

Odell Lake is a real place, by the way; it’s in Oregon. Just, y’know, FYI.

10. Reader Rabbit

You know the old saying, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it? That’s pretty much the Reader Rabbit series in a proverbial nutshell: It’s so effective at teaching kids to read and write that it’s survived all the way since the first game launched in 1984. There's a huge list of Reader Rabbit titles scattered throughout educational computing history; at the series' height in the late '90s, six to seven titles in the line were being released each year. The output has since tapered off, of course, but the remarkable thing is that it's still around.

The last major PC release for a Reader Rabbit game was in 2010, but a number of titles have debuted since then as iOS apps. Many of the games are also, of course, available to play online courtesy of the Internet Archive.

11. Mixed-Up Mother Goose

Mixed-Up Mother Goose didn't have a ton of replay value; the point was to sort out all of the nursery rhymes that had gotten 'mixed up' and put them back in order, so after you did that once, your work there was done. However, the world in which the game existed was so delightful that I played it over and over again as a small child. Released by Sierra in 1987, with a handful of remakes appearing at regular intervals throughout the ‘90s, it was a point-and click adventure game that encourage problem-solving; it also gets bonus points for having tons of relatively diverse avatar options — something which was even rarer back then than it is now. (And, y'know, it's still a problem decades later, so that's.. really saying something.)

12. Super Solvers: Treasure Mountain

I’ll be honest: I actually have no recollection of playing 1990’s Treasure Mountain, Treasure Cove, or any of the other Treasure titles in this series. Many other people seem to remember these games fondly, though, so I think they deserve an inclusion here. Like many educational games, 1990's Treasure Mountain — a creation of The Learning Company, like the Reader Rabbit series — involved solving riddles that led you to keys that unlocked each successive level. You also collected treasure as you went, returning it to the chest at the top of the titular mountain once you got there. A prize was awarded for depositing the treasure back into the chest.

Treasure Mountain and Treasure Cove both focused on general reading comprehension and basic math skills; however, other entries in the Super Solvers series tackled more specialized skill sets, including deductive reasoning and logic.

13. The Dr. Brain Series

Admittedly, I never played the fourth game in Sierra On-Line's long-running Dr. Brain series, and I wasn’t a big fan of the third — but the first two? Classic. The Castle of Dr. Brain, released in 1991, and the follow-up, 1992’s The Island of Dr. Brain, were a step up from a lot of the other puzzle-solving games out there; they were geared towards slightly older kids, so there was more to each puzzle than simply picking a matching shape or selecting the next number in a sequence. We’re talking intense logic puzzles that might stump even some adults.

Sierra merged with another educational game company, Bright Star Technology, following the release of The Island of Dr. Brain; the franchise was then handed over to a team from Bright Star, which might explain why 1995's The Lost Mind of Dr. Brain and 1996's The Time Warp of Dr. Brain were so different from the first two entries in the series.

14. Eagle Eye Mysteries

Mac Games Island Early 2000s Movies

Like Scooter’s Magic Castle,1993’s Eagle Eye Mysteries and 1994’s Eagle Eyes Mysteries in London came to us courtesy of the now sadly defunct EA* Kids division of Electronic Arts. Unlike Scooter’s Magic Castle, though, they were meant for an older crowd. The games followed siblings Jake and Jennifer Eagle as they solved mysteries throughout first their hometown, then in London not — unlike a modernized, digital version of Encyclopedia Brown. If you were a pint-sized fan of whodunnits, this was the game for you; it helped you learn how to piece together different pieces of information until a complete picture emerged. A valuable skill to have, I feel.

15. Oregon Trail

Mac Games Island Early 200s For Sale

Ah, yes: Oregon Trail, the game responsible for countless deaths by dysentery, many drownings of oxen who tried and failed to ford the river, and a plethora of memes. For anyone who grew up playing it, it's the gift that keeps on giving.

Speaking of people who grew up playing it, perhaps unexpectedly large swathe of the population falls into this category. Originally developed in 1971 and launched by MECC in 1974, roughly 20 versions of the game have been released since then — the most of which, believed it or not, arrived in 2018 as a handheld game similar to the Tiger Electronics games a lot of '80s kids grew up playing. Ostensibly, it taught kids what it was like to travel the Oregon Trail in a covered wagon in 1848; practically speaking, though, it mostly taught us about frustration.

Also: Never ford the river. Always caulk your wagon and float it.

Games Island Mtg

Your oxen will thank you.

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