Kaplan, Inc. has teamed with Aspyr Media to create an SAT prep game for the Nintendo DS, according to Newsweek. Versions are also on their way to PC and Mac, where the test prep software is already fairly common.

The project is early in development and does not yet have a name. Newsweek reports that it was Aspyr who pitched the idea to Kaplan. If this is a success, can we get a DS game to help us understand Special Relativity? Perhaps we can get Professor Layton or perhaps even Wario as our virtual teacher.

Since the inception of the video game, there have been those who would try to re-purpose electronic interactive entertainment for more ... educational pursuits. As a rule we're typically supportive of these efforts, but a recent project by students at Carnegie Mellon's Entertainment Technology Center has just pushed us too far. They've just used a game called Within Range to ... teach the Dewey Decimal System. [Update: It's the Library of Congress classification system. See below paragraph for more insight into how this error was made.]

We've made it clear how we feel about libraries (or as we think of them, the crappy, flammable Internet that also has homeless people), so you can understand why this is so offensive to us. That's doubled by the fact that the fun has been filed under "N" for "non-existent." Think all games deserve a fair shake? Go ahead, but don't say we didn't warn you.

[Thanks, Michael S.]

Would you steal brains? USC Annenberg School for Communication associate professor Doug Thomas hopes to pose the question to tweens through his upcoming edutainment release Modern Prometheus. The game pits players as Dr. Frankenstein's lovely assistant, tasked with a number of difficult ethical questions, like: Steal brains outta the local cemetery to cure the plague or politely leave the dead to rest and soon join them?

Modern Prometheus takes just one hour to 'beat,' but gameplay is theoretically extended through both classroom and informal discussion (Thomas seems certain grave robbing could be a hot lunchroom topic). Actually getting Modern Prometheus into schools is the hard part, but Thomas hopes that by teaming with another edutainment developer, Indiana University professor Sasha Barab, and promoting through mediums like Second Life, he can work his game into middle school curriculum by springtime. "It's not Halo 3," says Thomas, "but for the age group we are working with now it's pretty good."

In what could be the greatest game trailer of all time, this Wolf Quest video introduces the December, 2007 simulation title. You play a wolf capable of forming a pack with other players online, where you do wolfy things, like hunting, peeing on stuff, and howling. The game, being released through the Minnesota Zoo, will be a free Mac/PC download.

The trailer strikes an uncanny balance of mediocre (read: hilarious) production values and game content that genuinely looks fun. While the educational game may skew towards a younger audience, any animal fan might enjoy the title.

Screw Okami and Twilight Princess. See the new alpha dog after the break.

UK publisher 505 Games announced today I Did It Mum!, a collection of educational mini-games aimed at preschool boys and girls. The DS title will come in two separate versions, one for each gender, and feature games such as "toy train", "drive the car", "color the animals", and "little kitchen". I Did It Mum! even has a voice recording option that allows parents to record a congratulatory message (or, for kicks, nonsensical sounds to confuse and/or delight) that will be played when mini-games are complete. Even though it's aimed at preschoolers, we're sure your average gamer would still get a kick out of playing house in "little kitchen".

TDK is tossing their entry into the tsunami of training games for the Nintendo DS. DS Origami sits comfortably alongside other non-games that teach gardening, skin care, yoga, and language skills. The top screen shows users where to make folds while a controllable video plays on the bottom screen. Over 100 different origami projects are included from hamsters to wedding dresses to the famous crane. This begs the question: do we need a game that teaches origami, or would a book or website suffice?

[Via Siliconera]

Building on the success of a board game called Cesta z Ghetta (Out of the Ghetto), an organization called Tady a Ted (Here & Now) recently announced its plans to release a video game designed to educate students about the challenges of poverty in the Czech Republic. Themes in GhettOut! will include dealing with authorities, discrimination, housing, crime, and drugs. Players learn what it's like to live in constant uncertainty trying to sort everything out and live a successful life.

The game will be available as a download, and Here & Now is aiming for a December release. According to the organization, interest in GhettOut! is high in a number of countries, so an English-language release is inevitable. Also distinctly possible: a hip hop music video unveiled in tandem with the game. Seriously.

[Via GamePolitics]

The market for non-games on the DS is getting a bit too weird. We have gardening and yoga titles coming from Square-Enix, an interactive haiku-based novel, and numerous dictionaries and language-learning programs already on store shelves. What next, a kleptomania sim starring cute smiling animals?

The latest quirky non-game in Japan is Quiz & Touch Kensaku Mushi Sukan (Quiz & Touch Insect Encyclopedia). This edutainment title aims to teach players about the six-legged creepy crawlies. Test your knowledge of both the appearance and sounds of many bug species through a series of quizzes and minigames. Kind of makes bird watching seem exciting, doesn't it?

[Via DS Fanboy]

Junior high schools in Kyoto, Japan recently reported a sharp improvement in English language skills thanks to the Nintendo DS. The Yawata Municipal Board of Education distributed DS systems with copies of Chuugaku Eitango Target 1800 DS, an English training program, to English classes across the district's schools. Over the course of five months, students' vocabulary increased between 300 and 400 words, bumping them up to the equivalent of level 3 in the Eiken Test in Practical English Proficiency held by only 30% of junior high school students in Japan.

Nintendo has long touted the non-gaming possibilities of the touch screen-enabled system. It seems Japan is the only region to benefit from these edutainment programs, however. Would language training software fly in Europe or the States? How about DS yoga lessons and gardening tips?

[Via Gamasutra]

The evil floating head of Dr. Kawashima returns! Gamasutra reports that More Brain Training from Dr Kawashima: How Old Is Your Brain?, the sequel to Brain Age (known outside of the US as Brain Training), is coming to Europe this summer.

The educational series has been a phenomenal success for Nintendo -- in Japan, the sequel sold over 400,000 in its first week of release. More Brain Training will cost €30/£19.99 (approx. US $41) at launch.

There have been no plans announced for a US release, though Gamestop has listed Brain Age 2 as arriving August 1 for $19.99.

Bonjour! Gamefly is really letting us know what's coming down the pipeline lately. Siliconera reports that they spotted "games" My Spanish Coach and My French Coach for the Nintendo DS on the site with an October release. We're going to guess that the Ubisoft published games are meant to assist the average unilingual American in picking up another language -- although French wouldn't be all that helpful on the North American continent unless you got lost in the wilderness of Quebec.

Ubisoft will also release My Word Coach, which would seem like a vocabulary enhancement tool. Wii cüd rly uz dat. We'd like to think that these "games" would be used in schools to teach kids, but dagnabbit, this is America and nobody should speak anything but American. And drink Budweiser, eat Kraft cheese, drive a GM truck ... etc., etc. Can't we just bypass the whole "learning" thing and just get a universal translator up and running already?

The U.S. Department of Education issued a report yesterday that educational software of all types, from the video-game-like to the ultra-dry, "has no significant impact on student performance." And folks like Elliot Soloway, professor of educational tech at U. Michigan, are miffed. Says Soloway, "It is the poor kids who will suffer, because it is their schools who will not get technology because of this study."

That's one way to look at it. Here's another way: the study could help schools, both underfunded and not, because now their administrators might spend more money on good teachers and less on Oregon Trail. Shooting squirrels in a video game is fun, but it's no substitute for a real human showing you how to shoot squirrels.

[via GameLife]

Japanese gamers can learn English with their DS. There's even a Japanese-English dictionary for the system. Now it's time for us poor monoglot anglophones to expand our linguistic horizons. A coder known as Zoelen has just released an early version of Project JDS. The app teaches you to recognize and write both hiragana and katakana characters, even listen to their pronunciation. And if you're really nice, you can use the touch screen to draw characters and get berated for using the wrong stroke order!

It isn't much to look at, but it gets the job done and is surprisingly feature-rich for a homemade app. Now if only it had a catchy name. Something like ... Touch Dic.

[Via DrunkenCoders]

When you combine the words "serious" "learning" and "hard" in the same sentence, chances are you're going to end up with something that gamers won't like. But that's what the Serious Games Initiative is all about, developing games for "non-entertainment" purposes. Of course, the problem is games for non-entertainment tend to scare people away faster than the phrase "edutainment."

That's the main problem facing Serious Games, how do they make it seem like they aren't hiding the broccoli under the meatloaf? All of the games shown off were educational in one form or another, having to do with zapping cancer cells inside the human body, or how to interact with people in the workplace. Seriously, there is a game about the proper way to run a meeting, collaborate with coworkers, and generally function in an office. Too bad it's not running on the Unreal Engine. Zing!

The Federation of American Scientists have concluded that gaming can provide skills useful in the job market and attributes that would facilitate learning. Making logical deductions, staying on task, staying motivated and goal-oriented despite constant failure, and infinite patience are all abilities gamers have and students need. Can we somehow converge gaming and education in such a way as to retain motivation while providing an educational environment?

Following a Summit on Educational Games, FAS has released a report (PDF file) that calls on the government to fund research into educational games: establishing new approaches to educational games, evaluating their merit, and working with established game developers to devise new strategies. FAS also calls on business leaders to put a greater emphasis on educational software, particularly in the K-12 school system.

Formed in 1945 by Manhattan Project scientists, FAS is endorsed by 67 Nobel Laureates. They have in the past developed three games: Immune Attack, Discover Babylon, and Mutli Casualty Incident Response.

[Via ars technica; thanks, jayntampa]