You may wonder why?
Whether we like it or not games are essential for life.
Too much of any game or demanding sports may break a marriage.
Similarly lack of games can terminate a marriage.
So when I talk about games, I always start with that advantage point which is neutral to begin with.
We tend to associate games with children and young adults and as a growing up process.
But I would like to disagree.
Even animals love games as young ones and they start playing with the mum and the litter and not only that process teaches them cooperation and learning to avoid dangers when the leave they adults as solitary animals.
Dogs digs the earth when they are bored.
For them this process is essential and leaving some stuff dug up and hidden and getting the dog to discover the bones is a standard game.
That takes the boredom out of their system.
The very same pattern of boredom sets into adults if we do not occupy with some gaming activity.
The Cricket World Cup is now in full swing and every body who is somebody is now slowly making their entry into the fray.
If you cannot play at least watch the game.
It is good for your health if you are not gambling with the outcome of the game.
Regarding Linux of course one of the weak points as I saw in the early stages was its lack of games. For me who had by that time almost addicted to DOS and Windows was a blessing in disguise.
That made me to delve deep into Linux and I am now almost daily writing something or teaching somebody its virtues or doing some activity with Linux (in dropbox) and the 24 hours of the day not is not enough for me.
Similarly if one is introducing computer science to a young one not having games is an advantage. So the child can concentrate on learning nitty gritty points of computing.
In the same tone in very young child, the games can be a vehicle for introducing learning techniques.
What is important is that the games should be age appropriate and should be of short duration and easy to perform.
There are lot of little games in Linux but but there is paucity of very advanced games.
The context is so bad I bought a book that dealt with Linux games thinking one day when I have time I will start making an attempt to produce at least some elementary games for kids.
Mind you making games for very young kids is difficult. There attention span is short unlike the bigger children. In the bigger children their attention span is so intense and they get absorbed so much gradually game becomes an addition.
I have a very simple solution for that.
When we played it was a habit that the entire extended family get involved in the game and the computer games that we played were of the group category. We used to take turns, those watching will help with the clues.
Most of the Waltz Disney games come under this category.
Tarzan, Lion King and Zero to Hero were few of them and gradually migrated to Italian Job, Raider of the Lost Ark and Indiana Jones.
Mind you all of them were windows based and none of that intensity was found in Linux.
Then I discovered Tux Racer, Pinguy and a few others in Linux.
There are big Linux game packs.
I have not seen a single yet.
It takes at least two weeks to download them. When I have finished addressing the Linux 100 and Linux Extras, I may consider downloading.
I have eventually decided to download the big game pack even if it takes a month to do so.
Or else if I happen to go abroad I will keep two days for that activity.
I have tried few friends outside.
Unfortunately the are not versed with Linux.
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