Where are the building simulation games for kids?

I vaguely remember several years ago spending a lot of time looking for a computer game that would let my son build, say, something with gears, and then start it going, so that he could understand it and visualize it on the computer.  Unfortunately, my memory has apparently spackled over whether or not I actually found such a game.

However, I found the following excerpt (my apologies to the original poster; it is a clipping) from my email box, and thought that especially the Kinko's worker video game sounded wonderful. Who needs a trip to France?  Experience socialistic ennui right here at home, with your handy keyboard!  Check it out:

http://www.aforcemorepowerful.org/game/

nonviolent strategy game

A unique collaboration of experts on nonviolent conflict and veteran game designers has been developing AFMP for the last three years. The ICNC encourages the use of civilian-based, non-military strategies to establish and defend democracy and human rights worldwide. York Zimmerman Inc. is an independent film and video production company located in

Washington

,

D.C.

that produces documentaries about people and ideas that change the world. BreakAway Games Ltd. is a leading developer of computer games with particular expertise in strategy games and historical simulations.

Veterans of recent nonviolent campaigns assisted in the development of the game, including Ivan Marovic of Otpor, the Serbian resistance movement which played a critical role in ousting Slobodan Milosevic. Political scientists, sociologists, and economists also provided advice.

Article on social change video games

http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1535474/20060629/index.jhtml?headlines=true

 

EXCERPTS

Pax Warrior" is a Canadian project that lets users try to prevent the 1990s genocide in

Rwanda

. Its developers say it already has 250,000 users.

 

Had he played "Peacemaker," a strategy game that tasks players with settling the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by steering the leadership of either side? Had he tried "Earthquake in Zipland," a cartoonish game that stars a moose trying to assemble a giant zipper to merge the separate islands upon which his parents are drifting apart, an extended metaphor about divorce?

 

Had Koster played the prototype of "The Organizing Game," which is designed to teach grassroots activists basic skills like recognizing which doors in the neighborhood are the good ones to knock on? Had he tried "Homelessness: It's No Game," a simple game that challenges players to keep their homeless character alive and out of trouble for 24 hours of video game time? Did he harbor no enthusiasm for Ian Bogost's anti-Kinko's game, "Disaffected" (see "Game Lets Players Step Into Toner-Stained Shoes Of Kinko's Workers")?

And had Koster not been encouraged by the announcements earlier Tuesday, when mtvU General Manager Stephen Friedman announced his network will issue 10 $25,000 grants to college students making games for change? MtvU had sponsored the creation of the Sudan awareness game "Darfur Is Dying" and, Friedman announced, will launch a student-made game called "Squeezed" that depicts the lives of immigrant farm workers — a "first-person picker" — on mtvU.com in September.

Friedman's emphasis on student-created games sat well with Games for Change conference founder Suzanne Seggerman, who said the MacArthur Foundation recently issued a $1.2 million grant for the creation of game-making tools designed for students. Such moves, she said, squarely position young people as the future of advocacy-driven games. Major game companies have largely ignored social-change games.