School Gaming Club

freak2002

freak2002

freak2002

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Hi All!

I am the IT manager of a school and the Senior team have asked me to set up a PC Gaming Club. Aside from the obvious points of not wanting kids to play in lessons and how to control access, I need some suggestions ideas to take to him. There are some stipulations to your suggestions however:

1. Young adult friendly - 11 years plus will be playing
2. Free!! - Or as cheap as chips. It is key that everything is legit.
3. No internet requirement - Our filtering blocks things like minecraft, Eve, WOW, steam etc so it cant have any online authentication or DRM.
4. Fun! These can be old games such as SIM City 1 or newer ones as long as they are entertaining.

I can install a server on-site if the game requires it, and I can download anything at home so the actualy downloading is not the issue, just online play and authentication.
 
In my computing class, we used to have a LAN party of command and conquer red alert. Not sure on the age rating for it though.

But i would suggest a LAN racing game.
 
So, you'd be strictly limited to LAN play and free?
Schools being too restrictive is really going to restrict you a bit.

Does Tribes Ascend have a LAN play?
UT3 is only a couple of quid too on Amazon and has LAN play.

Warcraft 3?
 
Im not sure if there is a similar PC version to Super Mario Kart, but something like that would seem to be suitable for all ages.
 
That sounds like a waste of time :p

Off-hand I can't think of any games that would work multiplayer on the local LAN, that are modern, free and not require some form of online activation.
 
Counter strike 1.6 and maybe team fortress classic? Also, you can probably find some versions of unreal tournament fairly cheaply.
Trackmania 1 was free, and I think it had LAN play. He most fun you will get in a group racing game.
Starcraft 1? Can probably be found fairly cheaply.
 
Your requirement number 3 (no internet and no DRM) blocks a tonne of stuff that would be perfect.

AlienSwarm (steam) would have been perfect, teaching teamwork, tactics and forward planning. You could even fire up Hammer and create some of your own maps.

A local TF2 server would also have been great, maybe too violent for 11 year olds though.

You can run a minecraft server localy and have them all connect to it but tbh I think they would get bored after a while.

If there is any budget at all maybe instead of playing games you could teach them to design and implement a game (in small groups). If you allready have the PCs the spend is zero. RaspberryPIs are great (and cheap), but not needed if you allready have an IT room full of PCs. The RaspberryPI Foundation do run this thing called CodeClubs where they get volunteers to go into schools to teach coding and other stuff. Im not sure whats involved in seting this up and what HW they need, but you could maybe look at this. At the very least there may be some docs and guids you could adapt.

If you find yourself looking at older and older stuff (in order to get around your requirements) then the kids are just going to get real bored, real quick.

You could maybe look at some of the abandonware sites and get lots of old gems, but these are likely to be mostly single player, look old, and will they apeal if the kids can just go home and play ZombieDeathBoobieKiller5.

PC versions of card/table top games might apeal if there are free versions.
Warhammer and MtG spring to mind. Again with MtG this teaches forward planning, tactics and some basic maths.
 
Last edited:
MonkeyBasher said:
Your requirement number 3 (no internet and no DRM) blocks a tonne of stuff that would be perfect.

AlienSwarm (steam) would have been perfect, teaching teamwork, tactics and forward planning. You could even fire up Hammer and create some of your own maps.

A local TF2 server would also have been great, maybe too violent for 11 year olds though.

You can run a minecraft server localy and have them all connect to it but tbh I think they would get bored after a while.

If there is any budget at all maybe instead of playing games you could teach them to design and implement a game (in small groups). If you allready have the PCs the spend is zero. RaspberryPIs are great (and cheap), but not needed if you allready have an IT room full of PCs. The RaspberryPI Foundation do run this thing called CodeClubs where they get volunteers to go into schools to teach coding and other stuff. Im not sure whats involved in seting this up and what HW they need, but you could maybe look at this. At the very least there may be some docs and guids you could adapt.

If you find yourself looking at older and older stuff (in order to get around your requirements) then the kids are just going to get real bored, real quick.

You could maybe look at some of the abandonware sites and get lots of old gems, but these are likely to be mostly single player, look old, and will they apeal if the kids can just go home and play ZombieDeathBoobieKiller5.

PC versions of card/table top games might apeal if there are free versions.
Warhammer and MtG spring to mind. Again with MtG this teaches forward planning, tactics and some basic maths.
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Excellent points, most of which I bought to my managers attention. I am trying to explain to him that Flash/Java games have far exceeded what we were playing as kids and these games are what they enjoy playing. There are Flash versions of Sonic etc they just ignore! They want to play simple games like line rider and Slime football.

The only thing that may become an option is a dedicated IT non filtered line into the school, however I then come across issues with filtering that from the dangerous (good;)) stuff on the internet.
 
Judgeneo said:
This is a good shout.


We installed Halo on memory sticks when I was at school, and would have cross school LAN matches. Logging on in the 6th form room, and playing other students who were in an IT lesson was great fun :)
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This is the sort of thing I would love to do. I have Civ 5, COD1, Starcraft, etc but they are not legit! I cannot have dodgy software on the network.

Thats what makes it hard, along with the no internet authentication!
 
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