Players react to videogames in unexpected ways, and scary edutainment games prove it

When you move to a new house, items you have long forgotten get shifted from the back of a drawer and into your hands. This is how Duck City ended up in front of me. A game from the earlier years of my childhood, Duck City was designed by children’s author and illustrator Alan snow and released onto PC in 1996. It’s a collection of six simple minigames where you play as a duck, ranging from styling a pig’s hair in a salon, to becoming ‘RoboDuck’ and sucking up slugs. Its cover features a wonky looking duck that looks like it’s stepped out of MS Paint.

Playing Duck City again, I found myself transported back to a simpler time when my Tamagotchi repeatedly dying was my greatest concern, and I was pleased that my skill in the slug farming minigame had not lessened with age. But I found another emotion alongside the nostalgia — a strange but profound sense of dread.

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