Indie developer Zachtronics have made their entire library of puzzle and logic games free for use in public schools and other non-profit teaching organizations.
Games including Infinifactory and Opus Magnum, both about creating production lines that transform constituent parts into a complex end product, are now completely free for academics to use in their curriculum.
There are a number of rules for the free education license to apply, which can be viewed by checking the Zachademics page for details. The games can't simply be used as a way to teach students about something, as they're not educational on their own, but with a relevant teach framework they could be used to illustrate many aspects of automation.
Other Zachtronic games which can now be played for free in an educational environment include Shenzhen I/O, a much more complex programming puzzle game which introduces the player to various aspects of assembly programming. Likewise, the developer's 2015 game TIS-100 is an even further abstracted puzzle game about writing assembly code to repair an old computer left behind by your recently deceased uncle and "may or may not be haunted".
The lack of early introductory programming education in most school systems should hopefully be remedied by the use of these excellent games as teaching tools. Of course, even if not it's a lot more fun to try and figure out the most efficient way of getting a factory to stick two cubes together, so a free copy of Infinifactory for students won't ever be a loss.
