Fun, But They Might Miss The Education
A Review of Janet and Judy's U.S. Adventure
Grace Sylvan
Janet and Judy's U.S. Adventure is packed with images and information, with a game wrapped around it to encourage the children to look at the information about each state. The CD is well stocked educationally - each state has a museum and zoo with a total of 9 pictures of local sights and animals. The goal is to find 50 souvenirs hidden in the states, and the missing package. Unfortunately, my children got so caught up in the game aspect, they rarely gave the information contained more than the glance necessary to see if the souvenir was there.
The program begins with some animation, and ends with Janet and Judy crash landing in someone's backyard. Unlike many other titles we've used, the animation would not not end when clicked, so we had to wait for it to complete. The interior of the spaceship, backyard scene, and child's bedroom all have an assortment of silly click points, unrelated to the U.S. topic. The kids did check out all those clickpoints, and they enjoyed themselves.
Each state has a street scene which is identical. There are 5 major areas to explore in each state: the state information, zoo, museum, arcade, and travel agency. Souvenirs can be found in any part of the state's area, from the front page to the detailed descriptions.
Click on the banner and see information about that state, such as state flower, bird, flag, and capital. Click on the text, it will be spoken, which is a great feature for beginning or non-readers. Click on a symbol, and its name is spoken.
Click on the capital, and the text changes to describe the capital. The state symbols are still visible, but clicking them doesn't do anything.
The Museum has 4 pictures on the wall of places of interest, each can be clicked for a closer view and more information. The Zoo Exhibit Hall is similar, with 5 pictures of local wildlife, although clicking on the picture simply gives the name of the animal, and occasionally a very general one at that, like 'squirrel' to describe a spotted and striped animal in one state and a gray animal with tufted ears in another.
My children always visited the animated 3-D animals outside the zoo exhibit hall. These odd animals would animate when clicked, and do wacky things, like a moose spinning antlers and flying, a shark brushing its teeth, and the like. But here too, we began to see repeats fairly early on. There were 4 zoo animals in each scene, and I counted about 18 different animals, and many of them had only one animation. All the same, this area of the game did generate a lot of laughter.
My children went to the Arcade in each state, too. We found only 5 different games, and all of them fairly simple, although unique in design, like a pair of acrobat turtles, or a geometric bridge we needed to build before the snail fell off. The problem is that after we played a game once or twice, there was nothing more to the game. So while they kept checking the arcade, they quickly were bored with the games. (Maybe this is a feature?)
My children were excited every time they found a souvenir. The souvenirs would animated when clicked on, and often did zany things. They made use of the travel agency, with 4 posters of nearby states, to move from state to state, rather than using the "Travel Device".
The Travel Device has several functions: moving state to state using a US map, reviewing souvenirs you've collected, playing music, and visiting the silly clickpoint screens. My children spent little time with the Travel Device, once they discovered they could use the travel agencies to move from state to state. They did not discover all the neat songs which the Travel Device will play. Unfortunately, it appears to play them in a set order, and I could not find a way to choose the songs. To make matters worse, if you left the Travel Device to explore a state, when you got back the songs began with the first one again. I know that if the songs could have been played while visiting the states, that my children would have clicked on them, as they have often learned songs from their favorite software.
Graphically, the program is uneven. The line weight and style of the cartoon graphics varies, but the graphics about the states, animals and sights are excellent. The 3-D animated animals seem pasted on to me.
Initally, we did not know how to save the game, and typing a CMD-Q quit us out of the game without the typical dialog box asking if we wanted to quit or save. If one hits the quit button on the Travel Device (which we hadn't been using), it brings up a dialog offering to save the game. Unfortunately, this isn't what they did, and the kids lost their first game, during which they must have gone through half the states. They were definitely excited by the game, just not by the more educational aspects. They played again later, with a bit less enthusiasm, but then forgot and hit CMD-Q again. The next day my daughter played for a little while, but not with the same level of enthusiasm, and hasn't touched it since.
I don't feel like this game has high replayability, because the souvenirs are always hidden in the same place. If I'm going to buy a $40 toy, I would hope my children get more than a few good afternoons from it!
Janet and Judy's U.S. Adventure is designed for ages 6-9 or 6-12, depending on which literature you read. My academically advanced 6.75 year old daughter and 4 year old son were able to navigate the program easily. It is possible that their age is a factor in what they liked about the program, although they usually are curious about all sorts of things. In this case, I believe the 'game' meant to motive them into looking at all the states is what distracted them.
Perhaps this program would be more suited to use in a school, as a fun review of states and major landmarks, but I don't know that the children there will be any less eager to find all the souvenirs and the missing package.
School House Scorecard
| Product: |
Janet and Judy's U.S. Adventure |
| Company: |
Cherrystone Productions, Inc.
|
| Cost: |
$39.95 |
System Requirements:
Macintosh:
MAC 68040
256-color SVGA display
8MB RAM
system 7 or higher
4x CD ROM Drive
This program ran acceptably on our Performa 550, which is an 68030 with a 2x CD ROM Drive.
Windows:
WIN 3.1 or WIN95
486/66Mhz
640X480 256-color SVGA display
8bit sound card
8MB RAM
recommended 4x CD ROM
speakers
mouse
Breakdown:
Ease of Use 4
Learning Value 2
Entertainment Value 4
Graphics 3
Sound 4
Overall Score:
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