Now Where Is He?

A Review of Where's Waldo? at the Circus

Linda Bloom

Hey, all you Waldo-watchers out there - welcome to a new adventure from WarnerActive[TM]! Designed for children ages 4 through 8, "Where's Waldo? at the Circus" immerses the child in a rich interactive environment replete with music, sound, and movement. Waldo's classic search-and-find approach introduces activities that develop problem solving skills in a fun and painless manner. A team of educators assisted with the game design, and the exercises within it conform to the guidelines of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics and the California Department of Education.

The reason for these requirements becomes obvious immediately upon starting the program. The quality of music, sound, and graphics is excellent right from the start, where the game is introduced by Waldo himself asking the player to type in his or her name. Once that is done, we're off to the Big Top to meet Wizard Whitebeard, who gives us the options of hearing the story behind the game or jumping right in. The point-and-click interface that continues throughout the game starts here, as does the need for listening carefully to what is said by the characters. This combination of visual, auditory, and tactile involvement, long proven to be the most effective approach to learning, makes "Where's Waldo at the Circus" a very engaging and entertaining adventure.

The story: Ringmaster Piccalilli has lost his magic golden whistle, without which the circus can't go on, and asks the player to aid in its recovery (after finding Waldo to help with the search, of course). A classic "Where's Waldo?" virtual page appears, four times the size of the screen and fully scrollable, packed with point-and-click characters and activity. The player can spend considerable time exploring and enjoying the many hidden trigger spots, or just seek out Waldo and give him a click right away. Once he's found, the story continues.

As Senor Piccalilli describes the circumstances surrounding the whistle's disappearance, we are transported into his bathroom, where he relives his morning shower. A hand comes in the window and snatches the whistle, setting off the alarm clock on a shelf and leading us to wonder what the other items in the room might do...and off we go, clicking on everything to find out. The bathroom is replete with hidden trigger points, entertaining activity, and unexpected twists on familiar ideas. Clicking on a mouse hole in the baseboard, for example, produces not the expected mouse, but a snake instead. These visual puns persist throughout the game, providing unpredictable amusement even for Mom and Dad.

Along the bottom of the screen we have access to Wizard Whitebeard, who holds the activity checklist, Senor Piccalilli, who returns us to the main storyline, and the "Quit" icon, which is available onscreen throughout the game.

Once back to the story, Wizard Whitebeard introduces us to the four members of the circus who host the four learning environments of the game. Because the program reviewed is a Preview version, most of these areas and activities are not implemented; however, the publisher asserts that the finished game will contain six to ten exercises with five levels of difficulty each and two seek-and-find play screens in each environment. The environments include the Midway, Clown Alley, the Band Playfield, and the Lion's Cage, with all the sights and sounds one can imagine to accompany each.

In the Preview version, sample activities include such things as identifying and matching shapes in a game on the Midway, and placing band members in order by height and by instrument pitch in the Band Playfield. Those three activities alone cover three completely different problem-solving skills, leading to the conclusion that the finished game should be quite impressive indeed in its challenge and scope. Each activity has hints and help available at all times, including parental guidance from the Wizard, which helps both child and parent to avoid frustration and keeps the game enjoyable.

By proceeding through the game's environments and activities collecting clues along the way, the child eventually enters the Wizard's Den, where he can assemble the evidence he's collected, review it with help from Waldo and the Wizard, identify the culprit and retrieve the whistle. When the whistle is returned to Senor Piccalilli, a Circus Parade celebration ensues as a reward. The child is praised for helping solve the mystery and encouraged to play again.

All of the features in the game are designed for variable outcomes, with everything from the actual thief to Waldo's location in each screen being randomly determined each time through. This wise programming move greatly enhances the likelihood of the child replaying the game again and again, and thus enhances the value of the parent's investment as well. When all is said and done, "Where's Waldo? at the Circus" ranks among the best in educational programming for young children, offers a quality transfer of a beloved children's book character to the interactive world of the computer screen, and is an excellent investment for parents interested in stimulating a child's urge to learn.

Screen Shots

The version of the program reviewed here is the Preview version 1.0,
and not the complete commercial release. The Preview requires at least a
486/66, with a Pentium preferred, but the finished version is planned to
operate on 486/33 machines. Either requires 8 megs RAM, 5 megs hard drive
space, 640x480x256 Super VGA display, double-speed CD with a minimum 300
KBS transfer rate, minimum of an 8-bit sound card with speakers, Windows
v3.1 or WFW v3.11, MS-DOS 5.0 or higher, and MSCDX v2.1 or higher. In other
words, this is a high-end program requiring a good quality multimedia machine to run.

Overall Score:

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