My children are wild about Fatty Bear's Birthday Surprise. With music, dialogue, sound effects, animation, and appealing characters, Fatty Bear engages children in solving a central problem (surprising a birthday child with a cake and presents).
Kids dig Fatty Bear
The game takes place in and around a large, comfortable home. Each door leads to a new scene where imaginative "click points" offer perpetual delight. The world's most charming "paint" program offers a birthday cake as the surface to decorate, with a pot of chocolate frosting serving as the eraser. A music program, accessed by clicking on the living room piano, lets kids compose and play back simple tunes. Fatty Bear's Birthday Surprise is never played the same way twice.
I've noticed that both boys and girls love to play Fatty Bear, and that it suits both pre-readers and more sophisticated elementary school gamers. Humongous Entertainment is pioneering an exciting, creative niche in software for children ages 3 to 8. They avoid the limitations of existing children's titles: simplistic narratives, pseudo-school busywork, and the battle for the kill.
Fatty Bear's Birthday Surprise: US$39.95 (floppy disk); US$44.95 (CD-ROM). Humongous Entertainment: +1 (206) 485 1212.
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