Oscar the Balloonist Drops Into the Countryside Review

Tivola is a European software company, and its products have just been showing up in the U.S. in the last year or so. For the most part, I am pleased with Tivola software and plan to do a feature column on this company sometime in the relatively near future.

For now, I wanted to bring you a review of Oscar the Balloonist Drops Into the Countryside. Designed for ages 4 to 8, this title would be a nice supplement to a young child's educational software library. Depending on interests and ability, it may also appeal to children outside of that age range. The minimum requirements to run this program are: Macintosh- 8 MB RAM, System 7.1, double speed CD-ROM drive, and Windows - 486 PC, 8 MB RAM, SVGA graphics card, sound cardd, double speed CD-ROM drive, WIN 3.X/WIN 95, 98/WIN NT 4.0.

The story begins with Oscar drifting across the sky in his Seasons Balloon. A jay flies by to warn him of a suspicious character crawling around down below. Oscar and his companion, Carmela the talking Games Chest, land to investigate. The suspicious character turns out to be the eccentric but lovable zoologist, Balthazar Pumpernickel. Balthazar is more afraid of the animals than they are of him. Being somewhat of a nervous and befuddled fellow, Balthazar accepts Oscar and Carmela's help in finding the animals.

After choosing an animal as their sign in symbol, children venture into Balthazar's tent. A click on the crazy quilt will show them how the animals look---approximately. A hare with wings sipping nectar from a flower with a straw--that's close enough, isn't it? They can also learn about the medicinal uses of herbs, information that will come in handy later.

Now it's time for Oscar and Carmela to explore the field. There they will meet Henry Hare, Harriet Hedgehog, Belinda Butterfly, Leonard Lizard, Bill and Brenda Barn Owl, Dorothy Doe, and Emmanuel Mole. Players click on the animal to hear a riddle, find out the animal's name, and learn facts about the animal.

They may change the seasons by clicking on the balloon icon. Then they will learn how nature adapts to the changing weather. All the facts they learn will be used in another activity.

In addition to the field activities, Carmela has twelve games in her chest. Five of them can be played anytime. The other seven have to be discovered by clicking about the animals in the field first. Most of the games don't have multiple levels. Some are geared toward younger children in the recommended age range of 4-8, others for the upper age range. There is only one picture in the puzzle activity, but two levels. I was frustrated with the Eagle Eye activity. The task here is to find the differences in two nearly identical pictures. The drawings are beautiful, but so detailed that finding the differences is difficult. I clicked on the question mark for help, and found all my answers erased. In Sleep In, the object is to find the animals which hibernate in the winter and put them to bed. You have to get the exact combination, and the program gives you no hints if you are close. This is quite frustrating, but you can find the answers by going back out into the field and paying attention to what the animals have to say. See, I told you to listen the first time.

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