Buddy Brush and The Painted Playhouse by Ideas That Play

Windows - Windows 95/98; 8x CD-ROM drive; Intel 486SX, 33 MHz or faster (Intel Pentium 90, 90 MHz, 133 MHz or faster recommended); 16 MB Ram or more installed (32 MB or more recommended); 16 bit PCM Sound Card when using Soft Synthesizer (or external GM/XG sound generator)

Macintosh - Power PC or greater; Mac OS 7.5 or later; 8x CD-ROM drive; 16 MB Ram or more (32 MB or more recommended); Apple Sound Manager, 20 MB hard drive space; monitor which can be set to 800 X 600 resolution with 256 or more colors.

Have you ever given a child a fancy toy with all sorts of stuff preprogrammed on it, only to discover she has turned the box into a space station or castle while you are figuring out the directions? Children do not always want or need everything figured out for them. Sometimes they just want to explore and pretend, and discover what something does on their own.

These notions of childhood imagination,invention,and whimsy are what Buddy Brush and the Painted Playhouse, an interactive musical adventure produced by Ideas That Play, is all about. In this program, there are no overt directions, navigational tool bars, or narrator reminding the kids what do every ten seconds. So what are the kids supposed to do? Click, explore, have fun, and build confidence by learning how to do something on their own, that's what.

This program opens with Buddy, an animated paint brush painting his house on the screen. Kids can spend a few minutes clicking around (the chimney makes a really cool sound), until they click on the door and go inside. There they will find a ladder with a paint can on top, a toolbox, a window, a painting, and of course, Buddy. Oh yeah, there's a light switch on the wall too, because little kids just love to play "lights on, lights off." As your child clicks on the screen, he will discover three activity areas including:

Paint Mixing: Here children learn that red and yellow make orange, and blue and red make purple. And they will also discover that mixing black with a color will result in zebra stripes or polka dots, and sometimes a bouncy ball! As the child mixes colors, she will also be mixing musical sounds.

Coloring: Children create musical compositions while they paint a variety of scenes. The more color used the more interesting the music becomes. Artwork may be saved.

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