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Review of Mind Magic's Let's Pretend Series
Vol. I - IV.
Review of Mind Magic's Let's Pretend Series
Vol. I - IV.
Table of Contents
- Product Specifications
- System Requirements
- General Product Description
- Third Party Endorsements/Ratings
- Volume Descriptions
- What I Liked about the programs.....
- What I didn't like about the programs.....
- Ratings
- Contact information
- Pricing
- Info about review
Product Specifications
Platform: Macintosh and Windows
Media Format: Hybrid CD-ROM
System Requirements: For Volumes 1-4
|
Macintosh |
Windows |
|---|---|
|
LCIII (68030 Processor) or higher Additional Requirements for Volume 3 Additional Requirements for Volume 4 |
486/33 or higher Additional Requirements for Volume 3 Additional Requirements for Volume 4 |
General Product Description
Each volume comes with an activity book and the CD-ROM that contains the interactive playground and electronic paint program. The program is designed for kids ages 3 and up. Via the registration card, your child can also become a member of the Firefly Fan Club for free.
Third Party Endorsements/Ratings for the products from:
ESRB gave these products an Early Childhood Rating.
RSAV Advisory group gave these products an ALL Suitable for All Audiences Rating.
Seal of Approval from The National Parenting Center
Dr. Toy's 10 Best high Tech Products 1996
Let's Pretend Volume 1
Our World is a Playground is the theme of the original volume in the series. In this volume you will visit the ocean, the desert, and a tropical rain forest. Access to all the areas of the CD-ROM are done through hot spots on the screen. The first point of entree is the Attic. When you first enter the attic, Flash, the firefly, explains how everything works. Each screen has an area in which your child will explore the items on the page. Depending upon what the hot spot is, the item your child clicks on may do some action on the screen, or jump them to another screen, such as the Rain Forest, or bring up the spelling pop-up screen in which the word of that item and a small picture of that item is displayed. When the spelling screen comes up, Flash will speak the word and then spell it out. Every screen has a control bar in the bottom right. The control bar's feature are explained by Flash when you first enter the Attic, but it is basically a navigation bar. You can go back to a previous scene, go to the attic, stop the program, or enter the paint program (when in the Attic).
Let's Pretend Volume 2
Space is Our Playground is the theme of the second volume in the series. In this volume you can join Flash the Firefly on a fantastic trip through our solar system. On this trip you can visit all nine planets and "beam in" characters, fantasy scenes, and other facts about each planet that you visit. Again access to the initial planets is through the Attic located on Planet Earth. Clicking on items in the attic will either take you to a different planet, provide you with an interesting fact, or just do something silly. If you are like me, your kids may have an easier time of it than you. I could never find how to get to all the planets, but my kids didn't have any problems getting around. Every time I would look at them playing, they had found out how to get to another planet. They liked the 1950's drive-in on Saturn the most. Like the first volume, this one has the same navigation bar at the bottom of the screen that will take them back to the attic, or to the previous scene, or enter the paint portion of the program (when in the Attic).
Let's Pretend Volume 3
Many Lands, Many Playgrounds is the theme of the third volume in the series. In this volume your favorite character Flash the Firefly takes you on an adventure through 9 nations: Australia, Brazil, England, Germany, India, Japan, Spain, Sweden, and Tanzania. As in volumes 1 and 2, you are transported to each nation through clicking on an object in the Attic. This time through, I had an easier time figuring out what,when, and where as the object you clicked on to transported you to the various nations had something to do with that nation. For example you clicked on a Boomerang to go to Australia. As with the other volumes in the series, you still have an electronic coloring book in which you can paint various scenes from the Many Lands Many Playgrounds volume.
Some new additions to this volume are access to the Attach or Stop buttons during the introduction screen. If you child does not want to sit through the introduction and wants to go right to the Attic, they can click the Attic button in the bottom right of the screen (same location as in the various scenes), and if they went into the program by mistake and want to exit, then can click the stop button shortly after the program starts up. There is still a fairly long wait, from the time you click on the applications icon, to the time you see the intro screen. The only indication that you have opened the program is the "Let's Pretend 3", which is something my kids still find frustrating as they aren't sure whether they have started the program or not until the intro screen comes on. (They try to click the icon again and again until the intro screen comes up)
Let's Pretend Volume 4
Our Backyard is a Playground is the theme of the fourth volume in the series. In this volume your favorite character Flash the Firefly takes you on an adventure through 9 regions of the United States. Those regions are: Hawaii, Suburbs, the Southwest, the Rockies, the City, New England, the Southern Bayou, and the Midwest. As in the previous volumes, you are transported to each region by clicking on an object in the Attic. As with the other volumes in the series, you still have an electronic coloring book in which you can paint various scenes from the Our Backyard is a Playground volume and the Activity book.
What I Liked about the programs.....
The quality of the programs as a whole was very good with good flow (once up and running), no jumping or pausing in the motion and high quality graphics and sound. Granted that I did the testing on a Performa 6290 with a 14" monitor and a 4X CD-ROM and it may degrade on slower systems, but it outperforms some other programs that I have tried on my system.
Each of the programs comes with an activity book, which my children enjoyed. For the parent in me, I like the fact that these programs not only entertain, but do provide facts about the scenes that are on the screen as well as spelling selected words of items that are clicked on. No harm in a little education to go along with the entertainment.
Even though these are designed for kids, I found myself interested in exploring some of the "Playgrounds". I guess I'm still a kid at heart. All in all, my kids and I have enjoyed these programs. The Let's Pretend Series rates as one of the most replayed items on our computer. Even the neighborhood kids come over specifically to play on of the Let's Pretend Volumes.
Your child can also become a member of the Flash the Firefly Fan Club and receive the official FFFC Newsletter, membership card, exclusive promotions, merchandise for Club members, and much more. (Whether or not we parents think the Fan Club is fun, I'm sure that your child will enjoy getting the mail)
What I didn't like about the programs.....
If your children are like mine, impatient, they may have some trouble with this program initially. The first major flaw I saw with the program was its slowness to load and the fact that you have no feedback from the screen that it is in fact loading. Volume 1 took upwards of a minute to 2 minutes to bring up the initial screen after clicking the program button in our At Ease setup. This was very frustrating to my 3 year old as she is very impatient and would start to leave the computer thinking that what she clicked on was not running. The other thing at startup that my kids found troublesome is there is no way to bypass the introduction and instructions on how to use the game. There is a way to bypass starting with Volume #3. The instructions are handy for the first time through, but can be annoying to a child the second time around, (especially one who has already waited awhile for the program to start.) There has been improvement in the start time (volume 4 takes 30 sec to see the initial screen), but I still wish there was immediate feedback on startup other than just the title of the volume in the menu bar.
For those of us who are lucky enough to have a monitor with more than 256 colors there is another annoyance that can occur on starting the program. That is if you forget to change your monitor's color level to 256 before you start the program, you are forced to quit, change the setting and then restart the program. I have several other programs that also require only 256 colors to run, but they offer the option to change the color settings for you and then continue on with starting the program.
The other problems I have are with some of the links in the program. Maybe it is me, but my children have been frustrated at times in trying to find new areas in the program. In volumes 1 and 2, I had a difficult time finding the links to all the pages. There are still some areas pictured in the brochure that I can't find. This is frustrating to me when my children ask me for assistance and I cannot help them. I will say that they have found more links than I have by themselves, so maybe it is me. There have been improvements in this area too. In Volume 3 for example, it was easier to figure out which icon in the Attic took you to where as each icon that jumped you to the country had something to do with that country. An example is the boomerang for Australia. This does have a positive side though, for those who don't mind cheating, the coloring book does have descriptions of what icon takes you where from the Attic.
For those of you who do not have At Ease or some other menu program, I would highly recommend using aliases to the Let's Pretend programs on Volumes 1 & 2. That way you don't have to go through the trouble of opening up the nested folders each time to run the program.
Volume 3 starts in the right direction by having the nested folder for the Mac Software open automatically, but the main window is still open in the background. Volume #4 has the right idea. The folder is still nested when you look open the CD-ROM, but as soon as you put the disk in the folder that contains the Let's Pretend program opens right up, and just that folder. I get the impression after looking at how the Mac view of the software is presented, that this was originally a PC program first and then brought to the Mac. Volume 1's folders have that PC look and feel, and in fact, you can still see the PC folder on volume 1. Whatever the case may be, this have improved in the folder structure to be what I consider more Mac Like.
Ratings for Volume 1
(Rated on a scale from 1 Dome to 5 Domes. 5 Domes being excellent and 1 Dome being not worthy)
Entertainment Value: (4)
Value for the Money: (5)
Usability: (3)
Repeat use: (4)
Ratings For Volume 2
(Rated on a scale from 1 Dome to 5 Domes. 5 Domes being excellent and 1 Dome being not worthy)
Entertainment Value: (4)
Value for the Money: (5)
Usability: (3)
Repeat use: (4)
Ratings for Volume 3
(Rated on a scale from 1 Dome to 5 Domes. 5 Domes being excellent and 1 Dome being not worthy)
Entertainment Value: (4)
Value for the Money: (5)
Usability: (4)
Repeat use: (4)
Ratings for Volume 4
(Rated on a scale from 1 Dome to 5 Domes. 5 Domes being excellent and 1 Dome being not worthy)
Entertainment Value: (4)
Value for the Money: (5)
Usability: (4)
Repeat use: (4)
Contact information
Mind Magic
1753 Northgate Boulevard
Sarasota, FL 34234
Phone: 1-800-RMC-6443 (1-800-762-6443)
Fax : 941-358-8802 Email : rmc@ns1.mindmagic.com
Pricing
Suggested retail pricing is $19.95.
User group Special is $15.00 [See the MindMagic User Groups Special for additional Pricing info]
Info about review.
These programs were reviewed on a Performa 6290 (with 14" color monitor) with 24mb of RAM and a 1 Gig hard drive running System software 7.5.5 and using the At Ease interface. The programs were used by a 3 year old and a 5 year old child and I have tried to include their comments within my own observations of there use of these programs.