By Dale Farris, Secretary
Golden Triangle PC Club
May 2002

Game Overview

Good Grief! Charlie Brown!

Linus' security blanket is missing and it is up to you and the Peanuts Gang to track it down!

Team up with Charlie Brown or Lucy, as Snoopy guides you through this unique educational discovery game. Enter the world of Peanuts and drop into computer camp, go to the supermarket, check out the library, or catch the magic show of the "Great Houndini," (who looks a lot like Snoopy).

Focused primarily on ages 4-10, this super computer game is really designed to appeal to kids of all ages, especially kids that enjoy the humor in the classic Peanuts comic strip. This play-story will delight youngsters as they learn valuable lessons through wit, humor and heart. There is much educational gameplay in this game, and many fun things to click on, as players interact with this super adaptation of Charles Schulz's award-winning comic strip. Children can participate in the fun of the Peanuts gang, as they interact with characters from the comic strip and solve the mystery of Linus' missing blanket.

You play either as Lucy or Charlie Brown, as Snoopy guides you through the game. You can drop into the Computer Camp with Sally, go to the supermarket, check out the library, or catch the "Great Houndini's" magic show, as you play and search for clues to find Linus' blanket. Through a lot of witty humor, and just-right puzzles, children are going to learn as they have a lot of fun playing with the Peanuts gang.

Game Play

The game has been well designed by folks from the Web Production
( www.thewebproduction.com ), and the interface is cleverly designed to simplify the game and emphasize the fun of playing the game. This game is really about integrating a story into the game, and presents lessons in a humorous manner. Kids build social and orientation skills, explore math and music, develop their problem-solving and critical-thinking abilities, and more. Educational concepts introduced directly into the storyline keep the learning fun, while the artwork remains true to Charles M. Schulz, the Peanuts creator.

As you search for Linus' security blanket, along the way there are nine hidden games to play at a computer camp, in the school library, or catch the magic show of Snoopy's "Great Houndini" magic show. The Snoopy Meter offers players an added challenge, and kids can print out scenes they can color. The Snoopy Meter indicates Snoopy's state of heartiness, and kids have to remember to tend to the well being of this very special beagle by giving him food or allowing him to rest.

On the tool bar at the bottom of the screen is the icon to switch from English to German, the volume control, music on/off button, a pause button, a short cut to the games you have discovered, an inventory box of items you find, and the "Snoopy Meter" that indicates when Snoopy needs to eat or rest.

You click on the characters to hear them speak, and you have the closed fist cursor when items can be activated. In all screens, most of what you see is active and can be integrated into the game.

Where the game really shines is the attention to detail in the drawing of Schulz' characters. In this game, you play as either Lucy of Charlie Brown, and you can interact with Linus, Sally, Schroeder, Woodstock, as well as Snoopy. The adults in the game speak in multi-tonal music sounds, just like in the many Peanuts T.V. programs.

The nine games provide opportunities to set the difficulty level to easy or difficult, but the difficult level is not all that difficult. However, very young players may need help from their parents with the difficult level, as well as occasional assistance even with the easy level. The games are fun and involve reassembling character pictures, clicking quickly on the Snoopy character as he pops up, akin to the "Whack A Mole" game, associating and clicking on pictures that have been described, assembling pieces of a puzzle, maneuvering a bus through a map that contains one-way streets, finding the right combination of music notes, a maze-like game that you move through while avoiding objects in the path, and an object dragging game that challenges you to avoid surrounding trees.

At one point in the game, you will come across a super drawing game. In this game, you can add many pre-existing Peanuts cartoon pictures to the drawing board, and then combine these pictures with different backgrounds, and fill in the b/w picture with color using a classic paint tool. Then, you have access to your printer, and you can print out the cartoon on your own printer. In this game, this feature means you can create your own Peanuts cartoon, and print it for your own use.

SmartPlay Game Features

Super adaptation of Charles Schulz Peanuts cartoons
Dead-On drawing of Peanuts characters seem as if Schultz drew these
Marvelous integration of learning into the game
Natural language learning - hear the game in English or German
Excellent character voice over narrations add value
Games well designed to be fun while useful as learning tools
Simple, linear play-story environment
Find many interactive objects in all screens
Beautiful graphics and design
Save the game anywhere anytime
All 9 games a delight to play and are all save as you play them
First-person perspective
Very impressive background display
Classic point-and-click interface to work the game

9 hidden Games and Activities to Discover!

Musical Memory Game
Steer the Bus with Snoopy
Multi-level Math Game - Find the Linus
Supermarket Rally
Find the Book Game
Houndini`s Greatest Trick
Catch the Beagle
Flying the Beagle
Print and Color your Favorite Characters

Targeted Customers

This super Peanuts cartoon derived game succeeds as a marvelous, fun learning opportunity for children ages 4-10. Even adults will get a kick out of interacting with Peanuts characters and helping either Lucy or Charlie Brown solve the mystery of Linus' missing blanket. The game focuses on delighting players, and the backgrounds and characters in the Peanuts cartoons have been superbly transformed in this game. The success with licensing of this classic Peanuts cartoon phenomenon is obvious, as you play with Peanuts characters that look exactly as if Charles Schultz drew these himself.

Each Peanuts character is precisely and accurately detailed in the game, and the children selected to speak for the characters have done a good job trying to convey the personalities of these characters. This was an added burden, given the many, many existing Peanuts television programs that have been around long enough to impact on second generations. While it will be obvious these particular child actors are not the same ones as have by now become well recognized, nevertheless these actors have done a great job imagining these famous Peanuts characters.

Age Group

The game box states this super game is suitable for ages 4-10, but I think many adults will also enjoy playing the game, especially if they play along with their children. The very young rug rats may need some hand holding by their mom or dad as they work to solve the mystery.

Recommendation

Without a doubt, this game is essential for all families with computers and children, especially families that enjoy the timeless humor of the Peanuts cartoon. All public libraries should also seriously consider adding this quality children's software to their growing number of programs for children to work with in their library.

Languages

English and German

Educational Value

Visual memory and discrimination
Color mixing and matching
Logical thinking and problem solving
Mathematical awareness
Fine motor skills
Spatial awareness
Mapping skills
Music Exploration
Emotional and social awareness

Price

$19.99 (super bargain!)

Install and Setup

The installation and setup presented no difficulties on my machine. You just let the auto install routine load the game onto your hard drive, and in the case of this game, it is also designed to directly go right into the game immediately upon completion of the initial installation of the game. You also have an option to select more files to run from the hard drive, versus running from the CD ROM disc.

Minimum System Configuration Requirements

Personal Computer

P 166 MHz processor
Win 95, 98, ME, NT, 2000, XP
32MB RAM
40MG free hard disk space
SVGA graphics card (16-bit)
Sound card
4x CD-ROM-drive

MAC Machines

Power PC
MAC OS ab 8.1
32MB RAM
40MG free hard disk space
Graphics card (32768 colors)
Sound card
4x CD-ROM-drive

At the time of this writing, no patches for the game had been released.

Not requiring a 3d graphics accelerator card, and needing a minimally powered CPU means this game is playable on many more systems, a wise move on the part of TIVOLA. While it is true that more newer systems either come with or are being customized with newer, 32MB or 64MB 3dfx video boards and high-end, 3d audio boards, driven in part by the high-end requirements of many computer games, in fact I suspect there are many more legacy systems still working that will likely be fine for this game.

The above system configuration requirements indicate the minimum and recommended system configuration requirements, and as any experienced gamer knows, if at all possible, you just don't ever want to load and run any computer game on minimally configured systems. Computer games are notorious for taking over machines, and this is why users will need to be sure and close out all their other open files, before playing this and any computer game. However, in the case of this TIVOLA title, I think we have an example of a computer program for children that will actually very likely play just fine even on a minimally configured system.

About Charles Schultz and the Peanuts Gang

In 1950, Charles Schultz first developed the Peanuts comic strip, and today Peanuts is the most widely syndicated comic strip in history, reaching over 350 million readers in 75 countries. Appealing to adults as well as children, Peanuts humor has expanded to more than 1400 books selling 300 million copies, thousands of products, and numerous televised animated specials that received five Emmy Awards and two Peabody Awards.

Born in Minneapolis, Minnesota in 1922, Charles M. Schultz began his fascination with comic strips early, reading the Sunday comics from 4 different newspapers with his father each week. He enrolled in a correspondence course in cartooning, and his first Peanuts cartoon debuted in syndication on October 2, 1950.

On February 12, 2000, Schulz died in Santa Rosa, California, only 2 hours before his last original Peanuts strip appeared in Sunday papers. In his honor, a museum will open its doors to his fans on August 17, 2002 in Santa Rosa.

The Peanuts gang is licensed and syndicated by United Media, a worldwide licensing and syndication company that focuses on building brand equity around a wide range of creative content. UM licenses or syndicates many properties, including Precious Moments, Raggedy Ann & Andy, Dilbert, MIFFY, Nancy and Slugo, Beatrix Potter, and Paddington Bear.

About TIVOLA

TIVOLA Publishing creates and publishes a wide range of award-winning multimedia products designed to open up a world of interactive fun and learning to children and young people. The German based company has offices in New York, London, and Berlin, and produces a wide range of innovative interactive CD ROMs that stimulate a child's curiosity, while encouraging smart play. In 1995, TIVOLA published its first title, and has developed six distinct categories of software.

These include Play and Learn, The World Around Us, Quest for Knowledge, Stories and Adventures, Crimes and Clues, and Games for Fun. The company has a commitment to producing high-quality, multilingual CD ROMs that tell exciting, entertaining stories through beautiful graphics, witty animation and original games. TIVOLA titles are currently in more than 49 countries worldwide.

TIVOLA began in 1995, when founding partners, Karsten Voelker, Mil Thierig, and Barbara Landbeck founded the Berlin office to fill the need for original CD ROM games that are clever but also promote learning. In 2000, TIVOLA was named "Company of the Year" by the Berlin Association of Self-Employed Entrepreneurs, who recognized the company's fast development into an internationally successful multimedia company with an innovative brand building strategy.

The TIVOLA UK offices opened in 1998, and with the launch of 10 new titles in 2001, the company continues to grow in the UK children's software publishing market. The TIVOLA US offices opened in 1999, and the company signed a contract with the Navarre Corporation to distribute their products in the US and Canada. 

The company develops books and story games on CD ROM, and all titles are simultaneously produced in English so that they can be understood by potential international licensees. The software is also produced for the PC and the Apple platform.

TIVOLA also buys and sells license for different products. For these purposes, the company has developed optimal localization standards. With this new system, TIVOLA titles are obtainable in countries all over the world.

The TIVOLA line of CD ROM programs are products parents can depend on to provide a fun and educational computer experience for their children. Teachers can also feel secure in integrating the educational lineup of TIVOLA products into their curriculum, especially those teaching entry level classes. TIVOLA's series of learning CD ROMs for children that include the many Oscar the Balloonist titles, the many Max adventures, the super Physicus science-based program, and of course The Little Prince, all assure a solid worthwhile computer experience for all ages, especially young learners.

The collaboration of The Web Production Saint-Petersburg and TIVOLA Publishing started in spring 2000, leading to this first of hopefully many more computer games for children that feature the Peanuts gang.

With the worldwide notoriety of TIVOLA products, the company has also ventured into a new online interactive arena. Companies can now rent online games from TIVOLA to make available at their Web site for their own customers. This new portfolio of online games for rent expands still further the success of the company.

Contact Information

TIVOLA Publishing
580 Broadway, Suite 604
New York, NY 10012
212-431-4420
FAX 212-431-4537
www.tivola.com
mail@tivola.com

You can also order from other retailers or online vendors.