Fantastic fun for four year olds! (BBC Multimedia Tweenies Ready To Play (PC))

Member Name: mreyre

Product:	BBC Multimedia Tweenies Ready To Play (PC)
Date:	30/11/02 (1146 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Very smooth animation, No waiting for data to load in, unlike the website, Great quality "film" clips

Disadvantages: Only one story, Only 5 songs, Only 5 videos

My 4 year old daughter has to play on this CD nearly every day. I purchased it a couple of years ago, and though she was interested in the Tweenies, she wasn’t terribly struck on playing this game. However, she is now getting much more IT proficient and is quite good with using the mouse, and can actually play this game quite independently. There is also a spin-off CD available from all good retailers, which features a dance mat and microphone, but as with all sequels, this doesn’t quite match up to the original.

Upon installing and starting the game, the Tweenies theme music and introductory sequence plays (like on the television programme) , then the child has to initially type in their own name, and choose a pretty picture icon to go with it. Obviously, it would make it easier if the adult previously did all this for the child and saved the name to the list. Now all Lucy (my daughter) has to do, is click on her own name (she chose a ladybird picture) and click on “Go”.

Then the Tweenies nursery is displayed, and the characters all walk on, doing a little dance, introducing themselves, then finally Doodles hobbles along to complete the line up. If the child clicks on one of the characters, they do a little dance, which is a nice touch. In the centre of the screen appears the Tweenie clock, with various options. At the bottom of the screen is an icon of Judy, this remains at the bottom of the screen throughout the game, and acts as a “Help” feature if the child (or indeed adult!) gets stuck during the game. There is also a door icon, which is the generally understood “Exit” symbol. To the right of the screen is a cardboard box, which is where we will start:

The cardboard box
++++++++++++++

This contains the “games” features. Although not very educational, they have their place and value in a multimedia CD such as this one, the main skill being developing the child&#
8217;s motor skills for using the mouse, and developing “cause and effect”.

The first game is a spaceship game, which being a stereotypical 4 year old girlie girl, Lucy is not at all interested in, so I am unable to comment on this one.

The second game is “Snap”, which is probably the best game on here. Jake and Doodles introduce this one, there’s a machine with a conveyor belt which toys trundle along. At the bottom of the screen there is a card. If the toy on the belt matches the card, then the child has to click the mouse, and the toy goes in the box. Jake shouts messages of encouragement along the way. The child has to get 10 “snaps” to progress onto the next level. There are 6 levels of difficulty, the 6th is much too fast, but is very good for testing your reaction time if you have had a few pints to drink.

The last game is Doodles bone catching game. You are in control of Doodle’s doggie bowl and someone throws some bones over a wall for you to catch. Again, you have to catch 10 bones in order to progress to the next level, whereupon the size of the bowl shrinks each time, making it more difficult to catch the bones.

Story Time
++++++++

Initially, this feature is very good, but after a while, loses its appeal. Max reads a story out aloud. The child is able to follow the words along as they are read out, look at the pictures and “turn” the pages by clicking the mouse. However, there is only one story on the game, which is entitled “Felicity’s Felt Tip Pens.” The story is quite good, but after about 20 reads, this gets very boring. There should really have been more stories to pick from. However, a quick mouse click over to the Cbeebies Tweenies website gives another 3 stories (using Flash animation) to choose from, so that’s not too bad.

Messy Time
+++++++++

Here, Jake explains various items which can be mad
e and coloured in on screen (or printed out in black and “physically” coloured in by the child) . These include masks, paper planes, spinning circular card patterns, spinning tops and bookmarks. There is also a simple art program, with limited colour choices, choice of brush or pencil, and “stamps” which the child can select to build up their own pictures. The beauty of the CD is that there are 10 pages which the computer somehow remembers at any one time, so the child can recall their previous picture and edit it, or delete it completely.

Telly Time
++++++++

Again, this is very limited, but again, the Tweenies website has similar parallels. The child can pick from 5 videos to watch, about 4 minutes long. They can fast forward or pause the action whilst the “film” is being played. They follow the story of a family doing various things. They are: “My Day”, “Looking after a pet”, “Shiny Metal”, “Going to School” and my daughter’s favourite “Litter”. The videos are of high quality, with voice overs from the Tweenies as the action takes place.

Song Time
++++++++

On the Tweenies site, there is a huge choice of .wav files of Tweenies songs and nursery rhymes from the TV show. However, the web site simply plays these and in my opinion, the child gets bored just looking at a blank screen all the time. They also take a while to download (unless you have broadband of course).
On the CD, there is a choice of 5 songs, complete with words (karoke style at the top of the screen) as well as the actual video of the Tweenies performing the songs. Features include “Here we go Looby Loo”, “Wheels on the Bus”, “One Finger, one Thumb”, and “If You’re Happy and You Know It…” They are all action-based songs, which helps the child learn.
There is also another feature, introduced
by Jake, where the child can control up to 4 instruments playing one of either two tunes. This is quite educational, and interesting to show how music is built up from different tracks. The volume can also be altered, as well as the speed.

News Time
+++++++++

Bit of a tenous link, this one, and probably my least favourite part of the CD, but actually quite educational. Fizz introduces a wheel, with 6 sections to complete. The child has to select a section, whereupon Fizz asks a question with a multiple choice of 3 to answer. You can’t ask the audience or phone a friend, but Fizz does offer some help if the answer is wrong. The vocabulary of the questions helps the child to learn a wide range of words, eg. “next to”, “lightest”, “most” and other counting vocabulary. When the question is correctly answered, this reveals part of a picture on the wheel. After answering all the questions, the child then has to guess what the object is.

Finally, there is also a facility on the CD to email Doodles a message, but I have never tried that. I would recommend doing this direct from the Cbeebies website itself.

The CD, on its own, usually provides my 4 year old with about 1 hours entertainment at a time, and she never seems to tire of the same features (unlike me, if I hear “Felicity’s Felt Tip Pens” one more time, I’ll throw it through the window), and used in conjunction with the excellent Tweenies website, it’s a very valuable learning tool for the 3-5 year old age range.

Summary: