Child's Play?

This Site was Composed with 1024 x 768 True Colour Resolution in mind

Most are just somebody's attempt to cash in on a Current Fad. They can be Unimaginative, Repetitive & down dull - Kids Love 'em :-!

On a positive side, they can Stir the Imagination, have a long Play - Life & even Impart some Skills on those that use them. Hand - to - Eye Co - ordination, Mental Agility & Lateral Thinking, to name just a few. This makes choosing a Game or Learning Software quite a bewildering task for Adults. It akin to the Christmas Experience seen in Stores throughout Oct to Nov, and sometimes earlier! I want this because it's Barbie, Disney or whatever, come on you know what I mean!

With Cost aside, the difficulty mainly lies in getting Unbiased Information on what the Software Actually does. From the more well known Companies you can Expect a certain Level of Quality, although this is not always the case. The Only way for sure is to try them out for yourself & see - preferably on someone else's Computer who already have the Program!

So you've bought your little treasure(s) a new Game, etc. What next?

The most annoying part of letting a Child loose with a Computer Program is the Cries for Help, if you're lucky, or a System Crash, if you're not. So the First thing I look for is something that a Child can Play. This equates to having an Easily Usable Interface & Means of Operating the thing.

I think I've been fairly fortunate in that most of the Children's Software I have encountered has taken only a few Supervised Sessions for a Child to get the hang of it. I have seen other Parents who have Games, etc. that no one can work. I will indicate as much as possible what Programs have not met this Criteria & what can be done to help, if anything can be done that is.

The Second thing to bear in mind is Access to other Devices, particularly the PRINTER. I come in from watching a rather Engrossing Episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation to find several Proudly Displayed sheets of Full Colour Artwork. I discovered a Disney Screen Saver Installed in Windows after all the Missing Items on a Demo CD - ROM. It wasn't particularly brilliant & was Resistant to virtually all attempts to remove it.

Also find out where the Program decides to Store it's Saved bits. I've discovered that most use their own Folder within their Designated Program Files (I generally do not put Games, etc. on the C Drive. If you haven't got a Partitioned Hard Drive, or 2 Drives, I would highly Recommend doing it. I have some information on how to do this, although I would Recommend getting an Experienced Computer User to do it or a Specialized Software Program like Partition Magic 4.0, now in Version 5.0, it seems to be well thought of & popular - I haven't got it so I'm unable to comment further.

So that's my Words of Wisdom out the way, here's what I've found to date.

This Program runs entirely from the CD so that none of that precious Hard Drive space is used, a good point particularly if the Program isn't too Graphics intensive. No Problems so far.

It also comes with Hot Wheels, which does require some Hard Drive space. I tried to Install & Run this Game & got absolutely nowhere!

If you like you can go to the Art Attack WebSite & compare your works, swap tips, etc. etc. etc. The Site has Pages for Parents as well.

This all sounds too good to be true, doesn't it? Well Yes, it is. There seems to be no way of Displaying any of Art Attack Work on a WebSite as the Program Stores the Work in its own Formats, mvi (movie), bak (background pictures), act (animated characters) which Netscape & all my other Image Programs are unable to process.

Although not Art Attack's fault, the Program wouldn't work with the newer Driver File for the Graphics Card (see Here for more).

Can be used to create Cards, Letters, Posters, Banners, etc. etc. etc.

It may not have the all the Options available with some like Paint Shop Pro, especially Version 6 (more Here), which has some Animation Tools as well, yet it is more than enough for a 7 year old, or even someone 5 times that.

It is Limited in it's Placement of Pictures & Text that can only be put in Specific Areas. The Plus is that the Image Quality is Excellent, it can Produce Images from the Shows that look Embossed (3 - Dimensional) & everyone who's received one has been well Impressed.

For more on Wallace & Gromit visit Aardman's Animations.

It does have some of my Favourite Childhood Characters so I will Recommend it anyway (no one should have any problems with Pooh Bear & Co. now should they ;-)

Feeding the various Animals seems to be proportionally more difficult than the other elements of the Gameplay, so much so that it will often need an Adult to sort it out for Younger Players.

Requires QuickTime 3 to Run.