ADG Episode 233 - Disney's "Fun With Letters/Numbers" Games
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- Опубліковано 6 лют 2025
- Two reviews for the price of one! (Which is still free BTW...)
In today's episode of Ancient DOS Games, Gemini's starting off Edutainment Month by taking a look at a pair of preschool-level edutainment games, both of which were developed by Westwood Associates, later known as Westwood Studios, and published through Disney: Donald's Alphabet Chase - Fun With Letters, and Mickey's Runaway Zoo - Fun With Numbers.
Given the very young ages these games were intended for there's very little substance to these games, but it still serves to indicate how very tricky it can be to design software for such a low age range, given the way early-level stuff is taught. I know a lot of what's brought up in the video might SEEM trivial, but you can't take anything for granted when it comes to teaching things to kids under the age of 5!
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Man, those alphabet pets BETTER BE in Kingdom Hearts 3.
My four-year-old nephew absolutely fell in love with these games (especially the Donald one.) He's got an old tablet to play with, but I'm not sure if he'd even touched a real keyboard before I showed him my DOS-rig. Pressing multiple keys at once is still a bit out of reach, as is a second language (we're not English-natives,) so these games are perfect in their simplicity. :)
I found your videos through LGR, and honestly, you've done some great stuff! Along with you and Clint, I'm excited to try some DOS games myself when I get into a position where I can spend some time on this stuff. :)
This guy is far better than Clit.
I agree
God, I played these games when I was a kid! Holy crap. That PC sound music is crazy!
(1:16) Love Donald Duck cartoons.
His tantrums are always a good laugh. *^_^*
Oh, I remember a port of Donald's Alphabet Chase for the ZX Spectrum, dated 1991, also ported for the Amstrad CPC and C64
I dunno why would you hide your green J in teh fridge? :) I suppose to keep it fresh.
J for jelly? At least I can come up with a correlation. Not so much for some of the others.
2:33 isn't this how MOST games work nowadays anyway? XD
I think the only thing published under the "Disney Software" namesake that was of any value was "The Animation Studio" for the Amiga (I think DOS had it too as I remember seeing that sold at Radio Shack for their Tandy PC's).
I used to play those games around 1993.
I don't remember these games, but I do remember the Sierra games like Mixed-Up Mother Goose. Ever going to do a video on that one and the other game that was it's sequel.
Mixed-Up Fairy Tales was its sequel.
What is it with April being edutainment month? Why April, specifically?
+SEGAClownboss Because LGR! ...and no, he doesn't have a better reason either. ;D
Hehehe, well, that'll be a precedent, then.
The graphics look super good and colorful for EGA. Are you sure there's no VGA involved?
Okay, never mind. I got further into the video and saw rastering that tips the hand :)
+rancid83 Also, I've made that mistake once before with Supaplex so I'm a bit more careful now with checking stuff like that. ;)
*♫* _One-two-three-four-five, six-seven-eight-nine-ten, eleven-twelve_ *♫*
I found a photo of a commodore 64 floppy which indicates the game was released some time around 1990 ready64.org/giochi/manuali/donalds_alphabet_chase/dolnald_alphabet_chase_floppy_disk.jpg
+Jenkinsmum I did find references to the game being copyrighted in 1990 but no references to the game actually being released in 1990. It's actually not unheard of for a game to be copyrighted in one year but released the next without having the copyright updated, usually due to delays.
I think I had the Apple 2 version of Donald's Alphabet Chase. Or something. There was definitely Donald Duck and a bunch of letters being little shits.
Edit: yeah it was definitely the same game. Watching this I remembered a few of the animations and placement of the letters being the same.
Woo! Edutainment!
Ugh. BeamSoft's effort is far superior.
I'm shocked that you got this out when you did.
Scraping the bottom of the barrel, eh Kris?
+QVear I was genuinely curious about these games as I'd never played them. :B