Bruce Von Stiers

Knowledge Adventure has a new series that they have added to their ever increasing inventory of learning games. This series features a little boy from another planet. The name of this little alien is Adiboo. With this new series, Knowledge Adventure has a sure winner. There are three titles in the series. They are Mazes, Numbers & Puzzles; Nature, Animals & Planets and Music, Melody & Rhyme. The programs are for children ages 4 to 7.

There are 2 CD-ROM discs for each title. The first disc has the program files that are needed to install the game. The main interface for the game is called Adibboo's Play Land. From here you can branch out to other CD's that contain the content from the other Adiboo titles. Each title can be used separately or as part of the whole Adiboo learning experience.

The premise for the games is that there is a little alien creature named Adiboo who wants you to share his world. Children will learn certain skills while they explore the various areas in the game. The games are set up so that the player interacts with Adiboo as they play. He will give them encouragement and tips on how to do certain things in the game.

The voice of Adiboo is supplied by actress Lara Jill Miller. She is best known for her role as Samantha on the sit-com Gimme A Break.

In Play Land, you can explore all kinds of things. There is a vegetable garden and a flower garden. The tree in the yard can hold some interesting things. A beehive has some funny bees in it and Adiboo's mailbox can have some fun mail.

Adiboo has different characters who help him out. There is Robitock the robot and Keycook the robot cook. Then there is a pet dog named Pup whose feet are a suction cup. There are birds and bees, along with a grumpy old monster named Buzzy Gulump.

In the Vegetable Garden, children will learn how to plant tomatoes and other vegetables. They will learn that the vegetables need water to grow and have to be picked before they get too ripe.

In Adiboo's house there are lots of activities. The Playroom holds all sorts of fun things to do. There is a set of jigsaw puzzles that become animated when completed. There is an easel and paint box where a child can create some wonderful drawings. The drawings can be saved or printed. The paint box provides some pretty good drawing tools.

Other things in the Playroom include a TV and a radio. The TV plays some cool cartoons and the radio cracks some goofy jokes. There is also a game that you can play that is similar to the old Breakout block games from early arcade days.

The kitchen in Adiboo's house has several activities for a child to do. Choose ingredients from the refrigerator to make a pie or other dish. Decide which recipe to use and have Keycook do all of the work for you. Feed the birds on the windowsill with the wheat that comes from the vegetable garden. There are real recipes in this area of the game that can be printed and used to make some really tasty pastries.

When you are done exploring all of the things in the house and the rest of Adiboo's Play Land, go to the signpost in the lower right side of the screen out in the yard. This will allow you to go to one of the other Learning Land CD's. As I mentioned earlier, there is a second CD with each program that holds other areas to explore and learn things in. If you have more than one Adiboo program, the second CD will interchange with the Play Land CD. If you have all of the Adiboo titles, the second CD's from the other programs are treated as add-ins to the first one.

I will now briefly touch on the elements in each of the program's second CD.

The Land of Music is the second CD of the Discover Music, Melody & Rhyme program. Here you will enter the magical, mystical land known as Melodica. The different areas in Melodica are The Frosty Sound Cavern, The Note Factory, Tomtom Lake, The Musical Bandstand, The Tree of Notes and The Singamajig Melody Maker.

The storyline for The Land of Music is that Buzzy Gulump came to Melodica to learn all about how to make great music. Unfortunately, Buzzy is so clumsy that he broke the Singamajig Melody Maker. The pieces for the machine are scattered all over Melodica. You will have to complete all of the exercises in the Land of Music to get the pieces of the Singamajig together to repair it. Then all of Melodica will be singing again.

Each area of Melodica has different activities. At Tomtom Lake, the Drum Beater has you repeating a rhythm. The lake also has a Frog Chorus where you associate musical notes and rhythm and some Dancing Fish that have you match a melody with a rhythm.

The Frosty Sound Cavern deals with the various elements of pitch. Here a child will learn to recognize the different pitches on a musical scale. The Cavern also teaches how to know the length and pitch of a particular tone. The Musical Bandstand deals with instruments and styles of music.

The Land of Numbers And Puzzles is the second CD in the Discover Mazes, Numbers & Puzzles program.
A child will learn counting, sorting and spatial relationships. There are 15 different activities in this program.

With the Yummy Construction Game, your child will choose the shapes in one tray to match the ones in another tray. Clowning Around has you trying to find all of the clowns that are alike. Vacation Time is all about matching clothing to the right family member as they are waiting to go on a trip.

The Hungry Frog is a counting game. Count the number of squares that it will take for the frog to get the tasty little fly that he wants for a snack. Add It Up has you using the cash register to learn about equivalencies and recognizing numerals. There is also a game about putting numbers in order called Card Tricks.

There is a maze solving game called The Thirsty Cactus. Trace the correct garden hose to the cactus so that it can get a drink. Star Dogs is a pattern recognition game featuring dogs with backpacks. Help the tortoise find the cabbage for his dinner by building a path to get there.

The Land Of Science CD is from the Nature, Animals & Planets program. There are five different modules that teach science, history, geography, technology , countryside and every day life.

In the Countryside there are activities like feeding the animals and finding out where they live. Recognize vegetables and plants from descriptions given. Change Of Seasons teaches about the different seasons of the year.

In learning geography, there are six different activities to choose from. Our Solar System teaches about the planets in our universe. Creatures of the Sea is about the marine life in our oceans. Who Doesn't Belong teaches about the different climates in the world. Other activities in this area are Animals And Their Habitat, Who Am I? and Stories From Around The World.

In the everyday life area of the program, go around to the various parts of town to learn things like using maps and identifying parts of the human body.

The Science and Technology areas of the program come together in the Laboratory. Here are all sorts of experiments that teach about different devices and elements of technology and science. The Construction Corner works with an alarm clock to teach how to distinguish objects by their functions.

A real fun game in the Laboratory is Switching Circuits. Trace down the wiring and flip on the right switches to turn on a light bulb. If the sequence is not correct, the wrong light bulb will be lit up.

History is a real interesting part of the program. Here the games teach about the different eras in history. When Was I Used has the child determine when in history an object was used. Scenes In History matches up a character with a specific place and time in history. Museum Madness matches up objects with their time in history.

The interface for the Nature, Animals & Planets program is a rolling landscape. Go on the road in the car or just click on the place on the map.

The Adiboo learning experience is a fun way for children to get some of the basics that they will need for school. One program in the set is not any better or worse than the others. If you want a specific learning area, then just pick up the title it covers. But if you want a wide range of topics for your child to learn, then buy all of the Adiboo titles.

The programs can be found at stores like Toys-R-Us, Best Buy and Target. You can also buy them directly from Knowledge Adventure. Their web site is www.knowledgeadventure.com. Each title runs about $ 20.

System Requirements:

Windows
Pentium 133
32 MB RAM
16-bit sound Card
Mouse
Keyboard
12x CD-ROM drive

Macintosh
PowerPC 120
System 7.6.1
32 MB RAM
12x CD-ROM drive
Mouse
Keyboard

Other requirements vary between programs

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© 2001 Bruce E. Von Stiers