Let's Explore The Jungle
Reviewed by Jason Levine
Published by Humongous Entertainment

Age Group: Age 2 to 5, Age 4 to 8 Type: More Fun Price: $ 19.95 US

PC version requires:
386-33 4 MB RAM, 1 M 2x CD-ROM, Windows 95, also on Windows 3.1, 640x480x256

Mac version requires:
Hybrid disk includes Mac version.

Description:

Let's Explore the Jungle is the latest addition to Humongous' "Junior Field Trip" series. Just as he has in such previous titles as The Farm and The Airport, Buzzy the Knowledge Bug guides kids around a colorful, beautifully animated locale that's positively chock full of hotspot clickables. Buzzy also serves as emcee/advisor for the several included side games and activities that are a hallmark of Humongous educational titles.

The main exploration area of Jungle is divided into three zones: Asia, Africa, and the Amazon. Each zone accurately depicts the animal and plant life native to that region. Navigation is accomplished by the same intuitive interface found in the other Junior Field Trip titles. Moving the mouse cursor over an area that can be zoomed in for a closer view produces a large white arrow. When the mouse cursor moves over a clickable hot spot, it changes from transparent to solid white. At the default setting, clicking on a hot spot produces an animation. The animations are well done. They're also amusing and silly --- and this is where I have a problem with Jungle and, indeed, all the Junior Field Trip titles. Please don't accuse me of being a curmudgeon, because I've got nothing at all against amusing and silly. What bothers me is that the way Humongous has implemented these funny clickables draws an invisible, but quite definite, wall between the entertainment and educational aspects of the game.

For example, clicking on a fish might cause it to sing a little song or do a back flip, but the animation will not depict or tell the kid anything realistic about the fish's behavior. In order to get real educational information, the kid has to click on the "What is it?" icon at the bottom of the screen. Clicking on that icon and then placing the cursor on the object causes the object's name to appear on the screen while Buzzy pronounces the name out loud. If the kid then click's on the object, a page of descriptive information about that object appears. Clicking on the speaker icon will cause Buzzy to read the page out loud. The page is also hypertext linked to other pages of information and other objects in the game. This is all well and good, but just try to get your kid to click on that "What is it?" icon! My son, John, was three months shy of his fifth birthday when we tested this game, and, I think, a representative example of the targeted age group (ages 3 - 8). He happily clicks away at every hotspot he can find in the default mode, but my suggestions that he try the "What is it?" option are uniformly met with replies of "I don't want to!" or "It's not fun!" while he continues to merrily click away. And there you have it. The best edutainment titles (and there are plenty of Humongous titles that fall into this category) make learning a natural consequence of the entertainment aspects of the game. By separating the learning and fun aspects of the Junior Field Trip titles, Humongous seems to have forgotten this important principle.

A Mixed Bag of Games

Humongous is justly famous for packing a lot into all its games, and Let's Explore the Jungle is no exception. No less than five side games or activities are included in the program. I did find, however, that the five games are a decidedly mixed bag in terms of quality.

The game that least impressed me is "Anteater Feeder." The game supposedly teaches kids about an anteater's diet and the problems it has meeting its daily dietary needs by challenging kids to zap up a sufficient amount of ants, termites, flies, and grasshoppers as they go zipping by at ever increasing speeds. In reality, however, the game is simply a side-scrolling shooter with the anteater's tongue taking the place of the gun, and it's a rather uninspired looking shooter at that.

"Trivia" is just what it's name suggests, as is "Coloring Book." It must be said for the Coloring Book, however, that it is well done. There are 15 different pictures to color and print out (you can also print out the uncolored pictures for coloring with real crayons), and the program's interface allows kids to easily mix primary colors into new colors. Still, so many edutainment titles these days have paint programs that you would think it was required. In fact, it would be refreshing to see a new kids' title that didn't have a paint program!

"Jungle Jumble" is much more original. In this game, kids are challenged to unscramble the letter blocks to spell out the name of the jungle object that's depicted in the screen above the word. The catch is that the picture is scrambled too! As each letter of the word is placed in its proper order, a piece of the picture puzzle moves into place along with it. Although this game was naturally a bit too advanced for my son, the older kids in the age group should find it a lot of fun.

Best of all is the "Find It" game. In this game with three difficulty levels, Buzzy simply asks kids to remember and find in the jungle 10 items that flash on the screen. The difference in the levels is the amount of clues the kid receives from Buzzy as to the location of the objects. On the easy level, Buzzy gives out a lot of clues and on the hard level, none at all. John had a lot of fun with this game, and in the process learned dozens of jungle-related terms without consciously setting out to learn anything. That's what a good edutainment title is supposed to do!

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