Play-Doh Creations
Reviewed by Cynthia A. Sorrels
Published by Playskool and Hasbro Interactive

Age Group: Age 2 to 5, Age 4 to 8 Type: Art & Creativity Price: 29.99

Description:

Did you know that the little guy on the Play-Doh can is named Play-Doh Pete? It was news to me! Anyhow, Play-Doh Pete is here with some fun friends in Playskool and Hasbro Interactive's title Play-Doh Creations. There's a lot to do at Play-Doh Island.

Installation

Play-Doh Creations works beautifully with Windows95 Autoplay. There's no installation necessary. Just click on PLAY when the title screen appears. Wonderful!

Overview

There are four open-ended creation locations in Play-Doh Creations. Each is equipped to help kids customize their creations, save and re-shape creations and hold animated performances. Play-Doh Creations is designed to enhance:

• creativity - mixing, matching, molding, shaping skills,
• construction - exploring, crafting, building skills, and
• imagination - role play, pretending, experimenting skills.

Where Do You Want To Go?

Play-Doh Creations features Play-Doh Island, where you'll find the Play-Doh Island Express (I promise I'm not making this up!) that will take kids to four creation areas.

• Laboratory - there are all kinds of strange and wondrous creatures to invent.
• Mini Mall - design costumes or hair styles
• Factory - manufacture and decorate wacky vehicles
• Bakery - bake weird or funny treats here!

Once you click on one of the areas, kick back and get ready to have fun! HINT: Watch for the green ball - that's what you click to get your creation squished out. The ball is in a different area in each of the locations, but it isn't hard to find.

To get going...

Choose a shape! In each area, you choose a base for your creation from the Selector. Click the arrows to see all the different shapes. In each location, the shapes are different. In the Baker, the Selector shows cakes and other goodies. In the Factory, it shows machine parts for cars and airplanes.

Now, choose a color!

There are 9 cans of Play-Doh colors: five regular colors and four special effects colors - sparkle, neon, rainbow and a changing color. When you click on the color, it's poured into the Squisher and the host or a helper announces the color you chose. Colors may be combined! Your announcer will tell which new color has been made.

Any creation can be thrown away in the lower-left corner. Each trash can is very different!

Using the Tool Bar

Each Play Center features a Toolbar that will drop down when you click the pull cord. You must have a creation on the train car before you can use the tools. Note that the Squisher is not active when the Toolbar is down. Click the pull cord again to put the Toolbar away. The categories for all of the Play centers are: Stamps, Edging tools, Stretching tools, Size tools, Direction Tools and an auto-destructor. There's even an Oops! button if you make a mistake.

Putting Your Creations in the Boat Museum

The Boat Museum will automatically save your creations. They remain there until you move them back onto the train or throw them away.

Make a Theater Poster and Visiting the Theater

To go to the Poster Workshop, click on the poster to the left of the Theater stage. Click through the selections to decide how your poster should look. Now PRINT in black and white OR color.

To begin the show, choose a performer, then pick out the music. Now start the show! Click the big red curtain on the stage. The host will appear and sing a song to accompany your creation's performance. During the show, you may interrupt the performance by clicking the mouse button.

The Mystery Creation There's always a creation in the lower-right opera box. This is a surprise performer who changes from day to day as you play the game. You can choose the Mystery Creation as your performer in the same way you choose your own creations.

Applause Meter After the performance, the audience applauds. Before and after the show, you can click buttons in the Applause Meter above the stage to hear a range of reactions. Cool, huh?

"Gonna Feed Dat Pottamus!"

My own 3 year old loves this program. During the initial session, she spent over an hour in the bakery, making gingerbread men and feeding them to the hippopotamus trash can. She especially enjoyed the hippo belch sound effect. I only hope the charm wears off soon.

Graphics and Sound

The graphics are very color and even LOOK like Play-Doh. There are lots of sounds, the speech is very clearly articulated, and the music adds to the fun of the show.

In Conclusion,

There isn't anything quite like Play-Doh Creations on the market, so it's not possible to compare it. The title is a lot of fun, reasonably priced and comes with excellent documentation. It's designed for ages 3-7 but older children may enjoy it as well. And, to mention the obvious, there's no lumps of Play-Doh in your carpet, hair or child's mouth!

If you have any problems when using Kids Domain then please contact Cindy, who will be happy to help where possible.

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