Barney Bear Goes to the Farm Free Spirit Software Inc. 1993

The Barney Bear series are excellent edutainment titles aimed at teaching the basics of various subjects to toddlers aged 1 to 4 years old. Aside from being some of the finest titles ever made for this (some would say hard to please) target group, the games are notable for using SBTalker, Creative Labs' proprietary text-to-speech program that shipped with early versions of Sound Blaster card. The narrator in all Barney Bear games therefore sounds exactly like that mechanical, HAL-style voice of Dr. Sbaitso, a program shipped with SBTalker to showcase its capabilities. Barney Bear must wake up early to help with farm chores such as milking the cow and feeding the chicks. This short interactive story of a day on the farm leads to an evening in the farm house, complete with a warm fire and plenty of time to hear some stories and play some games. This includes ten short "I Can Read" stories, educational stories called "The Seed" and "Healthy Bears," a "What Belongs?" game, a mix-up-the parts scarecrow and a complete painting program with a dozen fill-in-the-color pictures. Each Barney Bear title focuses on one subject, and features Barney, a cute Teddy bear, as the player's companion and star in the stories. Every Barney Bear game offers two modes of play: story, and game. In story mode, a story involving Barney and the topic will be shown in attractive scenes, all fully narrated. Kids can interact with various "hotspots" on the scene before flipping to the next page. In game mode, all the activities are laid out and presented in one place, where kids can easily jump from one to the next. What makes Barney Bear games special is not only the excellent presentation that will capture kids' attention, but the near-perfect balance between game and information in each title. In Barney Goes to Farm, for example, kids will watch an animated story of how a seed grows into a tree, asked by the game to count the number of apples in a scene, and learn how to milk a cow. The game sets a fine balance between honing kids' basic skills, letting them learn interesting knowledge, and offering them fun activities to do. In short, these are some of the best games for toddlers ever designed, although they were much less known than titles from big companies. And kids will probably find the inhuman SBTalker voice even somewhat amusing.
Screenshots
Full Demo 673kb (uploaded by MyAbandonware)


    News   Legends World   Forum   FAQ