November 16, 2005

Return Of The Norns (ages 5 and Up)

Creatures: Village (**** out of four) gives you the chance to create your own digital life form pet, a Norn. The Norns are digital pets that must be raised, cared for and breed to keep their population going. Each is individual with its own DNA, brain and biochemistry. The Norns learn from you right and wrong, safe and unsafe. The creatures are not pre-programed and learn as they go, each developing its own personality and character.

Born from the original artificial life programs from several years ago -- Creatures and Creatures 2 -- Village now incorporates a larger play area with 15 environments to raise, play with and entertain your artificial digital creatures. You’ll find weather and seasons; more artificial life functions for the Norns, with additional organs and more brain functions; more play functions for the Norns, and additional inhabitants of their worlds such as seasonal plants, insects and fish.

O course you’ll have to care for your Norns feed and clothe them properly for the weather, treat them when they’re ill and more. Eventually as you raise them, they fall in love, breed and new Norms are born incorporating characteristics of the parents. You can also use DNA splicing to produce new creatures more resistant to disease and with different play characteristics. You can even trade your new creatures on the Internet.

Creatures Village is a complex program, but we could play it as superficially or in-depth as we wanted. Ultimately though, you need to pay attention to details and care for and teach your Norns properly and breed them correctly to pass on the strongest genes to the next generations to have the species survive. Beware, though–this is the type of program that can get you quite involved.

Farm Activities for Fun (ages 3-6)

Welcome to Merriweather Farm (***) is based on the book of the same name in the Johnny Tractor and Friends series, where Luke the Loader, Danny Dozer, Grady Grader, Barney Backhoe and Eddie Excavator help Johnny (J.T.) as he works and plays on the farm.

Before starting on the activities, children can explore the colorful farm by moving the cursor over any of the objects or animals and see the actions that happen as they do. Children will also want to help J.T. catch chickens and put them back in the chicken coop, plow the fields to get them ready for planting and catch the apples as they fall from the trees; they’ll also want to help Allie Gator navigate through the corn maze and Corey Combine harvest the corn by putting it in the tractor to bring to the silo. The farm equipment used in each of these activities is based on real John Deere machines, and this adds to the appeal of the tasks. There are three levels of difficulty for each task, so children will have plenty of activities to keep them engaged.

Characters and scenes are lively and colorful, and children will enjoy helping with the tasks on the farm. The program features easy controls for young children and simple activities that are not timed or scored, so children are free to just enjoy looking and helping with the activities. There are also coloring book style pages featuring some of the scenes from the program, and these can be printed for use away from the computer.

A fun and colorful way for children to look at the activities on a farm.

From Bold Games, Windows Me/2000/XP With Pentium III and Mac, Power Mac G3, $19.99

Busy Days in Deerfield Valley (***) is based on the characters and stories in the book of the same name. This educational game features the friendly John Deere characters Johnny Tractor (J.T.), Luke the Loader, Danny Dozer, Grady Grader, Barney Backhoe and Eddie Excavator as they participate in fun learning activities in a community.

Children learn as they help the familiar character with construction activities by using the various types of equipment, which is all based on real John Deere machines. In one area, children help Barney Backhoe fix a bridge by putting together planks of different shapes; in another they help Eddie Excavator put down water pipes for the new construction area by matching the colors of the pipes. The learning continues when children load building materials into the correct truck by matching colors, and in another they select any of the different types of machines to scoop sand, push dirt and gravel, dig holes and more. There’s also a colorful "surprise delivery" where children go through a maze and pick the correct path to deliver trees and plants to friends’ homes in the Valley. Controls are easy for even the youngest users, and the activities offer enough variety to keep children happy.

The program also includes printable pages for children to color while away from the computer. The pages feature many of the machines and backgrounds from the program and a make an ideal activity to take along anywhere.

The game offers the appeal of construction machines to help children learn to solve problems, match colors and shapes and develop several other skills. The colorful backgrounds and appealing characters add to the fun and learning.

A colorful and fun way to introduce children to learning.

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