Games developed by Excalibur Computing & Learning
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ABZoo
The Amiga game ABZoo was released in 1989, as the brainchild of the minds of Circus Freak Games and Creative Micro Designs. An educational game, it was marketed for children as young as five, and up. ABZoo contained numerous games which inspired learning of the alphabeticity of words.
Initially, one would be presented with Alphie, a robotic teacher, and two additional interactive characters, Squawk and Bloop. All three characters spoke to the player, often even conversing amongst themselves. Depending on the chosen game, the characters would guide the player in mastering letter identification, to eventually gaining the confidence to recognizably read entire words.
The game’s menu boastfully boasted six engrossing choices. In “Letter Bird”, players make their way through 26 levels each consisting of the identification of a single letter. The task is made more challenging by the integration of puzzles within the levels, tests of agility in the form of mini-games, and the use of a character’s customized boat to travel the ABC lake.
The “Letter Island” selection evolved later levels of the game, where players cruised a boat in search of lost items using sounds and letters. There were also three arcade games, all utilizing the letters in their objective. Tying each of these games together was the set of five stories of Alphie, Squawk and Bloop travelling around the ABC lake and learning of interesting things.
Further adding to the game’s distinctive factor was the built-in recorder which beeped out any typed phrase, giving the game an enjoyable charm. ABZoo also featured a parental control section growing with the player, in the form of user customizable and digital contact information to save each player’s progress.
The end result of the hard work of developers and creative team proved to be of great success, setting a benchmark for enthralling educational games. Through its dominance of this genre, ABZoo undoubtedly remains a seminal classic of Amiga gaming.
