The Berenstain Bears: Learning Essentials

The Berenstain Bears: Learning Essentials is a video game in the educational genre and published by Compton's New Media, Inc. originally released in 1992. It is currently playable on DOS.

Berenstain Bears' Learning Essentials is an educational title consisting of three separate modules: Colors, Music and Puzzles. Each of the modules looks different, giving the impression that they have been developed separately and may have been released separately at some point. Colors: this is a standard paint program in which the player is presented with an image and then colors it one block at a time using colors from a fixed palette. The image presented can be changed, the game also has save, load and print functions and an alternate color palette. Other functions include creating an image from a selection of backgrounds and stickers, adding word balloons, automatic coloring and animation. There are indications that 'Colors' may have been released by Brittanica Software under the title Fun with Colors.
Puzzles: although this is a DOS game, it has a hidden menu bar at the top of the screen from which the player selects their puzzle. There are ten puzzles to choose from, all featuring the Berenstain Bears, and each can be played at four levels of difficulty 8, 15, 40 or 60 pieces. The game shows the player the picture before dividing it into the appropriate number of tiles that the player switches to reassemble. When the picture has been completed, a small fanfare is heard and the player can earn a place on the scoreboard: the five fastest times are recorded for each difficulty level. This game has been released as Jigsaw! but here it uses different images of the Berenstain Bears.
Music: this is an unusual puzzle game. The player chooses one of ten short tunes, Ba-Ba-Ba-Black-Sheep; Twinkle Twinkle Little Star and the like, each of which has an associated image featuring the bears of the same name. The melody plays and then repeats with a black screen; this time it stops after a few notes and the player must select the next note from the available options. When the correct note is selected, a portion of the image is revealed. When the entire melody has been played and the entire image has been revealed, there is a brief congratulatory animation. The game has seven difficulty levels and a choice of ten 'instruments'; there are indications that it may have been released by Brittanica Software under the title Fun with Music.

It is possible that we have multiple downloads available when different versions exist.