Granny's Garden is a delightful 32K adventure for young children from
4mat Educational Software. In this adventure you are transported from
'Granny's Garden' to the Kingdom of the Mountains where the wicked
witch has imprisoned the King and Queen and their children.
The adventure is in two parts and your task is to rescue the children
by going through four different locations solving the puzzles. During
the fantasy trip you will meet a talking toadstool, magic raven,
spider, dragon and a host of other characters. To complete each part
of the adventure various passwords must be found. The tape comes
with a helpful booklet for the teacher or parent, and suggests a number
of ideas for further discussion from the program.
The program is well presented in Mode 7 and contains colourful teletext
graphics with occasional moving pictures and sound. Throughout the program
only one-word responses are required. One feature that caught my attention
was incorrect spellings being accepted. This would be fine if the child
were corrected on the spelling and allowed to continue, but the program
makes no correction of spelling mistakes it accepts. Error-trapping is
somewhat erratic, allowing a child to sometimes enter rubbish and have it
accepted as a valid answer.
These are problems which should not exist in educational software and are
flaws in what is otherwise a well thought-out program. Despite these
criticisms, this is a good attempt at an adventure game at a very young
level and a trend I hope to see develop.