Acorn User


Here And There With The Mr. Men

Author: Nick Evans
Publisher: Mirrorsoft
Machine: BBC/Electron

 
Published in Acorn User #040

Turn left, all right?

Here And There With The Mr. Men

The concept of left and right, and especially other people's left and right, is confusing to a good many adults - never mind children! So any program which seeks to establish that skill can only be termed 'useful'. Here And There is in fact a suite of four well-designed, well thought-out, robust programs.

The first is Mr. Tickle's Jigsaw Puzzle. The child has to manipulate doorways in the square frame of the puzzle to allow the 'pieces' which have been highlighted to pass through them. Movement of each of the four doorways is achieved by using the cursor control keys. The children quickly learn that the left-right orientation is very different from the up-down one.

The second puzzle, Mr. Tickle and Mr. Grumpy, involves the child in a similar task except that the job is now to make Mr. Tickle (on the outside of the frame) tickle Mr. Grumpy (on the inside of the frame). The doorways may be moved and the child must input instructions - more difficult, this - so that Mr. Tickle's arm may travel from where he is, through the doorway, and finally to Mr. Grumpy. The child may still use the cursor keys or L, R, U and D. Quite a lot of directional skill is needed for this one, and some helpful examples are given in the accompanying booklet.

Here And There With The Mr. Men

Mr. Lazy is a fun program in which the child must direct the worm up the tree so that it dislodges the apple and drops it into Mr. Lazy's waiting mouth.

And finally comes Mr. Men Versus Mr. Tickle, in which the child must guide the Mr. Men to stop Mr. Tickle crossing the chequer-board. Here, the concept of the left and right of people facing you is explored.

Altogether, excellent value, good fun and well-liked by those who tried it out.

Nick Evans

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