Robinson Crusoe
Rated: Everyone

If you look at this as an animated book you won't be disappointed. It is not a game. However, I did get to read Robinson Crusoe again. Tips and directions are in the book. The areas of the island that are open to explore appear as you interact and solve parts of the story. You cannot explore the whole island because the action must follow the sequence of the book.

Starting and saving the game was not obvious and at first. I thought that I had a bad copy. You have to move your mouse around the black area surrounding book until it lights up one of the action icons. Normally you don't look in the negative area for action buttons. Navigation is difficult and the player is expected to intuit the cursor signals. The double circle – looks like a doorbell - is the basic cursor. When it changes to a hand on the doorbell it indicates that clicking will move you further into the image. Holding down the mouse button allows you to scroll through the scene in the allowable directions indicated by arrows. A back arrow will return you to the previous screen. Now – couldn't they have said that? The images in the ship are dark and it is difficult to find what you are looking for and to see what you are supposed to do. There is no visible inventory of objects that you gather or use, so it is hard to know what you have collected. However, since objects appear in your hand when necessary, perhaps I am just being stuffy about having an inventory. Much time and effort went into this product. Tivola is one of the few companies that are still making games that will play on the Mac. The cut scenes have live actors, the voice reading the story is good – I just wish it was more fun.

Editor Review 4/02