Les Animaux and Les Dinosaures


Al Goold, with a little help from Sara and Rachel, take a look at some educational programs from France...


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Les Animaux and Les Dinosaures are games designed for children aged three to nine. Now someone obviously thought I was the ideal candidate to review these but I thought instead I would give my kids their big break in journalism, and let them tell you what they think while I watched over their shoulders and took notes.

Both games are similar, supplied on HD floppies and as such aimed at Falcon owners, however there is an ST version of Les Animaux on the disk which works fine which is odd! On loading you are greeted by an electronic tune of reasonable quality and both programs allow the background tune to be selected from a choice of three.


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The idea of the games is to match the top and bottom half of the various animals or dinosaurs. With 14 dinosaurs and 18 animals part of the fun is creating mix and match species from the hundreds of possible combinations.

In addition to mixing up the pictures both games also mix up their names so the top half of a hamster matched with the bottom half of a lion becomes a "HAMON" and, for some reason which didn't quite make it across the generation gap, both the girls found these hilarious.


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Pictures can also be displayed as line drawings and "coloured in" by selecting a colour from the palette then selecting an area to fill.

On successfully matching the correct top and bottom halves another option is presented. Les Animaux will let you print the picture whereas Les Dinosaures displays a screen telling you a little about the dinosaur itself.

Both programs allow pictures to be saved to a floppy disk in PNT format files on the Falcon or Degas low res (PI1) format and these can be converted and output using Imagecopy or other suitable software.

I can recommend these programs for as suitable for children up to around seven years old but kids of all ages will find it amusing for a while. The programs are so similar anyone buying both should realise they are almost identical in operation.


SARA...


Les Animaux as seen through the eyes of Sara Goold, aged nine...


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I think Les Animaux is funny the way that I can put the top half of an animal with the bottom half of another animal. I liked the SWCEROS (The top half of a swan and the bottom half of a rhinoceros), or the HAMON (Hamster and Lion).
I like the way you can change the music to one, two or three. I like tune number two the best.
I think it is maybe a couple of years young for me, but I don't care, I still like it. I really hope you like the game as much as I do.


RACHEL...


Rachel Goold, aged four, looks at Les Dinosaures...


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I liked the game a lot because I like Dinosaurs. I can colour in the pictures and it's a lot better than paper and crayons because it's neater and I don't go over the lines.
I can click on the arrows and mix up the dinosaurs top and bottom halves. It's so funny. It's easy to use. I just click on the arrows to change the pictures with the mouse. You can colour the dinosaurs in any colour you want.
I've played quite a lot with it since the nice man gave me it at the computer show (Al: She's talking about Nick Harlow 16/32).
I've also played with the Animals game that Sara has. It's like my game, but I like dinosaurs better.


Les Animaux and Les Dinosaures

[] Publisher:
PARX
[] Supplier:
16/32 Systems
173 High Street
Strood
ME2 4TW
England
Tel: +44(0)1634 710788
Fax: +44(0)1634 295895
Email: 16-32@premier.co.uk
Cost:
£19 (each)

[] Requires:
Age Group:
3 to 9 years
Falcon030, Les Animaux includes ST version on HD disk
[] Pros:
Simple to use, keeps younger children happier longer
[] Cons:
Not MagiC compatible

80%



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