This has been a great time for my inner child– Last week the kickstarter for a true sequel to Toejam and Earl was launched and I was just informed that another classic game is trying the kickstarter route. Zoombinis is a modern remake of The Logical Journey of the Zoombinis and is something that everyone needs to know about as in my opinion it is one of the best examples of combining edutainment with game design.
Zoombinis:
It’s important to point out that this isn’t a sequel like the as mentioned Toejam and Earl Kickstarter but a chance to bring the game to modern audiences. The design was all about puzzles built around teaching kids about logic. Each of the game’s challenges was focused on different parts of problem solving centered on the titled Zoombinis.
The story was that the Zoombinis needed to be guided to their new home across different paths and challenges. Your groups of Zoombinis were essentially your lives on the journey: Messing up too much on a puzzle would get them booted off the trail and if you lost them all you would have to restart again. A perfect run would unlock harder versions of the puzzles as well as one of the earliest examples I can think of an achievement system.
Zoombiniville was the game’s trophy screen and represented your accomplishments. The screen would grow based on the number of Zoombinis you rescued and perfect runs would unlock monuments and printable certificates for kids. This was a great motivator to get people to learn the game and as we’ve seen with how achievements exploded in popularity among hardcore gamers.
The Journey:
What’s interesting about Zoombinis is how the game was one of the first to deal with logic puzzles, predating the Professor Layton series and why it was (and still is) highly regarded among educational games and just games in general.
The kickstarter at the time of this post has already hit its funding goal with the intent of releasing a modern day version of Zoombinis for the PC and tablet. Now TERC (the original developers for it and who have acquired the rights) are looking at expanding things with an enhanced Zoombiniville and hoping that the success of Zoombinis will give them a new market and fan base to perhaps release more games in the series.
After the original game was released, there were sequels/expansions made which at this time it’s unsure as to whether or not they will be in this version. But whether you are young or old, this is a series that you should definitely support as it was one of the best examples of an educational game making that transition to the mainstream market thanks to clever design and a lot of charm.
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJ-TAoQl2_E[/youtube]
