At one point in its illustrious publishing career, Electronic Arts Entertainment launched a subsidiary called EA Kids. Designed for children ages four through eight, Peter Pan is an interactive storybook game that was part of this short-lived, but wonderful stable. It was released in the middle nineties and features a nice, family friendly method of edutainment while portraying the adventures of a fairy tale favorite. Peter Pan is, primarily, an adventure or puzzle solving game. It plays out from the third person perspective and is a fully licensed title, allowing all of the cartoon’s favorite characters to be present without penalty.
The game begins with the loveable but mischievous Peter Pan stealing a treasure map from the notorious Captain Hook. As revenge, Captain Hook kidnaps Wendy and the Lost Boys. It will be the gamer’s job to utilize the friendly and unique user interface to help Peter along the way on his quest to recover his friends. It naturally will not be easy. There are many obstacles in the way.
Peter Pan relies very heavily on graphic creativity to drive the game. Peter’s helpers in the game are known as the Paintbox Pals, a group of lovely animated painting tools, including: Sally Sprayer, Jazz Painter, Winston Whoosh, Nick Lead, Sandy Hourglass and Mark Bookman. Each of them perform a slightly different task, which
the gamer can probably guess by their respective names. Winston is an eraser. Sally is a spray can. Mark will help the user to save if he has to leave in the middle of a game.
With the help of these fun friends, Peter can do all sorts of things, limited only by his imagination. He will paint his way through many fine adventures, and the Paintbox Pals will always be offering to help. Occasionally, Tinkerbell will mention the fact that Peter is in trouble and will implore the user to help. This is all purely for fun and effect, since nothing in the game is timed. The play changes with each decision that the gamer makes for Peter. For example, if Peter is being attacked by pirates, the user has a few options on how to handle the assault. Just one may be to select Jazz Painter as your helper. Take the paintbrush, load it with yellow paint, and slap some on the approaching pirates’ swords. The next thing they know, they will be savagely brandishing…bananas! Winston, on the other hand, could be used in the same scene to erase everything the pirates are wearing, leaving them fleeing in embarrassment.
This is a fun, clean game that children and adults will love. It is a fine introduction to the world of computerized painting and puzzle solving skills alike.
