Egged on by the Chickaroo
NOT being too keen on birds, children's word games or space
invaders, I approached Chickaroo by Screenplay with hesitation.
I was, however, pleasantly surprised.
The game turned out to be quite an acceptable combination of
all three, the star attraction being a bird named Chickaroo.
It flies across the screen laying eggs as it goes. Each egg
holds a letter which can only be revealed by shooting at it.
If you think that the revealed letter fits an incomplete word
shown on screen you send another little bird to collect it. Err
and you will be exterminated.
This certainly took the boredom for me out of yet another word
recognition game. Children too, I'm sure, will be much more willing
to play along with their parents' wishes for them to learn.
The game involves very attractive use of colour as well as realistic
space invader sound effects, providing the sense of urgency and
danger that is always attractive to the young.
It really is a case of "Bang, bang you're dead" if
you fail to recognise a word correctly.
As well as the 100 words provided in two data files, the menu
allows the setting up of an alternative file of up to 50 words.
Such a facility improves the game's otherwise fairly limited
educational usefulness.
According to Screenplay, certain of the words in the data file
are chosen so that the spelling of other words will be encouraged
while guessing for the correct one.
For example, the possibilities for completing the word "IN"
are many. This may in theory be a good idea, but I found it most
disconcerting to be "killed off" for making up the word
FIN instead of WIN.
OK, so maybe I was trying to be clever (and there's nothing
like an educational game aimed at children for boosting the confidence)
but surely this is rough justice.
I found the word skills required to be pretty basic. It is obviously
designed for the very young.
The game claims nothing more, however, than to help develop
word recognition skills in children.
Chickaroo not only achieves this, but I'm sure also retains
the attention of its pupils well beyond the scope of the average
teacher.
Patricia Trickett
