The Playroom cover
The Playroom game front cover

The Playroom

The Playroom is a Educational game released by Brøderbund Software, Inc. in 1989. It is an interesting DOS game and a must play for all old videogame lovers.

The Playroom description

A surprise for fans of the series children's games, Living Books! The Playroom, The Treehouse and The Backyard – the trilogy learning a colorful experience which became the starting point for the living series of books that captured the children's audience around the world! Friends, we are touching history.

The Playroom is the first of the collection game, which is, as the name implies, a charming children's room. Here, of course, we see the furniture, toys and a variety of interesting items – feel free to give a little attention to each of them! Each object carries or a nice animation or mini-game, which I will discuss in more detail.

The computer, standing at the right side of the room, invites the audience to train the fingers. Sounds like fun, right? Mouse sitting next to the monitor, will offer you many words to write, as well as a random word, which will show through the letters. This game is focused on remembering the location of letters on the keyboard and learning short words, accompanied by a picture.

Books in the closet reveal a magical world full of fantasy creatures, knights, castles and princesses. Before the player appears the image on which you can glue a variety of different stickers – you just need to choose a letter of the alphabet at the top. So, the letter "O" will allow us to settle to the castle Ogre (ogre), "F" will turn into a faerie (Fairy) and "M" will add to the picture the magic wand (Magic wand). Thus you can even write your own fairy tale!

Next to the books is a subject that is painfully reminiscent of the reel-to-reel tape recorder... No, the music we listen to will not, and do something else. On one coil there are the numbers, second – items. Assistant-mouse offers the player several similar objects that you want to count and give the correct answer. This game will help the small audience not only to learn but to memorise the spelling of numbers.

The next game is in hours on the bed – choose the hours on the dial and the box to the right will show you what he does at this time, the mouse (even at night we can see what he's dreaming). This is a kind of hint to help the child to organize the perfect day and learn how to announce time in English.

On the floor beside a box of toys sits funny monster with an elephant's head and a fish's tail. It's time to have fun: a monster composed of three parts, taken from different creatures. You can change them to your own and enjoy the unexpected results! The game develops critical thinking and, of course, imagination!

The last mini-game hidden in the rat hole. You do wonder what is going on in this mysterious place, so check it out! Hidden inside a maze, but wait... the Road from the cells, the two chips, the dice is the jib! It's simple: you need to throw the dice, select the desired number of moves and rush to the finish line first! Don't forget that the white chips with the numbers take you forward, black back.

The Playroom – a great learning and educational game that will appeal to children. And let nobody mind the music and graphics (it's fair to say that for 1989, she's beautiful), because all the fun is hidden inside... As mentioned above, a strong recommendation to educate fans of the series Living Books, children's games and just longing about the old days. Enjoy the game!

Wish to enjoy your afternoon playing some classic videogames? Play The Playroom online for free here.

Source: Archive.org, Mobygames.com

The Playroom

Genre:
Educational
Year:
1989
Publisher:
Brøderbund Software, Inc.
Platform:
DOS
Developer:
Brøderbund Software, Inc.
Perspective:
1st-person