| Magic Fairy Tales: Barbie as Rapunzel | |
|---|---|
 CD cover | |
| Developer(s) | Media Station |
| Publisher(s) | Mattel Media |
| Platform(s) | Macintosh, Windows, Windows 3.x |
| Release | 1997 |
| Genre(s) | Educational, adventure |
Magic Fairy Tales: Barbie as Rapunzel is a 1997 educational adventure game developed by Media Station and published by Mattel Media.
The game is an interactive storybook in which the player helps Princess Barbie rescue Prince Galen. It can be played either as a read-along book which skips all the puzzles, or as a storybook game. The player interacts with hotspots, collects items, and completes puzzles. [1]
It was the first in Mattel Media's planned series of storybooks for girls. [2] The game was designed to teach children early reading and decision-making skills. [3] The first Barbie CD-ROM for both Macintosh and Windows, [4] it was executive produced by Mattel Girls' software development director Nancie Martin. [5]
MacHome praised the game for not being as "sickeningly sweet" as it could have been. [6] Review Corner felt the title was both enjoyable and responsive. [7] All Game thought the game was an ideal product for young girls. [8] SuperKids decided the title was not the best reading software on the market, but that it was an adequate product for its target market. [9]
Living Books is a series of interactive read-along adventures aimed at children aged 3–9. Created by Mark Schlichting, the series was mostly developed by Living Books for CD-ROM and published by Broderbund for Mac OS and Microsoft Windows. Two decades after the original release, the series was re-released by Wanderful Interactive Storybooks for iOS and Android.
Barbie as Rapunzel is a 2002 animated fairy tale film co-produced by Mainframe Entertainment and Mattel Entertainment, and distributed by Artisan Home Entertainment.
Reader Rabbit is an educational video game franchise created in 1984 by The Learning Company. The series is aimed at children from infancy to the age of nine. In 1998, a spiritual successor series called The ClueFinders was released for older students aged seven to twelve.
An interactive storybook is a children's story packaged with animated graphics, sound or other interactive elements. Such stories are usually published as software on CD-ROMs. They have also been referred to as computer books, picture book programs, books-on-disk, talking books, or living books.
Beginning with the release of an eponymous video game in 1984, Barbie, a fashion doll manufactured by American toy and entertainment company Mattel and debuted on March 9, 1959, has been featured in a media franchise predominantly consisting of a film series and media formats across technologies like television and the Internet. Since then, it has become one of the highest-grossing media franchises of all time and has been referred to among fans as the "Barbie Cinematic Universe".
Mark Schlichting is a publisher, author, and digital pioneer of children's multimedia and interactive design software. He is best known as the creator and subsequent Design and Art Director of Broderbund's Living Books series including the original 1994 Living Books PC game Harry and the Haunted House, one of the first lines of children's interactive book software on CD-ROM. Schlichting was Design and Art Director for Living Book's first interactive CD-ROM book adaptation, Mercer Mayer’s Just Grandma and Me, which was one of the first software titles accredited as a school textbook and used as a product demonstration by Apple CEO John Sculley.
There have been a variety of Sesame Street video games released for video game platforms. Most of the Sesame Street video games were published and developed by NewKidCo.
Mattel Interactive was a video game publisher and software distributor.
The Magic School Bus is a series of educational software video games developed by Music Pen and published by Microsoft via their Microsoft Home brand. The interactive adventures are part of the larger franchise and based with The Magic School Bus original series books and public television series.
The American Girls Premiere is an educational computer game developed and published by The Learning Company for American Girl. The game allows players to create theatrical productions featuring characters from American Girl's Historical collection, along with scenes and other elements unique to each of the girls' respective time periods.
Disney's Animated Storybook is a point-and-click adventure interactive storybook video game series based on Walt Disney feature animations and Pixar films that were released throughout the 1990s. They were published by Disney Interactive for personal computers for children ages four to eight years old. Starting from 1994, most of the entries in the series were developed by Media Station. They have the same plots as their respective films, though abridged due to the limited medium.
Chop Suey is a point-and-click adventure game developed and published by Magnet Interactive Studios for the Macintosh in 1995. It was developed by Theresa Duncan and Monica Gesue to be a story disc for girls. Art is by Ian Svenonius, music and sound is by Brendan Canty, and narration is by author David Sedaris.
Madeline is a series of educational point-and-click adventure video games which were developed during the mid-1990s for Windows and Mac systems. The games are an extension of the Madeline series of children's books by Ludwig Bemelmans, which describe the adventures of a young French girl. The video-game series was produced concurrently with a TV series of the same name, with characters and voice actors from the show.
The Arthur video games franchise was a series of learning and interactive story video games based on the American-Canadian children's TV show Arthur. The games were released in the 1990s and 2000s for PlayStation and Windows and Mac OS computers.
Several video games based upon Blue's Clues, a children's educational television series by Nickelodeon, have been released, educational video games and web browser games based on the show. Most of the PC CD ROM-format titles were developed and published by Humongous Entertainment.
Detective Barbie is a series of three mystery themed point and click adventure games starring the character Barbie. The series consists of Detective Barbie In the Mystery of the Carnival Caper! (1998) Detective Barbie 2: The Vacation Mystery (1999), and Detective Barbie: The Mystery Cruise (2000). The first two games were developed by Gorilla Systems Corporation and published on the PC by Mattel Media/Mattel Interactive. The third game was developed for the PlayStation by Runecraft.
Reader Rabbit's Reading Development Library is a series of four edutainment games from The Learning Company as part of the Reader Rabbit franchise. The first two games were developed in October 1994, the third was developed in 1995 and the last one was developed in 1996. The products make use of interactive storybooks based on fairy tales to help early readers broaden their reading, vocabulary, writing and word recognition skills. Each number in the title corresponds to the reading level of the reader they are aimed at.
Barbie Fashion Designer is a dress-up computer game developed by Digital Domain and published by Mattel Media for Microsoft Windows and Mac OS in 1996. The game allows players to design clothing and style outfits. Players can then print off their designs and create clothing for their real-world Barbie dolls. Barbie Fashion Designer was the first commercially successful video game made for girls. After its success, many other girl games would be made, leading to the girls' games movement.
Barbie Magic Hair Styler is a dress-up computer game developed by EAI Interactive and published by Mattel Media for Microsoft Windows in 1997.
Adventures with Barbie: Ocean Discovery is a 1997 video game developed by Gorilla Systems Corporation and published by Mattel Media for Windows. A version for the Game Boy Color developed by Realtime Associates was released in 1999, simply titled Barbie: Ocean Discovery.
