Rockett’s Adventure Maker
Purple Moon	Ages 8 to 12

Rating Scale 5 = great,    1 = poor

Educational Value 3.5

Kid Appeal 4.8

Ease of Use 4.5

System Requirements

PC / Mac Price Survey

Product Support

From the creators of the on-going Rockett’s Friendship Adventures series, this program is akin to a paint or print program, allowing girls to create unique printable characters and incorporate them into original comic strip adventures.

The main screen invites the user to explore three main activities: the "Yearbook", "Make a Friend", and "Make an Adventure". The Yearbook is a virtual Whistling Pines Junior High annual, including characters from Purple Moon’s many interactive titles. Each character has his or her own page with a picture, vital statistics (birthdate, likes and dislikes, friends) and a brief narrative. An internet link jumps girls to Purple Moon’s website to gather the latest scoop on these characters, whose lives change with typical frequency. New friends created in the Make a Friend section appear in the Yearbook automatically, making this the ultimate collection of adventurers.

Make a Friend invites the user to create her own virtual friends. Five bodies are available to begin the construction. Next a face, hairdo, and outfit must be selected. Each of these variables can be colored or decorated, utilizing a fairly broad array of colors and designs. When complete the new friend becomes available for use in adventure stories and receives a page in the Yearbook.

Make an Adventure is the activity in which creativity really begins to flow. A number of comic strip layouts are initially selected, providing the foundation for what will become a personalized adventure. Users choose the backgrounds, characters, props and captions used in each comic strip cell, and then manipulate them in interesting ways. They can be posed, rotated, flipped, diminished or enlarged, and speech bubbles can include any dialog desired. The end product is always fun, and often uproarious.

Educational Value

Rockett’s Adventure Maker lets girls learn to manipulate computer generated graphics in an enjoyable way. It encourages creativity, computer familiarity, and, to a lesser degree, use of language arts skills.

Kid Appeal

Our girl reviewers raved about this program. "It’s really, really fun! I like it because I made so many of my friends," was the comment of one user, who devotedly replicated each of her classmates as well as many of her favorite television personalities in the Make a Friend activity. Even users beyond the upper limits of the suggested age range enjoyed the program, noting that it was an enjoyable diversion and allowed them to be creative in a way that is nearly unavailable to girls who have outgrown playing with dolls.

Ease of Use / Install

This program is easy enough for the typical 8 to 12 year-old user to install unaided. Manipulation of variables in the Make an Adventure section requires a bit of practice, but is simple enough for even young girls to successfully use alone.

Best for... / Bottom-Line

Although not greatly educational, this versatile title shows girls that computers can be lots of fun.

See SuperKids' comparisons with other girls software titles, and the Buyers Guide for current market prices of the PC and Mac versions.

PC: Windows 95 or higher, 486DX/66MHz or faster CPU, 15 MB available hard drive space, 16 MB RAM, SVGA graphics, Double-speed or faster CD-ROM, 16-bit Windows-compatible sound card.

Mac: System 7.1 or higher, Power PC or faster CPU, 15 MB available hard drive space, 16 MB RAM, 256-color monitor, Double-speed or faster CD-ROM.

Reviewed on:

PowerMac 6400/200 with 32MB and 8XCD

Pentium166 with 24MB and 12XCD

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