My daughter and I are so excited to tell you about this game. We've played many games over the year or so of writing for GI.net that are supposed to be “kids” games, but rarely are they really games that my younger son (aged 5) can play, and that my daughter (age 8) wants to play. This time the game is obviously designed for preschool and young elementary aged children, it is a simple game that hasn't been “dumbed down” just to be playable by young gamers. This is a difficult balance for game developers to strike, and more often than not they don't succeed. I'm very pleased to say that Strawberry Shortcake: The Sweet Dreams game strikes this delicate balance with a well designed set of tools. The game is one that both my 5 year old son and 8 year old daughter have enjoyed playing for long periods of time, and my own concerns that the game would be “fluffily annoying” were for naught.Strawberry Shortcake: The Sweet Dreams is a side-scrolling adventure game for the youngest console gamers. The simple storyline is that something is happened in Strawberry Land that's stopping Strawberry's friends from being able to dream. Strawberry Shortcake has to make her way through Strawberry Land and into Dreamland to figure out why. Along the way she collects little pink seeds as a way of keeping “score” on how well you're doing. Strawberry can jump, bounce off world objects to get higher, skip from cloud to cloud, balance over logs and do all the same basic moves you'd expect in a console adventure game.
The good thing about this particular game is that it has been adapted for young gamers. Strawberry moves along a linear path and you really only have to move her left or right for her to move through the world. The world looks like it is 3D and there are times when Strawberry moves forward or backward on your screen, but you really only need to worry about moving her left/right and up/down (by making her jump). In between world levels, Strawberry pilots the Dream Ship through a maze of sweets, and here you do have to use the left/right and well as up/down controls, but the movement is very forgiving, so still tailored for young gamers.
We have had a few problems with the game. First, the background music and sounds is too loud compared to the voiceover, making it hard to hear the storyline and directions right at the start of the game. This happens whenever one of the characters is talking. It's unfortunate that this was our first impression of the sound of the game's sound, because if this had been better balanced I would be able to give the sounds in the game highest marks. The music as you go through the game is light, being more like “elevator music” than anything you really listen to, which is good because that keeps it from getting repetative. Of course, the Strawberry Shortcake theme plays in the background for some of the levels, but not all of them. The other problem is that it seems sometimes the left analog stick stops working. My kids prefer to use the analog stick than the control pad for movement, so they've had some frustration getting through the game when they have to swap out. It seems to happen most often when Strawberry has to move toward you on the screen, but also happens when she has to do a jump along a diaganol back/forward too.
And what would an adventure game be without special abilities? Once you enter Dreamland, whatever character you are playing has a special ability to pour “dream powder” on the ground to create a plant that lets you then jump up on the leaves to either get up a high cliff, or jump over an obstacle. And there are obstacles galore in this game. Everything from bubbles, to purple plants to penguins can cause Strawberry and her pals to bounce backwards and lose seeds. Of course, my 11 year old's first question when he saw this game was “can you attack them?”. The simple answer is “NO!”. This is a completely non- violent game. But lest you think non-violent equates to easy and without challenge, let me assure you that there have been times when I've been “jumping” with the controller in my hand just like the kid will do in hopes of making it over that complicated area. There are no “lives”. There are no “win or lose” a battle. It's just a story about some little girls and boys who can't dream and their friend who is going to help save them.
The best part about this game has been listening and watching my kids play it. My daughter especially is a lot of fun to watch play it. Her foot jumps right along with Strawberry, and when she makes it past a difficult point in the game, she does a little victory dance. She would love to tell you more about the game, but she's rather busy playing it. I was able to get her to pause long enough between levels to get her to tell me that she thinks this game should be on EVERY little girl's Christmas list this year. The more we play this game, the more we find depth to it. So much that I could spend pages telling you all the little details about it, but that would become a very very long review. And discovering all the new things in the game is much of the fun of playing it anyway. And because this is a value title, the price can't be beat, either. So pick it up, you won't regret it.
I’ve played computer games since college, addicted first to story type games like Might and Magic. I have 3 children who also love computer games. My oldest son is a typical kid who loves the challenge of pressing the right combination of buttons and levers on a joystick in just the right way to make something happens, and frequently gets frustrated with mom’s slow fingers. ;) We use computers for both education and entertainment, and sometimes even bribery for good behavior.
The “glory days” of computer gaming for me were when games like Spectre Supreme, Pirate’s Gold, the Might and Magic series, the original Prince of Persia… those sorts of games were coming out on a regular basis. Back then I owned a Macintosh and was a die hard Mac fan. I was one of the first in my area to buy an iMac and on it learned the joy of playing games on the internet like daily crossword puzzle and “mind bender” type puzzles. My first online RPG was given to me for Christmas the year EQ was released, and I was hooked from day one. I played EQ for about a year. I started playing DaoC during late alpha testing, and was hooked on it.. well, to be honest I still am. I’ve tried pretty much every MMORPG I can get my hands on, from big names like EQ, to more obscure ones such as Underlight. I’ve been writing for IMGS since the first DaoC guide, and find I love the challenge of learning a game and presenting what I’ve learned (and sometimes my opinions), to other players.
I’m not a very strong player as far as learning PvE or quick reaction times, so I tend to stay away from games where I’m pitted against someone else in a way that requires physical (rather than mental) response. I still enjoy story and puzzle games, and in a way that’s how I still approach online games. I would much rather spend hours working through a quest than 5 minutes in combat against another player. I still get lost in simulation type games, obsessing over them until I’ve gotten them beaten. And I like being able to sit down at the computer when I’ve got less than half an hour and playing through a few levels of a puzzle game. I tend not to like first-person shooter type games, or anything with person to person violence, so I steer away from them unless they are fantasy based settings. All in all, I enjoy computer gaming so much that my life feels incomplete somehow when my computer is down.
