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Great Journey
 It's a pleasant surprise to find a children's adventure game these days. I always look closely at the game releases for kids, but rarely is there one we could review for Quandary. Unfortunately most electronic entertainment for the younger (school-age) generation, if it's not primarily educational, is more to do with improving hand-eye coordination with the gameplay highly manipulative, involving fighting, jumping, or similar. Although Great Journey has its share of manipulative problems, there is absolutely no fighting and there is also a reasonable slice of adventuring.
Great Journey, in fact, is quite a nice little adventure game. It has a lot going for it: bright, eye-catching graphics, lively music, a good point and click interface, a simple story with an environmental message, plus some fun puzzles along with the more manipulative interludes. Where it lacks is in the voice department because there are no voices. This means it's restricted to children who can read, unless, of course, mum or dad or an older sibling want to go along for the ride.
There is a choice of one of two characters to take on this Great Journey: Annie or Tony. At the start of the adventure the player simply picks a character, each of whom has 5 slots for separate games represented by a button with an object pictured on it. For instance, select the toadstool or the dog for Annie, the car or the octopus for Tony, and thereafter when loading the game just click on the relevant object and the story will pick up where the player left off.
It's a very simple interface with a big green footprint for walking that changes to blue if Annie or Tony need to jump over a crevice or onto a stepping stone. The jumping is simple too, it doesn't require any feats of dexterity, only a little careful timing in some cases. There is a small inventory where the handy magnifying glass sits once the player finds it. Move it over the gameplay screen and it sparkles when there is something of interest to investigate. Just press the right mouse button and the object of interest might be simply an animation, or it might be the hiding place of an object such as a key, which is crucial to solving a problem.
Or it might even hide a hint token, which is automatically saved in the inventory. Throughout the game there are a dozen or more hints to find, so when in doubt there is help at hand. Just select 'hint' (the icon with the light bulb) and click on any hotspot where there is a something to do or a problem to solve. At these hotspots a similar light bulb flashes to alert the player and this is reinforced by a message: "You should definitely do something at this place". So the game offers plenty of assistance for young players and even Annie or Tony will help out by suggesting what they should do next.
 The game opens with a letter from Penguin at the South Pole. Someone is dumping rubbish and spoiling that beautiful white land, and Penguin wants the perpetrator caught. Of course either Annie or Tony will do the job and for the first part of their journey they are accompanied by the Captain who escorts them in his boat. There are a couple of things to do before leaving, then it's the first of four or five challenges of steering the boat across the wide blue ocean. First to Africa and then on to Easter Island with a short stop off at Crocodile Island before finally arriving at the South Pole.
Each boat trip has obstacles such as islands and whales to avoid and each stop-off has a few small problems to solve. For instance, get some water to continue the journey, or help the confirmed Castaway find his peanut butter. These adventuring problems are usually accompanied by a game of some sort as well, such as football or a ball kicking contest, or a challenge to throw peanuts to a monkey. The last part of the journey has more short 'navigation' challenges before arriving safely at the South Pole.
Nothing is too difficult, especially the adventuring problems, and even most of the 'games' are quite forgiving. For some, such as the football game, just joining in is enough, the player doesn't have to 'win'. For others it's just a matter of trying again if they don't succeed, there are no real penalties for failure. At Easter Island there's a nice little maze to negotiate with gates to open, again not too difficult, and nor is the challenge to take snapshots of the whale, which just requires a little careful timing. The final task, catching the Dumper, is the meanest, and might require a measure of patience from younger players.
Great Journey is a great little game for introducing kids to adventure gaming, especially those who have been used to games of the more action variety as the pacing of the game picks up and slows down alternately. Perhaps it could have been a little longer but the mini-games are accessible at any time after they have been accessed, so this extends playing time.
There is no age recommendation on the game packaging so I would estimate that Great Journey is suitable for kids from around 7 to 10 years. The adventuring parts, in particular, are gentle, with plenty of hints and the game might have been suitable for younger children still except for the 'need to read' and a couple of the timing challenges which might frustrate. It really is such a shame that there are no voices as the characters would have come much more to life and added to the fun.
You can buy Great Journey from GMX Media.
Copyright © Rosemary Young 2005.
All rights reserved.
System Requirements:
Windows 95/98/ME/2000/XP, Pentium 400, 16 MB Graphics card, 64 MB RAM, 6 x CD-ROM, Sound card.
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