Alf's Thinking Skills is an educational game for young children, hosted by the furry alien from the TV series "Alf". It is limited in its entertainment value or educational use, largely due to a very limited range of activities available. It may help with some basic shape and colour recognition, and other very basic skills for the young.
The game is quite old (like most on this site. The graphics are CGA images, which may still engage most young children these days. The sounds are also just simple PC speaker bleeps.
This doesn't matter in some games if the gameplay makes up for it
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So what's it all about? The game begins with the player entering their first and last name. They are then taken to the garage, where they can select from four different activities. Three of the activities are more or less the same, with slight differences.
The first activity requires the player to choose a safe path to the family cat. Fans of Alf may recall that he was always trying to eat the cat. They have different routes to choose, each marked by either a red or green traffic light. Occasionally there are several sets on the same path. The player's goal is to select a path which only has green
lights. If they succeed, Alf gives them a congratulatory message. If they fail, he explains why. That's really all there is to this one. At the end of the activity, a certificate is presented, showing the score the player achieved. This score is based upon the number of correct answers. The player then has the option of printing the certificate if desired.
The remaining three activities are just variations on a theme. The second one is colour sorting. They have to determine what colour a set of shapes have in common (choices are only red, green and yellow). In the third activity, they have to work out the common shape from a set of shapes (choices are square, circle, rectangle and triangle). The fourth activity requires the player to select all of the objects that are a certain colour and/or shape. E.g. all the objects that are red and/or square. They would then have to choose all the objects that are red, square, or red squares. Again, for each of these activities the player is presented with a certificate, with the option of printing it if desired.
In summary, Alf's Thinking Skills is more edutainment than a game. Its graphics and overall entertainment value are adequate. Its learning activities are very limited, with some simple pattern and colour recognition. It is mostly used to master very basic skills.
