This game, Museum Madness, is among one of the great classics from when I was a kid. This game places you in control of a child in a computerized museum that has gone awry. In order to set the museum back on track, you have to visit each exhibit and right all the wrongs. This may sound boring, but "righting the wrongs" involves solving many puzzles that not only keep you entertained, but also provide you with interesting facts. That is actually the point of this game: to teach kids.
One of the exhibits is about the creation of writing. The kid must go through different time periods. The first room he is in has a young scribe trying to translate a tablet written in three different characters: hieroglyphs, roman and English. The player must create a sheet of papyrus, and go through different time periods, such as ancient Rome and China and record the alphabet and different words before he returns it to the scribe, where he must then translate the stone for the scribe. There are about 25 different exhibits, each one teaching something different. Once you complete all 25 rooms, you must complete one final puzzle to completely restore the museum to its former state.
The
graphics of this game are actually pretty good for a game that was around when I was 6 or 7. It's a 2-D view, but the people and objects are drawn rather well, as well as the different exhibit backdrops. This game also has fairly good sound as well. While the sound doesn't work on my modern computer, I remember the sound from back in the day. Each exhibit has its own tune that fits the environment the player is in. For example, in the Revolutionary War exhibit, there is an old-war-like song playing in the background, filled with whistles and snare drums.
The challenge isn't too great in this game that younger kids won't be able to finish some of the puzzles. When I would play it in school, I could successfully beat every exhibit except for one, which was one of those sliding puzzles where you slide around pieces to complete it. With a wide range of information, from learning the skeletal structures of prehistoric dinosaurs to the solar system and computers, this game covers it all, and is great for anyone who wants to get a head start on elementary school knowledge.
