Topsy and Tim Go to School

Topsy And Tim Go To School is an educational title for children aged four to seven years old. The title consists of a number of activities;* The Story: There are two story activities, in the first the player reads trough the story page by page from start to end while the second activity allows the player to access any of the fifteen pages individually

The story itself is a short, positive, story about Topsy and her brother Tim and their first day at school. Each page has a couple of short sentences on it which can be read by the child, adult or by the game. Many pages have interactive hotspots so, for example, when they enter the classroom the player can click on the clock and watch the hands move round, or on items on the table and watch eggs hatch, the snail move, flowers wilt and grow back etc. It's effectively a guide for pre-schoolers showing what they can expect.

• Jigsaws: There are five jigsaws to be played but these are not traditional jigsaws. Players pick a picture from a many and when it is shown on the screen the picture is still more or less whole but several shaped pieces have been removed and it is the player's task to replace them. This is a game for young children so all the pieces are shaped differently - there's only one star, one circle etc.

To play the game the player clicks on a piece and it is then 'stuck' to the mouse cursor so there's no need to hold the mouse button down while dragging the piece into position.

• Painting: This activity has seven line drawings from the story and some simple point and click painting tools
• Games: There are two games available. The first is a Rock-Paper-Scissors game which can be played as a one or a two player game. The two player game makes use of a single screen so player one makes their selection and a curtain comes down to cover up their part of the screen. Player two then makes their selection which is also covered by a curtain then the game reveals both player's choices and there's a short animation as the winning character (on screen) jumps up and down.
  The single player game is played the same way with the computer making their selection without waiting for the player.

The second game is a weighing game in which the player picks up objects with the mouse and tries to find two that weigh the same. The range of objects is quite diverse a pen, newspaper, bunch of grapes, sausage, light bulb etc.

The game does not transfer the contents of the CD to the player's computer, the installation process just creates a program group with links to the programs on the disc.