Learning Land 1: At The Playground

The Good
Each episode has its own theme. In At the Playground, the animals are all having some fun at the playground. Tim is at the Rocket ship, Milly has been playing on the slide, Biff is on the swing and Sue is in the sandpit. The characters have their own dialogue and speak to each other and the user. Often with amusing little anecdotes.

Navigation is very simple and can easily be explained to the child by clicking the big red question mark. Changing the difficulty level is as simple as blue is easy and orange is hard. All of this is explained by the characters, enabling children still learning to read to easily play with little intervention from an adult.

The world is interactive. Clicking the plane will allow it to fly away and the ball bounces. Playing the games earns a "Jiggle Piece", a small puzzle piece. There are four to collect in every game. Collecting them all and putting them in the right place opens a small, interactive picture. A 5th activity is included for fun. In At the Playground it's making a picture which can be printed out and coloured in.

The Bad
To get the most out of the game it's better to have several consecutive games in the series. At least 4 games, total 16 puzzle pieces, are needed to complete one interactive picture. While one game will still have an interactive quarter, it can be frustrating for some children to be unable to complete the full picture.

The Bottom Line
The game effectively teaches children about simple number and language skills as well as social skills and the natural world. It uses a small cast of animals to interact with the children. Biff the Rhinoceros, Tim the Mouse, Milly the Rabbit and Sue the Cat. Each of the animals has their own personality and interests to help engage the children. It's simple to play and easily explained to your child by the game. The world is interactive, the minigames are rewarding and the dialogue is easy to understand. Despite being released in 1999, it still works perfectly fine on any Windows 10 PC as long as it has the disk drive to play it. The game is a timeless piece of children's gaming. I had a lot of fun playing Learning Land as a child and my nephew loves it too.