''Blue's Birthday Adventure'' is an educational video game for children from the ages of 3–6 years of age. The game is based on the pre-school television program ''
Blue's Clues
''Blue's Clues'' is an American live-action/animated children's television series, created by Angela C. Santomero, Todd Kessler, and Traci Paige Johnson, that premiered on Nickelodeon as part of its Nick Jr. block on September 8, 1996, and co ...
'', specifically the episode "Blue's Birthday". It was developed and published by
Humongous Entertainment
Humongous Entertainment, Inc. was an American video game developer based in Bothell, Washington. Founded in 1992, the company is best known for developing multiple edutainment franchises, most prominently ''Putt-Putt (series), Putt-Putt'', ''Fred ...
. The game is about how
Steve tries to find three clues to figure out what Blue wants to have for her birthday.
Gameplay
''Blue's Birthday Adventure'' is packaged on two CD-ROMs, and each CD-ROM contains two scenarios in the form of questions. These are all themed around Steve, Blue's owner, preparing for Blue the dog's birthday party. Before play commences the player must first enter their name, date of birth and their favorite color.
Players control Steve during play, who breaks
the fourth wall
The fourth wall is a performance dramatic convention, convention in which an invisible, imaginary wall separates actors from the audience. While the audience can see through this ''wall'', the convention assumes the actors act as if they canno ...
by directly speaking to players. The game shares many similarities with the television series. These include Steve being a live-action character appearing in a two-dimensional house designed to look like a paper cut out and Blue communicating by leaving blue paw prints in pertinent locations.
Once the scenario is selected the player must help Steve complete it by solving three problems, guiding him through the house in order to locate clues. Each problem is solved by finding clues which are marked by blue paw prints within the game. In order to locate clues players must interact with characters in the game and provide them with the items they require. Each clue found results in a task for the player. Once all the clues have been located and the tasks presented have been completed, the player helps Steve perform a song, such as the ''Blue's Clues'' theme tune.
The game is split into three difficulty levels; these affect the task which the player must complete when they discover a clue. For instance, at the lowest difficulty level a clue may be solved by picking the correct drawing shown on the screen, on the higher difficulty level the same task may require player to piece segments of the picture together in order to produce a complete picture.
Reception
PC Magazine
''PC Magazine'' (shortened as ''PCMag'') is an American computer magazine published by Ziff Davis. A print edition was published from 1982 to January 2009. Publication of online editions started in late 1994 and have continued to the present d ...
rated the game as 6th place of the Top-Selling Retail Software.
The game was also nominated for "
PC Children's Entertainment Title of the Year" and "PC Educational Title of the Year (0-8 years)" for the
AIAS
Ajax () or Aias (; grc, Αἴας, Aíās , ''Aíantos''; archaic ) is a Greek mythological hero, the son of King Telamon and Periboea, and the half-brother of Teucer. He plays an important role, and is portrayed as a towering figure an ...
'
2nd Annual Interactive Achievement Awards
The ''2nd Annual Interactive Achievement Awards'' is the 2nd edition of the Interactive Achievement Awards, an annual awards event that honors the best games in the video game industry. The awards are arranged by the Academy of Interactive Arts & S ...
.
References
External links
*
{{Humongous, state=collapsed
1998 video games
Children's educational video games
Classic Mac OS games
Humongous Entertainment games
Nick Jr. video games
North America-exclusive video games
SCUMM games
ScummVM-supported games
Single-player video games
Video games about birthdays
Video games about dogs
Video games based on animated television series
Video games developed in the United States
Video games featuring female protagonists
Windows games