''Donald Duck's Playground'' is a 1984 Sierra educational game.
The player takes the role of
Donald Duck, whose job is to earn
money
Money is any item or verifiable record that is generally accepted as payment for goods and services and repayment of debts, such as taxes, in a particular country or socio-economic context. The primary functions which distinguish money are as ...
so that he can buy playground items for his
nephews. To do this, Donald can get himself a job in any of four different work places. Each job shift lasts from one to eight minutes, as the player wants, in which time Donald has to earn as much as he can.
''Donald Duck's Playground'' was originally written for the
Commodore 64 and subsequently ported to Sierra's AGI interpreter for the
Apple II, PC compatibles,
Amiga, and
Atari ST. A version for the
TRS-80 Color Computer
The RadioShack TRS-80 Color Computer, later marketed as the Tandy Color Computer and sometimes nicknamed the CoCo, is a line of home computers developed and sold by Tandy Corporation. Despite sharing a name with the earlier TRS-80, the Color Com ...
followed as well. The AGI engine had not been designed for this type of game and Al Lowe has described some aspects of porting it (most notably the cash register section) as "ridiculous".
The jobs
Donald has a different task at each job. He earns a set amount for each part of his job; on the Intermediate level, these wages are doubled; on the Advanced level, these wages are tripled.
*The greengrocer's: Donald is responsible for sorting vegetables thrown to him from the back of a pick-up truck in three different boxes. One of the boxes is for watermelons, one is for pumpkins, and one is for
cantaloupe
The cantaloupe, rockmelon (Australia and New Zealand, although cantaloupe is used in some states of Australia), sweet melon, or spanspek (Southern Africa) is a melon that is a variety of the muskmelon species (''Cucumis melo'') from the fami ...
s. Each vegetable gets thrown at a randomly chosen distance. Donald has to catch it and put it in the correct box. Failing to catch the vegetable or putting it in the wrong box results in it being squashed and no money earned. Donald earns 1 cent for each vegetable correctly sorted.
*The toy shop: Donald is responsible for putting toys given to him from a conveyor belt in the correct place on a shelf. Every 80 seconds or so, a train will pass on a nearby railroad. If the shelf is open at the time, the train will cause toys to drop from the shelf, losing money. Donald has to close the shelf for the time the train is coming. Donald earns 5 cents for each toy placed on the shelf.
*The railroad: Donald is at a switch console, responsible for putting switches on the tracks in the correct order, so that cargo trains can pick their cargo up from the correct cars and deliver it to the correct city. Donald earns 15 cents for each delivery routed.
*The airport: Donald is responsible for sorting cargo given to him on a conveyor belt into the cargo vans for flights. Each item of cargo bears the
three-letter abbreviation
A three-letter acronym (TLA), or three-letter abbreviation, is an abbreviation consisting of three letters. These are usually the initial letters of the words of the phrase abbreviated, and are written in capital letters (upper case); three-lette ...
of some U.S. airport. Donald has to throw it into a passing cargo van with the matching code. Near the end, the aeroplane leaves, and Donald has to stop sorting cargo. Donald earns 3 cents for each item sorted.
The playground
Donald can spend his hard-earned wages by buying various items such as ladders and swings for a playground his nephews can play at. They can be bought from three different stores where the player must be able to count the amount of coins and bills needed for an item and, if the total is not even, the change.
Each item bought is placed at a specific place on the playground. By going across the railroad, Donald can call up one of his nephews (in practice, the player character switches from Donald to his nephew), and he can then play on the playground.
Reception
Abandonware
Abandonware is a product, typically software, ignored by its owner and manufacturer, and for which no official support is available.
Within an intellectual rights contextual background, abandonware is a software (or hardware) sub-case of the ...
website ''
Abandonia''s Sebatianos reviewed ''Donald Duck's Playground'' with "the game is more than solid for its time (great graphics, good sound, cute idea, lovable hero, etc.)".
See also
*
List of Disney video games by genre
References
External links
''Donald Duck's Playground''at Atari Mania
*
''Donald Duck's Playground''at '80s DOS Games
at AlLowe.com
{{Sierra Adventure Games, Other series
1984 video games
Amiga games
Atari ST games
Apple II games
Children's educational video games
Commodore 64 games
Donald Duck video games
ScummVM-supported games
Sierra Entertainment games
U.S. Gold games
Video games scored by Al Lowe
Video games developed in the United States