''Europress Bookshelf'' is a series of

interactive storybook An interactive storybook (or CD-ROM storybook,) is a children's story packaged with animated graphics, sound or other interactive elements (e.g., word pronunciation). Such stories are usually published as software on CD-ROMs. They have also been r ...

s for children, developed by

Europress Software Europress was a British magazine and software publisher based in Adlington, near Macclesfield, Cheshire. Their magazine publishing business was previously known as Database Publications. The software division was renamed in 1999 to Actualize. His ...

and published by Q Range on CD-ROM for

Mac OS Two major famlies of Mac operating systems were developed by Apple Inc. In 1984, Apple debuted the operating system that is now known as the "Classic" Mac OS with its release of the original Macintosh System Software. The system, rebranded " ...

and

Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for ...

, using their own games creator Klik & Play to produce the products with minimal programming. The games came under three series including "Read & Play" for younger readers, "Topsy and Tim" based on the Adamson books and "Living Classics".

Games

Gameplay

Each product opens in a map screen where the player can click the option to have the story read from beginning to end continuously, click any of the chapter points on the map, play one of several games included or read information about the book author and the book itself. On each page of the story, the player can stop the reading at any time, click interactive objects to trigger animations and click on any highlighted special words to get their definitions.

Products

Development

Europress hired professional animators from the film industry to illustrate the characters and interactive objects in the games.

Daphne Oxenford Daphne Margaret du Grivel Oxenford (31 October 1919 – 21 December 2012) was an England, English actress, known for her early stage roles, and later her radio and television work. She was the voice (''"Are you sitting comfortably ...?"'') o ...

was hired to narrate the "Read & Play" stories. The "Living Classics" soundtrack was done with

Dolby Surround Sound Dolby Laboratories, Inc. (often shortened to Dolby Labs and known simply as Dolby) is an American company specializing in audio noise reduction, audio encoding/compression, spatial audio, and HDR imaging. Dolby licenses its technologies to ...

. The series was released in many languages including English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Norwegian, Swedish and Danish.

Release

The first three "Living Classics" were translated into Spanish.

References

{{Reflist

External links

Official website
1995 video games Classic Mac OS games Software for children Video game franchises Video game franchises introduced in 1995 Video games based on novels Video games developed in the United Kingdom Windows games Children's educational video games