''Gertrude's Secrets'' is a 1984 children's

edutainment Educational entertainment (also referred to as edutainment) is media designed to educate through entertainment. The term was used as early as 1954 by Walt Disney. Most often it includes content intended to teach but has incidental entertainmen ...

video game by

The Learning Company The Learning Company (TLC) was an educational software company founded in 1980 in Palo Alto, California and headquartered in Fremont, California. The company produced a grade-based line of learning software, edutainment games, and productivity ...

. The goal is to solve

puzzle A puzzle is a game, problem, or toy that tests a person's ingenuity or knowledge. In a puzzle, the solver is expected to put pieces together ( or take them apart) in a logical way, in order to arrive at the correct or fun solution of the puzzle ...

s and find secrets along with Gertrude the

goose A goose (plural, : geese) is a bird of any of several waterfowl species in the family (biology), family Anatidae. This group comprises the genera ''Anser (bird), Anser'' (the grey geese and white geese) and ''Branta'' (the black geese). Some o ...

. The variety of puzzles involve basic recognition of shapes, colors, and patterns. The puzzles are designed to develop basic skills of logic and reasoning. A companion game, ''

Gertrude's Puzzles ''Gertrude's Puzzles'' is a 1984 edutainment video game for the Apple II, Commodore 64, and IBM PC compatibles by The Learning Company. It is considered a sequel to the game '' Gertrude's Secrets''. ''Gertrude's Puzzles'' was designed by Teri P ...

'' was released at the same time. ''Gertrude's Secrets'' was released for

MS-DOS MS-DOS ( ; acronym for Microsoft Disk Operating System, also known as Microsoft DOS) is an operating system for x86-based personal computers mostly developed by Microsoft. Collectively, MS-DOS, its rebranding as IBM PC DOS, and a few oper ...

, Commodore 64, and the

Apple II series The Apple II series (trademarked with square brackets as "Apple ] ''" and rendered on later models as "Apple //") is a family of home computers, one of the first highly successful mass-produced microcomputer products, designed primaril ...

Gameplay

''Gertrude's Secrets'' features rooms filled with puzzles to be solved by arranging objects by shape and color. It is played by dragging Gertrude the Puzzle Bird into one of the various rooms. Gertrude then brings various shapes into the rooms which have to be arranged appropriately. Upon completion of the puzzle, Gertrude awards the player with a prize called a "treasure" which is stored in the player's treasure room."Courseware Review: Gertrude's Secrets". Journal of Learning Disabilities. March 1984. pp. 188-198. Puzzle types include "loop" and train puzzles.

Reception

A review in the ''

Journal of Learning Disabilities ''Journal of Learning Disabilities'' is a peer-reviewed academic journal that covers the field of special education. The editor-in-chief is Stephanie Al Otaiba (Southern Methodist University). It was established in 1968 and is currently published b ...

'' called ''Gertrude's Secrets''s puzzles "challenging and highly entertaining" for children. The game was also cited as an example of a learning tool that can help teach children basic classification skills.Charles and Lind, p. 159.(1983). "High-tech 'textbooks' for children". Christian Science Monitor. ''

Commodore Microcomputers ''Commodore Power/Play'' was one of a pair of computer magazines published by Commodore Business Machines in the United States in support of their 8-bit home computer lines of the 1980s. The other was called ''Commodore Interface'', changed to jus ...

'' stated that ''Gertrude's Secrets'' "is intuitive and easy for kids of all ages to understand". The magazine approved of its lack of "nerve-wracking time limits or invading aliens" and encouragement of "exploratory learning ... built on rock-solid educational principles". Leslie Eiser of ''

Compute! ''Compute!'' (), often stylized as ''COMPUTE!'', was an American home computer magazine that was published from 1979 to 1994. Its origins can be traced to 1978 in Len Lindsay's ''PET Gazette'', one of the first magazines for the Commodore PET c ...

'' commented that the game required involvement from a parent, being designed to challenge children in addition to teaching them.

References

* Charles, Rosalind and Karen K. Lind. (2009). ''Math & Science for Young Children''. Belmont: Cengage.

External links

* {{moby game, id=/gertrudes-secrets * tp://ftp.apple.asimov.net/pub/apple_II/documentation/applications/misc/Gertrude's%20Secrets%20manual.pdf ''Gertrude's Secrets'' manual 1984 video games Apple II games Commodore 64 games DOS games Children's educational video games The Learning Company games Video games developed in the United States

Gameplay

Reception

See also

References

External links