Yeah, this series has a Part I - bet you thought I'd never finish it! It's time for me to showcase my other favorite edugame from childhood, Logical Journey of the Zoombinis. Like the Doctor Brain games, this one was so good for me that I wanted to keep playing it as an adult. I still have the original CD and can run the game if I set up one of my older Windows computers. (If you'd like to play it on a modern PC, there is a remake, though they redid all the art for some silly reason). Unlike the Doctor Brain series, Logical Journey does not teach any encyclopedic knowledge or technical skills. It is 100% about how to think - reasoning, experimenting, and planning. All the puzzles sorta have a basis in mathematics or programming, but you wouldn't realize that unless you were told (or knew what to look for).
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| Get in the hole, we're escaping! |
Let's start with the obvious: this game is CUTE. What little kid doesn't love small round innocent creatures with big eyes? The ridiculous supporting characters range from an anthropomorphic ringtail cat to sapient rocks and trees. There's a thin but motivating plot: the Zoombinis were a happy nation of craft workers [1] until the Bloats tricked them into a bad trade agreement and basically enslaved them. The player character is a "guide" who helps bands of Zoombini refugees travel to a distant land where they can be free. That means getting them through bizarre obstacles, which I guess they're not smart enough to manage on their own.
To get a group of Zoombinis through the entire trek, you have to solve nine puzzles out of the twelve available. A common theme across seven of the puzzles is a hidden rule you must deduce. Sometimes the rule is about categories, sometimes it's about mapping (functions), sometimes it's about spatial relationships ... regardless, it can only be found through trial and error, and you get a limited number of tries. So this game excels at teaching the player not only how to generalize from limited experience, but also how to choose experiments that judge between competing possibilities and maximize information gained. Other puzzle elements I can think of include resource allocation under constraints, prediction, and sequencing.
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| Bubblewonder Abyss, the last obstacle, became my favorite puzzle once I figured out how it worked. It's all about sequencing (you solve it by sending Zoombinis across in the correct order) and imitates computer program elements like toggles and if/else statements. Screenshot obtained from zoombinis.fandom.com. |
This is also the only edugame I can think of that had a serious difficulty curve - it enabled me to watch myself get smarter. When I played for the first time, the easiest level was manageable (mostly - I had no clue what was going on in the Fleens puzzle), but the upper levels were too hard. When I got older and came back to it, I found myself mysteriously able to figure out parts that once seemed impenetrable.
I can remember having big feelings about this game - mostly frustration. Failing a puzzle means you "lose" some Zoombinis. They never die (the designers weren't brutes), but they do go back to the closest available campsite. And then, unless you lose more Zoombinis, you can never get back to moving perfect groups of sixteen around. You'll always have a "remainder" stuck at one of the camps. I adore round numbers enough that this ticked me off. It's tough to choose the puzzle I had the fiercest love-hate relationship with. "Mirror Machine" probably drove me crazy the longest, but I have to give the award to "Titanic Tattooed Toads," because failing at this one really made me feel dumb. It's quite easy if you meticulously pay attention: just make sure your lily pad feature of choice forms an unbroken trail across the marsh. If you aren't meticulous and miss one incorrect lily pad, boom, the scenario becomes unwinnable. Being impatient and launching more than one toad at once can also wreck you. Thanks loads, toads!
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| The same-color paths were always easier for me to find than same-shape, so I wonder if this puzzle is extra torture for colorblind kids. Screenshot obtained from zoombinis.fandom.com. |
My late-blooming achievement was not intelligence, but discipline. In early playthroughs, I lost interest after a few journeys at the highest difficulty level. It wasn't until I was older ... I forget when, probably my late teens ... that I "beat the game" by transferring a full complement of 625 Zoombinis from Zoombini Isle to Zoombiniville. That involves playing the nine puzzles at least forty times, even if you do it perfectly. Was it worth it? I don't know, but I feel strangely satisfied. I guess it means I cared. (If you leave the game running in Zoombiniville for very long, the narrator starts harassing you about all the Zoombinis still living under tyranny. Tell him I finally committed and went back for every last one.)
There might be a particular reason why I decided to talk about this game this month, but you'll just have to wait and see. :)
Happy cogitations,
Jenny
[1] How they managed this without hands or other manipulators, I don't know. Don't overthink it.
