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The children's market continues to prove itself to be one of the most innovative in
software development, and Big Top is heading the class with a forthcoming disc that
wraps its hands around the fledgling interactive arena and squeezes out every drop
of its potential.
Rather than simply
translating a children's cartoon from TV to computer screen, Big Top has deconstructed
one here and offered up the parts for reassembly in any of a dizzying number of
permutations. Some 150 animated clips featuring the inimitable Felix and his friends,
200 props, 200 sound effects, and 30 backgrounds and visual effects can be combined
and recombined into original short features and then set into motion with the click of
a button. Ease, indeed, is a key word for this program, which allows children to get
up and running almost immediately (several prerecorded cartoons serve as the creative
equivalent of paint-by-numbers guides), but expands to fit their evolving skills with
a variety of more complex editing functions. Finished products, if desired, can be saved
onto a floppy disc (as part of an ongoing contest Big Top is soliciting these entries,
the best of which it promises will be included on the next disc pressing).
A sterling example of
what the new CD-ROM medium can do in nudging passive entertainment consumers into becoming
active creators, this wonderful, wonderful "Cat" is also, well, just plain fun (yes,
indeed, "for the whole family"), and lofty edutainment theories aside, that's its strength
and its selling point.
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