Zoombinis

Infobox VG| title = The Logical Journey of the Zoombinis


developer = Brøderbund Software
publisher = Brøderbund Software
released = 1995
engine = Proprietary/Custom
modes = Single player
genre = Educational game
platforms = Macintosh, PC
media = CD-ROM
input = Keyboard, Mouse

Zoombinis are the main characters in a line of educational software created by [http://www.terc.edu TERC] .

Original storyline

The original storyline of the series begins with the first game, "Zoombinis: Logical Journey" (originally called "Logical Journey of the Zoombinis" when released by Brøderbund). As explained in its introduction, the Zoombinis are the peaceful and successful inhabitants of an island called Zoombini Isle (or Zoombini Island). One day their lives are interrupted by an evil race known as the Bloats, who offer to expand their businesses and improve their quality of life. The Zoombinis naively trust the Bloats, who soon take over the island and enslave the Zoombinis,so The Zoombinis devise an escape route and set sail on a boat to find a new homeland (later called "Zoombiniville"). To complete the game, the player must transport 625 Zoombinis in groups of 16 through a total of 12 puzzles to Zoombiniville. Since The Learning Company purchased Brøderbund Software in 1998 they have created two more games (sequels to the original) known as "Zoombinis: Mountain Rescue" and "Zoombinis: Island Odyssey", both with different storylines.

Gameplay

At the start of each game the player has the ability to choose a party of 16 Zoombinis by selecting from five different types of eyes, noses, hair and feet. Each Zoombini has a different combination of each of these characteristics and only two Zoombinis can be exactly the same (making the total number of possible Zoombinis as 1250, twice the number the player needs to rescue). Each Zoombini has a name randomly chosen by the computer from its list of several thousand, though it can be swapped before its creation. This name remains with them for the entire game.

The party of Zoombinis then must pass through one "leg" of three puzzles before arriving at a resting place. There are four legs of the journey, but the player can choose between the second or third of these legs and only needs to pass through three to finish. These puzzles vary in play, but usually involve determining and then following rules regarding the characteristics of the Zoombinis. For example, sending Zoombinis with green noses down the first path and ones with differently coloured noses down the second. If the player makes a mistake while completing a puzzle, then either the Zoombini involved is then lost or not all Zoombinis may be able to pass through. Those that do not make it through a puzzle are sent back to the previous rest checkpoint. A full party of 16 must be present at a checkpoint to continue, but a party that has lost some members may continue through its leg to the next rest area.

The levels of difficulty applied to each puzzle are "not so easy," "oh, so hard," "very hard," and "very, very hard." Once three entire parties of 16 Zoombinis have passed through one leg of the journey, the puzzles between those resting camps increase one level in difficulty and cannot be reverted.

The first time a leg is completed perfectly at a certain level of difficulty, a new building, dedicated to those who successfully completed that leg, appears in Zoombiniville. A total of 16 may be built, as there are four legs and four levels. The puzzles encountered in the game are as follows:

;The Big, the Bad, and the Hungry Trail:

;Allergic Cliffs:There are two bridges hanging over a cliff supported by six wooden pegs. The Zoombinis can only cross one of the bridges according to their characteristics. If the wrong bridge is selected, the face embedded in the cliff will have an allergic reaction and the Zoombini will be sent tumbling or flying back to the other side. As a result, a peg will spring loose and drop down the cliff . If all the pegs come loose, the bridges will collapse onto the faces and the Zoombinis who did not make it to the other side will be stranded, unable to cross between the cliffs. Assuming the player actually moves the same Zoombini to each of the two bridges (where the first bridge was wrong and the second bridge is the correct one), the player is guaranteed five Zoombinis to the other side.

;Stone Cold Caves:The Zoombinis arrive at a stone face divided into four caves, which can be accessed by one path each. Each path is guarded by two stone guardians, who will only let them pass according to their characteristics, similar to Allergic Cliffs. If the wrong cave is selected, a guardian will release a rockslide, sending the Zoombini tumbling down the path to the bottom. The player has so many chances to find the right cave for each Zoombini before a rockslide tumbles down from above and seals the cave paths, leaving behind those who have not entered a cave.

;Pizza Pass: The Zoombinis arrive on a dirt road guarded by three Pizza Tree Trolls: Arno, Willomaen and Shyler (Willomaen and Shyler only appear as the difficulty of the puzzle increases, along with more pizza and ice cream toppings). There is a pizza machine to the left which has options for different toppings for a pizza and ice cream. The player must create a pizza with unique toppings for each troll. Doing so successfully will the Zoombinis be allowed to pass. If a pizza features a topping that the tree troll does not like, it will be thrown into a pit. But if it features an topping that it does like, it will be thrown onto the rock behind them. If the player is unsuccessful in delivering the correct pizza after several tries, the Zoombini delivering the pizza will be whacked away by a Troll back to Zoombini Isle. The more incorrect deliveries, the more Zoombinis will be whacked away.

There are significant changes to the puzzle as the level of difficulty increases:

-Not So Easy has just one troll, Arno, & 5 pizza toppings.

-Oh, So Hard adds a new troll, Willa, & 2 ice cream toppings, but this time, there are only 4 pizza toppings.

-Very Hard adds a new troll, Shyler. Ice cream toppings remain the same as the preceding level, but the pizza toppings increase by one.

-Very, Very Hard remains almost the same as the preceding level. The only change is that there is one more ice cream topping.

;Shelter Rock:Once this leg is complete, the remaining Zoombinis will arrive at Shelter Rock, the first base camp/checkpoint. They can be stored in compartments to continue their journey later.The player is then given the opportunity to take a north or south path through to the next leg if they have 16 Zoombinis present.Also, the player can store the entire party in the compartments and grab the next bunch of Zoombinis from Zoombini Isle so that interchanges can be made at Shelter Rock.

;Who's Bayou (The Trek North):

;Captain Cajun's Ferry Boat:Captain Cajun will take the Zoombinis across a wide river on his ferry boat, but only if they have a characteristic in common with the person they sit next to. As the puzzle difficulty increases, the seats become closer together, so each Zoombini must have something in common with multiple Zoombinis. On the first level, the Zoombinis are placed in a line where fourteen of them must have something in common with two other Zoombinis and the other two just only needs something common with one other Zoomnini. On the second level, the Zoombinis are placed on a 2 by 8 grid. On the third level, the Zoombinis are placed on a 4 by 4 grid. The final level is a 4 by 4 grid with the rows shifted slightly where some spaces require one Zoombini to share somehing in common with six other Zoombinis, as opposed to four.

;Titanic Tattooed Toads:The player must find a path on different shaped, patterned and colored lily pads for huge toads to ferry them across the river on their backs. Each toad has a shape on its back which corresponds to a particular feature (hence 'tattooed toads'). The same toad cannot be used more than twice nor will there be any toads that hop diagonally. If the player chooses a path which doesn’t have a continuing sequence of the shape, color or pattern on the toad's back, the toad will get stuck and the Zoombini will be left in limbo on the lily pads and cannot continue. When the puzzle difficulty increases, there are few or no paths to be found, but half-formed ones. A fairy is shown at the beginning of the puzzle changing the lily pads with a wand. The wand (called the "Swapping Stick") is left with the toads and the player must swap the lily pads with the wand to make a path. Eventually, the wand's power will run out. In the third and fourth levels, crabs emerge from the river at the top of the lilly pad field. The crabs have the shape of a particular lilly pad on their back and, like the toads, will work their way down the field to obstruct the toads pathway, possibly taking them in a different direction.

;Stone Rise:Similar to Captain Cajun's Ferry Boat, the Zoombinis must be arranged on stones so that one Zoombini has something in common with their neighbor on the next stone, according to small etching on the stone between them. Doing so will create a power surge between the stones. When all the Zoombinis share a connection between their neighbors and all are connected to the power source (indicated by the stones turning red), the stones rise up out of the riverbed and the Zoombinis can continue.

;The Deep, Dark Forest (The Southern Trek):

;Fleens!:The Zoombinis meet their supposed cousins in a clearing. There are three Fleens on a tree branch, which must be lured off by a Zoombini who has characteristics that correspond to the Fleen's characteristics. The object of this puzzle is to work out which Zoombini characteristics correspond to the Fleen characteristics. When a Fleen is lured off the branch by a Zoombini, they chase the Zoombini until the Zoombini escapes onto a separate tree branch. The player has six attempts to match the Zoombini with Fleen before Zoombinis run out of room on the tree branch and fall off, only to be chased away by their Fleen counterpart. If all three Fleens on the tree branch are lured off, the beehive on the branch gets disrupted and the remaining Fleens are chased away by the bees, forming a shape of either a pair of scissors, an arrow, a storm cloud, etc.

Assuming the 16th and last Zoombini lures the last Fleen off the branch, the player is guaranteed to have six Zoombinis progressing to the next challenge.

;Hotel Dimensia:Ulla Instantaneous is a musical raccoon who owns Hotel Dimensia, Zoombini sized compartments hollowed out of a row of trees. She is preparing to close the hotel for the night so that she can begin the nightly rehersals of her jazz band. The player must place the Zoombinis in the compartments by characteristics (row by row, column by column, etc.), but if they are placed in the wrong compartment, the ledge holding the Zoombini will retract and the Zoombini will fall. Every time this happens, the clock on left side of the screen will cause 5 minutes to pass and the setting will get darker. The more mistakes made, the quicker the time passes and the darker it will become. If the clock reaches midnight, all the ledges will retract, announcing the hotel officially closed and the Zoombinis who don't have a room must return to the previous base camp.

;Mudball Wall:A large stone wall inconveniently blocks the path of the Zoombinis. A nearby machine creates mudballs that can be colored and stamped with a shape. If the mudballs hit a certain target on the wall, either one, two or three Zoombinis get catapulted over the wall to safety. Eventually, the mud in the machine will run out, stranding those who did not make it over the wall.

;Shade Tree:Once Zoombinis complete either of the latter two legs, they will arrive at Shade Tree, the second base camp/checkpoint. Like Shelter Rock, the player can store Zoombinis in compartments to continue their journey later.

;The Mountains of Despair (The Subterranean Journey):This is the final leg of the journey.

;The Lion's Lair:The Zoombinis encounter a dimly lit cavern where a large, stone lion guards the only way onward. Below the lion is a path consisting of 16 stones. The Zoombinis must be placed on the path, in order, according to certain characteristics, which are shown on the wall.If a Zoombini is placed on the wrong stone, a peg holding up a large gate pops free. When all the pegs are gone, the gate falls and the Zoombinis behind the gate cannot continue. The remaining (if not all) Zoombinis on the path can continue their journey. The stone lion lifts its paw, and they can continue to the next puzzle.

;Mirror Machine:The player has to find the doppelganger to each Zoombini on a glass slide, to match a mirrored reflection. If this is done correctly, the large, crystal pendulum is lifted and the Zoombini. riding a mine cart, will jump across a shaft and can move on. If it is done incorrectly, the pendulum is lowered and the Zoombini will crash into it and fall down the shaft. As the puzzle difficulty gets harder, the Zoombinis reflection has to be matched by adding in extra glass slides. Later on, the player will be forced to use a particular Zoombini (based on the order from last challenge) on the left side and compare it to the right side.

;Bubblewonder Abyss:The Zoombinis have to navigate a maze while encased inside a bubble. They have to be sent through the maze according to certain characteristics. A wrong move can result is Zoombinis getting sucked into a whirlpool which pops their protective bubble and will vanish. If they are placed correctly they are able to pass to the other side of the abyss.

As the puzzle difficulty gets harder, the Zoombinis can only navigate the maze by one 'bubble button' and the player must alternate so as to not lose Zoombinis, by changing arrow sequences to direct the Zoombinis in the maze, as well as triggers that can alternate a path entirely. The player should also be aware that if two bubbles collide with each other, both bubbles will pop and those Zoombinis will be lost. All Zoombinis that were lost will return to the Shade Tree base camp.

Those who survive this leg will reach their goal: Zoombiniville. The more Zoombinis complete the journey, the more buildings, houses, etc. get built and the bigger the town will grow.

Zoombiniville

Zoombiniville is the new home of the Zoombinis. The first time the player gets an entire group of 16 Zoombinis through a certain leg at a certain level, a special building gets constructed. The buildings that can be earned are (in order): a band shell, a windmill, a general store, a swimming pool, a clocktower, a bowling Alley, a fire station, an opera house, a paper clip museum, a courthouse, a monument, a school, a city hall, a library, an observatory and a playground.

torylines of new games

Zoombinis: Mountain Rescue

After the foundation of Zoombiniville, the Zoombinis find peace once more, until a small group of them get trapped inside a cave seeking shelter from a storm. They would meet up with strange creatures called Boolies who occupy a city known as Booliewood. As a result of the storm, the Boolies have been scattered across the land, and their leader, the Grand Boolie Boolie, has disappeared. The goal of the game is to recruit a total of 400 Boolies to Booliewood to resurrect the Grand Boolie Boolie.

In the final puzzle, the game uses the Boolie characters to teach how binary values are stored in computers, replicating up to four bits (a nibble) at a time. Only addition is shown, never any other operation.

Players have to try to change a series of boolean "Boolies" from random mood states (happy is 1 and sad is 0) into a pattern of all happy (1111) by adding integer values to the series. When they are all happy, they make their way to a ship that carries them to their promised land: "Booliewood". After they've all made their way home, the grand "Boolie Boolie" returns and the game has been won.

Other puzzles in the game include multi-dimensional movement, rotation puzzles, and several deduction problems, as well as new versions of puzzles from its prequel, "Zoombinis: Logical Journey".

The graphics have been upgraded in this game and the Zoombinis have a new appearance. There are three difficulty levels for each puzzle instead of four.

Zoombinis: Island Odyssey

In this game, the Zoombinis discover that they left the moths to die in their native land of Zoombini Isle. So they take a boat and travel to Zoombini Isle, which is now completely empty of the Bloats (who made the land barren and then moved on). They must complete different puzzles, such as growing berries and breeding butterflies, to eventually set off a chain reaction that will restore the entire ecosystem of the island to its original glory.

This is the first game to incorporate science in the puzzles, which include intersection of rates, decoding, astronomical time, Venn diagrams, and Punnett squares, as well as some reincarnations of puzzles from "Logical Journey". The graphics have again changed, and the Zoombinis' features are no longer important to gameplay. Here, they are fully 3-D.

To win the game, the Zoombinis must take care of the Zerbles, feed them, and then release them into the wild. Once the Zoombinis get all of the 224 Zerbles into the wild, the Zoombinis head back to Zoombiniville, and the game is won.

Creatures

The most important creatures in the series are, of course, the Zoombinis, but there are several other characters outlined below.

Bloats

The Bloats are the evil race featured at the start of the original Zoombini game and are the creatures that drive the Zoombinis from their homeland. Very little other information about them is known. All that is seen of them is a big, black, pirate-like body and two glowing green eyes.

Boolies

The Boolies are creatures from the "Zoombinis: Mountain Rescue" game who can either be happy or sad. Their name is derived from Boolean logic, a kind of logic that has two states that is used extensively inside computers.

Captain Cajun

This character can be found in the first game, He paddles in his wooden raft around the "Who's Bayou". He'll give Zoombinis a ride only if they have something in common with their neighbor when they sit down on his raft. If they sit down and have nothing in common, he'll stomp on buttons and pull levers that eject Zoombinis into the water or back onto the dock. He also gives occasional taunts and compliments to certain Zoombinis.

Fleens

The Fleens are, in many ways, similar to the Zoombinis, as they too also feature different noses, hair, eyes, and feet. However, they are portrayed as the "evil" parallel race of the Zoombinis. The Fleens are also rumored to be the Zoombinis' distant cousins, until their genetic code was messed up by a bad batch of hair mousse. They were kicked off the Zoombini Isle for being "lazy" and "shiftless".

Norfs

The Norfs are creatures from the "Zoombinis: Mountain Rescue" game. Norfs either live or play under the snow, surfacing to get in the way of Zoombinis while they attempt to carefully snowboard a specific route on the mountain. They also pester the Zoombinis to give them exactly what they want for lunch out of a selection of fish, sandwiches, salads, milk, orange juice, tea, ice cream, watermelon, and pie. They highly resemble a Tree stump, and look similar toArno (Who is a very strict pizza troll) who appeared in the first Zoombinis game.

Ulla Instantaneous

Ulla Instantaneous is a squirrel-like raccoon that runs a hotel in the "Deep Dark Forest". From time to time she often practices with her absent music companion "Charlie".

Pizza Trolls

Arno, Willa and Shyler are the three pizza trolls that appear to resemble tree stumps. They will let the Zoombinis pass if they can correctly make a different pizza for each of the trolls. Once a Zoombini makes a pizza, a troll will either reject it or accept it, commanding the Zoombini to add more toppings until they make the precise pizza. When the level of difficulty rises, more pizza toppings and trolls are introduced. Arno is the stumpy, ill-tempered one, Willa, the tall, thin, gaudy type and Shyler is the portly one who seems very patient at first, but Shyler can quickly turn zany if his pizza isn't made correctly in four or five tries.

Zerbles

Zerbles are orange lizard-like creatures that appear in "Zoombinis: Island Odyssey". Like the Zoombinis, They can have different parts of the body. For feet, They can either have Legs,Wheels, or skis. For a tail, They can either have a curly tail, an umbrella, or a propeller.In Zoombinis island odyssey, More than 220 Zerbles had to be released into the wild. TheirFavourite foods are Snozzleberries. Each Zerble likes at least two different kinds of Snozzleberry.

Moths

Moths appear in Zoombinis: Island Odyssey. They needed help from the Zoombinis to transformfrom caterpillars to moths. They had to be fed the leaves of the Tum-Tum trees and then theyformed their cocoons and had to come out to become moths to polinate the Snozzleberries.

Differences between Brøderbund and TLC games

The main differences between the versions of Zoombinis: Logical Journey released by both Brøderbund Software and The Learning Company are the way they are written and not the gameplay itself.The Brøderbund game is built with QuickTimeFact|date=January 2008 and was designed to run on Classic Mac OS, Windows 3.1 and Windows 95 (however it still works perfectly with all later versions of Windows, excluding the 64-bit version of Windows Vista, which lacks a 16-bit compatibility layer.).Fact|date=January 2008Windows versions released by The Learning Company are built with DirectX and therefore do not run on Windows 3.1 at all. Macintosh versions by TLC support both Classic Mac OS and Mac OS X.

ystem requirements of TLC version

PC

*Operating system: Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows 2000, Windows Me, Windows XP, Windows Vista
*Processor: Intel Pentium 166 MHz and faster
*RAM: 32 MB or more
*Hard disk space: 40 MB or more (not including 7 MB for Adobe Acrobat Reader)
*Video card: 16-bit video card
*Sound card: Windows-compatible sound card
*Speakers

Macintosh

*Operating system: Mac OS 8.6 and later, Mac OS X through 10.4 (Tiger) [http://support.riverdeep.net/fix.asp?isid=44283&prog=1294820197] ), but not 10.5 (Leopard) which does not support the Classic runtime environment
*Processor: PowerPC 180 MHz and faster
*RAM: 32 MB or more
*Hard disk space: 40 MB or more (not including 7 MB for Adobe Acrobat Reader)
*Video card: 16-bit video card
*Speakers

External links

* [http://www.zoombinis.com/ Zoombinis]