Bumble Games: Find Your Number game screen 5
Bumble Games is a set of 6 different educational games for younger children, teaching concepts like less than, greater than, 1 and 2 dimensional X,Y coordinate systems and simple graphing of points and lines. Each of the games includes built in instructions, and use a mix of low and medium resolution graphics (some with animations) to keep the games entertaining for the children from ages 4 to 10 that they are intended for. The games were originally designed for the Apple II, and subsequently ported to the Coco, IBM PC and Commodore 64 home computers.
The 1st game is called Find Your Number and is the simplest one, for one or two players. The computer will pick a random number from 0 to 5 for each player, and the player then has to guess the number until they get the correct one. After each incorrect guess the computer will tell the player if the number is higher or lower. The game draws a 1 dimensional grid of 0 to 5 as a visual cue, and randomly mixes things up by displaying this grid horizontally or vertically at random. Once the correct number is found, the player is congratulated with a large multi-color version of the number.
The 2nd game is called Find The Bumble and makes things more advanced by the player having to find the Bumble creature/character on a 4x4 2 dimensional grid. Each incorrect guess lets the player know that the correct location is to the left/right and up/down from the players last guess. A correct guess will show a low resolution smiling Bumble character and congratulate the player.
The 3rd game is called Butterfly Hunt, who's intro features a nicely animated full color low resolution butterfly flapping it's wings. The player has to find Bumble's pet butterfly who is lost in a 5x5 2 dimensional grid, this time using numbers for the Y coordinate and letters for the X coordinate. Like Find The Bumble an incorrect guess gives a hint to whether the correct answer is to the left/right and up/down from the last guess. A correct guess gets an animated butterfly as a reward.
The 4th game is called Visit From Space which starts quite different with a high resolution graphics animation of a space ship landing on a planet (which contains Bumble's cousin from the planet Furrin). The player than has to find said cousin on the 5x5 numeric "galaxy grid" with the usual hints of which direction to move on each axis. The correct answer then switches to high resolution graphics again as your ship comes down and lands to join Bumble's cousin.
The 5th game is called Tic Tac Toc, where the gameplay changes from the previous games. This a two player game based on Tic Tac Toe but now on a larger 5x5 numeric grid, and each player tries to be the first to get 4 contiguous picks in a horizontal, vertical of diagonal line before the other player (and without being blocked).
The 6th game is called Bumble Dots is also quite different. This presents a much bigger 11x11 grid (0-10 on each axis), and allows the player enter their own coordinates and draw connecting lines between each to draw a simple picture. It also includes 4 different shapes that are pre-made: a 5 dot kite, a 7 dot house, an 8 dot boat and a 10 dot whale. On the latter ones, you still have to enter the coordinates to the point that appears on the grid. Once those shapes are complete, they will be filled in for an actual color medium resolution picture.
An interesting historical note: The Learning Company that made these games was originally founded in 1980 by Anne McCormick, Leslie Grimm, Teri Perl and Warren Robinett (of Atari 2600 Adventure fame), and was initially partly funded by the National Science Foundation.
Title: Bumble Games
Authors: Leslie M. Grimm & Ron Mummaw
Publisher: The Learning Company (originally sold by Follett Library Book Company)
Released: June 1983
Requires: Color Computer 1,2,3, 16K RAM Extended BASIC, tape or disk.