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Old 25-06-2012, 10:20 PM   #1
xkyle
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Join Date: Jun 2012
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Default xkyle - Follow the Reader [CLOSED]

EDIT: Because Disney Interactive is a bunch of capitalistic buttholes who just want to sue the very people who praise the work they no longer promote, this game will never legally be made available for public distribution. Be sure to tell them how much they suck.


Follow the Reader (1993) is a vibrant and simple, Disney storybook-game that follows Mickey Mouse through his day. It's intention was to introduce children to the first stages of reading through an easy, no-wrong-answers interface.

I played this in my childhood on my dad's brand new Gateway2000. Many years of searching for this game after having misplaced it in the attic somewhere, I was tempted into searching for it on abandoned software databases without a single result. I pretty much gave up after trying to acquire a copy through WorldCat, without success. My brother happened to spare a few hours for extensive web searches using various engines and a Portuguese translator, and here it is! All three floppy disk images!

It would be worth having on a database like Abandonia because it represents the introduction of the electronic storybook industry that has taken innovative new turns today with the Barnes & Noble NOOK, iPad and Android devices. I'd be happy to share it with you all.


Software review from August 1993 issue of Compute!

An excerpt from the June 1996 issue of Family Computing: Issue 6:

Electronic Books
Making The Pages Come To Life
[...]

Children's Books

For home computer users, electronic books for children may be of particular interest. Indeed, there have been several children's books released in electronic form over the past year, and more books are expected during 1993.

Broderbund Software Inc. is one of the key players in the children's electronic book niche. The company currently offers a line of CD-ROM books, Broderbund's Living Books, that bring children's books to life with animation, talking characters, and music. The books are interactive and children are encouraged to read along with the story's narrator; there's even a bilingual twist to the tales--users can hear the story narrated and see the text written in Spanish, English, and even Japanese on one of the released titles.

Kathleen Burke, the public relations coordinator for Broderbund, says that the children's electronic book market is one that is growing and is expected to continue to grow.

"When we started developing this product [the Living Books line] two years ago, we were taking a gamble that CD-ROM was going to come to pass and I would say that in this last year it has," Burke says. "A lot of the people who follow the industry have been saying that as well. It seems to be the general consensus that this market is definitely growing and will continue to grow. The idea of translating children's books on CD-ROM is really wide-open in terms of the amount of material that we can pull from."

Two titles are currently available in the Living Books line; Mercer Mayer's best-selling children's book Just Grandma and Me has been transferred to the realm of electronic books under the same title, and Marc Brown's best-selling book Arthur's Teacher Trouble has also been adapted for the electronic medium. Prices for these titles may vary, but generally, they cost between $44.95 and $59.95. In addition, Broderbund plans to expand the line to include Jack Prelutsky's New Kid on the Block and a series of children's classics based on AESOP's fables.

One of America's most beloved childhood characters has also appeared on the electronic book scene. With two different titles for young readers, Mickey Mouse brings his entertaining style and good humor to the pages of Walt Disney Computer Software Inc.'s electronic books. Both titles are available for MS-DOS-compatible computers. (MS-DOS is Microsoft Corp.'s disk operating system; it is software that translates a user's typed commands and allows application programs to interact with the computer's hardware.)

Although teaching children to read is the basic premise in Mickey's electronic adventures, children of all ages will enjoy Mickey's antics. The two books that are currently offered by Walt Disney Software are Mickey's ABC's, which is designed to teach preschool-aged children the fundamentals of reading; its sequel, Follow The Reader, is aimed at the reader aged 5-8.

As an interactive storybook, Follow The Reader ($49.95) allows users to build stories by selecting Mickey's actions, such as calling his friends, feeding Pluto, or going to the beach, from premade lists. Once completed, the story can be saved and printed so children can replay it and follow along with their printed copy.

Because children are being exposed to tremendous amounts of information in the information age of today, and because children are learning how to use computers at a young age, Broderbund and Walt Disney aren't the only companies to enter this market niche. In fact, several other software companies have introduced electronic book titles for young readers. Among the companies are Knowledge Adventure Inc. with The Tale of Peter Rabbit; Compton's NewMedia with the Learning at Home Series, featuring the Berenstain Bears; and Discus Knowledge Research Inc. with Cinderella, Scary Poems for Rotten Kids, and several other titles.

Source

Screenshots:









Boxshot thumbnail (I do not have good images of the boxing or packaging from The Sound Source combo pack or the standalone copy):



Here is a heartfelt review I encountered in my search (21:48)

Last edited by xkyle; 26-06-2012 at 08:27 AM. Reason: Disney Interactive's eternal protection
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