This is not exactly a game, more of an interactive story aimed at children but I was charmed by the aminations and recommend this to any jaded adventurer.

I found Lulu on ebay when I was looking for titles that would interest my parents. They are still computer novices and find adventures too frustrating to play by themselves. It is published by Wayland Multimedia and the author is shown as Romain Victor-Pujebet. I shall be looking out to see if they have produced any other titles.

This was produced in 1995 and eventually ran on my Windows 98 machine. Good news for Mac owners, it is a hybrid disc. The bad news is you may have problems getting it to run as it uses QuickTime and it also requires you to shutdown all background running applications and change your settings to run in 256 colours. Once those demands have been met the game runs very sweetly.

This is simply a story (aimed at 6yr olds upwards) with music, animations and sound effects. The words to the story appear on the page, you can either read these yourself or have them read to you if you engage the correct icon (which is outside the page) On most pages there is a picture and depending on where you click the cursor you produce a different animation or sound effect. The cursor does not change shape when it is over a hot spot so it is left to you to explore. This part appealed to my mother and also to her 4 year old grandson (who had a tantrum at the end of the book because he wanted more). Some of the pictures take up most of the screen and the cursor changes shape into an item, such as a butterfly. Here animations will be different depending on what order you click objects so there is a certain adventuring element involved in discovering all the animations/sounds.

The graphics are not earthshatteringly good but they are pleasing. I was not bored and “played” this in 2 sittings, I enjoyed some of the touches in the story too. If you like something different and to explore how your PC/Mac can entertain you, you will relish this.

Here is a link to a newspaper review of the same game: http://www.organa.com/LuluReview.html

Jude,

This sounds like a charming game. I collect children's books ( I also love to read them ) and also play children's based games to review and well to have some non mind melting fun.

I loved your review. I particularly enjoyed the addition of the story about your Mom and her grandson. I can just picture his dismay at learning the game was over. Thrown a few tantrums myself under those circumstances. Sounds like a born adventure game lover to me.

EDIT: Just thought I would post a source for this game and a few others by the same group.

The Book of Lulu and more

Laura

Have not given up totally but my Google search revealed that Wayland concentrate on "proper" educational titles (sad, so dull)but I did find that review for which I added the link.

I liked the background information the other review gave and also the fact that it's author loved the game as much as I did but said it so much more eloquently.

Romain Victor-Pujebet does not appear to have published anything else in English.

BTW I found a site selling this game as The Book of Lulu, so if you find that one it is the same game.