[03] Having a daffy time in the third grade

 Back in elementary school, one of the greatest joys, besides trying to get your playground swing to do a 360°, was when we spent time in the library, which often meant we could use the computers.

Memories, memories... I have more than this computer could hold in it's RAM.

For anyone in Generation X, or even those a few years after us, certain games at school were a rite of passage, a required step in life.  Lemonade Stand, for example, was a 1979 classic that was played for over a decade without upgrade or revisions, and has since been ported and re-released multiple times over.  Oregon Trail is another one that has avoided dying of dysentery for many decades, most recently, as a card game that I have yet to experience.

But I suspect my favorite might have been the Disney games from Sierra On-Line, including Donald Duck's Playground.  Who knew that the designers of this epic quest would go on to create some of the greatest series Sierra would ever know.  Programmer Al Lowe came to Sierra after many years as a music teacher in a high school and a stint as an independent software designer.  They saw his education software and thought he would be an asset.  The graphics were by Mark Crowe, who later would go on to a new job as half of the Two Guys from Andromeda.  The spaceship in the playground certainly brings early Space Quest games to mind.

This is certainly not a game I have played since probably 1988 or so, so it was fun to poke my head back into it this time around.  I wanted authenticity, so I found an Apple //e emulator and a copy of the Apple disk images, the version I would have played then.  

Unfortunately, the emulator, like many others, isn't a perfect reflection of what the screen image would have been.  Sierra games (and others on the Apple) used a technique called Dithering that made many separate colors blend into each other to appear to be another, by placing the pixels in proximity to each other.  (As in, red and yellow make green, that kind of color manipulation).  The emulator, pretending it was an Apple monitor (which my school had) doesn't look right, but if I pretend it's a clunky TV screen hookup, it looks closer to accurate, but my widescreen LCD is, of course, not a perfect match.

The town center on an Apple //e.  To fit on one side of a disk, the graphics quality is reduced, and many locations grouped into one screen. 

For the IBM PC version, the town is multiple screens.  This screen shows the stores you can spend your earnings at, and an animated fountain.  The railroad tracks are a screen away, as are the jobs you can work to earn money.

So by posting the screenshots above, I've gotten ahead of myself.  I was so disappointed and frustrated with the Apple game, I was wondering why I enjoyed it at all as a kid.  So I noticed screenshots for another version, and wanted to compare.  With beautiful EGA graphics and animations, and multiple locations, the PC version was obviously the one they cared the most about.  But I played both versions, so I could compare the experience. 

After posting the original draft of this article, I was able to start reading Ken William's new book about the history of Sierra.  This quote, about both the Disney titles and KQ1, explain a lot: "We rushed out a version of all the games for the Apple ][.  The games did not look nearly as good due to the limited graphic abilities of the Apple ][, but revenue is revenue and we took it wherever we could get it."

The goal of the game is to earn money from odd jobs, so that you can buy toys for the town playground.  In the Apple version, the toys will end up in a grid for playing with, while in the PC version, you're buying the missing parts to bigger playthings.

To get to the park where these will go, you cross a railroad track.

I am both impressed with the level of detail -- Donald stops and looks both ways before crossing, in both versions.  But knowing this game has been programmed by Al Lowe, I was expecting to get run over by a train instead.

Again, jumping ahead.  First, we have to make some money.  There are four jobs you can do -- sorting packages at the airport for different destinations; sorting a delivery of fruit into different bins; shelving toys at a toy store; and routing a railroad train to different stations.

All four are tests of speed and reflexes, as much as anything else.  My favorite was the fourth, which required the use of some logic to plan, routing the trains around. 

Donald Duck's Playground is a good training session for planning the train routes in A-Train (1990) later.

The fruit tossing one was just simple arcade, and the airport one was identical, but with airport codes instead of shapes.

Again, a comparison of versions:

So while overall, the PC version looks and runs better, there are some nice touches in the Apple one as well. The cute graphic around the next destination at the bottom of the Apple screen, for example, where it's just words in DOS.

Shopping is another one -- in the DOS version, you enter and walk around stores to pick up the item (thankfully, no Sierra-grade pixel hunts here).  In the Apple version, it's a static screen, but with excellent graphics.

So, I came to a realization -- since we only visited the library for short periods, there's no way I ever had time to build up my playground and enjoy the fruits of my labors (no pun intended).  And the process to do so is so repetitive, no matter what excuse I had to use the computers, I would have quickly tired of it.

This artwork was recycled for Space Quest, no doubt.

After adding the missing parts, the rocket ship slide is ready for a trip!

I also, for completeness, checked out the C64 version, which was the first the designed before porting it to the other systems.  It closely resembles the Apple version, but with better color and graphics.  While not the only time the AGI engine was used for something not an adventure game, supposedly, Al Lowe found it not to be the most suitable for implementing some of the game, including the cash register and change portions.

As I wrap up my replay of this game, I plan for the next post.  I'll be visiting my friend and classmate Keith's house to play another game, this time a popular edutainment title, in the 5th grade.

One of my favorite sources, where at least a couple facts for this post came: The Official Book of Leisure Suit Larry, by Ralph Roberts, with Al Lowe and Larry Laffer (I have an autographed copy of the 1997 Special Edition, which I believe was also included [without autograph] with one of the collector sets)
Also an addon from Not All Fairy Tales Have Happy Endings: The rise and fall of Sierra On-Line by Ken Williams