Big Thinkers (video game series) facts for kids
Quick facts for kids Big Thinkers! |
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| Genres | Adventure, Edutainment |
| Developers | Humongous Entertainment |
| Publishers | Humongous Entertainment |
| Platforms | Windows, Macintosh, Steam |
| First release | Big Thinkers! Kindergarten October 21, 1997 |
| Latest release | Big Thinkers! 1st Grade October 21, 1997 |
Big Thinkers! is a short line educational game from Humongous Entertainment, which revolved around siblings Ben and Becky Brightly (voiced by Mike Shapiro and Karen Kay Cody respectively), two characters with the ability to shape-shift into any object they desire. The series contains two games: Big Thinkers! Kindergarten and Big Thinkers! 1st Grade. Both titles feature the same goal of collecting stars. The title was conceived and developed by Jonathan Maier.
There were plans to release a third game in the series, Big Thinkers! 2nd Grade, which would have been released in 1998. It was initially developed in parallel with the other two games, but was abandoned when working on three games at once proved to be too ambitious and due to poor sales for the first two titles.
Gameplay
The player interacts with Ben and Becky as objects, while exploring the house and playing sixteen mini-games to earn stars of one of five colors: red, yellow, green, blue, and purple. Each color represents a different category of education:
Red Smart Stars: Reading/English
Yellow Smart Stars: Art/Creativity
Green Smart Stars: Thinking Skills/Spatial Recognition
Blue Smart Stars: Math/Computation
Purple Smart Stars: Physical Science/Social Science
Upon collecting a large amount of each color, the player then has a chance to attempt a longer mini-game to obtain a larger dull orange-colored star wearing a square academic cap (as well as sunglasses in First Grade). Many mini games are available in both games, but in each game they are different. The house lay-out is the same except in Big Thinkers 1st Grade the woods is replaced with a garage.
Big Thinkers! Kindergarten taught skills such as measurements, spelling, and letter identification. In teaching math, language arts, science / social science, creative arts and skills, the game built upon the national curriculum standards for kindergarten students.
