BushBuck Charms, Viking Ships & Dodo Eggs facts for kids

Bushbuck Charms, Viking Ships & Dodo Eggs
Publisher(s)	PC Globe
Platform(s)	Amiga, MS-DOS
Release date(s)	1991
Genre(s)	educational

Bushbuck Charms, Viking Ships & Dodo Eggs, also known as Bush Buck: Global Treasure Hunter, is an educational computer game that came out in 1991. It was made by an Australian company called Reckon. The game was published by "PC Globe," a small company from the United States that made fun learning software in the late 1980s and early 90s.

This game is a bit like the famous Carmen Sandiego games. It teaches you about geography by sending you on a worldwide scavenger hunt. Your mission is to find unusual items. In each game, you need to find fifteen items. These items are chosen from hundreds of possibilities. Some examples include a hemlock leaf, a lava-lava, or an alpaca poncho. You could play this game on Amiga and MS-DOS computers.

How to Play the Game

In Bushbuck Charms, you fly from one city to another to find treasures. These treasures are listed at the start of each game round. You can play the game in a few ways:

• One player against the game (not for advanced players).
• One player against a computer opponent.
• Two players against each other.

The game begins in a random city. This city becomes your "home base" for that round. You must return here to turn in your treasures. When you turn in treasures, you get points and more tickets. If you collect all the items, you get a free flight back to your home base city. At any time, five items are available to find. There are fifteen items in total for each round.

In-Game Menu Buttons

There are eight buttons always on your screen. These help you play the game. There's also an exit button and a special indicator. This indicator looks like a thermometer for beginners and an eye for intermediate and advanced players.

City On/Off Toggle

This button lets you choose if city names show up on the map. It doesn't hide cities that have clues.

? Toggle

When this button is lit, it gives you hints during the game. If you click it, a red screen appears. This screen explains what all the in-game menu options do.

Pointer Mode Toggle

This gives you a pointer to control. When you move the pointer over a city, it shows you the city's name.

Key Toggle

Clicking this button brings up a legend. The legend explains what different symbols on the map mean.

Magnifying Glass Toggle

This button lets you switch between two map views. You can see a close-up view of your current region. Or, you can see a full world map view. When the button is lit, you are in zoomed-in mode. When it's dark, you are in world map mode.

Music Note Toggle

This simply turns the game music on or off.

Airplane Toggle

This puts you into flight mode. You can then choose which available city you want to fly to.

Item Toggle

This opens your item menu. Here, you can see what items you have collected. You can also see what items are still available to find. Plus, you can view any clues you have found.

Weather Challenges

As you fly between cities, you might face different weather problems. Sometimes, you have to decide if you want to fly through a blizzard, a typhoon, a hailstorm, or a rain storm. You might also see a hurricane. Or, you can choose to fly to a different city instead.

If you decide to fly through a storm, you might make it. But you could also be sent back to the city you started from. If you have any items with you when you fly through bad weather, they might get damaged. Damaged items are worth fewer points when you turn them in.

Tickets for Travel

You start each game round with a certain number of tickets. Beginners get 60 tickets, intermediate players get 50, and advanced players get 40. Each flight you take uses one ticket. If you try to fly through a storm and don't make it, you'll lose between one and three tickets. This pays for damage to your plane. When you bring items back to your home base, you get 10 extra tickets for each item.

City Information Boxes

Every city has an "infobox." This box pops up when you fly into a city or click on it in pointer mode. These infoboxes share interesting facts about the city. You might learn about famous people from there or who founded the city. They also highlight a special feature, like a monument or attraction in that city.

Finding Clues

Clues are available in certain cities. You can spot these cities by a small black box on the map. There are five clues for each item you need to find. The clues become more helpful as you find more of them. Clues use city features, historical facts, and even pop culture references. They also use information from the city infoboxes.

Skill Levels in the Game

The game has three different skill levels: Beginner, Intermediate, and Advanced.

Beginner Level

As a "Beginner," you play against a character named Pierre, who is from France. On this level, there's a special gauge on the left side of your screen. This gauge shows you how close you are to an item. So, you can follow the gauge to help you find the item. In the European version of the game, you play against a character named John, who is from Texas.

Intermediate Level

On the "Intermediate" level, you play against Natasha, a character from Russia. The gauge is gone on this level. Instead, there's a button with an eye on it. When you are in the correct city, the eye lights up. If you press it, you get the item.

Advanced Level

When you play on "Advanced," you face Otto, a fancy character from Germany. The eye button is still there, but it doesn't light up automatically. This means you must know the exact city where the item is to find it.

Otto sometimes takes very long flights that you cannot. He might also send you to the wrong country, not the city you clicked on. If you happen to be in the same city as Otto when an item is found, Otto will take it! Also, if you fly to a country Otto has visited, a picture of Otto appears above the infobox. He will have a speech bubble saying "Otto vaz ere!"