Challenge of the Ancient Empires! facts for kids
Quick facts for kids Challenge of the Ancient Empires! |
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Box cover art
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| Developer(s) | The Learning Company |
| Publisher(s) | The Learning Company |
| Platform(s) | MS-DOS, Macintosh |
| Release date(s) | 1990 |
| Genre(s) | Educational/Adventure |
| Mode(s) | Single player |
Challenge of the Ancient Empires!, also known as "Super Solvers: Ancient Empires!", is an exciting computer game from 1990. It was created by The Learning Company for both MS-DOS and Macintosh computers. This game helps kids aged 10 and up improve their history, logic, and problem-solving skills.
In this adventure game, your main goal is to find special artifacts hidden in four different regions. You'll explore tricky cavern chambers, avoiding enemies and obstacles. To move forward, you need to collect pieces of these artifacts and put them together like a tiling puzzle.
Contents
Journey Through Ancient Lands
The game's main goal is to find hidden treasures inside caverns. These caverns are located in four amazing parts of the ancient world:
Each cavern has four chambers, and their look and feel match the region you're exploring. For example, the Egyptian cavern has hieroglyphs and mummies. You might even find artifacts like the sphinx or the Rosetta Stone there!
Solving Ancient Puzzles
Every cavern has its own unique puzzle style.
- In the Near East, you'll use switches to move panels that block your path.
- The Egyptian section uses triangular reflectors. You must turn them to direct a light beam and activate a switch.
- Greece and Rome caverns have gates with Greek letters. You need to enter the correct letter combination to open them.
- In India and China, you'll control conveyor belts to move in the right direction.
After you solve a chamber's puzzle and collect six artifact pieces, you face another challenge. You must solve a picture puzzle by rotating and placing rectangular pieces correctly. This reveals a picture of the artifact. Then, you find the exit door and solve a logic puzzle to reach the next chamber.
The Ancient World Cavern
You can play the four main caverns in any order you like. Once you complete all four chambers in each of these caverns, a new, tougher cavern opens up. This is called the "Ancient World." It also has four chambers, each designed like one of the previous regions. The Ancient World cavern combines all the puzzle types you've learned, making it a real test of your skills!
Your Adventuring Tools
You have three special items to help you on your journey through the caverns:
- Miner's Hat: This hat shines a beam of light. You can use it to flip switches or temporarily stun cave animals that might hurt you. In the Egyptian cavern, you'll use it to rotate prisms and mirrors to direct light beams to sensors.
- Turbo Tennies: These special shoes let you jump much higher than usual. This is super helpful for reaching high places or jumping over obstacles.
- Force Fields: You get four force fields per level. When you use one, it protects you from all damage for five seconds. Use them wisely!
Keeping Track of Your Progress
At the bottom of your screen, you'll see important information. It shows how many artifact pieces you've collected, which tool you're using, your current cavern and chamber, and your remaining energy.
Your energy bar acts like a life bar and has four parts. If a cave animal or a projectile hits you, one part of your energy is lost. If you lose all four parts, you have to start that chamber over again. You can get your energy back by picking up apples in the caverns or by solving a logic puzzle correctly on your first try.
Difficulty Levels
The game offers two difficulty levels: Explorer and Expert.
- On the Explorer level, the puzzles are a bit simpler.
- On Expert difficulty, the caverns have different layouts, more enemies, and they move faster. Health power-ups might be harder to find. The logic puzzles are also much harder, and some puzzle pieces need to be flipped to fit correctly.
