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Peanuts Where's the Blanket, Charlie Brown?

Mac Games » Arcade Games » Viva Media

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Date Released: May 4, 2002
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Description

This deliberately paced program takes place in Charlie Brown's world, where kids dress the same day after day and the only character with attitude is a beagle. Players who persist through this CD-ROM's slow start will be rewarded with games and scenarios that emulate what it's like to live in the middle of a "Peanuts" cartoon. This is a good thing for kids who like the strip and the handful of "Peanuts" TV specials in existence. But kids who prefer the more frenetic pace of modern cartoons might find Where's the Blanket, Charlie Brown? a bit too placid.

The mental workout this program provides is excellent. More than any other game manufacturer, Tivola has mastered the art of setting up a problem, then quietly letting the player figure out how to solve it. Linus's blanket is lost, and players can either assume the identity of Charlie Brown or Lucy and find it. Once the problem is presented, players must navigate around Charlie Brown's house and use their powers of observation to get the game moving. This segment can make players feel like they're trapped in "Peanuts" purgatory, as they arrow Charlie Brown from room to room, desperately searching for a means out of the house and into the rest of the game. The on-disc Help file spells out exactly where players must look and what they must collect to move on--resist the temptation to look at the Help file. You will miss the challenge and charm of this game if you lose patience and cheat.

As the story line leads from Charlie Brown's house to a library to Schroeder's piano room to a supermarket with many other stops in between, games are unlocked. The nine games are short, smart endeavors. Some of the standouts include a game in which Schroeder plays a short melody on his piano, and kids must click on sequences of actual notes that match the melody. Another great game requires kids to put poor, scrambled Peppermint Patty back together after she is magically rearranged by the Great Houndini. This descrambling has some added twists that push it far beyond typical match-the-parts games. Each of the nine games has two levels of difficulty, and once they are unlocked, they can be instantly accessed for repeat play.

On the way to these games are numerous other minigames, opportunities for problem solving, and goodies you can feed Snoopy to keep his Snoopy meter on full. Players can play this game in German as well as English. Where's the Blanket, Charlie Brown? probably won't hold up to a lot of repeat play by older kids, but the gentle way this program forces players to use their entire brains to find that darn blanket is remarkable. (Ages 4 to 102 according to the manufacturer; we say 4 to 8, although hard-core "Peanuts" fans of any age will also enjoy it.) --Anne Erickson

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User Review
  terpanther, December 5, 2006

Very slow

Buy the Freddi Fish or Pajama Sam games if you are looking for good kids games where you must solve a puzzle and have fun interaction with some whacky characters and interesting situations. This game is very, very slow, not intuitive and has nothing like the look and feel of Freddi Fish or Pajama Sam.
  M. Miller, February 23, 2006

Worst software I have

I picked this up in the store for my 4 and 6 year old. There is nothing intuitive about this software. You have to read the help file in order to advance to each step. A 4 and 6 year old definitely cannot read the help directions by themselves, so I ended up having to help with this tedious game. My 6 year old got bored. The 4 year old kept wanting to play, but I had to do most of the work until he got to a puzzle or activity. These he could do.

  Jason A. Miller, January 9, 2006

Where's the help file, Charlie Brown?

I bought this discount-rack item for my kindergarten-age nephew shortly before the holidays. I read a series of negative reviews on Amazon.com and frankly didn't expect a whole lot from the game.

Superficially, there are problems. The animation looks like it was drawn by Charles M. Schulz, but the rest of the game convinced me that it was designed by people who'd never read the comic strip or seen the TV specials before. After all, the first words spoken during the introductory sequence are: "The Peanuts!". The CD case itself points you to a German website, and I get the impression this game was designed by German programmers who know English only as a second language. Some of the things the Peanuts characters say during the game are 100% at odds with Schulz's deceptively simple use of the English language.

Once you get past the surface complaints, the game itself is a lot of fun. I solved it with my nephew over the course of four sessions (each about a week apart, but he kept asking to come back to it). I will honestly say I could not have solved this game myself without frequent reference to the help file included on the CD-ROM. Then again, I grew up playing all the Sierra "Quest" games (Space Quest, Police Quest), none of which you could solve without buying the hint book... at least here the solutions comes free of charge! To be fair, I didn't read the answers directly to my nephew, I just gave him hints as to what he was supposed to do at certain dead ends.

As with any good kids-oriented video game, solving the mystery is not the only goal of playing. There are several funny sight gags. There are nine games to play along the way, each at two levels of difficulty, and once you reach a game you can go back to play it at any time. The games vary hand-eye coordination with problem solving.

In sum, a rewarding game that is not as cheaply made as it appears.
  Doctor Trance, August 4, 2005

Maybe if you have hours to waste...

This game takes around an hour and a half to complete. It is VERY slow, boring, and any child under 7 will be bored to pieces after the first scenario of trying to get out of Charlie Brown's house. The narration is too long, you can't speed it up, and once you think you've solved the game and it's over, it continues on and on again.

The only way I can recommend this is for young kids 3-5, who just want to see the Peanuts characters interact on screen and the opportunity to click on things and see what they do. Once you have finished the game once, it remembers this and you can now play any one of the game/puzzle sections of it again, but if you take it out of your hard drive completely, you will be back to square one. Other than that, it is very frustrating to play the entire thing.
  Work-at-home-Mom, April 5, 2005

Slow, Frustrating, and Negative for young kids

I bought this game when my son was 4, because he had mastered most of the preschool games but wasn't ready for games that required reading, math, or quick fingers. I thought it would be a good problem-solving mystery game featuring some of his favorite Peanuts characters. After several attempts to help him get Charlie Brown out of the house, I finally got frustrated myself and put the game away so he wouldn't keep pestering me to figure it out (I was stumped, and didn't realize there was a "help" file). He finally dug it out months later and figured it out himself, but I forbid him from playing as Lucy because of the negative language she used towards the other characters. We finally pitched the game and moved on to Putt-Putt, Freddy Fish, and Pajama Sam. Much more positive role models, challenging but not frustrating problem solving games, fun music, and a more kid-friendly pace. Don't waste your money. This game is an insult to Charles Schulz.

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