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123 FOO
 123 Foo is the third in line of the series of children's titles collectively known as The Foo Trilogy. Not surprisingly, it has numbers as it's theme whereas its predecessor, Alfoobet is all about letters of the A B C variety. The first in the series is entitled Foo Castle and has a bit of everything thrown in.
As with the previous two titles this one was designed by James O'Connor after many hours of consultation with the 'experts' -- his grandchildren and their friends. With this valuable input, and relying solely on his own resources (he put together the graphics, sounds and the animation) he created another game that is both entertaining and educational.
123 Foo is a learning activity package that is very easy to use. It has a simple point and click interface and, though marketed for children aged three to eight it may be a little too 'young' for some seven to eight year olds, but it has lots of clickables initiating quirky animations to delight younger children as well as exercises in number recognition and in basic counting. Though not incredibly sophisticated by today's standards the graphics are clear and bright and the perfectly intuitive presentation and interface means that there is no need for lengthy instructions to accompany the various activities. Pre-school or early school age children should be able negotiate their way around without constant parental supervision.
The title opens with a street scene, enter Spooky House just for fun to have a look around and make spiders drop from the ceiling and ghosts dance in the gloom, then try David's Diner or Jonathan's Gym for another round of 'clicking' to order a crazy meal or to make the Foo characters jump around and flex their muscles. The window of Foo Store, too, has lots of surprises.
However, it is inside the store where the real business of fun and learning begins. Just select a graphic and, along with the exercises mentioned above there are 11 other activities. These activities include an exercise where children can practice basic addition and subtraction skills, a join-the-dots game, a memory game and a concentration game where the player must match pairs of down-turned cards.
Other than this there is also a dolls house to furnish, a simple painting set and a construction kit to build a train or a house (although the 'blocks' will make any pattern) and there is scope to add colour to a finished masterpiece. There is also a money game for learning about coinage denominations, although this is only relevant to young USA citizens.
This title is published on floppy disk only so storage space is at a minimum. This means that there isn't music throughout and, though it has lots of variety, 123 Foo doesn't have the glossy presentation of the present batch of 'multi-media' activity packages. But presentation isn't everything and it still has some very good basic learning components and would be particularly good as a 'first' time computer game for children who are learning to count and how to use a computer.
Also, it is a title well worth looking at if you haven't yet acquired a CD-ROM drive or if, as seems to have happened in many households, the old low spec computer has been passed down to the kids to make way for the new de luxe model. This game runs on a 386, installs in its entirety to your hard drive (only 5 MBs of hard drive space required). This means that the kids can access the game at the click of a mouse button without having to first locate that elusive CD.
Copyright © Rosemary Young 1996.
All rights reserved.
System requirements:
386/25 or faster, Windows 3.1 or later, 4MB RAM, 5.5 MB free hard drive space, Display capable of 640 x 480, 8-bit 256 colours, Creative Labs Soundblaster or other 100% compatible.
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