6/11/2023 0 Comments Logical journey of the zoombinisAlmost everything is interactive, even if it’s not immediately apparent, and, in fitting with the zany cartoonishness of the game, a lot of them are pretty silly and ridiculous – like ordinary-looking stones in a pond turning out to be a stone giant taking a bath, or firewood sparking itself to get a fire started. One thing I do remember as a child is how interactive the campsite areas are. (It’s especially notable for contrast with later Zoombinis games, which abandoned this aesthetic in favor of 3D textures and models.) The hand-drawn aesthetic style isn’t really something you see nowadays, and it’s interesting to contrast that simpler, more stylized form with the extremely high-tech, polygon-based graphics of today. The cartoonish art style makes characters extremely expressive, even before factoring in the surprisingly-decent voice acting. The tone of the game is clearly comedic, wacky, and absurdist, but it’s clear that a lot of effort was put into the designs. The puzzles are very varied and pretty nonsensical, though it’s clear they have a lot of love and thought put into them. Revisiting it now feels somewhat strange – I don’t really remember enough for it to be nostalgic, but it’s interesting to try and see what entertained me as a child (and by extension, most children – Zoombinis was pretty popular) from an older perspective. I don’t think we ever finished it, though. My sister and I would play it obsessively. I remember Zoombinis from when I was younger.
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