KidPix
Studio uses 16MB of hard disk space as well as the rest of the equipment
mentioned earlier. It lists for $44.95. Note I put the price information
here instead of at the end - because this is, in my opinion, and that of
the testing crew, the one program to buy if you can only buy one. Absolutely
the best!
It is a paint, draw and animate program for ages 3 - 12. This very wide age span is created when you start to mix the programs together to create a presentation package for use at school that is about as sophisticated as those produced for slide shows for business use.
First of all, let me tell you I had a real problem with the program. No, not in setting it up - but in getting my wife to leave it alone long enough for the girls to play and learn with it. It is fascinating, complex and dazzling for older people while remaining simple to use for the younger ones.
There are six projects in this program - all of them easy to work with and they produce vividly colored pictures and projects. We really used our new color printer producing pretty refrigerator artwork.
The basic program - Kid Pix - is a new and improved version of an old favorite. You can select from an 112 color palette that you can use with a multitude of brushes, spray cans, shapes, multicolor fills, etc. You can paint wild patterns on the screen and mix them up with the Electric Mixer. In addition, there are Draw Me projects (draw a "I'm a sneakered Centipede with a set of sharp, crooked toenails and I rock the house" if you like a challenge), a Color Me section that has the "color by number" type of layout but without the numbers. Just like a coloring book except you can erase the colors and use the same pictures over and over again.
Moopies are moving pictures and some of your tools draw lines that wiggle and twist while others stay still. The moopie will really prove to be funny since you never know what it will do. You can select from a variety of "different" shapes and they create giggles as they wiggle.
Stampimator lets you build an animated story by selecting a background, adding stamps and by dragging them along the path you want them to go, you watch them move down the path you chose. The alligator (in three parts) looks a bit strange moving alongside an Alaskan scene!
Digital Puppets react to the keyboard input and the kids really liked to make them dance to the tunes contained in the program. There are 10 puppets and each is quite different from the other. Cleopatra really does move funny.
Slide Show is wild. You take all the art you have created and saved from the previous programs and combine it in a presentation as you see fit. It is spectacular because it is the work that the girls did up to now, and was saved from several sessions. They were proud to let mommy and daddy see it for the first time. You add sound and even some of the movies available on the program - and advanced users could certainly make an outstanding artistic presentation at school with this.
Wacky TV contains about 100 animated programs that are brilliant colors and super sound. They can keep the little one quiet for a few minutes watching birds swarming around the artistic screen and her laughter was proof that the programs were fun even for a two year old.
This one CD-ROM was voted the best of all of them by my test group.
It appealed to the artist, to the musician and to the watcher - and was
pure amusement while teaching (sneaky, isn't it) color use and shape recognition
and also how to use the mouse for drawing.