About the Game

Today we talked about Donald Duck’s Playground  by Al Lowe (Sierra).

The game is an Edutainment game which means that it is an entertaining educational game.

Game Story

You play as Donald Duck your goal is to work in one of the four working places, in order to earn enough money to buy toys which get installed in the playground so Donald’s nephew – Dewy would be able to play them (thus the name Donald’s Duck Playground), you play as both protagonists: Donald (while working for money and while buying equipment) and as Dewy (when getting to the park to play).

As Donald you get to work in four different places which are actually four different mini games, try them all they are lots of fun!

After each work session you get your payment according to your accomplishment in the working mini game.

When you have enough of money, go to the three stores in which you can buy toys, which get installed in the park, you can check the park anytime you want, at the beginning the park toys aren’t accessible as you haven’t bought the special toys yet, so you want to climb the rocket but it has no ladder, so go to the shop, buy the ladder and now you can go up the rocket, but still you can’t slide down as there is a piece missing there so go to the store and buy the small bridge (or whatever it is called) and now you can slide down.

It is really lots of fun going to the park to try the new toys you just bought with your hard earned money!

Technicalities

• The game can be played using Dosbox or Scummvm BUT I strongly suggest using ScummVM as with dosbox I didn’t manage to use the mouse, and the music was handicapped compared to the mouse support and music while using ScummVM
• In scummvm, go to the configuration screen, to the misc tab, and configure the auto save to the minimum value (more on this in the “Game Tips” section)
• For some strange reason, the “Produce” working place gets stuck on me, so if it happens to you too you should just avoid working there. I have submitted a question about it to the ScummVM forum
• Mouse support is quite clunky during the game (well, it was released at 1986) so you can use it to move Donald around (but it is not perfect) and maybe use it for other things but for most things, just use the keyboard arrows and the “X” key as the action button.
• Please use the mouse to get to the top menu, it is a helpful little thing in this game.
• The game can’t work faster, I tried using the designated keys with dosbox, and searched scummVM – the game was designed to be slow! – if you want faster gameplay then start it with advanced mode – everything will be faster (much easier IMHO)

Game Tips

• In order to buy all toys you will need to earn 1.72$ at the beginner level, 9.37$ at the intermediate level and 28$ at the advanced level.
• Pick the advanced difficulty level, as the speed of the lower levels is unbearable.
• The original game had no “Save” functionality!! – which is a big no-no, but good for us, you can save the game state (which de-facto works like a save game) using ScummVMs auto save feature,  just set it to auto-save every five minutes and your progress will be saved. This is kind of a hack as it saves all of the memory state of the game automatically, but for us it is great as we can use it to save the game. Just don’t accidently start a new game where the auto-save will overwrite the previous game save and your progress will be lost
• Read the official manual – it is a really great manual with much added value, it even describes several educational “real-life” games like those in the video game which you can play and get educated in the same fields you get educated during the game.
• The main menu holds a very important button which when clicked will transport Donald to the main street – use it for fast transfers from the park or anywhere else.

Game Resources

Links

Gamefaq by Forteblast – Simple yet comprehensive guide for the game

Comparison of different versions of this game by FRGCB – includes lots of great screenshots

Interview with Al Lowe about this game – brought to you by Hardcore Gaming 101

Downloads

Donald Duck’s Playground Official Manual – PDF Download

Download the actual game – Dos version

My Opinion

Pros

• Enjoyable
• Kind of Educating
• Cute graphics
• Several mini games which give you a nice variety of game play.

Cons

• SLOW (especially in the lower difficulty levels)
• Mouse controls suck
• No save (although the ScummVM hack gives you some of the save game experience)
• Fixed time in working places – you need to declare how much time you want to work at the working place before you begin – it is really frustrating, I would have prefered to have a nice “Finish” button to stop working when I like.
• Tedious buying brocess – Shit, this is a really tedious process, I earn 28$ in the advanced difficulty level, I go to the stores, and need to buy all toys one by one !?  While for each toy I need to pass the paying process (with change?) then get dumped outside of the store, just to go back and buy another toy WTF !?

Verdict

Well, listen to the podcast for that  

Game Reviewed Next Show…

Might & Magic IV – Clouds of Xeen