Treasure Cove!
Encyclopedia
Treasure Cove! is an education
al computer game published by The Learning Company
in 1992 for DOS
, Windows
and Macintosh
PCs. It is aimed at children ages 5 to 9 and is intended to teach children reading, math, and oceanography
. Treasure Cove! is the 9th installment of The Learning Company's Super Solvers series and the third in the Super Seekers spin-off series.
Treasure Cove! is a side-scrolling
educational adventure game whose objective is to restore the destroyed rainbow bridge by collecting gems throughout the cove. To find the gems, the player must correctly answer simple math and reading questions asked by starfish to get clues about where they are hidden. It earned generally positive reviews as well as an award at the 1993 Summer Consumer Electronics Show.
The cove has three separate areas that the player must visit and collect gems to plug oil-leaking pipes by finding the puffer fish and dropping it on the opening. To find the puffer fish, the player must gather clues by catching orange starfish and answering their riddles. There are three clues per stage, each a single descriptive term such as "three", "swimming", or "eels". The player must then shine his flashlight on the group of animals that are described by clues to obtain the puffer fish. Shining light on a group of animals that matches two of the three clues will reveal a gem, adding points towards restoring the Rainbow Bridge. After finding gems and plugging leaks in each of the three areas, the player will surface and add the gems collected during the most recent game to the total gem count. When the player has collected a certain number of gems, the player goes up in star rank and the Rainbow Bridge is extended farther. Higher star ranks means that there are more gems to find, the riddles are more difficult, and the fish that steal light move faster and are harder to avoid.
, Treasure Mathstorm!
, and Treasure Galaxy!
. The Treasure series is a subgroup of the company's Super Solvers series. All the games in this series are math and reading comprehension oriented educational adventure games aimed at younger children. Games in the Treasure series all have the same three stage gameplay format where a special object, whose location can be deduced by answering questions, is needed to reach the next stage.
In 1994, Treasure Cove! was ported to Windows. This was part of a growing trend for the Learning Company's rebranding of their Treasure series games on CD-ROM. The Windows version of Treasure Cove! was more user-friendly and featured additional voice acting, a re-done soundtrack and slightly enhanced visuals.
gave the game 3.5/5 stars, stating that "it's a fun game young kids will love to play." Abandonia
reviewers felt the same, giving Treasure Cove! a rating of 3 out of 5. Users at Home of the Underdogs
gave Treasure Cove! two thumbs up saying that it is "another enjoyable release from The Learning Company, featuring the same attractive graphics and gameplay as their previous 'Super Solvers' games" and went on to describe Treasure Cove! as "one of the best math games ever made for 5-8 year olds, bar none." On its debut, it earned Innovations 1993 Software Showcase Honors at the Summer Consumer Electronics Show.
Education
Education in its broadest, general sense is the means through which the aims and habits of a group of people lives on from one generation to the next. Generally, it occurs through any experience that has a formative effect on the way one thinks, feels, or acts...
al computer game published by The Learning Company
The Learning Company
The Learning Company is an American educational software company, founded in 1980. It produced a grade-based system similar to Knowledge Adventure's JumpStart series. The products for preschoolers through second graders feature Reader Rabbit, and software for more advanced students features The...
in 1992 for DOS
MS-DOS
MS-DOS is an operating system for x86-based personal computers. It was the most commonly used member of the DOS family of operating systems, and was the main operating system for IBM PC compatible personal computers during the 1980s to the mid 1990s, until it was gradually superseded by operating...
, Windows
Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...
and Macintosh
Macintosh
The Macintosh , or Mac, is a series of several lines of personal computers designed, developed, and marketed by Apple Inc. The first Macintosh was introduced by Apple's then-chairman Steve Jobs on January 24, 1984; it was the first commercially successful personal computer to feature a mouse and a...
PCs. It is aimed at children ages 5 to 9 and is intended to teach children reading, math, and oceanography
Oceanography
Oceanography , also called oceanology or marine science, is the branch of Earth science that studies the ocean...
. Treasure Cove! is the 9th installment of The Learning Company's Super Solvers series and the third in the Super Seekers spin-off series.
Treasure Cove! is a side-scrolling
Side-scrolling video game
A side-scrolling game or side-scroller is a video game in which the gameplay action is viewed from a side-view camera angle, and the onscreen characters generally move from the left side of the screen to the right. These games make use of scrolling computer display technology...
educational adventure game whose objective is to restore the destroyed rainbow bridge by collecting gems throughout the cove. To find the gems, the player must correctly answer simple math and reading questions asked by starfish to get clues about where they are hidden. It earned generally positive reviews as well as an award at the 1993 Summer Consumer Electronics Show.
Gameplay
Treasure Cove! is a side-scrolling educational / adventure game whose objective is to plug pipes that are leaking oil into the ocean. The game takes place in the fictional Treasure Cove which is being polluted with byproducts from experiments done by the Master of Mischief, a common antagonist of The Learning Company's Super Solvers series and Treasure series. The player takes on the roll of the Super Seeker, whose job is to plug the pipes leaking oil and rebuild the destroyed bridge to the island by finding gems in the cove in order to stop the pollution at its source.The cove has three separate areas that the player must visit and collect gems to plug oil-leaking pipes by finding the puffer fish and dropping it on the opening. To find the puffer fish, the player must gather clues by catching orange starfish and answering their riddles. There are three clues per stage, each a single descriptive term such as "three", "swimming", or "eels". The player must then shine his flashlight on the group of animals that are described by clues to obtain the puffer fish. Shining light on a group of animals that matches two of the three clues will reveal a gem, adding points towards restoring the Rainbow Bridge. After finding gems and plugging leaks in each of the three areas, the player will surface and add the gems collected during the most recent game to the total gem count. When the player has collected a certain number of gems, the player goes up in star rank and the Rainbow Bridge is extended farther. Higher star ranks means that there are more gems to find, the riddles are more difficult, and the fish that steal light move faster and are harder to avoid.
Development
Treasure Cove! is one of the four games of The Learning Company's "Treasure" series (also known as the "Super Seeker" series) along with Treasure Mountain!Treasure Mountain!
Treasure Mountain! is an educational computer game published by The Learning Company in 1990 for both Windows and Macintosh PCs. It is aimed at children ages 5 to 9 and is intended to teach children reading, basic math, and logic skills...
, Treasure Mathstorm!
Treasure Mathstorm!
Treasure Mathstorm! is an educational computer game intended to teach children ages five to nine mathematical problem solving. The sequel to Treasure Mountain! is the 6th installment of The Learning Company's Super Solvers series and the second in the Super Seekers spin-off series.The objective of...
, and Treasure Galaxy!
Treasure Galaxy!
Treasure Galaxy! is an educational computer game published by The Learning Company in 1994 for both Windows and Macintosh PCs. It is aimed at children ages 5 to 9 and is intended to teach children reading, basic math, and logic skills...
. The Treasure series is a subgroup of the company's Super Solvers series. All the games in this series are math and reading comprehension oriented educational adventure games aimed at younger children. Games in the Treasure series all have the same three stage gameplay format where a special object, whose location can be deduced by answering questions, is needed to reach the next stage.
In 1994, Treasure Cove! was ported to Windows. This was part of a growing trend for the Learning Company's rebranding of their Treasure series games on CD-ROM. The Windows version of Treasure Cove! was more user-friendly and featured additional voice acting, a re-done soundtrack and slightly enhanced visuals.
Reception
Treasure Cove! has received lukewarm to positive reviews. Lisa Savignano of AllgameAllgame
Allgame is a commercial database of information about arcade games, video games and console manufacturers.Allgame is owned by All Media Guide, along with Allmusic and Allmovie....
gave the game 3.5/5 stars, stating that "it's a fun game young kids will love to play." Abandonia
Abandonia
Abandonia is an abandonware website, focusing mainly on showcasing computer games and distributing games made for the MS-DOS system.Abandonia also features a music section and an Abandonware List, a continuously expanded database of over 4600 games including information about their publishers,...
reviewers felt the same, giving Treasure Cove! a rating of 3 out of 5. Users at Home of the Underdogs
Home of the Underdogs
Home of the Underdogs was an abandonware archive founded by Thai Sarinee Achavanuntakul , aka: Underdogs or Fringer on her own blog, in September 1998, and grew to be one of the most significant abandonware websites on the Internet, despite losing its domains to cybersquatters and then briefly...
gave Treasure Cove! two thumbs up saying that it is "another enjoyable release from The Learning Company, featuring the same attractive graphics and gameplay as their previous 'Super Solvers' games" and went on to describe Treasure Cove! as "one of the best math games ever made for 5-8 year olds, bar none." On its debut, it earned Innovations 1993 Software Showcase Honors at the Summer Consumer Electronics Show.
External links
- Treasure Cove! at Abandonia
- The Learning Company Official Site