https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/...-humongous-entertainment-made-edutainment-fun
I never realised Ron Gilbert was a part of Putt Putt. I'm all about saving that zoo.
But when we look back at these artifacts of our childhood, we usually forget what I'll lovingly call "the grind," which—unlike recreational games that involve endless foraging, crafting, and killing—asked young players to repeatedly solve math, logic, or word problems in activity gated environments. As much as I loved, and continue to love, these classics, there was never a question in my mind as to intent. Most of them were obviously education over entertainment.
Humongous Entertainment created a major wrinkle in that formula. The company, founded in 1992 by Ron Gilbert and Shelley Day, offered something different—a series of kid's games that were based around narrative, character, and world-building rather than lesson gated modules. The two had come from LucasArts—Day worked as a games producer and Gilbert worked as a programmer and game designer—and specialized in creating adventure games aimed at adults. After seeing how much kids enjoyed playing adventure games, they decided to apply the same principles to games aimed at younger players.
"We watched a six year old play Monkey Island and realized how much fun he was having," Gilbert told me over the phone. "He couldn't read any of the dialogue but was having fun poking around, opening and closing doors, randomly solving puzzles. But there were no adventure games for kids."
While Humongous made some activity based titles aimed at very young kids, the company's most memorable games were built around lovable characters in the "Junior Adventure" series: Putt-Putt, a purple convertible with a puppy sidekick; Pajama Sam, a boy who wasn't afraid of the dark (created by Gilbert himself); Freddi, an inquisitive, problem-solving fish; and Spy Fox, a secret agent fox-man. "Each game set had slightly different goals and age group," Tami Borowick, game designer at Humongous from 1992-2000 and fellow programmer on Monkey Island, told me over the phone. "Putt Putt was 3-4, Pajama Sam was 4-6, Freddi was 6-8, and then came Spy Fox."
Humongous' initial goal wasn't to make edutainment games at all, but to bring their children's stories to life—Day invented Putt-Putt herself, as a bedtime story for her son. "It was always about telling a really good story for the kids, not teaching them arithmetic or teaching them to read," Gilbert said. "Naming ourselves Humongous Entertainment was a very conscious choice. We very actively did not want to be thought of as an edutainment company, we wanted to be thought of as a kid's entertainment company."
I never realised Ron Gilbert was a part of Putt Putt. I'm all about saving that zoo.
