Letter-Go-Round Download (1988 Educational Game)

The Sesame Street Muppets invite a child player for a spin on the Letter-Go-Round!. By catching and matching letters on a spinning ferris wheel, children practice recognizing and matching letters, simple spelling and word formation.

Introduction... Sesame Street - Letter-Go-Round is an educational letter matching and spelling puzzle game.

Tell me a story... The Sesame Street Muppets invited you to the funfair, especially to see and ride the Letter-Go-Round, a brand-new type of Ferris wheel not only providing fun but also having you learn a little bit.

The same procedure as every year?... At the main menu Cookie Monster lets you choose from six game variants: Upper Case Matching, Lower Case Matching, Mixed Case Matching, One Little Word, What's Missing? and Spell the Secret Word. Then you are at the Letter-Go-Round with Barkley, Cookie Monster or Grover doing the preparations. You can take the letter which is at the lowest point of the wheel to match it with the one at the bottom of the screen or to spell a word. There's no penalty for taking a wrong one and no time limit. If the wheel is to slow for your taste, you can switch to kinetosis speed (kinetosis = motion sickness). It's always three letters and with every of them a new part of a bell tower is erected. The third correct letter rings the bell and Bert, Big Bird and Cookie Monster will come to celebrate your success with a little dance. When they are exhausted, a new round begins.

Eyes and ears... The graphics is CGA mode 4, palette #2, high intensity (high green, high red, high yellow + low blue). Style = nice; the use of colour fields in palette #2 gives the impression of EGA and the animations are funny. Sound comes from the internal speaker. There is only one background melody which is very funfairy but makes you crazy after a while. The second melody is the overwhelming and cheerful winning tune. You get to hear a squeal when Cookie Monster slides out of the screen after the game selection and the addictive jingle of the bell when you have won a round.

Transduction... The word recognition for Spell the Secret Word (and What's Missing?) leaves a lot to be desired, for example Commander Mitamuru attacking the Letter-Go-Round with his submarine, so that it rolls into the sea (like in the movie 1941). I even think it has no dictionary but waits for an assigned word. But I question the educational value of this game anyway. TWO points! ...which didn't kept me from having a good time with the Muppets gone mad. They should have made an animated picture-book. Recommended for children that don't want to learn anything, viewers of Muppet shows and Ferris wheel riders; not recommended for acrophobians and people who don't want to be rocked to sleep.

Also released as Sesame Street ABC (but of course with Sesame Street characters instead) for the NES, Letter-Go-Round is a decent educational title aimed at kids aged 4-8. The game includes six spelling-related mini-games: upper case matching, lower case matching, mixed case matching, one little word, what's missing?, and spell the secret word. Each of the mini-game is set in a carnival, and many familiar characters from Muppets. For example, in "upper case matching," the game gives you a partially formed word, let's say "H-I-?". You then pick the right letter to complete the word, e.g. "T" to spell "H-I-T." After you spell a word correctly, a Muppets character comes up to replace the letter you pick with a new one on the ferris wheel. Other mini-games follow in this vein, and the library of words is quite large. Too bad the game was released too early to have more colorful graphics, though: the 4-color CGA palette for a kid's game doesn't stand the test of time too well :)

How to run this game on modern Windows PC?

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