Producer: Argus Press Software
Retail Price: £7.99
Age Range: 3 and over

The five games in this package are aimed at encouraging shape recognition in the very young child. Once the program has loaded, the child is introduced to four basic shapes - the circle, triangle, rectangle and diamond. The first game Shape Sorter, shows a certain shape appearing on the screen, and the child is asked to identify it. Ship Shapes involves dropping shapes from a helicopter onto the deck of a ship, and sailing it away. In Pattern Maker, the child can move shapes around the screen using the keys 5, 6, 7, 8, while in Dodgems, the aim is to steer a ship well clear of the shapes which appear in its path so that it reaches the safety of the harbour. The final game, Shape Maker, draws shapes chosen by the child. Shapes of from 3 to 10 sides can be selected, and the name of the shape - triangle, decagon etc - appears at the top of the screen. The shapes may be drawn on top of each other making an attractive pattern, or the screen may be cleared for each new shape. As with all the Clever Clogs programs, this one is very attractive and professional.

COMMENTS

Control Keys: kept as simple as possible for the very young child. Mainly number keys are used.
Keyboard play: very responsive
Use of colour: bright and attractive
Graphics: simple and clear

The Clever Clogs range of programs is produced by Argus Press Software for children aged from three to ten years old. Shipshapes is aimed at children from three upwards and is intended to teach shape recognition to this age group.

There are some points which even those who have not met a three year-old since they were three themselves would consider essential to a program catering for this age group. Do not include long words. In fact, do not include words at all, as the vast majority of three year olds cannot read. Error trap the program so that pressing the wrong key does not result in the program stopping, or in an unexpected result. Make all shapes bright and bold, and avoid confusing ambiguities.

Shipshapes falls down on every one of these points. For a start, there are a Large amount of written instructions, including words such as "rectangle". Glaringly obvious at the beginning of the program is "Let's", written without the apostrophe. The program is in Basic, and is not error-trapped, so pressing the wrong keys could quickly break a child out of the program. When shapes do appear to be identified they are very small, and so arranged that it is not immediately clear whether you are supposed to be identifying these small shapes, or the pattern which they are forming.