A look at: Adi’s Attic

Adi was a learning assistant. I’m not sure if this would be classed as a game, it does contain a few games, but Adi is not considered a game in itself. It’s kind of like Microsoft BOB or Packard Bell Navigator, only more focused at primary and secondary school students, which had a focus on Maths and English exams.

Since the game was designed to run on Windows 95, I’ve captured these from a Windows 95 install running in PCem (Fantastic emulator), emulating a Pentium Overdrive-based system. The game makes use in Intel’s Indeo technology and Microsoft WinG, not DirectX. Maybe this was to allow Windows 3.1 compatibility, but Adi is a 32bit application. The software makes use of various technologies such as Intel Indeo for the video and animation playback, this is automatically installed for you

The splash screen appears whenever you start Adi.

The software was released under Windows only, and came as part of three discs, the first being the main software disc, the second containing many of the various games and the third disc contains the year specific subjects for math and English.

There were many different editions of the software with the key stage 2 version covering years 3 – 6 and having a more cartoon appearance whilst the key stage 3 version taking a more mature interface. Typically all the key stage versions had the same two discs, with the third being different depending on the school year.

User selection screen each user has their own profile which was meant to track their progress with the math’s and English exercises and online activity.

Creating a new user for the first time, here you specify the Name, DOB, School Year and then your favorite traits. This would have been viewable online to other users, since Adi had support for online virtual classrooms, which as you have probably guessed are no longer online.

Shortly after you will be transported to his attic, and its kind of a nice-looking attic. This is where different sections of the application can be accessed. You can click on certain object to open different parts of Adi. Objects you can click on are indicated by the mouse cursor, which changes when you can select an item.

Objects will randomly animate if Adi is left unattended for a while, or you can animate the objects yourself.

When you move your cursor to the bottom of the screen, a row of buttons will appear that you can click on which will let you quickly access various activities, or can be used to exit Adi to change the active profile. The question mark icon acts as the context help, where the cursor will change and Adi will explain what that item does.

By the way, Adi always runs at 640 x 480, running at higher resolutions results in a black border being displayed around the screen.

Jukebox gives two options, Music and Background Music. Music allows you to play sample music from various genres, most likely from a generic sound library. Background music lets you select ambient music like city traffic and jungle rainforest sounds.

A picture editor lets you freehand draw on a canvas, basically MS paint but comes with some built-in clipart.

Adi comes with a calculator, although you might as well just use the Windows one, unless you are already in Adi and need access to a calculator and Alt+Tab isn’t an option.

A notepad-like component. This supports the use of passwords for certain memos.

Simulations

These were an interesting part of Adi, these are like mini-games that learn you of real-world issues, and how certain actions affect things like the environment or the economy. Although a bit relaxed since these simulations lack restrictions like budget, keep in mind this is aimed at kids.

Investigations the effect of water and waste pollution near a seaside, you can change various options such as how clean the beaches are, if tanks should be cleaned at sea, the pesticides used in farming and the use of water treatment plants. Reminds me of SimCity where you had to be careful of the type of industry you zone in order to keep pollution levels in your city low.

Whilst this was engaging as a kid, its too sandbox, having something like a budget would be more realistic, i.e having cleaner batches reduced pollution but costs more since you would need to install bins and people to help clean the beaches up.

Set to emulate a random village in Africa, this investigates the effects on the savanna by local residents. A balance will need to be found to prevent the savanna from becoming dry, whilst keeping the residents happy and satisfied. Adding power and water infrastructure helps but again does not take into account the cost of such infrastructure.

The effect of pollution on a small valley/village, you have to balance the output of factory’s at the expense of the village health and the pollution of the environment.

The balance of nature, this explores the relationship of Rabbits and Fox’s with human hunting, and how nature is a delicate cycle.

How a company works

A simulation of capitalism, you have to balance sales and market share with R&D in order to guarantee growth.

How a country gets developed, you choose what type of war the country is currently in, the health and education of the population which has an effect on the population amount, farming, and international investments.

Other Activities

The Solar System

Information relating to the solar system, back from a time when Pluto was still a planet. Clicking on a planet would give you information on it such as its size & mass, temperature and observation of the planet.

Astronomy

Shows different consolations about Greek mythology

The Space Conquest

A timeline of different event from both the Russian and American space programs

Endangered Species

Animals that are at risk of being endangered, and animals that have already become extinct.

The Water Cycle

How H2O works and the water cycle.

Online

There was an online component of Adi, where you could meet other users online and access chatroom and virtual classrooms. Unfortunately, the online servers are no longer online.