Baby ROM
Baby’s First Software
A Review of Baby ROM
Tina Velgos
If you are a new parent and you’re eager to introduce your baby ortoddler to computers, look no further than “Baby Rom! ” from American Baby.Published by Byron Preiss Multimedia, “Baby Rom!” is a wonderful,inexpensive first software program for babies and toddlers, ages 6 monthsthrough 4 years.
2-year-old Amy was mesmorized by “Baby Rom!”. Amy’s only introduction tosoftware has been Disney’s “Winnie the Pooh Animated Storybook”. There arefive different interactive games for babies and toddlers to explore. Thesegames are based on geometric shapes, colors, letters of the alphabet,numbers and body parts, as well as other babies, of course. Since eachgame had three difficulty levels, it was easy to keep Amy entertained,while 4-year-old Timmy explored the more challenging level. This isespecially cool for parents of toddlers and babies. One toddler can playthe game, while baby can watch from the comforts of mommy’s (or daddy’s)lap.
As Amy clicked letters on the keyboard in the Letters section, brightlycolored photos of images with the letter appeared on the screen as wordsare pronounced by “big” kids. This seems to encourage kids to repeat thesounds. Amy seemed to like this section best of all. I like the idea oftoddlers using the keyboard to find letters…wonderful for early alphabetrecognition.
The Geometric Shapes section is the most difficult game on “Baby Rom!”.Although Amy didn’t quite grasp the concept of matching shapes yet, kidsappear in animated hot air balloons and encourage young computer users tokeep trying different shapes in order to get the right answer. Thisalleviates any frustration younger kids may have when they don’t get theanswers right the first time.
I was disappointed that the CD-ROM I tested was offered in Macintosh formatonly. There is a separate Windows/MPC CD-ROM available for PC users, butit is always nice to own hybrid software, since it can be played on eithera Mac or PC. I think this is important to consider, since this softwarewould be fun to take to a friend’s house to play or over to a babysitter’shouse for a great activity.
“Baby Rom!” is easy for small children to navigate. Click the Numberssection to discover and play with numbers, click the Letters to play withletters, click Shapes to explore shapes and colors, click the Television tomake some new friends (there are babies galore on this software and theseare happy babies who enjoy clapping and giggling ), click Vincent andCorinne, the two “big” kids on “Baby Rom!” and kids will learn aboutdifferent parts of the body and click the Mobile to view a lullabyscreensaver.
Menu commands are simple. When kids click the airplane, they can exit thegame. Select Play Again, and they can return to the game they just exited.Select New Game to return to the main menu to choose a new game, selectNext Level to advance to the next level of difficulty of game play andselect Exit to quit.
Babies will enjoy sitting on your lap as they watch the lullabyscreensaver. By selecting the Mobile in the main menu, you can watch ablack and white mobile turn around and around, dancing to the soothinglullaby music. Of course, the mobile is rendered in black and white sincehigh contrast art appeals to babies.
Be sure to wash off any fingerprints your kids might put on this CD-ROM.After all, most two-year-olds like Amy love putting things into CD-ROMdrives. If you’re lucky, it’ll be “BABY ROM!” and not Barbie’s legs!!
School House Scorecard
| Product: | Baby ROM |
| Company: | Byron Preiss Multimedia Company |
$29.99
System Requirements:
Windows:
IBM PC or compatible
486DX/33 MHz (66 MHz recommended) processor
4 MB RAM (8 MB RAM recommended)
4 MB available hard disk space
Windows 3.1 or later (Windows 95 compatible)
SVGA color monitor, 256 colors at 640 x 480 resolution
MPC 2-compatible double-speed CD-ROM drive
MPC 2-compatible sound card
Mouse or other Windows-compatible pointing device
Macintosh:
Any color Macintosh or Power Mac
System 7.0 or later
5 MB RAM (8 MB RAM recommended)
13″ or larger monitor, 256 colors at 640 x 480 resolution or higher
Double-speed CD-ROM drive
Breakdown:
Ease of Use 4
Learning Value 3
Entertainment Value 3
Graphics 3
Sound 3
Overall Score:
(* 0 rating, 0 votes)
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