Cartooners, while classified as a game, is really more of an interactive tool or educational application that assists children in creating their own cartoon shorts. This is a very simple application, and seems to be geared more towards children and younger gamers who will enjoy making their own little movies. It was developed by ITDA in the late eighties and was published by Electronic Arts, Incorporated, who later became known for some great sports games.
At the beginning menu, the user has a choice of LOOK, PLAY, CREATE and QUIT. QUIT is self explanatory. When selecting the LOOK feature, the user has the option of viewing several short movies that come already assembled by the game’s manufacturers. These little shorts serve as a type of tutorial so the user knows what the game is capable of doing. The PLAY function is very similar. The user is also shown pre-created movies, but instead of only watching them, the user plays the part of the editor and can add bits and pieces to the movie that is already nearly done.
In CREATE, the gamer is allowed to exercise his or her creative license. This creates a custom cartoon from the beginning to the end. Most of creating the custom cartoon is in the form of drag and drop or mix-and-match. The user has a choice of several backgrounds, selects one, and moves on to the next series of choices. The user also has the option of loading his own personal photos into the game by saving them as an LBM file. After the background is selected, the user can add characters, such as a bunny, a duck, a bird, a pig and even a baseball. The character can be placed anywhere on the background. If you want your pig rooting around in the clouds, that is fine. The characters can then be animated with a set series of actions. The bunny, for example, will hop when ordered to ACT. After making a basic cartoon of a hopping bunny on a backdrop or pig rooting around in the clouds, the user can also add music to the cartoon to make it a little bit more interesting.
While Cartooners doesn’t feature a ton of options and selections to make endless silly cartoons, it has enough to keep the youngsters entertained. It seems as if all children love animations, and making their own will certainly be a novel treat for a while.
Written by:
~Shannon
