Game 372: Alphabet Zoo

For this last post before we reach our whale, Below the Root, I wanted to look briefly at the early works of its programmer, Dale DeSharone (Dale Disharoon until 1990). He had been a California school teacher, who coded games for the classroom Atari and later sold them through Atari Program Exchange, which is how all of his extant works of this era are preserved.

Hickory Dickory

The very earliest extant one, from 1981, is a simple exercise in reading analog clock faces.

Somehow this warrants a 17-page manual.

Cubbyholes

Cubbyholes challenges you and, if you like, an opponent to a math race won by being the first to partition a 3x3 array of numbers so that each "cubby" reaches a certain sum.

  

Spelling Genie

A collection of four spelling-related challenges, which can be played against another player if you're okay with using the joystick to spell words.

You can pick from nine dictionaries, or create your own.

Word Maker

Probably the best of the APX lot, in which you try to spell as many four-letter words as possible in the allotted time, but only by changing one letter at a time. Repeats or invalid words are penalized. Joystick controls only, and two player competition is an option.

In late 1982, he was hired by SSI to write Atari conversions of Battle of Shiloh, Battle for Normandy, and in 1983, Knights of the Desert.

Then, sometime in 1983, he joined Spinnaker, where the next year he would develop Below the Root, but first, he did two children's titles.

 

Hey Diddle Diddle

Hey Diddle Diddle is more of a computer-format picture book than game, and anticipates Spinnaker's future direction to some extent. There are 30 nursery rhymes, each accompanied by illustrations and music.

There's also a token game included where you have to sort scrambled rhymes into the correct order, but it's more of an afterthought.

 

Game 372: Alphabet Zoo

The last and most substantial game of this post, Alphabet Zoo appears to be Disharoon's first game not developed for the Atari, but was ported to that system by an external party as was Spinnaker's fashion at the time - support would be quickly phased out around 1984. Here, I am using the Apple II version, which along with the DOS version appear to be "Dale originals."

As with Hey Diddle Diddle, you get a picture book and an actual game. The book part displays 26 colorful illustrations, selected randomly from a set of over 100.

Unlike Hey Diddle Diddle, the game isn't just an afterthought. No, it isn't particularly mindblowing, but it is clearly the portion of the package that got the most amount of attention.

Alphabet Zoo has two modes of play, both about collecting letters in a maze. The first, Letter Game, has you score points by chasing after jumping letters, but only the ones that the illustrated word starts with.

The second, Spelling Game, has you spell the complete word.

Both can be played with two simultaneous players, which is kind of neat, but why bother someone? There's not much to see here, and I really doubt that Alphabet Zoo suddenly becomes fun for adults when you throw in another human player.

As with most of the educational titles I've played, I'm not bothering with the GAB rating here. But the sum of DeSharone's early works add up to the least interesting set of edutainment games I've ever seen in any setting, and I'm not even sure it provides any kind of insight on Below the Root, the real reason we're here.

But at least they're out of the way now.