No need to dust off that old CD-ROM anymore. Zoombinis is getting a 21st-century makeover.
The beloved children's puzzle game from the late 1990s is making a comeback and is set to be available to play on tablets this summer, according to a new Kickstarter campaign for the game. TERC, the math and science education non-profit and creator of Zoombinis, launched the Kickstarter, the resurrector of all old things, to make the returning game even better than the updates already in the works. At the time of this writing, the campaign has earned $30,000 of its $50,000 goal.
You probably still have dreams (nightmares?) about these little blue Smurf-like blobs, but in case not, here's how the game worked. Basically, you helped these creatures escape the evil Bloats and make it back safely to Zoombiniville by solving puzzles. The idea was to have fun while strengthening your math and logic skills. Oh, and one of the challenges was called Pizza Pass. PIZZA PASS.
TERC has partnered up with FableVision Studios, which is acting as the lead developer on the game and the Learning Games Network. The gameplay and look of the updated version of Zoombinis will be very similar to the original game, which sold more than one million copies, just with more vivid and detailed art. The game is also going to be available on the new gaming platforms that didn't exist during Zoombinis' heyday in the late '90s: iOS and Android tablets. The purpose of the Kickstarter campaign is, in addition to beefing up the graphics, make the game also available for PC and Mac as well as other tablet sizes.
I have to admit, I was more of a Math Blaster kind of gal myself, which coincidentally just launched a version of the game for Facebook today. The 1990 version of The Oregon Trail, along with nearly 2,400 other MS-DOS video games, also hit the Interwebs earlier this year. If you're feeling nostalgic for '90s computer games that traumatized, er, shaped you, this is clearly the time to be alive.
[H/T MarcSnetiker / Twitter]
