Developer(s) Media Station Initial release date 1999 | Release date(s) April 30, 1999 Mode Single-player video game | |
Genre(s) Point-and-click adventure, interactive storybook Series Disney's Animated Storybook Publisher Disney Interactive Studios Platforms Microsoft Windows, Macintosh operating systems Similar Disney's Animated Storybook games, Disney Interactive Studios games, Other games | ||
Disney's Animated Storybook: Winnie the Pooh and Tigger Too is the tenth and final entry in the Disney's Animated Storybook point-and-click adventure interactive storybook PC game series, based on theatrical and home video releases. Winnie the Pooh and Tigger Too is a part of Disney's Winnie the Pooh franchise, and is based on the 1974 animated short of the same name. The game was developed by Media Station and published by Disney Interactive, who released the game on April 30, 1999. The game had a mixed reception from critics.
Contents
Conception
The vision of Marc Teren, VP of entertainment for Disney Interactive, was to create games with a "true and fair representation of the original property", and aim to capitalise as "ancillary products to successful theatrical and home video releases". To achieve this, Teren helped ensure the games were animated by Disney animators. From December 1994 to February 1995, the company had hired 50 new employees. Children's Business suggests the series came into fruition because in the contemporary entertainment market, it was "customary now for entertainment companies to release CD-ROMs to support a film or TV show".
Development
Disney and Media Station collaborated to create more than 12,000 frames of digital animation for each game, as well as 300 music and vocal clips. Digital music and sound effects were composed, orchestrated, arranged, edited, mixed and synchronized at Media Station. The games had hundreds of clickable hotspots that produced animated gags, as well as many mind-challenging interactive games. The voice cast sometimes consisted of actors from the films reprising their roles; meanwhile, at other times voice soundalikes were used.
Gameplay
Players follow along with the story featured in Winnie the Pooh and Tigger Too, with each page featuring on-screen text and an interactive picture. According to The Washington Times, the game is a loose adaption of The House at Pooh Corner chapters: "In Which Tigger Is Unbounced" and "In Which It Is Shown That Tiggers Don't Climb Trees". The game features the cast of characters from the franchise. Players take part in four minigames, with themes such as helping Rabbit harvest his crops, as well as versions of a maze and tic-tac-toe.
Promotion
Winnie the Pooh and Tigger Too was released in retail stores on February 23, 1999, the same day as Sing a Song With Pooh Bear.
Critical reception
The game had a mixed reception from critics. T.J. Deci of AllGame gave Winnie the Pooh and Tigger Too a rating of three starts out of five, noting that the story was presented as a "colorful" adventure, and that the activities encourage players to acquire "good memory and pattern recognition" skills. Meanwhile, The Boston Herald reviewer Robin Ray offered a scathing review of the title, commenting that the game was "mangled", "dull", humourless, and had "simply bad design". A reviewer from The Washington Post had a similar opinion, describing the game as "completely charmless", and that the "colorful, whimsical prose" of the source material had been translated into "leadenness". The Disney's Classic Animated Storybook Collection (a compilation of Animated Storybook titles including 101 Dalmatians, Winnie the Pooh and Tigger Too, The Little Mermaid and Toy Story) was given a score of three stars out of five by a reviewer at AllGame.