Evaluators: Hasbro Group

Title of Software: Packy and Marlon

Publisher: Kidz Health Software Inc. (sponsored by Accu-Chek)

Platform: Windows 95

Media: Installs from CD-ROM, runs off of harddrive

Subject Focus: Diabetes Management for Children

Packy and Marlon is billed as a "CD-ROM game", but in fact it only uses the CD-ROM medium as a vehicle for its installer: It eventually runs off of your harddrive without using the CD at all. And although Packy and Marlon is "for Windows 95," the mouse is not used. Although it is not uncommon for computer games to require users to control their adventure using either the keyboard or a joystick, the mouse usually still functions on menu screens. For all of Packy and Marlon’s menu screens the up and down arrows must be used in awkward combination with either the Enter, Ctrl, or Space keys. Other little design inconsistencies added to our confusion and frustration. For example, the Enter and Ctrl keys each seemed to have multiple purposes on different screens, and answering "Yes" to the question "Do you want to exit Packy and Marlon?" sometimes quit the entire application and other times only ended our current game.

It seems that Packy and Marlon was developed for the DOS or early Windows platforms and never properly ported to the newer versions of Windows. There are screen re-draw problems and screen-dimension problems. In short, Packy and Marlon in no way leverages its users’ familiarity with the Windows interface and looks and feels like an old DOS game.

When the user starts Packy and Marlon he/she is prompted to read and either accept or reject some sort of legal release. This screen was effectively useless in that no user under the age of 18 could possibly understand the implications of the legal document. Not only were the written contents of this screen difficult to understand, but much like all of Packy and Marlon’s instructions and explanations, it was inaccessible to a child who has not yet learned to read. We were surprised time and again by the application’s dependence on communication through on-screen text despite the fact that the game advertised itself as appropriate for ages 6 and above.

After accidentally exiting the entire application twice–because we could not figure out how to accept the legal release–the game began. The game’s introduction had good looking graphics, but the text at the bottom of the screen that told Packy and Marlon’s story appeared and disappeared too quickly for us to read. The screen which followed listed those foods which we ate for breakfast. Or so we thought. We later realized that the game was letting us know which breakfast foods we had to find in the coming game sequences. We also checked our blood-glucose levels at breakfast by pressing Enter twice in quick succession.

A map screen then appeared and we stared at it for a good forty-five seconds before finding the tiny icon of our character in the lower left hand corner of the screen. We eventually figured out that we had to maneuver our character within the map and move into different levels of the game by pressing the Enter key. We entered the first level of the game and the action began.

The graphics themselves, the character controls, and the arrangement of the objects and obstacles bore more than a passing resemblance to the Super Mario series of games for Nintendo. Our characters were two animated diabetic elephants, Packy and Marlon, who ran, jumped, and climbed their way around an underground environment (which we speculated might have been the inside of a tree or tunnel system) which was supposed to be a summer camp.

The panning of the screen was awkward and made us dizzy. The two-player option was really poorly implemented because the game’s designers in no way accounted for the possibility that the two players might move in different directions. The screen panning was totally dependent on Packy’s movements: if Marlon moved ahead or was left behind by Packy he was teleported back to Packy’s side and suffered an inexplicable loss of health points.

Once the game sequence began, we were notified that our mission was to find a silver medical alert bracelet. We also determined that we needed to collect breakfast food and random green gems, while avoiding rats, ghosts, and other unidentifiable creatures of the night. Yet after killing all "enemies," eating all the food, finding the mysterious gems and the bracelet, we were unable to leave the underground world and return to the map screen to choose another adventure. We were forced to exit the game and restart.

Owls appeared infrequently throughout the summer camp, and when we bumped into them, we were prompted with a multiple-choice question about the management of diabetes. While the questions were relevant to the subject matter, there was no apparent incentive to answering correctly. Although the questions were not easy, avoiding the owls was; they were always positioned in corners or up against walls. Furthermore, we had to resort to guessing the answer to the owls’ questions because we were never presented with the information prior to our interrogative encounter. When we did answer the owls’ questions correctly there was no reinforcement of the information as the screen simply flashed "You are correct!" and the game sequence continued.

The purpose of citing these specific incidents of confusion is to illustrate the lack of correlation between the rules of the game and the information that the designers would have liked to impart to the user. For example, we did not realize until the middle of the game that the computer kept track of our intake of various foods, and even once we saw the score, we did not know how that influenced our success in the game. We do not deny that this game was highly engaging, but as a tool to reinforce behaviors important for diabetics, "eating healthy stuff, check[ing] blood glucose levels, and tak[ing] insulin," this game failed: It did not clearly delineate the relationship between success and the paths to success. Care must be taken to ensure that users do not come away from the game with misinformation or confusion about diabetes management. However, with the proper guidance and supplemental education from health care professionals and caretakers, this software might be used to help convince children that diabetes is neither overwhelming nor crippling as long as they adhere to basic dietary and self-monitoring rules.