Reader Rabbit: Playtime for Baby is a computer game in The Learning Company's Reader Rabbit series of children's educational games. It was released on July 6, 1999.
Summary[]
Mat the Mouse, while playing a game of tag with Reader Rabbit, hides inside a toy chest. The toy chest contains a variety of activities.
Characters[]
Main[]
Cameos[]
Gameplay[]
Reader Rabbit: Playtime for Baby is designed as "lapware," software that infants can play with while in a parent's lap in front of a computer without the need for computer skills. Similar to Reader Rabbit Toddler, this game does not use a point-and-click interface, and is played by moving the mouse cursor over onscreen hotspots or pressing keys on the keyboard for interactions. There are ten activities in this game.
Activities[]
- Hide-and-Seek Animals
- Gameplay: Find the animals hiding on the farm and listen to the sounds that they make.
- Skills: Animal sounds
- Discovery House
- Gameplay: Open the door and windows to see who or what is inside the house.
- Skills: Animals, greetings
- Kaleidoscope Symphony
- Gameplay: Choose a kaleidoscope pattern and even change its direction or speed.
- Skills: Visual and sound patterns
- Mat Says
- Gameplay: Follow Mat's directions as she points to her body parts.
- Skills: Body parts, following directions
- Mat's Faces
- Gameplay: Choose a facial expression or feeling and Mat will act it out.
- Skills: Feelings
- Musical Drawers
- Gameplay: Open the drawers to find musical instruments and play music with them.
- Skills: Sounds
- My Storybooks
- Gameplay: Choose one of four books about different things and read along with Reader Rabbit. (Note: This activity has personalization features.)
- Skills: Reading
- Peekaboo Bubbles
- Gameplay: Pop the bubbles touching the picture frame to reveal a picture.
- Skills: Letters and numbers
- Rhyme Time
- Gameplay: Choose one of six nursery rhyme songs to follow along to.
- Skills: Songs and rhymes
- Shape Slide
- Gameplay: Move the shapes to the top of the slide to watch them slide down it.
- Skills: Shapes, matching attributes
Personalization[]
Personalization screen
Under the Pop menu is the button "Customize", which sends to the "Personalization" screen.
Parents can input a personalized name for up to three players, with a character limit of 15 per name. Adding a personalized name will change the name from "Baby" to the chosen name, and, provided that name is available in the list of pre-recorded names, any instances where the game will say that name will say it instead of the default.
The profile picture by default is Baby Bear, however the image can be changed to any file with a BMP file format. The image can be repositioned with arrows that move it horizontally or vertically. The image cannot be zoomed in and out.
The baby's voice can also be recorded, by pressing the "Record" and "Stop" buttons to save the recording. The "Playback" button plays the recorded voice. The purpose of this feature is to identify the baby user.
List of Pre-Recorded Names in Reader Rabbit: Playtime for Baby[]
Inputting a personalized name will allow the player to be referred by their given name.
Music CD[]
- Main article: Reader Rabbit: Playtime for Baby: Baby's Favorite Songs
A second CD, by the name of Baby's Favorite Songs, was bundled with every release of the game. It features seventeen songs from previously released Reader Rabbit games, which can be played on an audio CD player.
2002 Version[]
In 2002, the game was bundled on the re-released version of Reader Rabbit Toddler. The following is a list of changes made to this version.
- The 1994-2000 Learning Company logo sequence has been replaced by the 2001-present logo sequence.
- The title, intro, and outro sequences have been removed. The title sequence from the original version was already previously removed from the version in Reader Rabbit: Playtime for Baby and Toddler.
- Reader Rabbit's voice clips, originally voiced by his 1990s voice actress, Jeanne Hartmann, were re-dubbed by his 2000s voice actress, Marina Cashmark. However, the former's name is still credited in the game's credits.
- Reader's appearances on Pop, the Skills Chart, and the credits have been changed to match his 2000s design.
- The game's logo in the credits has been changed to the 2000s Reader Rabbit logo.
- In Discovery House, Reader and Sam, who previously appeared in the door of the house, have been replaced by the dog and the puppy from the group of pets, respectively.
- The original exit screen was replaced by that of the 2000s games.
- On the Personalization screen, the text on the file list in the "Import Picture" tab has been updated and upscaled.
- The game's icon has been upscaled and smoothed from its original 32x32 ratio to 48x48.
Songs[]
- Mat's Body Song
- Pat-a-Cake
- This Little Pig
- Clap and Laugh
- If You're Happy and You Know It
- Three Little Monkeys
- The Bus Song
Trivia[]
- Some of Mat's animations in this game are re-used from Reader Rabbit Preschool.
- This is the second game in which hotspots are automatically activated when the cursor is moved over them, after Reader Rabbit Toddler. Likewise, it is also the second game to use a star cursor.
- This is the first game in the Reader Rabbit series developed by Mattel Interactive.
- This is also the first game to use personalized names. Personalized names are pre-recorded and spoken aloud when used by the player.
- This is the first game to use a book for the logo's background, and is likewise the only grade-based game to originally use it instead of a chalkboard. However, the chalkboard is still used in the non-English versions, except on the original French cover art, in which the logo is placed within a group of bubbles. This is not the case with the in-game title screen of said version.
- The cover art of the game would be re-used for that of Reader Rabbit: Sing-A-Song Adventures, but the letters and numbers inside the bubbles are replaced by musical notes, and the bubble wand that Reader is holding is replaced by a microphone.
- One of the music tracks from the game is also used in this video, being the fish pattern from Kaleidoscope Symphony.
- The music that plays on the Autorun, Personalization and Print Activities screens as well as the credits would be re-used by the Treehouse Launcher.
- In the French Dub, the icons for "Clap and Laugh" and "If You're Happy and You Know It" were swapped, so this means the picture of the hands means "Clap and Laugh" and the picture of Mat laughing is "If You're Happy and You Know It".
- The Nordic language versions of the game utilize the updated version from 2002, having all unique differences from the original.
- Mat's voice is noticeably different in this game.
- The logo on the cover art has the word "Baby" in all capital letters, but the logo on the in-game title screen only has a capital "B" while the rest of the letters in the word are lowercase.
Gallery[]
Screenshots[]
Other[]
References[]
- ↑ [1]
- ↑ Included on-disc with the 2002 release of Reader Rabbit Toddler.