#broderbund

"Not too long ago, the Zoombinis enjoyed the good life. Though they all looked slightly different. Different eyes, noses, hair, feet, such differences meant nothing to the Zoombinis.

So they lived happily on Zoombini Isle, making small useful products which would prize the world over. The Zoombinis had a sense of fulfillment and inner peace, not to mention healthy bank accounts.

Then one day, who should show up, but the Bloats. The Bloats offered to help the Zoombinis grow their businesses. Expand their trade routes. And improve their quality of life! Being trusting sorts, the Zoombinis agreed.

Spooky Video Game Music No. 343: Distant Mirage- Carmen Sandiego: Word Detective (PC)

Mario and Pac-Man aren’t the only franchises who have anniversaries this year. Carmen Sandiego, a video game franchise that was also known for teaching many subjects like math, geography and languages, has been around for 40 years and is quite popular in the computer space. The series usually involve a world class thief named Carmen Sandiego trying to steal any valuable treasures and the ACME Detective Agency hires you, the player, to try to stop her. In Carmen Sandiego: Word Detective, she invents a machine called “Babble-On” where it can make people lose their speech and start talking in gibberish. You, as Agent 13, must travel through different places to find keys that can stop the machine from causing more people to talk in gibberish. One of the areas you travel is in an ancient Egyptian temple called Queen Notalotenkammen's Crypt. It’s a very dark and abandoned area where many Egyptian artifacts are around with some twilight sunlight shine through. Carmen Sandiego sure knows where to hide a key in this area so you have to search everywhere…

Wibarm

Wibarm is the lovechild of Game Arts’ Thexder and Falcom’s Xanadu, two of the most popular games in the mid-1980s Japanese PC scene. Much as in Thexder, you control a transforming robot that can change between mecha and jet forms, as well as using an auto-targeting laser as a primary weapon. But rather than offering a straightforward arcade-like experience, it grafts on some RPG elements, many taken straight from Xanadu.