Vision Interactive Adventure

Vision Interactive Adventure is an educational action-adventure video game developed by Scopescreen Interactive, a division of Scopescreen Media, and published by Vision Interactive Entertainment, a division of TVVC. Featuring characters that appeared on Number Crunch and Alpha Star, the game was created with the intent on countering the idea that video games have a negative effect on children.

Vision Interactive Adventure was released exclusively in PAL regions for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System on 8th August, 1997. The game, when initially released, came bundled with a multitap, which allowed up to five players. The co-operative gameplay present in the game was designed to encouraged teamwork between players. The game received mkxed to positive reviews from critics, who found the game surprisingly entertaining despite its heavy use of educational content. It is considered rare nowadays, with copies often selling online for over €250, depending on the box and cartridge's condition.

Gameplay
Vision Interactive Adventure is a 2D side-scrolling platforming game. The game supports up to five players co-operatively, with gameplay altering slightly depending on whether the game is being played with one or multiple players.

There are five different stories the player(s) can play through in the game, each of which focuses on a different subject; Oddblock Rescue (communication and literacy), Pip's Party (mathematics and numeracy), Time Travel (history), Mixed-Up Mayhem (French) and Venturous Voyage (geography). Each of the stories is divided into approximately six chapters, with each chapter taking around two to ten minutes. Whilst gameplay and objectives differ slightly depending on the story chosen, all of them generally focus on exploring the area, doing missions for non-playable characters, solving puzzles and answering questions based on the story's subject. There is no way to lose in the game - if the player fails their objective, they simply have to reset the section from the beginning.

The game also features a Competition mode, which allows the player(s) to play eight different minigames which involve thinking and problem-solving. The player(s) can also pick Marathon, which allows them to play through all eight minigames, and score points based on their performance. Since there are no computer opponents, if only one player is playing, they will always be regarded as a winner, even if they score no points.

Development
TVVC began work on Project EG in late 1994, with the intent of producing a video game that would educate children and encourage teamworking and good sportsmanship. Though the developers wanted to include a sixth story in the game, which would be centred around the environment, they were unable to do so due to time constraints - the development team were told that the game had to be released by mid-August 1997 to coincide with the beginning of the new school term.

At one point, a reworked version of the game, titled Pip the Magical Pencil: Choose Your Adventure, which would remove all references to Number Crunch and Alpha Star, was planned to be released in North America by September 1998, with the game even being advertised in a local Chicago newspaper in March that year. However, it was ultimately cancelled for unknown reasons.

Reception
A BBC reporter reviewed Vision Interactive Adventure upon its release citing "Despite the unnecesary amount of educational content, the game is suprisingly robust. All of the stories feel and play different and there is plenty to do. There really is not a game quite like it." Reviews of the game sent into CBBC mostly praised the game as fun and addictive. A German magazine praised the gameplay, but felt the educational content detracted from the game's quality.

The five player co-operative gameplay was praised by several critics, who noted that very few games, outside of beat 'em ups, offered something similar. However, a few noted that, when playing with four or five players, the game would sometimes suffer from slowdown and would sometimes either not register button inputs, or register two at once.