Description of Museum Madness
One of the best releases from MECC, Museum Madness is a great educational title that will help kids ages 12 and above hone their knowledge of science and history, as well as problem-solving skills, in an attractive inventory-based adventure setting.
The plot: someone has sneaked into the town's musuem, and put all the exhibits out of order. It's up to you to restore them, and solve the mystery. Gameplay is virtually identical to traditional point-and-click adventure games, only simpler: there is only one possible action for each object/person in the room, and the mouse cursor changes shape to signify what you can do. While there are many puzzles that require items from the inventory, they are pretty straightforward (similar to Sierra's Castle of Dr. Brain), since the emphasis here is on learning. Each of the game's 25 exhibits is chock full of items to interact with, problems to solve, and riddles to answer. A wide variety of subjects is covered here, from astronomy, to mechanics, to world history. New exhibits present new challenges and puzzle types, and you can visit them in any order, so the game never feels repetitive. MICK, the museum's robot who accompanies you everywhere, is always eager to give advice and gentle hints if you need them. There are also other user-friendly features, such as the museum map which you can use for quick navigation, and automatic save function.
Overall, Museum Madness is a fun, well-written educational adventure with a surprising depth and range of topics. The only major gripe I have with the game is the unnecessary, boring first stage, where you must navigate a small maze of empty storerooms to find card keys that will eventually unlock doors to the museum proper. The maze is not big, but can frustrate young adventurers-- the game's target audience, in other words. I highly recommend that you perservere, though, because the game gets much, much better after you make it inside. Highly recommended!
Review By HOTUD
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Comments and reviews
Brabbit 2023-05-28 1 point
To the reviewer’s point about the first puzzle: pressing the Esc key on the Mac version bypasses that section, taking the user straight to the museum and the academic goodness within. It’s a great feature, mindful of those younger users or those who don’t want to trifle with memorizing bland passages. MECC knew how to make ‘em.
MarkC 2018-08-21 -1 point
What a shame! The game appears to be broken in this edition (is it due to some errors in the files? Install gives some error messages) -- at least one exhibit is unbeatable because a key item is unclickable -- it doesn't even light up with a hand icon (Energy exhibit -- Radiation Suit).
The game also made some strange stutter and George Washington refused to acknowledge anything when I gave him the paper clipping *before* I had the Declaration of Independence.
Going to try Abandonia's version to see if it has these errors.
BLTN 2018-01-15 3 points
@elizcello: Here ya go:
https://archive.org/details/museum-madness
Better Late Than Never
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DOS Version
Mac Version
- Year: 1994
- Publisher: SoftKey Multimedia Inc.
- Developer: Novotrade Software Kft.
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