BushBuck Charms, Viking Ships & Dodo Eggs

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BushBuck Charms, Viking Ships, & Dodo Eggs was an educational computer game released in 1991. Designed by the Australian company Reckon, the game was published by PC Globe, a small US-based company that specialized in "edutainment" software in the late 1980s and early 90s. In the tradition of Brøderbund's Carmen Sandiego games, "Bushbuck Charms, Viking Ships, and Dodo Eggs" taught geography through a storyline that involved a global scavenger hunt for unusual items such as those in the title. The game ran on a DOS platform, and although out of print, is still downloadable.

[edit] Gameplay

The game has three levels of skill: Beginner, Intermediate and Advanced.

As a "Beginner" you face a stereotyped French person called Pierre. On Beginner, there is a gauge on the left on the screen that shows how close you are to an item. So in theory, you could follow the gauge until you, by a process of elimination, stumble upon the item.

As an "Intermediate" you face a stereotyped Russian person called Natasha. On Intermediate, the gauge is removed and is replaced a button with an eye on it. When you are in the right city, the eye lights up, which when pressed gives the item over to you.

As an "Advanced" you face a German aristocrat called Otto. On Advanced, the eye remains, but the lighting up feature is removed so the city which the item is in must be pinpointed exactly to reveal the item in question. Also Otto occasionally flies long distance flights that the player cannot. He also occasionally sends the player to the wrong country, not the city the player clicked. Also if the player flies to a country Otto has visited a picture of Otto appears above the infobox with a speech bubble saying "Otto vaz ere!"

[edit] Trivia

As this was released in 1991, The Eastern Bloc consisting of East Germany, Poland etc were independent countries where as Russia was still called the USSR.

Czechoslovakia was still a country.

There are various MIDI snippets of classical music pieces when for example, a item is found.

The items rotate at random so occasionally a item is asked for that has been collected on a previous game, so it is possible to remember where the item is.