Kutoka Interactive announced Tuesday the release of the fifth title in its educational adventure game series feature Mia, an intrepid young mouse. The Kidnap Caper introduces kids ages 6 to 10 to French or Spanish as a second language as they try to help Mia solve the mystery of where her grandmother has gone.
Each of the Mia games features a different educational focus, while offering an adventure game environment filled with activities and games for kids to play. Previous titles have focused on develOping reading, science and math skills, and Mia has also been featured in a creativity studio product.
Mia’s adventure this time starts out with an art competition. As her grandmother, Mimi, is ready to win this year’s competition, the lights go out — when they come back on, Mimi and the “Sparklies,” (the coins of Mia’s realm) are missing. Romaine, the rogue rat who’s Mia’s usual nemesis, seems to have an iron-clad alibi, so it’s up to Mia to figure out who took Mimi and the Sparklies, and why.
The Kidnap Caper features three levels of difficulty; players travel through the game and meet new characters, pick up clues to solve the mystery and engage in activities that will help them build their French or Spanish language skills. Kids are introduced the alphabet and letter sounds of these two languages, numbers, colors, everyday object names, occupations, animals, adjectives, spelling and sentence structure.
Shipping on hybrid CD-ROM for both Mac and Windows, The Kidnap Caper carries a suggested retail price of US$19.95. The game runs natively in Mac OS X, as well. You can buy it in stores or online at Kutoka’s Web site.