First Thousand Words: Thai/Eng Version

This title is an edutainment version of Usborne's book for children "First Thousand Words", there are versions of this title in many languages including French, German and Spanish among others. This is the Thai/English version however it should be noted that the English used in the game is American English so, for example, it uses words like elevator, faucet, french fries, band-aid, gas station etc.

The game starts with an animated title screen, clicking anywhere on it brings up the main menu screen which has thirty five scenario icons arranged in a 7 x 5 grid with navigation buttons along the bottom. The title can be played in either English or Thai and players can switch between languages mid game however all the spoken help is in Thai and when the mouse hovers over a navigation button the description that pops up is in Thai also.

Clicking on a scenario icon can either go directly to a big colourful picture or it can give the player a choice of up to four related windows. For example clicking on the Home icon shows the player pictures of four rooms in a typical American house - The Bathroom; The Hall; The Bedroom and The Living Room while the Travel icon offers pictures of the Railway Station; Airport and Gas Station.

Once a picture has been selected the player can explore its hotspots with the mouse, the number of hotspots in a picture varies, examples with thirty plus have been observed. Clicking on a hotspot brings up a picture of the item selected together with the word written and spoken in the currently selected language. If the player has a microphone they can use it to try and pronounce the words correctly.

In addition to just exploring the pictures there are also six educational games triggered by the navigation buttons across the bottom of the scenario screen.

The games are the same for all locations but naturally they use different words:

- The first game takes away all the colour from the picture leaving a line drawing and then presents the player with a series of pictures which they drag and drop into the correct position, as it snaps into place they will hear its name being spoken.

- The second game is almost the reverse of the first, the player is given the name of something in the main picture, both written and spoken, and they must locate it. Each item will play some form of animation or sound when it is found.

- The third game gives the player a virtual paper bag and a list of items to locate and drag into it, this game is timed and has three levels of difficulty.

- In the fourth game the player clicks on the hotspots around the main picture hunting for a rubber duck which is hidden behind one of the items. Once found there's a short animation and then the duck hides again, and again ...

- The fifth game is Word Challenge - the only named mini-game in the title. Word Challenge is played in a separate window with a list of words on the left of the screen and a clown in the middle of the screen. The player is either shown a picture and asked to select the correct word for it from a list that appears on the right or they hear a word and must select the correct picture - again from a list on the right.

- The sixth game isn't really a game at all. Clicking on the red book icon at the bottom of the screen opens up a scrollable grid of all the words in the game. Each word is accompanied by a picture and is written in both English and Thai, by clicking on the picture the player can hear its name in the currently selected language while clicking on written English/Thai word will cause the word to be spoken in the selected language.

Words are listed alphabetically in the currently selected language and to assist with word location there's an alphabet across the top of the screen which takes the player to the first word starting with the selected letter

The same games are present for each location. They can be replayed as often as the player chooses but each replay is identical to the first.

The game requires the 16 bit version of Apple's Quicktime (v2.1.2 or later) which can be installed along with the game.