Bumble Plot game screen 1 (Main Menu)
Bumble Plot is a set of 5 different educational games for younger children that progress in difficulty while teaching concepts of geometry, and is meant for children aged 8 to 13. It teaches the use of X,Y graphing (with both positive and negative numbers, extending the concepts from Bumble Games so that the player needs to figure out coordinates other than where a Bumble is (including trapping and surrounding them). The 5th game in particular (Roadblock) is actually played in real time with the player attempting to completely enclose a moving (in real time) bank robber before the timer runs out. Each of the games includes built in instructions, and use mostly 4 color medium resolution graphics (with some animation) to keep the games entertaining. The games were originally designed for the Apple II, and subsequently ported to the Coco, IBM PC and Commodore 64 home computers.
The 1st game is called Trap and Guess and is for one or two players. The computer will pick a random number from -3 to 3 as Bumble's "secret" number and the player has to &trap; that number. This is done by give a number range that the player is guessing the number will be within. The game will let the player know if it is within or outside of that range, and the player can each change the trap range, or guess that actual number. The player tries to guess the number in as few guesses as possible.
The 2nd game is called Bumblebug and makes things more advanced by the player having to find the Bumble creature/character on a 4x4 2 dimensional grid. Each incorrect guess lets the player know that the correct location is to the left/right and up/down from the players last guess. A correct guess will show a low resolution smiling Bumble character and congratulate the player.
The 3rd game is called Hidden Treasure, where the player has to find the treasure on a grid from -5,-5 to +5,+5. The game gives out clues like "Make X smaller and Y bigger", allowing the player to narrow down where the treasure is. This helps teach both 2-D graphing skills, and coordinate systems with both negative and positive values.
The 4th game is called Bumble Art which has a couple of built in pictures (made of connecting various X,Y points) and also allows the player to design their own.
The 5th game is called Roadblock which the most challenging by far as it is played in real time, with a countdown time that the player has to beat. The game is played on a 10x10 grid, with fixed barriers (magenta squares) placed on the grid, as well as movable roadblocks (cyan asterisks) which the player can move to any coordinate that is not occupied by something else. The goal is to completely surround the moving robber (orange square) before the time runs out, using a mixture of barriers and roadblocks. The robber can only move up, down, left or right; no diagonal moves are allowed.
An interesting historical note: The Learning Company that made these games was originally founded in 1980 by Anne McCormick, Leslie Grimm, Teri Perl and Warren Robinett (of Atari 2600 Adventure fame), and was initially partly funded by the National Science Foundation.
Title: Bumble Plot
Authors: Leslie M. Grimm & Ron Mummaw
Publisher: The Learning Company (originally sold by Follett Library Book Company)
Released: June 1983
Requires: Color Computer 1,2,3, 16K RAM Extended BASIC, tape or disk.