Cyberchase Castleblanca Quest (Windows, Mac)

This is one of two software titles developed by Brighter Child Interactive for Cyberchase, a PBS Kids show. They share a similar format of six learning games and two logic puzzles loosely woven into a storyline using characters from the television show. In CYBERCHASE CASTLEBLANCA QUEST, the weaker of the two games, the evil Hacker has stolen the "gloom chip" of Castleblanca, a Web site community of monsters. Since the inhabitants hate sunlight, they need help in dealing with the brightness and rescuing the "gloom chip."

Players provide that help by playing six math games and solving two logic puzzles.

The storyline is difficult to follow because it's presented in a very grainy video that is too brief. The math games all suffer from poor verbal instructions. The screens are not intuitive, so players had to stop playing to access the online manual to figure out what they were supposed to do. These instructions should have been demonstrated in a video.

Most of the games require players to use trial and error -- a characteristic of good math software games. However, in several of the games, just as the player is figuring out the answer, time runs out and the math puzzle resets to another configuration.