Tinker Bell and the Lost Treasure (Nintendo DS, Nintendo DSi)

Based on the recently released direct-to-DVD CGI movie, TINKER BELL AND THE LOST TREASURE follows the film’s plot very closely. Tinker Bell is selected to create a scepter for a special celebration and provided a rare blue moonstone to place at its top. When it breaks, Tinker Bell has to go on a quest to fix both the crystal and a friendship she destroyed by wrongfully blaming someone else for the accident. Along the way she chats with most of her fairy friends and engages in plenty of touch-screen-based puzzles which, among other things, have her drawing up schematics and building stuff, like a boat made out of a large gourd.

Suitable for any little girl old enough to read the game’s text-based instructions, Tinker Bell and the Lost Treasure offers up a charming little story and wonderful cartoon-like graphics that closely resemble those of the film. Its puzzles, which include such activities as putting together pieces of a picture, rubbing the screen with the stylus to stencil blueprints, trying to remember specific directions, and blowing into the microphone to blow away pixie dust, are fun and shouldn’t prove too taxing for its designated audience.

It is, unfortunately, a short play. Longevity will likely be achieved only through the create-a-fairy-mode and by going online to share your creations with others in a safe, Disney moderated environment. Still, it’s good fun for young girls while it lasts.

Online interaction: Kids can create fairies and upload them to Disney’s DGamer website. They can also text chat with other players. This is not an open communication system that allows players to freely communicate and exchange personal information. Players can only select from a small set of specific words and phrases or, in the case of the Pixie Hollow online mode, use only those words that are in a small, moderated dictionary.