It is often difficult to find quality computer games for children that do not contain at least some sex, profanity or violence. Great Journey – Mr. Penguin’s Letter proves to be such an amusement and can be enjoyed by children age’s six to twelve and by adults who want to play along with their younger friends and offspring.

According to Marc Prensky (CEO of games2train) speaking to the Ministry of Education Learning School conference in New Zealand, games teach children to work effectively with others, to cooperate virtually, to learn new skills, to take in new information, to make decisions under stress, take risks, deal with large amounts of data, organize logically, and sometimes deal with moral and ethical questions. It looks as though Great Journey – Mr. Penguin’s Letter meets most if not all of those guidelines.

This game definitely grabbed my attention before I opened the package. The first thing that struck me about Great Journey was the colors. I felt like I was looking into a kaleidoscope. The bright colors started on the box top and continued until the last game click was over.

The main characters of the game are Tony and Annie, appealing 10-year-old siblings. They live in a seaside town called Old Port that is filled with stories of the ocean and distant times. Annie and Tony have a faithful companion, the Captain. He has sailed all of the seas. He is fearless and treats storms like best friends. Too much time on land is not good for Captain as he loses things and forgets what he wants to do. But put him on his boat and all is well in his world.

Other friends you will meet in the game are: Shaman who can turn a prince into a frog; Castaway who has taught crocodiles how to talk and to love peanut butter; Professor Glass, researcher of nature and ancient civilizations; Pankratz, a ski jumping polar bear and expert on polar law; and Crocodile, the faithful companion of Castaway.

Annie and Tony have traveled the world extensively and as you can see, they have friends scattered everyplace. One of their closest friends is Penguin who is the resident protector of Antarctica – one of the very few unpolluted places on Earth. Together with other penguins he has started a voluntary guard to ban dumping trash in Antarctica. Mmmmmm, but this is where a villain enters the picture. A mysterious character called Polluter, very ugly and mean looking, is invading Antarctica in a fast moving boat. His intention is to dump garbage wherever he can. Why not? Who is fast enough to stop him?

Mr. Penguin is in a fit of fear and decides to call on Tony and Annie for help. He writes them the following letter:

“Dear Tony,

For some time now somebody has been bringing garbage to our clean land. We cannot catch him. We don’t have a vehicle that is fast enough. We heard that Professor Glass has an airplane. Find him, please, and come with him to us, to the South Pole.

Professor is conducting a research on one of the islands in the South Seas. I think that Captain, the old sea dog, will find that island without any problem. I send you my best greetings.

Penguin”

Mr. Penguin’s letter touched the children’s’ hearts. They are ready to leave Old Port for an exciting trip and they hope for a successful and safe outcome when they confront the Polluter. In order to reach their goal, the children will visit small towns, hot and sandy deserts and a damp and colorful jungle. They will play soccer with the African Shaman, save the port from a garbage flood, feed the monkeys, photograph the whales and much, much more. And eventually they will meet the game’s dramatic finale on icy Antarctica, the land of pristine snow and ice.

Great Journey – Mr. Penguin’s Letter contains 7 mini-games, 5 chapters, and more than 30 locations. It is based on an ecological storyline that has been designed to promote empathy and understanding. It has a simple mouse based interface.