Roberta Williams’ Mixed-Up Mother Goose

The Good
Very simple interface that doesn't require any reading once you've started the game. My 3 year old daughter loves playing this on my IBM 5150 from 1987, and she can use a joystick to play the whole game. She can pick out her name but she can't really read, so she knows when characters are talking to her, but since the game uses pictures and music to explain what you need to do, a kid can rely on their memory and ability to navigate to play the game without needing much help.

This is WONDERFUL, and I wish there were more games like this available for my daughter to play on vintage computers. It seems like the majority require reading abilities even though they are seemingly for really young kids (Mickey Mouse, Winnie the Pooh,

The Bad
The music obviously isn't as good from a PC speaker as it is in the later versions with MIDI music, and the latest versions with high quality recorded music with spoken lyrics. Also there's just less animation than the later versions... but lets face it, this is a really old game from a time when DOS was not the most common computer gaming platform.

The Bottom Line
A great adventure game for young kids that has memorable scenery and characters, and is accessible for all ages and rewarding.

It also refreshingly does not contain any magic, ghosts or fighting. Its astounding that so few game developers over the years could figure out how to make a game without stuffing those things down our throats, even for young kids' games.

I highly recommend this game, but mostly if you're planning to play it on vintage hardware and are interested in helping a kid to appreciate the early days of computer games. The graphics and music of later versions are much more appealing for the majority of kids, but since they are mouse oriented they probably aren't as easy for really young kids to play.

The Good
I really like this game... I played it on my XT when I was 8 or so, then got the CD-ROM rerelease (which is rather rare) with my 386 and played it again. It is an excellent game, great for kids like the one I used to be, with good graphics, good music, great premise and a couple of hours worth of gameplay. It's obviously aimed at children, because - quite frankly - no adult in his right mind would actually play it, but it fulfills its intended purpose quite well.

The Bad
The controls are horribly minimalistic (which is reasonable considering it's a kids' game) and the game just plays the same every time, so there's not really much replay value.

The Bottom Line
Still an excellent game I recommend for all parents (and yes, Jim, that includes you ;-))

The Good
I familiarized myself with this game quite late. In the 90s - already as a teenager, not a child as this word is usually understood - I had the 1990 version. It was of course very childish, but still nice. More recently I was able to find the 1992 version. However, for years I didn't know the game's earliest version. Therefore, I will compare this version with the others quite much.
The graphics aren't too good - low-resolution AGI - but still "not as bad as they could be". Some details are really well-made (for example the little fountain in front of Jack Sprat's house), but what I really liked were the clouds. They appear as if they were swirling and forming spirals (and no, I'm not high ;)). In the 1990 version of "Mixed-Up Mother Goose" the sky was mostly cloudless - maybe the game's developers thought it was already so well done in terms of details that clouds would divert the players' attention from houses, gardens or mountains (which may be true) - so it's interesting to find a major difference. Another part of the scenery that differs much from the later version: in 1987 Mixed-Up Mother Goose" the hills have a curious teal shade. Shading and, more precisely, dithering usually didn't work well in AGI graphics, so instead of shading grass on the hills, the graphics team gave it this slightly weird color. Usually, however, the graphical difference isn't very big (anyway, much smaller than between EGA and VGA version of many games or AGI and SCI version of "King's Quest I") - in the 1990 version all sceneries were mostly just redone in a higher resolution with more details and better shading, but usually the same colors.
The gameplay is extremely simple, like in all versions of this game. You only use cursor keys - items are picked up and given automatically when walking close to an item or the person to which the carried item should be given.
"Fastest" game speed is extremely fast and unsuitable for fine movements, but still can be useful when having to cover large distances - you can do it substantially quicker than in later versions.
As for the game's educational value for its intended age group... I'm not sure if nowadays children really play this game. I believe most children relatively familiar with computers would consider it too primitive, so I'd guess it's rather still being played mostly by sentimental players who were children themselves in the times when such games were being made. However, if a child appreciates retro games, "Mixed-Up Mother Goose" could be interesting - for example for children from non-English speaking countries, who could supplement their knowledge of English with traditional nursery rhymes. The game is so easy it shouldn't present any problem. However, the player has to know at least a bit English (and I really have known silly people who play games translating every sentence with some program and, as usual, get lots of nonsense from mechanical translation) and, of course, should be able to read. While a child who can't read yet could give it a try with Putt-Putt games, in "Mixed-Up Mother Goose" you have to read dialog. However, an image of the sought item also appears in a "thought bubble", so maybe it is possible to play it without being able to read... I won't know it, because I learned to read at 5, first heard about computers at 7 and first played a (friend's) computer at 8. ;)

The Bad
The music is a real pain. This is pure PC Speaker in all its dubious glory... Melodies sound different, are usually strangely slow - and a few, such as "Mary, Mary quite contrary" or "Banbury Cross", were even hard to recognize.
I don't remember the exact dialog lines from 1990 "Mixed-Up Mother Goose", but it seems to me that the 1987 version is yet more simplified and far from sounding like a conversation. You can find much more relatively realistic chatting in the 1992 version.
At first I was discouraged from the game because I didn't know how to change the player character's look and a saved character was present. If anyone else has the same problem (for example if you too absolutely need to choose a female character), it surely can be solved with an "external" method - by deleting the mgsg.(number) file.

The Bottom Line
The game can be of interest for "collectors" and others who want to compare versions. If you just want to try "Mixed-Up Mother Goose", I think the 1990 or 1992 version is preferable. Both have their disadvantages (the 1990 version is hardest to find, the 1992 version only works in Scumm VM, at least on my computer), but they look and, first of all, sound much better.