Yoho Ahoy: All Aboard!

Yoho Ahoy is a collection of mini-games made for very young children. It is one of a series of games based on BBC television programmes for young children. The Yohos are knitted and cloth puppets who crew a pirate ship. All the games are simple, played with the mouse and use big pictures and bright colours. There is sound and voice acting but, in keeping with the TV programme the actors just say the words 'Yoho' and 'Ahoy' in a variety of intonations and combinations. One feature of the game is that the in-game titles and text that the children will see have no capital letters, not even for character's names.

The mini games contained in this product are:* Look with Bilge: In this game the player looks through Bilge's telescope and clicks the cursor when they've spotted a Yoho. This brings up another screen in which there are four short animations to play.

• Mops with Poop: Poop's job is to keep the decks clean. The cat knocks over his bucket spilling dirty water everywhere and captain Grog wants the mess cleaned up. The player moves Poop around by positioning the mouse cursor and clicking, Poop then skates to that point, he has scrubbing brushes tied to his feet, cleaning up any mess he comes across along the way.

• Bubbles with Cutlass: It's night time and Poop is asleep on the deck beside his bucket after a hard day's work. He's snoring and as he snores his breath blows bubbles from the soapy water. The player uses the mouse to target these bubbles which Cutlass pops with a pea shooter.

• Toot with Swab: This is a musical game. Booty plays the organ and the other members of the crew stand by with two part-full bottles each. By clicking on the bottles the player can make a tune.

• Chairs with Grog: This is a game of musical chairs. The player selects their character which joins others dancing around some chairs. The music stops when Grog clangs his pot, that's the player's cue to point the mouse at the chairs and click rapidly to move their Yoho to the chairs before the others.

• Paint with Booty: This is a fairly standard picture making game for kids. Pictures are made bu clicking on shapes and then positioning them on the 'paper'. Two things make this one that little bit different. The first is that the Yohos are present in both front and side on view. The second is an animation button which makes any characters in the picture do a little dance.

• Boing with Jones: Jones' tools are out of his reach. The player uses the mouse to control Jones so that he/she can jump around on a pogo stick to reach them, the longer the mouse button is held down the higher Jones jumps.

All games start with a short animation and, apart from 'Look with Bilge' and 'paint with Booty' they can be played in both an easy and a hard setting; for example in 'Boing with Jones' the tools must be collected before the pogo stick breaks while in 'Chairs with Grog' the hard setting means the other Yohos move faster.

The game has explanations for each game available within the game and a full manual can be accessed from the main menu - this opens in a separate browser window.