Disney Fairies Pixie Hollow (www.PixieHollow.com)
© 2008 Disney Online
Easy to use and full of state-of-the-art graphics, Disney Pixie Hollow, found at www.pixiehollow.com, targets girls in the 6-12 age range. It is the online companion to this Fall's Tinker Bell DVD collection. The online world offers a great alternative to sites like Webkinz or Club Penguin, although there is a clear commercial agenda and no social games, at least as of Oct. 2008. While there is no cost to register and play, the "velvet rope" model shows children decorations or clothing items that require a code of some sort from related Disney merchandise. See the Clickables Fairies Collection for one set of such toys. The site is both responsive and beautifully illustrated. The designers use Walt Disney's 1937 "scrolling parallax process" to make it look like the fairies are flying in four season-themed worlds. To move your fairy, you click on the screen, and your fairy avatar follows -- similar to Club Penguin. At any time, you can type short messages to other fairies using the free but heavily-filtered chat. There's also a speed chat system that feels slippery and easy to use. You can invite other fairies to your home, where you can also store your loot. All of the games we played were for just one player, but are well designed and rather addicting. There's variations on Pong, Breakout and so on, as well as a well designed fairy avatar creation program that provides a variety of skin colors, body shapes and clothing items. The site joins Disney's Toontown Online (2003), Club Penguin (2005) and Pirates of the Caribbean Online (2007), and was created for Disney by Silver Tree Media, Shell Games and Disney Online. See the CTR demo at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r57jzwFb2wo.
Internet Site and toys
Teaches: reading, language, problem solving, creativity
CTR Rating: 88%