JumpStart 3D Virtual World
Knowledge Adventure, Inc.
The big news from Knowledge Adventure is a new velvet rope approach to JumpStart World (www.jumpstart.com). Now, you can sign your child up for the learning community free of charge, where they can play the first of 20 levels for each subject. The idea, of course, is to get your child hooked. You start by creating your own avatar, called a "jumpee or jumpeez", selecting hair, clothing, gender and so on. Content includes a movie theater showing educational videos. Other than the JumpStart branded characters, there is no commercial content. Other areas include the arcade, Tikifalls, and so on. Some of the worlds take a while to load. Note that the game requires downloading a "real-time plugin" in order to run the 3 MB UnityWebPlayer, which works on either Mac or Window operating systems. Be ready for a little clunkyness with this, depending on which browser you're using (it prefers Windows Explorer, on a Windows computer).
$880, Windows, Mac OSX, Internet Site
Teaches: pre-reading, math, science