Purble Place
Purble Place | |
---|---|
Microsoft Corporation | |
Platform(s) | Windows Vista, Windows 7 |
Release |
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Genre(s) | Action, mysteries, puzzle, strategies |
Mode(s) | Single-player |
Purble Place is a suite of three educational computer games[1] developed by Oberon Media that was included with all versions of Windows Vista and Windows 7.
History
Purble Place was publicly introduced in Windows Vista build 5219[2][3] along with Chess Titans and Mahjong Titans.
Games
The collection has a single home screen that offers three packs of games: Purble Pairs, Comfy Cakes and Purble Shop.[4]
Purble Pairs
Purble Pairs is a pattern recognition and memory game similar to Concentration. The object is to clear the tableau in the fewest turns. As the skill level progresses, a timer appears, the grid size increases, and more similar pictures are used. The Beginner level has one 5x5 grid, Intermediate has two 6x6 grids, and Advanced has four 8x8 grids to solve per game (shamrocks, hearts, smiley faces or gumdrops). In addition to a jester that automatically finds another match of an exposed card, numerous special pairs are present in the higher levels, such as a card of the cake batter station in Comfy Cakes that shuffles the board when paired, a clock that adds more time to the timer, and a Comfy Cakes chef that automatically finds and matches pairs of cards containing cakes. A Sneak Peek coin bonus allows the player to expose all remaining cards for a couple of seconds, but every card exposed in this way is counted as a turn. This game is not available in Purble Place v0.4, an early version from 2005.[5]
Comfy Cakes
Comfy Cakes is a
Purble Shop
Purble Shop is a code-breaker game. The computer decides the color of up to five features (topper (hair in version 0.4), eyes, nose, mouth and clothes) that are concealed from the player. The player can choose from an assortment of colors (red, purple, yellow, blue or green), and a color can be used once, several times or not used. The player then attempts to deduce or guess the right feature colors in a limited number of guesses (not available in beginner difficulty). There are three difficulty levels: Beginner with three features in three possible colors; 33 = 27 different possible solutions, Intermediate with 44 = 256 solutions, and Advanced with 55 = 3125 solutions. The beginner and intermediate levels are guessing games where after each move the computer tells the player which items were right, so there is little scope for deduction. At the advanced level the computer does not tell the player which specific items were right, reporting only the count of picks in the right color and position, and the count of picks in the right color but the wrong position. This level is similar to the colored peg game Mastermind, where success requires logical reasoning (although there is a small chance of succeeding through lucky guesses).
See also
References
- ^ "Purble Place - Microsoft Windows Vista Games, Page 2". Windows.about.com. 2013-06-24. Archived from the original on October 4, 2013. Retrieved 2013-06-30.
- PC Magazine. Ziff Davis. Retrieved 4 May 2014.
- ^ Paul Thurrott (2010-10-06). "Microsoft Windows Vista Build 5219 (Community Technical Preview 1) Review | Product Review content from Paul Thurrott's SuperSite for Windows". Winsupersite.com. Archived from the original on 2013-10-04. Retrieved 2013-06-29.
- ^
James Yu (July 24, 2006). "A Look at Windows Vista Installed Games, Page 3". CBS Interactive. Archived from the originalon June 15, 2013. Retrieved 2013-06-30.
- ^ "Proto:Purble Place/Build 5219 Prototype". The Cutting Room Floor. Archived from the original on 2022-07-29. Retrieved 29 July 2022.