Jenny of the Prairie

Rhiannon Software

1984

From the introduction and descriptions:

When a girl enters the world of Rhiannon Software, she's not just playing games.

She's learning. She's using her imagination. And she's entering the computer age.

Rhiannon Adventure Stories are a unique way for both girls and boys, aged 7 to 12,

to develop an enthusiastic and realistic appreciation of computers.

Why Adventure Stories for Girls?

The major goal of Rhiannon Software Adventure Stories is to

open the doors of software development so that all children can freely

explore the fascination of computers. Most people get their introduc-

tion to computers from games; they are an entertaining, casual way of

becoming acquainted with hardware and software and of developing

an interest in the potential capabilities of computers. Many computer

games currently available rely on strategies that generally appeal

more to boys than to girls. The need to interest girls in computer tech-

nology demands a response from those who care about their economic

and social equality.

Combining our expertise in counseling psychology and software

design, we have created a line of adventure stories that are intriguing

to girls. We chose a theme of basic survival for our series because sur-

vival tasks are important and interrelated. Opportunities are limited

by the resources of the environment, and creativity is demanded to

solve complex problems for which there are no "correct" answers.

Reality must be confronted continually, and maintenance tasks

repeated in cycles. Solving these adventures is more like weaving an

intricate design, in contrast to the linear strategy found in most com-

puter games. We are pleased that both girls and boys enjoy playing

Rhiannon Adventure Stories. We hope that, in the future, girls and

boys will have equal physical and psychological access to computers.

Several features of the Rhiannon adventure series are intention-

ally different from other games and teaching programs.

What Rhiannon Adventure Stories Do Have

• self-paced stories that reward experimentation, with no "right" or "wrong" answers

• realistic survival adventures

• strong female characters

• challenges designed to expand knowledge of computers, including the use of the keyboard and documentation

• carefully researched settings that reflect real-world environments

• situations that encourage creative problem-solving

What Rhiannon Adventure Stories Do Not Have

• frenetic time pressures to win or lose

• subhuman or superhuman characters

• wimpy damsels in distress

• problems that require only mindless hand-eye coordination or repetitive joystick movements

• misleading historical or geographical data

• inherent violence in plot and graphics

Adults support the mind-challenging nature of Rhiannon Adven-

ture Stories, the tendency for girls to play them cooperatively and for

younger children to play them with adults or older siblings. But while

having fun, children are also learning basic computer skills, like

entering "program commands" on the keyboard, understanding

"user-friendly error messages," referring to "documentation" while

"operating the program," and recognizing the interaction among pro-

gram, data entry, and disk access.