Learnin' Wheels is a V.Smile game released in 2004. The game was developed for VTech by the Chinese company JungleTac.
Plot
One day, a young farmer named Nick finds his sheep running away from his farm. With the help of his talking truck Truckles, the two go on an adventure to gather all the lost sheep in the city.
Gameplay
Learning Adventure
Learning Adventure has the player go to various places and accomplish a particular goal in each one. In most cases, each place has the player engage in an activity that has them practice a particular real-world skill or concept (e.g., directions, math, number order). After an activity is completed, the game then goes to a mini-game where they have to gather all of the sheep on a field, the number of which is shown right before the mini-game starts. The places that the player can go to in this game are the Post Office, Maze, Candy Store, Racetrack, and Learning World.
In Adventure Play, the plot of the game is shown through a cutscene and the game itself is linear, having the player manually visit the following places in the order listed above. The place the player is tasked with going to is shown on a map before gameplay and the player travels to each one by driving in an overworld set in the city, where they control Truckles. In Quick Play, each activity can be played individually, sheep collecting mini-game included.
Post Office
A counting game where the player has to drive Truckles through a neighborhood to deliver letters to the right house. This is done by going to the house with the number that is derived from counting by the specified interval the player is told to count by from the last number shown on the top left of the screen. While driving, the player can also collect sheep and has to avoid two types of obstacles: birds perched on utility poles that will fly towards Truckles if approached at a close distance, and dogs that will bark at Truckles if driven at; both will result in Truckles losing health.
Maze
The player has to navigate a maze to the end. Throughout the maze, the player will reach areas where they have to proceed in a particular direction. Going in the wrong direction will result in the player going to a part of the maze with various hazards, including animals such as skunks and porcupines. Sheep also appear throughout the maze, which the player can collect.
Candy Store
The player packs five candy buckets by selecting the two correct numbers that add or subtract in an equation to result in the number shown on the bucket. Four choices are offered, which correspond to a particular candy dispenser on the screen and the bucket moves back and fourth between each one. The player solves the equation by waiting for the bucket to reach the correct answer and either selecting the answer with the joystick and pressing the Enter button or pressing the four colored buttons that correspond to the displayed numbers.
Racetrack
The player races in a lap on a racetrack as Truckles in the allotted time. The player has to avoid other cars while driving, and driving into one will result in Truckles spinning in place for a short period of time and lose health.
Learning World
A portion of the city overworld where the player is tasked with collecting all the remaining sheep. Driving near certain areas will display a box with the name of said area in it, and in most cases, will have Truckles mention what the area is. These areas correspond to actual common places in the real world (e.g., fire station, restaurant, supermarket). In Adventure Play, once all of the sheep in this area are collected at this point, the player is shown an ending cutscene showing the sheep entering back into the barn at Nick's farm.
Learning Zone
Sheep Hunt
The player herds the sheep into a particular pen by moving the joystick in a particular direction given by the game's narrator.
Sheep Catch
The player has to choose a word out of four given words that do not rhyme with the others to find the wolf masquerading as a sheep.
Number Path
The player guides a sheep to the other side of the screen by hopping on turtles in a body of water. The turtles have numbers overlaid on their shells, and have to be hopped on in order by a specified interval after hopping on the first turtle.
Sheep Barber
The player solves an addition or subtraction equation to successfully shave sheep inside of a machine. This is done by selecting one of four answers using the four colored buttons, which in-game is described as "choosing the correct razor".
Development
While no developer is explicitly attributed in the game or its packaging, it is confirmed to have been developed by JungleTac, a Chinese company that is primarily known for producing various multi-game plug and play and handheld systems typically containing games developed in-house. A page on JungleTac's website from the 2010s showcasing their software development work (archived link) would contain various screenshots of Learnin' Wheels in the "ELA / kid learn soft" section, which appear to be from an earlier point in development as the screenshots depict various parts of the game that feature major differences from their counterparts in the final product.[1][2]
In addition to the presence of the game on their website, JungleTac would also re-purpose the sheep graphics from Learnin' Wheels in their own games more than once. Two examples of this are known: the "Pluto's Sheep-Dog Day" mini-game on the licensed Disney Game It! Classic Pals handheld, developed for Performance Designed Products and released in 2006, which features traced versions of the sheep sprites in the "Number Path" Learning Zone activity, and JungleTac's 16-bit game "Hide and Seek", developed for their multi-game systems, where the dancing sheep animation is traced from the respective animation shown in the results screen used in Learnin' Wheels whenever a Learning Zone activity is completed.
Pre-release
Pre-release press coverage on the V.Smile by VTech indicate that Learnin' Wheels was initially going to be released in English under the name Driving Fun.[3][4] While the plot for Driving Fun matches that of the final game, Nick was to originally be named Kenny. Any additional details on the game's pre-release incarnation are unknown.
Gallery
References
- ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20150408064131im_/http://www.jungletac.com/images/201104/0428035526.jpg
- ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20150408064131im_/http://www.jungletac.com/images/201104/0428035523.jpg
- ↑ "VTech V.Smile™ TV Learning System 2004" press release from VTech
- ↑ "VTech Unveils Highly Anticipated V.Smile™ TV Learning System at American International Toy Fair 2004" press release from VTech