Mia's Big Adventure Collection is an edutainment software series created in 1998 by Kutoka Interactive. The series consists in five subject-based titles for children in elementary school.
| Mia's Big Adventure Collection | |
|---|---|
| Genre(s) | Edutainment |
| Developer(s) | Kutoka Interactive |
| Publisher(s) | Kutoka Interactive |
| Platform(s) | Windows, Macintosh |
| First release | Mia's Reading Adventure: The Search for Grandma's Remedy 1998 |
| Latest release | Mia's Reading Adventure: The Bugaboo Bugs 2007 |
Gameplay
editIn the introduction of each of Mia's adventures, the player is invited to help her on a quest. As the player progresses through the game, there are various educational activities.
The difficulty level set by the player at the beginning of the game corresponds to different and more challenging question sets. Optionally, the player may bypass the entire adventure part of the Mia game and enter straight into a menu of all educational activities.
Inside Mia's adventure, the character of Mia follows the player's cursor on the screen and reacts to certain objects in the scene when they are clicked on.
Characters
editMice:
- Mia Mouse: The protagonist of the series. She is a feisty and clever English mouse who carries a skateboard in her backpack. She lives in the attic of an old Victorian house on Carrington Lane in London, England, where her family has lived for generations.[1]
- Marty Mouse: He is Mia's best friend. He is a very smart kid who likes to read books and is a bit shy, especially around Mia.
- Miguel Mouse: He is a gifted mechanic from Mexico.
- Manfrid Mouse: He is Marty's father. He owns the General Store.
- Mister Maurice is also what he is called
- Grandma Mimi
Rats:
- Romaine Rat: The antagonist of the series. He is a businessman who has a special passion and talent for accumulating Sparklies, the currency in Mia's world.[1]
- Pompon Rat: He is Romaine Rat's left arm and the cousin of Nopompon Rat.
- Nopompon Rat: He is Romaine Rat's right arm and the cousin of Pompon Rat.
- Rango Rat is a tall rat introduced in the TV series
- Rufus Rat is a short rat introduced in the TV series
Bats:
- Dingbat is a little bat. He cannot fly.
- Biska Bat is a female bat introduced in the TV series
Others:
- Betty Bird: She is a woodpecker flying around the gossip in Mia's neighbourhood.
- Freddy Frog: He is an accident-prone friend of Mia who lives in a pond in the backyard of her house.
- Scary Spider
Titles in the collection
editMain series
edit- Mia's Reading Adventure: The Search for Grandma's Remedy (1998)
- Mia's Science Adventure: Romaine's New Hat (2000)
- Mia's Math Adventure: Just in Time! (2001)
- Click & Create With Mia: A Complete Creativity Studio (2002)
- Mia's Language Adventure: The Kidnap Caper (2003)
- Mia's Reading Adventure: The Bugaboo Bugs (2007)
Other titles
edit- Mia Sudoku (2008)
- Mia's Word Copter (2010)
- Mia: The Happy Helper - A Fun Learning Adventure App (2014)
Technology
editWith the exception of Mia's Language Adventure, which uses Kutoka's own 2D engine, all Mia games were developed with the Macromedia (later Adobe Systems) Director multimedia application authoring platform.
The in-game 3D animations are made with Softimage 3D (and later XSI) before they are imported as sprites inside Director. The animated 3D cinematics are also made with Softimage's technology and exported as QuickTime movies.
TV series
editThe franchise was announced in 2010 by Radio Canada and produced by Sardine Productions.[2] After delay Cyber Group Studios with SpaceToon Media's participation released the TV series in 2014 in both French and English.[3] Toonavision picked up the show by 2019.[4]
Awards
editIn addition to awards received by the individual titles in the collection, the whole Mia collection received a United Nations World Summit Award in 2003.[5]
Notes
edit- ^ a b "Meet the cast Archived 2009-04-14 at the Wayback Machine". Kutoka.com, retrieved on 2009-06-17
- ^ Vlessing, Etan (2010-03-23). "'Mia the mouse' heads for TV". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved 2018-02-06.
- ^ "MIA - Cyber Group Studios". January 26, 2015. Retrieved June 18, 2015.
- ^ @ToonAVisionTV (20 December 2019). "There's a new channel in town! Toon-A-Vision is a new kids and family friendly TV channel broadcasting nationally on Bell!" (Tweet) – via Twitter. (note: the logo is visible as one of the 9 advertised toons, found on the bottom right next to Little Princess)
- ^ "WSA Winners - eLearning - 2003 Archived 2009-06-18 at the Wayback Machine". World Summit Award, retrieved on 2009-06-17
External links
edit- Mia series at Kutoka.com
- Mia's Big Collection series at MobyGames