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Mercer Mayer's Little Monster at School is the fifth (or sixth if you were to go by the PC release dates) Living Books PC CD-Rom based on the 1978 book and story with Little Critter and other books. It was originally released on a Philips CD-i console platform in December 10, 1993 shortly before Ruff's Bone was released and on a PC/Mac CD-ROM on July 18, 1994.
Plot[]
The story begins with a little monster simply named Little Monster by waking up and getting ready for school today. First, Little Monster has breakfast with his father, older sister and younger brother. Second, he brushes his teeth. Lastly, he arrives along with Grendella, Little Laff, and Yally. Yally is the main focus of the story and is primarily established as a character who is grumpy and unwilling to do much. For instance, he is jealous of struggles of writing how Little Laff is the best counter in the class, thinks pets are icky, and that games are stupid. Mr Grithix reads them the story of Little Monster & the Three People. Everyone listens (except Yally (who pouts)). (Although Yally is the only one who pouts because he wants a story about people in outer space, Little Laff (consoling him) suggests that he can choose a story he likes next time.) Little Monster knows where the map is. He helps Yally out. The last class was Music Time with Miss Verakisser. As everyone was ready to go home, Little Monster cheers Yally up by trading drawings with each other and eventually become good friends towards the end of the story.
Characters[]
- Little Monster (the protagonist)
- Grendella (the tritagonist)
- Little Laff (the tetartagonist)
- Yally (the deuteragonist)
- Mr. Grithix (major character)
- Ms. Verakisser (supporting character)
- Little Monster's Mom (supporting character)
- Little Monster's Dad (minor character)
- Little Monster's Older Sister (supporting character)
- Little Monster's Baby Brother (minor character)
- Principal (only appearance)
- Goof (only appearance)
- Jerry Bombanat (only appearance, cameo)
- Giant Pirate (only appearance)
- Zipperump-A-Zoo (running gag)
- Kerploppus (only appearance)
- Santa Claus
Monsterville Locations[]
- Little Monster's House
- Little Monster's Elementary School
Songs[]
- USA National Anthem
- We're the Big Red Apples Song
- Row, Row, Row Your Boat
Pages[]
- 1. Little Monster wakes up.
- 2. Little Monster has breakfast with his family.
- 3. Little Monster brushes his teeth and gets ready for school.
- 4. Little Monster walks to school with his Mom.
- 5. The class sings a morning song. / Yally has trouble writing letters and Little Monster helps him.
- 6. Yally is jealous of Little Laff because he's the best counter in class.
- 7. Everyone takes care of the class pets (except Yally (who thinks they're icky)).
- 8. The class looks after plants.
- 9. Everyone in class tell what they did over the weekend.
- 10. Everyone eats lunch outside.
- 11. Everyone plays games at recess (except Yally (who thinks they're stupid)).
- 12. Mr. Grithix (the teacher) reads the story of Little Monster and the Three People to the class.
- 13. Mr. Grithix gets out a map and teaches geography to the class.
- 14. Everyone learns about leaves, rocks and bugs during science class.
- 15. Everyone is impressed by Yally's drawing of himself during arts & crafts.
- 16. Everyone sings in music class.
- 17. Little Monster and his friends walk home from school with his older sister.
- 18. Little Monster puts Yally's drawing on the fridge at home.
Words in the Pages[]
- Eggs
- Cereal
- Milk
Trivia[]
- This was the very first Living Books game that was put into production during Living Books' early development stages, even before Just Grandma and Me was considered into being made into a Living Books game. This beta version featured two pages from the book to demonstrate the use of Living Books' concept and Schlichting and his son provided the voices for the baby (and the goof) and the young protagonist respectively.
- The very first edition of this game was originally released for the Philips CD-i prior to being released on any home computers and is one of the only two games in the entire series (the other being Just Grandma and Me, which was originally released on a Tandy VIS console) to receive a console port. It has a 320x200 resolution, has high-quality audio, and has the following differences from the PC/Mac versions:
- The original "Broderbund's Living Books" intro from the first four games (hence this the last game to use this variant of the intro) is used here for the last time and it's also the first time the intro utilizes the current Living Books theme tune with a new quality to the instrumental music (minus the boing sound effect) but at the same slower tempo as the earlier version of the tune.
- There are several sound and graphic differences, including a few animated frames that are missing from the PC/Mac versions.
- The main screen of the game uses the title logo from the book cover instead of making a custom version, and the background is a plain yellow screen instead of a book.
- As this is a console port version of the game, there is no Quit page.
- The absence of the Quit page would later apply to the Wanderful re-releases of all the games in the series.
- There is a new credits sequence that didn't make it into any home computer versions (more on that below).
- The game is only in English on this console port.
- When cutting between scenes, the transition engine fades transparently into another scene instead of fading to/from black, hence the fading screens are done differently here than in any other game in the series.
- This is the second and last Mercer Mayer book to be released as a Living Books game after Just Grandma and Me.
- This is the first Living Books game to not include any previews option.
- It is the first game to use a different variant of the original plain gray-background THE END screen; the background is blue although the words THE END is still in a sloppy red text. The only other Living Book to do this with the original THE END screen are Ruff's Bone, The Berenstain Bears Get in a Fight and Sheila Rae, the Brave.
- While the Philips CD-i version had high audio quality, the PC/Mac versions didn't.
- The paper airplane from Arthur's Teacher Trouble makes a return here on Pages 11 and 15.
- Also, it plays the same paper airplane theme song as in Arthur's Teacher Trouble.
- Like Little Critter in Just Grandma and Me, Little Monster is voiced by Aaron Schlichting, the Living Books founder's son.
- This demo version can be featured in Dr. Seuss' ABC, Sheila Rae, the Brave, The Berenstain Bears in the Dark, Green Eggs and Ham, Stellaluna and Arthur's Reading Race.
- Coincidentally, both characters (Little Critter and Little Monster) are not only voiced by the same voice actor Aaron Schlichting (the Living Books founder's son), but also both of them are Mercer Mayer characters (and are the main characters of their Mercer Mayer book series and franchises).
- This is the only Living Books game to include a credits animation of a lady doing a voice-over session. However, this credits animation was only included on the Phillips CD-i version and not the Windows/Macintosh computer versions for reasons unknown.
- On the Windows/Macintosh computer versions, it was replaced by the Programmer and Music animations, but the Painting one was left intact on all releases.
- Strangely enough, in the credits for the PC/Mac versions, at one point when the guy keeps typing on his computer, the following graphic/color errors occurred (1 of 2 Living Books to have this along with Arthur's Birthday):
- The computer's wires turned dark blue instead of red.
- After the computer explodes, the guy's white shirt turns blue-green (fixed in V2 of Arthur's Birthday).
- The computer's wires and monitor were also blue green (the ceiling-crash sound effect from the credits in later games was used for the first time without being cut off).
- When the computer's monitor was blinking in front of the guy's face after he lies down on his desk, the shining from the computer's blinking red monitor in front of the guy's face was blue instead of red.
- The line "May I have eggs please?" was heard in high quality. The whoosh sound effect was heard in high quality, before it splats (in low audio quality), and the sound of putting the plate on table was heard in high quality. The line "Thank you" was heard in low quality.
- You leave the book when Little Monster says, "Well, OK, goodbye". That is if you click "Yes". But it is not always necessary to do so because you may want to keep playing. Clicking "No" allows you keep playing. Also, the "No" character is a red monster while the "Yes" character is a green monster. It is Mercer Mayer created monsters for the "No" and "Yes" characters instead of the traditional kids.
- On the Living Books Samplers, while other Living Books games were usually sorted in the order they were released, this game was placed after Ruff's Bone. This was likely because the producers sorted the game by its PC/Mac release date.
- The copyright date for the Philips CD-i says 1993, hinting that the game was put into production that year.
- When running this game on CD-i Emulator (which is a payware emulator), there are sound and graphic glitches (which the emulator itself has in general and not just for this game) as follows:
- There is beeping and buzzing in the entire audio except the credits.
- The backgrounds disappear and become plain white backgrounds.
- Several games sprites merge in and become left behind onscreen one after another per animated frame.
- During fading, sometimes the backgrounds display a garbled mess.
- You cannot access the Options page until you allow Read to Me mode play all the way through. If you click on the Options button beforehand during startup (before going into either Read/Play mode), the game will freeze.
- The sound effect used for the roof animation on Page 17 is the exact same one used in the 1945 Donald Duck cartoon, The Clock Watcher with the Jack-in-the-Box.
- First Living Book in which pictures appear on the text. In this case, the pictures include eggs, cereal and milk.
Quotes[]
Page 1[]
Mom: Little Monster!
Little Monster: Coming, Mom!
Page 3[]
Little Monster: (the bathroom glass door opens and crashing the conditioners and toothpastes, then closed.)
Page 6[]
Little Monster: Don't be mad, you can count better than me.
Yally: I wanted to be the best.
Page 9[]
(Yally (in the teacher's spot) explains what he did over the weekend.)
Yally: Well, this weekend, I had a really exiting adventure!
(As Yally explains his weekend to the class, a giant pirate comes out while Yally explores the area. Then Yally and the pirate get ready to fight. Yally draws out his sword. Then he begins hitting the pirate on the finger multiple times. When the pirate moves in on closer, Yally stabs the entity on the nose. The pirate's nose swells up and bleeds. Then he falls into the pit crying.)
Giant Pirate: (cries, sniffles, in between tears) MOMMY!
(He ducks down and disappears into the pit. Finally, Yally celebrates his victory.)
Page 12[]
Little Laff: (to Yally) It's okay, Yally. We will read a story that you like next time.
(Yally still feels mad about that. But he unwillingly (though eventually obedient) accepts Little Laff's suggestion. Little Laff's promise was Yally could choose a story he would like next time.)
Grendella: Cheer up, Yally.
(In the spite of the fact Yally is obedient and flexible about Grendella and Little Laff's offers (and while he does accept it) he still does not cheer up. In other words, "It still does not put a smile on his face".)