Spellevator
Encyclopedia
Spellevator is an educational computer game for the Apple II computer, published by MECC
(now part of Mattel
's The Learning Company
). It was one of the first commercial games to use the ProDOS
operating system.
for its visual display. The player controls a dust bunny
(* on the ASCII representation), which is chased by several vacuum cleaners with different movement patterns. The objective of the level is to grab all the letters and exit through the upper left corner. The player can pass through an unoccupied elevator (some vacuum cleaners use elevators also) by correctly answering a spelling or vocabulary question. Once one completes a level, the player can receive a bonus by correctly unscrambling the letters one grabbed into a word).
Spellevator had a utility on the disk's flipside that let a user create a word list and save it to any ProDOS formatted floppy disk. This way, teachers could customize the game to fit their own particular vocabulary lists.
MECC
The Minnesota Educational Computing Consortium , most commonly known as MECC, was an organization founded in 1973. The goal of the organization was to coordinate and provide computer services to schools in the state of Minnesota; however, its software eventually became popular in schools around...
(now part of Mattel
Mattel
Mattel, Inc. is the world's largest toy company based on revenue. The products it produces include Fisher Price, Barbie dolls, Hot Wheels and Matchbox toys, Masters of the Universe, American Girl dolls, board games, and, in the early 1980s, video game consoles. The company's name is derived from...
's The Learning Company
The Learning Company
The Learning Company is an American educational software company, founded in 1980. It produced a grade-based system similar to Knowledge Adventure's JumpStart series. The products for preschoolers through second graders feature Reader Rabbit, and software for more advanced students features The...
). It was one of the first commercial games to use the ProDOS
ProDOS
ProDOS was the name of two similar operating systems for the Apple II series of personal computers. The original ProDOS, renamed ProDOS 8 in version 1.2, was the last official operating system usable by all Apple II series computers, and was distributed from 1983 to 1993...
operating system.
Summary
The game uses ASCII graphicsASCII art
ASCII art is a graphic design technique that uses computers for presentation and consists of pictures pieced together from the 95 printable characters defined by the ASCII Standard from 1963 and ASCII compliant character sets with proprietary extended characters...
for its visual display. The player controls a dust bunny
Dust bunny
Dust bunnies , also called dust mice, are small clumps of dust that form under furniture and in corners that are not cleaned regularly. They are made of hair, lint, dead skin, spider web, dust, and sometimes light rubbish and debris, and are held together by static electricity and felt-like...
(* on the ASCII representation), which is chased by several vacuum cleaners with different movement patterns. The objective of the level is to grab all the letters and exit through the upper left corner. The player can pass through an unoccupied elevator (some vacuum cleaners use elevators also) by correctly answering a spelling or vocabulary question. Once one completes a level, the player can receive a bonus by correctly unscrambling the letters one grabbed into a word).
Spellevator had a utility on the disk's flipside that let a user create a word list and save it to any ProDOS formatted floppy disk. This way, teachers could customize the game to fit their own particular vocabulary lists.