An American Tail: The Computer Adventures of Fievel and His Friends
Point-and-click adventure based on the An American Tail films.
An American Tail: The Computer Adventures of Fievel and His Friends is a 1992 point-and-click adventure game for MS-DOS. Developed by Manley & Associates and published by Capstone Software, it draws from both *An American Tail* and *An American Tail: Fievel Goes West*. To help younger players, its manual contains a glossary explaining difficult words. In 1994, the game was bundled with *Trolls* and *Rock-A-Doodle Computerized Coloring Book* as part of the Capstone CD Game Kids Collection.
Players guide Fievel Mousekewitz as he locates and protects his family. The gameplay is a simplified point-and-click system with no deaths or dead ends. When the mouse pointer hovers over an object, the icon changes to indicate possible actions like talking, picking up items, looking, or moving to another location. Conversations offer multiple dialogue choices, and clicking on Fievel lets the player give inventory items to other characters. To progress, the player must solve mini-games; losing has no penalty, requiring only a retry until Fievel wins.
The game uses digitized scenes from the first two films and was showcased at the Chicago 1992 Summer Electronics Show.
In *Computer Gaming World*, reviewer Judy Muldawer noted that solving the adventures fosters a sense of accomplishment. However, she found it difficult to target a single age group, suggesting the game works best as a shared family experience where children and adults can help each other and share the joy of completing the adventure. She recommended it as a family project for parents and elementary school-aged children.
- Publisher
- Capstone Software
- Developer
- Manley & Associates
- Release year
- 1992
- Platform
- MS-DOS
- Genre
- Point-and-click adventure
- Based on
- An American Tail and An American Tail: Fievel Goes West
Lore & Background
The game guides the player as Fievel Mousekewitz to find and protect his family. Gameplay is a simplified click-and-point set of options without any deaths or dead ends. When the mouse pointer is placed over a particular something, the icon changes to indicate an appropriate action, such as talking to characters, picking up items, looking at objects, or going to another location. When talking to a character, the player chooses from multiple dialogue responses. Clicking on Fievel allows the player to give items from his inventory to a character on screen. Throughout the game, the player must solve mini-games to gain required items; losing a mini-game has no consequence but requires the player to try again until Fievel wins.
Reader's Guide
The game uses digitized scenes from the first two films and was presented at the Chicago 1992 Summer Electronics Show. In 1994 it was released with Trolls and Rock-A-Doodle Computerized Coloring Book on the Capstone CD Game Kids Collection. Judy Muldawer reviewed the game for Computer Gaming World, noting that solving the adventures promotes a feeling of accomplishment but that it is difficult to assess any one age group as a target. She recommended the game as a family project for parents and children of elementary school age, suggesting it be shared as a group experience where children and adults can assist one another. The game's significance lies in its adaptation of popular animated films into an educational, non-punitive adventure game for young players, with a glossary and simplified mechanics to support literacy and problem-solving.
More in Point-and-click adventure games 1-24
Spotted an error? Know more?
Reader corrections go straight into our review queue. Suggest an edit · How this site is sourced