KidsMouse for Windows

KidsMouse for Windows is a suite of Flash-based games that is, according to the publisher's information, suitable for infants. We didn't have an infant handy and our cat didn't seem interested, so we tried the games ourselves. It turns out that KidsMouse is a great way to get kids acclimated to using a mouse while also working with numbers, letters, and colors.

As would be expected from a game for kids, the interface is incredibly simple, with 16 games represented in the menu by images. There is no Help file, but not much of a need for one, either. Once gameplay begins the game takes up the entire screen, meaning that parents don't have to worry that Junior will accidentally click on the wrong thing and format the hard drive. Only a few of the games are available in the trial version of the program, but we liked the ones we were able to try. These included games in which the user drags and drops letters and shapes to their matching outlines, an animal matching game, and a coloring game. All of the games were colorful and cute, and we enjoyed the slightly funky music, although--as with most such games--it's bound to get annoying after a while.

The trial version of KidsMouse has no time limit, but it does disable most of the games. The program comes as a ZIP file and no installation is needed. We recommend this program to all users who are seeking to introduce their little ones to computers games and mouse usage.