Sophie鈥檚 World by Jostein Gaarder, Macmillan Interactive, 拢39.99, ISBN
0333692896
IF YOU enjoyed the book Sophie鈥檚 World, then try the challenge of
the CD-ROM. It鈥檚 not an alternative, but an additional experience. Jostein
Gaarder鈥檚 original was a long philosophy lecture disguised as a mystery story.
The CD-ROM is a game cloaked in hypertextual references. Sophie鈥檚 World
(Macmillan Interactive, 拢39.99, ISBN 0333 692 896) is based on (note the
鈥渂ased鈥� on) Gaarder鈥檚 book. The book sold 12 million copies, so one can see the
appeal of recycling. But here multimedia is deployed with creditable
originality.
The subject matter, the search for existential meaning, is not classic
mass-market material. But the product will certainly encourage adolescents (and
others) to question and to learn.
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Lateral thinking (and not a little patience) is required to work through the
28 scene-bands that take the explorer through some of the history of human
thought. To progress along the inherent linear strand requires solutions to
Mensa-style puzzles. The help screens are cryptic: you have to find out for
yourself how to make progress. This requires a particular mind-set, not an
ability to apply logical thought. This appears to me the CD-ROM鈥檚 fundamental
error, for if I learnt anything from my own degree in philosophy, it was that
logic is the basis of it all.
The plot-ploy structure of the book gives way to point-and-click tricks to
engage the reader, and the story proceeds via little e-mails floating across the
screen plus communiqu茅s between Sophie and the rest on a titchy palmtop.
The reader is meant to identify with the sort of girl (speaking with a posh
voice) who receives a camcorder for her 15th birthday. Those reared on Chuckie
Egg will enjoy the satisfaction of notching up to a higher level. But girls tend
to have little patience for this sort of gamesmanship. Perhaps the pitch is not
at girls, and the title is pure sophistry.
Screen space considerations mean that the philosophy is even more simplified
than in the original. The CD-ROM has filled in the odd gap, however. Whatever
kept Ludwig Wittgenstein out of the book?
Philosophy is hard to read on a 5-centimetre square of tiny type narrowly
reversed out of busy colour pictures. Do these multimedia companies ever do any
research into readability theory? Why can鈥檛 they get something as basic as
visual clarity right?