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> Results: Busy Days in Deerfield Valley
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Building, digging, fixing, chasing and sorting are some of the things Deerfield Valley has in store for your young one. The computer game has bright, colorful cartoon graphics and pleasant music. In addition to providing six interactive games, this is also a neat outlet to teach children about different types of tractors and their individual uses. Danny Dozer, Barney Backhoe, Eddie Excavator, Grady Grader and Luke Loader are the five friendly tractors that contribute their skills.
When a particular game is selected, Danny Dozer scoots on screen and gives the rundown of what to do. This is great for non-readers. The next screen offers instructions in a short sentence and if the player needs more explicit instructions they can click on the question mark when the game starts and they will get a full paragraph explaining what to do. I like how the game covers all three bases: non-readers, new readers and old pros. All of the games can be operated by the mouse, and a few offer the option of using the arrow keys and spacebar. I found the arrow keys to confuse the tractors and myself, so I recommend using the mouse only. Start off by exploring Deerfield Valley, which isn't really a game, but is more like an activity center. Here the tractors introduce themselves and show off their movements. Using your mouse, you can pick up and move flower pots and plants and place them around a water fountain, which you can turn on and off. This interactive center isn't wildly entertaining, but is a great place for your little one to hone in on their mouse skills. Pipe Work is a simple color game where the player must pick one of four pipes, each with color coded end-caps, to lay next to the pipe uncovered by Eddie Excavator. You have to match up the right pipe before Danny Dozer pushes dirt back into the hole. This game has three levels of difficulty, all requiring basic mouse skills. On the easy level, the player helps lay one water pipe across the computer screen. On the normal level, the player will lay three pipes and on the hard level the player will lay several, including a couple connectors which need the proper colors on both ends. "Way to go!" and "Good job!" are a couple of the shouts of encouragement heard throughout this game.  Fix the Bridge is a timed puzzle game where Luke Loader waits for the player to select one of four puzzle pieces, which he'll then pick up and put into place. The pieces may be curvy, jagged or triangular shaped. This game also has three levels of difficulty, each requiring basic mouse skills. On the easy level, each puzzle piece has a thick alternating yellow and green line running down the middle, which adds a little help while matching up. The normal level has an alternating bold blue and red line traveling down the center of each puzzle piece and in the hard level the puzzle pieces are left white. The red and blue line jumps out more than the green and yellow line, and I can't help but wonder if this was a programming error. Help Build the Library is a more complex game, consisting of piles of wood, bricks and pipes which continue to pile up during the game. The object of the game is to use Danny Dozer to push each material into its designated bin. Excellent mouse skills and good visual skills are a must in this game. To get Danny Dozer to move a pile of building materials requires several tedious moves, which may be challenging and frustrating for younger kids. This game also has three levels of difficulty, the harder the level the faster the building materials pile up. Kids excited about building something will surely be disappointed when they discover there is no building involved, but instead the less glorious job of cleaning up leftover building materials. Across the top of the screen, each building material has between two to four "X's" next to it. I thought these "X's" represented how many piles of a certain material would be given during the game, but this theory busted when tested. I'm still not sure what they're for, but they do change with each game. Sandbox Playzone is another activity center where all five tractors sit at the top of the page. When you click one, it zips to the center of the page, introduces itself and then allows you to dig, push or flatten dirt, depending on its features. A pile of gravel sits on one side, a pile of dirt on the other. It's a fun way to let kids manipulate the tractors, without any pressure of completing a game. Dig a hole with Barney Backhoe and let Grady Grader smooth it out, because as he says, "Need something smoothed out? I can help out." Surprise Delivery is best described as a Pac-Man wanna-be. You're a truck, driving around a map, trying to pick up see-thru potted plants and flowers that rush along the road. Once all the plants are loaded in your trailer, you get to deliver them to the water fountain where it's instantly decorated. The truck isn't easily maneuverable, since it turns wide, but the game is cute and the graphics are eye catching. The bonus material in this game consists of six tractor coloring pages, a few of which are unlocked as you complete the games. Despite the pile of coloring books we own, there's something special about a coloring sheet spat out of the printer that gets my kids excited. 
No offensive material here, just good clean fun. I'd recommend this puzzle/arcade game for any kid old enough to operate a mouse and feel it would keep their interest until age five or six.
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