Quarky and Quaysoo's Turbo Science Download (1992 Educational Game)

The indian-originated space elf Quarky O'Ghandi and his sister Quaysoo organized a team Los Turbos to beat well-known Das Liquidators, Cool City Maulers, and Valiant Cube. Answering correctly on questions, you as member of Los Turbos must earn money to move between check points, and to win a race. A several won races raise your rank and add chances to win a Turbo Science championship.

Quarky & Quaysoo's Turbo Science was released by Sierra On-Line in 1992 as part of the Sierra Discovery Series. It's a quiz game suitable for kids aged 9 to 14, with a huge range of topics taken from physics and chemistry.

The setting is a weird world where humans and aliens are holding a 'Turbo Science' race, in which you have to reach the goal before the opposing team does. The race leads you around a map with several sites, each dedicated to a certain topic. There are areas related to everyday physics, but also specific ones dealing with aerodynamics, pressure, magnetism, and so forth. In order to move forward, you have to pay for the transit to the next checkpoint. There is always more than one vehicle to choose from, and the faster vehicles cost more than the slower ones.

You can earn money by finding the correct answers to the questions, and from time to time you will also be awarded special bonuses. As the game runs on a kind of real-time clock, you not only have to answer correctly but also more quickly than your opponents, and make good choices about which vehicles to use, especially on the higher difficulty levels. There are two ways to adjust the difficulty of the game: First, you can choose between easy and hard questions, and second, there are several teams of opponents, which become faster and faster the more races you win.

Quarky & Quaysoo's Turbo Science has a really funny setting and story which make up for the rather dry questioning style. It's like answering a multiple-choice test at school, but with entertaining and well-animated backgrounds and a really freaky soundtrack. Covering more than 2,300 questions, the game can go on for hours before it becomes repetitive and even if most kids prefer to play other games, it's a nice addition to everyone's collection - even adults will find it interesting. Since it was released by Sierra, it has the typical 'Dynamix bottom bar' style, like all later Sierra adventures, and is therefore easy to understand and to handle.

I rate this game a 4, as there aren't many educational games that really manage to transfer some knowledge and are fun to play at the same time. Nowadays many so-called 'brain trainers' are released onto the market. This game is a good addition to them, not only if you want to quicken your brains but also to improve and strengthen your knowledge.

A pleasant surprise by master puzzler Jeff Tunnell, this is "edutainment" at its best. Essentially a science trivia games for kids, this game puts a new spin on the ideas with wacky cartoon characters, colorful locales, and different scientific gadgets (e.g. thermometer, barometer, etc.) that can be used on various objects in the screen to learn about their properties. Questions are all multiple-choice, with some surprises near the end. Overall, this is one of the strongest educational titles ever released, and it shows off Jeff's versatility as an astute game designer.

How to run this game on modern Windows PC?

People who downloaded Quarky and Quaysoo's Turbo Science have also downloaded:
Reader Rabbit's Ready for Letters, Reader Rabbit's Reading 1, Reader Rabbit and Friends: Let's Start Learning, Rosemary West's House of Fortunes, Reader Rabbit's Kindergarten, Putt-Putt Travels Through Time, Quandaries, Pyramid: Challenge of the Pharaoh's Dream