"Once again, the magic of Disney begins with a mouse."
Something of a sister series to the Disney's Animated Storybook lineup, Disney's Activity Center was a set of Minigame Games based on movies from the Disney Animated Canon and a few Pixar movies, and released for Microsoft Windows and Apple Macintosh.
The games had a very simple premise — it was usually five or so edutainment minigames or some form of creative activity (such as a coloring book) that the player could play. There weren't any overarching end goals or any story to follow, though occasionally some of the activities would recreate scenes from the movie.
Titles:
- Aladdin
- The Lion King
- Toy Story
- Beauty and the Beast
- Tarzan
- Toy Story 2
- Dinosaur
- Winnie the Pooh
- 102 Dalmatians
- The Emperor's New Groove (known as Groove Center)
- Atlantis: The Lost Empire
- The Little Mermaid II: Return to the Sea
- Tigger's Activity Center
- The Lion King II: Simba's Pride
Tropes featured in the Activity Center games:
- But Thou Must!: Inverted. In Toy Story Activity Center, there's a minigame where you have to try and fix up the claw machine. Of course, since Buzz is deluded, he doesn't understand that the claw machine is just a game and not a real spaceship, so every time he thinks it's been fixed and is about to take off, all he ends up doing is picking up Woody with the claw. Needless to say, the ship never actually does take off no matter how many times you solve puzzles.Buzz: You did it! (activates the "launch mechanism") Now, friends... To infinity, and beyond! (notices the Claw has caught Woody and carrying him upwards in one of three random animations) Sorry, Sheriff. (deactivates the machine, releasing Woody) I thought the ship would take off. Let's try again.
- Cut and Paste Environments: Aladdin has this in spades. You can go to three different locations (the streets of Agrabah, the Cave of Wonders, and the palace), but they all sport the exact same minigames just with a different coat of paint. This even includes the coloring minigame, which otherwise looks and plays exactly the same just with a different border (the bulk of the screen is taken up by the drawing pad, but the background matches wherever you are).
- Daydream Believer: Buzz is in his deluded phase through the entirety of Toy Story Activity Center. He does go out of character to give the player instructions though.
- Early-Installment Weirdness: The first two games (Aladdin and Lion King) are a lot simpler and more rudimentary, in terms of activities offered and in terms of design. Aladdin in particular has a lot of it, particularly with the Cut and Paste Environments (see above), the lack of characters featured from the movie (Abu and the Genie are the only two to get any significant roles, and even Abu is just confined to one minigame), and the fact that the movie clips offered run way longer than many of the other games (some almost as long as a minute and a half!). Of course, after the third game, the inclusion of movie clips was dropped altogether in any case.
- Guilt-Based Gaming: In Aladdin, every time you leave one of the Simon minigames where Abu plays a role, he turns towards the screen and gives a very disappointed and sad goodbye wave to the player. In addition, the Genie also sobs when you leave the game and urges you to "hurry back."
- No Fourth Wall: The characters in-game are always able to talk directly to the player.
- No Plot? No Problem!: As mentioned above, there is never any attempt to form a plot around any of the games.
- Noticing the Fourth Wall: In the introduction to Andy's Room, Buzz runs mistaking Pizza Planet for a space port. After Woody corrects him, Buzz becomes transfixed at the camera while Woody explains to the player how to go to the other play areas. Buzz then approaches the HUD starts tapping it, followed by knocking on the camera.
- Old-Timey Cinema Countdown: Each tapestry in Groove Center starts with a 3-second circular monochrome countdown, though its aesthetics resemble the movie as well as old cinema.
- Once per Episode: Expect to see a recurring theme at least once every game. There will almost always be a coloring book or some other sort of creative minigame, a Simon Says Minigame, among other things.
- Out-of-Character Moment: The characters will occasionally go out of character to explain the instructions to the player. Possibly the most jarring example is the brief moment when Sid of all people acts completely level-headed for a few minutes in Toy Story to explain his sound box to the player. Granted, it's an audio recording, but still!Sid: The top window's where all of my sounds are. Now when you pick the sound, click anywhere in the big window to play it. To make your soundtrack, click on the sound and drag to any of these twelve little windows. These are the master control buttons: Play, Repeat, Undo, and Erase. These control your soundtrack. These sliders down here change your sounds. Each slider does something cool. To make the sliders work, just click on the sound you put in one of the little windows, then move one of the sliders up or down with your mouse. If you wanna save your soundtrack, click on the thumbs-up. If not, just click on the thumbs-down. To listen to a soundtrack you made before, click on the arrows until you see the track you want, then click on the thumbs-up. If you change your mind and don't wanna listen to one of your old soundtracks, click on the thumbs-down.
- Simon Says Minigame: Almost Once an Episode. Just to give an idea of how common these were, the first three games each had their own variant of Simon.
- Trailers Always Spoil: A few of the early games had actual clips from their respective movies for you to watch as you pleased...and some of them included clips that were very late in the movie's run time. For instance, Aladdin has a clip that completely spoils the fact that Jafar gets the magic lamp towards the end and becomes an all-powerful ruler. Another one in Toy Story shows both Buzz and Woody successfully lighting the rocket, and the "falling with style" Ironic Echo. It seems the idea was that you would have seen the movie first and would have played the game later, but a lot of children who played these games can easily say this wasn't always the case for some reason or another (they played it at a friends' house, they got it as a gift without having known of the movie...).
