Similar to the Living Books series, each game allows you to either read and play with the story by clicking on things to see short animations, or just have the story read to you. Most games also highlight certain words that, when clicked, tells you a simplified description (sometimes in the form of a small poem) of what they mean. The Ariel and Mulan games additionally had "Create-Your-Own-Story" features.
The Other Wiki features a ton of information about the development of this series. Read their article on the series over here.
Compare Disney's Activity Center, which was another line of edutainment games based on the Disney movies but sported a Minigame Game type of gameplay.
The following Disney works were adapted into an Animated Storybook (with years of the games' releases in parentheses):
- The Lion King (1994)
- Winnie the Pooh and the Honey Tree (1995)
- Pocahontas (1995)
- Toy Story (1996)
- The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996)
- 101 Dalmatians (1997)
- Hercules (1997)
- The Little Mermaid (1997; released as Ariel's Story Studio)
- Mulan (1998; released on PlayStation in 1999 as Disney's Story Studio: Mulan)
- Winnie the Pooh and Tigger Too (1999)
Disney's Animated TropeBook:
- 2D Visuals, 3D Effects: Like in the film, some of the crowds in Hunchback are obviously CG.
- Adaptation Distillation: 101 Dalmatians is primarily based on the Disney animated classic, but contains a few elements from the 1996 live-action remake, such as Roger being a video game designer and Cruella being Anita’s boss as with that film.
- Adaptation Dye-Job: The Hercules adaptation gives the Hydra differently-colored scales as part of a matching minigame; while the canon Hydra was all purple, the game's Hydra and her multiple heads can have different combinations of purple, blue, and red coloring.
- Adaptational Alternate Ending: The Toy Story installment completely changes the moving van climax, having Buzz and Woody actually make it into the van when in the film, RC's batteries die, and Buzz "falls with style" and they fly into Andy's mom's car.
- Adaptational Badass: In Hercules proper, Herc and later Zeus took care of the Titans alone, while in the Animated Storybook Poseidon cools off the Lava Titan and Apollo melts the Ice Titan.
- Adapted Out: For the Winnie the Pooh and the Honey Tree installment, the scene with Gopher's late-night snack and Rabbit telling him not to feed Pooh has been withdrawn from the storyline. Also, both Kanga and Roo give Pooh some honeysuckle which cause him to emit a Sneeze of Doom in the film, while in the game, only Roo brings the flowers.
- All-Knowing Singing Narrator: Clopin in Hunchback, as with the film.
- Amusing Injuries:
- In Toy Story, instances of this happen while Woody and Buzz duel at the gas station. The most notable being an Inflating Body Gag that involves Buzz putting a tire pump into Woody's mouth, inflating his head and having him fly about from the escaping air.
- In Hunchback, this happens in several pages: The Alley page has this as the main gimmick where the player can give Esmeralda a different item to accost the guards with. The Festival page has this occur with Jacques the tightrope walker if he happens to fall off. The Court of Miracles page does this with a gypsy trying to get carts out of the court, but ending up getting run over by them every time. Finally there is the Defense minigame where Hugo must knock the guards off their seige-ladders with crates, with the medium and hard difficulties having them losing their armor (exposing Goofy Print Underwear), or the pidgeons can simply peck them off.
- In 101 Dalmatians, this is a big part of some of the last pages, with Cruella's humilation by the barn animals much like in the live action remake, and two pages later with the ditch where her car is totalled and its motor spits rocks at her, as well as the Badduns' truck blowing up and the wipers smacking Horace upside the head.
- In Hercules, Phil seems to be a magnet to these for two consecutive pages. First he is zapped by lightning, then he can get repeatedly shoved into the water by Meg.
- Anti-Frustration Features: Pages that involve minigames to progress can be skipped.
- Anti-Sneeze Finger: In Winnie the Pooh and Tigger Too, on page 3 if Pooh, Piglet and Rabbit are clicked on, sometimes Pooh will begin to sneeze and Piglet will put a hand to his nose to stop him so Tigger won't know they're there.
- Arrange Mode: Of a sort. The minigame on page 2 of Toy Story has three different play styles which affected how the player could put the toys away; shadow (dragging them to their shadows where they're supposed to be), "hot or cold" (Woody telling the player "warmer" or "colder" if they were getting closer to or further from where a toy goes) and "Woody says" (putting the toys away according to specific instructions given to them by Woody, i.e. putting "a little green toy in the white bucket" meaning putting the Army Man in the Bucket O' Soldiers).Woody (Shadow Play): Okay, let's try and get everybody back into position. We can see everybody's shadow where they're supposed to be, so let's pick them up and drag them to their shadows.
Woody (Hot or Cold): Okay, let's try and get everybody back into position. When you pick somebody up, I'll tell you "warmer" if you're getting closer to where they go, or "colder" if you're getting further.
Woody (Woody Says): Okay, I'm gonna help you get all those toys back to position quickly. When I ask you to put a toy away, go for it! - Art Evolution: Like Living Books, the art design for the earlier games' characters were more basic sprites with somewhat Limited Animation. Later entries got much better about this, with the art and animation getting closer to the level of quality that Disney is known for.
- Automatic Level: Earlier entries had pages that just told the story and showed animations, without any hotspots to click on. "Read to Me" turns entire stories into this, just like in Living Books.
- Banana Peel: In Toy Story Babyface's minigame on page 11 uses a variation of this, using the Luxo ball, a t-shirt, and a toy block as obstacles to avoid.Woody (reacting to the ball): I think we'd better try that again. But don't step on the ball.
Woody (reacting to the t-shirt): Well, we got pretty far. But next time, watch out for t-shirts that get left around on the stairs. Click on the right or left sides to go around it.
Woody (reacting to the block): Well, looks like we're stuck here. Next time, try ducking back to the middle around the block. - Boring, but Practical: The "Read to Me" options as with Living Books, although this is completely unavailable in Mulan.
- Bowdlerize: Since this series was sold to very young kids, some of the films' darker and more dramatic content (such as Pocahontas and Hunchback) had to be pared down for their Animated Storybook forms.
- The Lion King: The scenes of Mufasa being killed by Scar and the latter being betrayed by his own hyenas after his defeat are removed. In the case of the former, the page showing Mufasa getting Simba to safety at least states that Mufasa could not save himself from his brother.
- Pocahontas: The scenes of Kocoum and later John Smith getting shot cut straight to black just as they are shot, although the sounds of gunfire were still there.
- Hunchback: The explicit references to Christianity are removed and so is the beginning part of the story involving the death of Quasimodo's mother. Frollo's Disney Villain Death is represented in puppet form.
- Ariel's Story Studio: Ursula's demise is getting turned into a polyp instead of being reduced to remains like in the film.
- Hercules: Zeus's Shapeshifting Lover tendencies are referenced in the constellation-viewing game, but he did it merely to surprise Leda instead of seducing her; furthermore, she's identified as "a friend". The bull from the myth of Europa is also a separate character from Zeus (even if he mentions once turning into a bull himself), who thought she was "sweet" and so let her ride on his back.
- Brick Joke: Roger Radcliffe has four messages from various game publishers on his phone. At first, they tell him how some of his video game ideas are not going to sell, but then by the final scene the same publishers are dying to work with him after his Cruella De Vil game becomes a hit. (Get it? 'Cause he wrote the song "Cruella De Vil" in the original film, and his occupation is different here...)
- CamelCase: The series' logo rendered the title as Disney's Animated StoryBook.
- The Cameo: Just like in the source material, a number of other Disney dogs make a cameo in 101 Dalmatians's "Twilight Bark" song. In order these include Nana, Bull, Peg, Roscoe or DeSoto, Max (labeled as "Bowser"), Tramp, Boris, Dodger, Lady, Copper, Toby, Trusty, and Tito.
- Character Narrator:
- The Pocahontas installment was narrated by Grandmother Willow, and the Hercules installment was narrated by muses Calliope and Thalia.
- The 101 Dalmatians and Ariel's Story Studio installments feature three different characters reading different pages. For the former, Pongo and Perdita alternate between the first six pages before Lucky takes over from page 5 and 7 onward; for the latter, either Ariel, Sebastian or Ursula will narrate a page more crucial to them.
- Collection Sidequest: Ariel's Story Studio had optional special stickers to find hidden in bottles on every page, which could then be used in the make-your-own-storybook feature. Each page had 5 stickers, but only one could be collected at a time.
- Compressed Adaptation: The stories in the games are shortened from the original films. Mulan is particularly bad about this, being reduced to only five scenes with a separate tie-in minigame each.
- Department of Redundancy Department: From Toy Story:Pizza Planet Announcer: "Sugar-coated candy now on sale in the side room!" (cue various kids rushing in one direction)
- Dies Differently in Adaptation: Mufasa's death is played slightly differently in this version of The Lion King. He's still trampled to death by the wildebeests, but they don't show Scar personally tossing him in. That said, the narration states that Mufasa "couldn't save himself from Scar", implying that Scar tossing him in still happened.
- Early-Installment Weirdness:
- As detailed under Art Evolution above, the first three games had lower-detailed character sprites and bitmap-like fonts that glow when being read.
- Toy Story, which due to its pre-rendered computer animation doesn't count for breaking the sprites trend, was the first to use higher-quality fonts.
- The Hunchback of Notre Dame was the first entry to use higher-quality sprites and to pre-color special words (no need to click on an icon to highlight them first).
- 101 Dalmatians was the first entry to use pre-rendered fonts without the glowing effect.
- The first half of the series (save Toy Story) had the special words described with a simplified definition.note The second half had the special words described through short rhyming poems with images (except for Mulan which featured dialogue-free animations that usually featured Cri-kee).
- The first two games used thick menu bars/borders, while the first five games had main menus to return to in order to reach the "pick a page" or quit options. Pocahontas and The Hunchback of Notre Dame used simpler bars on the bottom of the "pages" for navigation, while Toy Story uses Buzz's pilot wings-styled emblem for the same thing. Later games got better with story navigation and dropped the need for a main menu, leaving an icon on a corner of the screen to bring up the "pick a page" and quit options. 101 Dalmatians, in particular, was really clever with its navigation system, hiding where the next and previous options are within the scenes themselves (marked by pawprint trails when they're found).
- The first three games had their minigames separate from the story, but they were integrated into the story starting with Toy Story (they are still skippable, though).
- As detailed under Art Evolution above, the first three games had lower-detailed character sprites and bitmap-like fonts that glow when being read.
- Exposed to the Elements: In Winnie the Pooh and Tigger Too, Tigger and the others don't wear any winter clothes during the winter scenes, with Roo wearing just his scarf and Rabbit taking off his after Tigger gets stuck. Christopher Robin has his legs exposed, and keeps on his normal t-shirt under his coat rather than the turtleneck sweater he wore in the actual featurette.
- Expy: This series is basically Disney's Living Books.
- Follow the Bouncing Ball: In most games, words are highlighted as they are read, just like in... well, you should know by now.
- Six of the games use this trope for actual sing-along songs, all making use of visuals set against the song in question. The only exception is in Hunchback where there are no visuals save for the page in question, only with Clopin leading the band playing the song.
- Graceful Loser: In Mulan, there is a mahjong mini-game which you can play against Yao, Ling, or Chien-Po. If you choose to play against Chien-Po, he is so polite when you win that it seems like he loses on purpose.
- Hand Gagging: In Winnie the Pooh and Tigger Too, on page 3 if you click on Pooh, Piglet and Rabbit, Pooh will sometimes start to talk or snore, prompting Rabbit to quickly shut him up by putting a hand over his mouth; when he takes his hand away, Pooh gives Rabbit an annoyed look.
- Idiosyncratic Wipes: The transitions between pages in Ariel's Story Studio are accompanied by Ariel passing the screen forward or backward, either swimming in mermaid form or skipping in human form depending on whether she is a mermaid or a human in the following scene.
- Idle Animation: In Winnie the Pooh and Tigger Too, if you wait a long time on the options screen, Pooh will yawn and doze off. The same occurs on either of the story screens, only you'll be taken back to the options screen if you wait too long.
- In Name Only: Lampshaded in Ariel's Story Studio in the section where you can create your own grotto; one option for placing marine life is a scientifically-accurate flounder, to which Ariel's friend Flounder says "Hey, I don't look like that!"
- Irony: On the page where the gang meets Buzz in Toy Story, one of the click points has Rex play with Buzz's buttons and accidentally pop out his wings. Buzz warns him to be careful, as he could potentially hurt someone, all the while as Woody endures slapstick from exactly that.
- Mini-Game: Every single entry had more than one of these; sometimes they were made part of the stories.
- Oddball in the Series:
- Toy Story is the only game based on a Pixar film (and it was produced by them, too), and also the only entry that uses pre-rendered three-dimensional computer animation entirely.
- Winnie the Pooh is the only franchise to get more than one entry, both of them being the only ones based on short films (even though they were bundled into The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh). Also worth mentioning, though The Blustery Day was never officially released under the Animated Storybook name, Winnie the Pooh Activity Center uses it as the basis for all of its activities and also includes an interactive story activity as well very much in the vein of these games, essentially rendering it as "Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day Animated Storybook" with a different name.
- Toy Story and Winnie the Pooh and Tigger Too are also the only ones not developed by Media Station at all. And the latter is the only entry that uses Comic Sans.
- The Little Mermaid and Mulan are the only two entries to involve "making your own stories" to print out. Both were released under the name of Disney's Story Studio, with The Little Mermaid being the only entry that wasn't released under the Disney's Animated Storybook name at all.
- Speaking of Mulan, that game is the only entry in the series to see a console release.
- 101 Dalmatians is the only non-Winnie the Pooh entry based on a Disney film from before The Renaissance Age of Animation. (It was partly made to promote the live-action remake.)
- Musically speaking, Toy Story, Hunchback, 101 Dalmatians, and Winnie the Pooh and Tigger Too are different from the others.
- Toy Story's music are all MIDI files in order to free up data for the visuals.
- Both Hunchback's and 101 Dalmatians's sing-along songs only use one song from their source film, with the others matching the scene in question. In Hunchback, they are all traditional French songs ("Frére Jacques" and "Alouette") with the inclusion of "Topsy-Turvy", while 101 Dalmatians using completely original songs ("I Love Fur", "Puppies, Oh, Puppies", "Twilight Bark", "Up the Stair", "Cover Yourselves with Soot") in addition to two versions of "Cruella De Vil".
- Both 101 Dalmatians and Winnie the Pooh and Tigger Too use music that do not originate from their source films. At least 101 Dalmatians has the excuse of using "Cruella De Vil".
- Pop Up Video Games: Every game in the series has minigames attached. Both Toy Story and Mulan make it mandatory in order to continue on with the story.
- In Toy Story every few pages is a minigame, notably putting away the toys, the Claw, and chasing the moving van.
- For Mulan in the first two scenes, first she needs to get her dress, and later Mushu needs to wake up the Ancestors after Mulan gets her saddlebags packed, says farewell to Little Brother, and dons her father's armor.
- Pragmatic Adaptation: The Winnie the Pooh and the Honey Tree installment completely moves a few scenes around; originally, Rabbit makes Pooh's butt into a moose so he doesn't have to bother watching it, then Kanga and Roo bring him some honeysuckle flowers which cause him to sneeze, making all the stuff Rabbit used fall apart. Then Gopher comes out at night, and at morning in the next scene, Pooh budges. In the game, the honeysuckle is not brought until four pages in, and Pooh budges immediately after the scene of Rabbit's messy house.
- Produce Pelting:
- Players interact with the main menu of Hunchback by throwing tomatoes at pictures, with the cursor changed to a tomato. You can also throw a tomato at Clopin's puppet if you want to. Of course, the moment where this happens to Quasimodo is also portrayed in the game itself.
- In Mulan, this is how the Huns are taken out, save for Shan Yu. Each of them are taken out using watermelons.
- Punny Name: Toy Story features a slew of these in the Pizza Planet scene:Guy on PA: Mr. Pid, your dill pickle and ice cream pizza is ready. Mr. Stu Pid.
Guy on PA: Honorable Sir Fizzup, your honey with extra cheese pizza is up.
Guy on PA: We've got a large seaweed and anchovy for Lionel Train. Lionel, your pizza is ready. - Purely Aesthetic Era: 101 Dalmatians looks like as it does in the original, except there is now some 1990s technology added. The Radcliffes' television is a large screen CRT with a VCR and a video game console, their phone is a wall-mounted handset with a built-in answering machine, they own a personal computer, and Roger's occupation is changed from songwriter to video game designer to support a minigame and some Brick Jokes relating to the phone.
- Rube Goldberg Device: The basis of Woody's trap on page 6 of Toy Story, but just to make things interesting, the player has to progressively stop all the moving toys in the right position in order for the trap to work.
- Schmuck Bait: During the section with Eric's ship, Ursula encourages you to click on the storm clouds again for a surprise. Doing so leads to lightning striking the ship and almost killing Eric.
- Shout-Out:
- In Toy Story:
- On one hotspot, Buzz is disgusted by an arcade game in Pizza Planet that, based on his dialogue, sounds like Mortal Kombat.
- In another hotspot in that same scene, Buzz dances to one of the games' music— that's right, a remix of Also sprach Zarathustra from a certain Stanley Kubrick film worth mentioning! Of course, Woody snaps him out of it.
- On the final page of the game (the Christmas scene), clicking on Robot invokes this:Robot: OK, OK. Who am I? Danger! Danger, Will Robinson!
- In Toy Story:
- Sneeze of Doom: Winnie the Pooh and the Honey Tree takes this up a notch that Pooh's sneeze from the honeysuckle flowers causes Rabbit's whole house to turn upside down instead of just his trophy accessories. There's even a Smash to Black when Pooh sneezes.
- Spared by the Adaptation: Played With in regards to Ursula. The narration states that she was "destroyed", but in the visual representation, she was instead turned into a polyp. Karma.
- Speak in Unison: Flotsam and Jetsam do this at all times, whereas in the original, they would often speak in unison, but not always.
- Stock Sound Effects: In many cases, the sound effects utilized in each game are different from the sound effects heard in the movies being adapted. Sometimes classic Disney cartoon sound effects are used, and there are also several instances of familiar Hanna-Barbera and Looney Tunes sound effects used (Toy Story makes especially heavy use of the latter in particular.)
- Teenage Mutant Samurai Wombats: From Toy Story:Pizza Planet Announcer: "Young Green Warrior Reptiles are now available for autographs in the main room!" (cue those same kids rushing in the other direction)
