Boat Afloat

Boat Afloat is an activity that appears in JumpStart Around the World. It is intended for grades preschool through second grade, and doesn't teach any educational skills. It is accessed by selecting the boat travel option at the travel menu, and costs two travel tokens to play.

Premise
In order to travel from one country to the next, the player must successfully steer their boat across the ocean while avoiding the various obstacles.

Description
The player controls a boat with the arrow keys. The boat can be moved up, down, left, and right. Various obstacles will drift left and right across the screen. If the boat gets hit by one of the obstacles, the player will lose one of their tries. The player must get the boat to the finish line to win. If the player loses all of their tries, it's game over.

Sometimes a power-up will drift across the screen. If the player collects the power-up, the boat will turn golden. During this time, the boat will be able to take one hit without losing a try.

The game play is fairly similar between different grade levels. At the lower grade levels, the player only has to finish one round to complete the activity, but at the higher grade levels, the player may have to complete two rounds.

The appearance of the boat and the appearance of the power-up is also affected by the grade level.

Digital manual description


Use the ARROW keys to move the boat from the bottom of the screen to the top. Don't allow it to hit any of the obstacles moving from side to side. If the boat hits too many obstacles, the game ends. Look out for power-ups - they help keep your boat afloat, so run into them whenever possible.

Trivia

 * At least one character from each different grade level makes a cameo in this activity. The cameos include Pierre, Hopsalot, Frankie, and CJ.
 * The music that plays is the sea shanty "Blow the Man Down", which was popularized as the tune of the theme song of SpongeBob SquarePants.
 * When you play the game enough times, the next times you play have you play another round after making it across the first time.