Ecco Jr for Pico is the only other Ecco game where the player can control the main character with a pointing device!

Summary

Ecco Jr and the Great Ocean Treasure Hunt, is an educational game created for the Sega Pico. It features all new sprites, screens, music and activities making it different from the Ecco Jr released for the Mega Drive/Sega Genesis. The focus of Ecco Jr. is to teach children to count, how to do mathematics, and recognizing shapes and patterns. The game uses a special cartridge with a book attached called storyware. The book features pages called invitation screens with interactive objects and activities. Some of the interactive objects lead to a different screen called an activity environment; This is where a majority of the lessons or game play occurs.

Game Play

Each page in the book is called an invitation screen that has an assortment of activities. When a player wants to try new activities all they have to do is flip the page. The player selects an activity by having Ecco swim over to the interactive object and “sing to it”. Ecco is controlled through the magic pen or directional pad. The animation button allows Ecco to use his sonar to “ping” objects. Depending on the object, this could create a reaction, or lead to an activity environment.

The first page is packed with activities!

A majority of the activities provide lessons for the player. These lessons are designed for young children in mind who are beginning their education. The focus of these lessons are to teach counting, mathematics, and pattern recognition.

The final page of the book allows the player to animate their own underwater world. Each object on the page represents a tool, this includes pencils of various thickness, a paint bucket for filling shapes with colors, a paint brush, stamps representing different characters and more. Whatever tool the player has selected is controlled by the magic pen. When the magic pen is applied to the drawing pad it will produce a drawing or animation on screen. This is the only page that encourages the players creative freedom.