Dr. Frankenstein’s Lab was a wonderful exercise in combining my skills as a designer and programmer with my skills as a cartoonist and character designer. When given the task of creating a CD-ROM game that would appeal to young kids, I thought of fond memories of my youth related to Halloween and sought to design a simple series of games around that common theme.

I wanted to get away from traditional menus and make the navigation akin to exploration, with the user clicking different objects in order to make their way throughout the laboratory (there are even a couple easter eggs hidden in the main menu). Contained therein are three games.

The first is simply titled “Robots,” in which the user has a pile of robot parts and a blueprint on which to assemble them. It is a simple play on a jigsaw puzzle of sorts.

The second is called “Monster Machine” and was inspired my childhood love of the game Monster Mash. This activity is all about fun; users simply throw different switches to see what sort of creature they come up with.

Finally, “Igor’s Errand” involves helping your guide Igor find the necessary ingredients for one of Dr. Frankenstein’s fiendish experiments. The user must match pairs of ingredients, a play on the classic game of Memory.

I composed the music electronically from previously-captured, stock samples.