Well since both of these games are merged together in the same page, I might as well review them both (I could swear I thought I did do a review for these two)

Gameplay and story : So the games are kind of plotless, Playtime for Baby has Mattie hiding in Reader Rabbit’s toy chest after he was playfully chasing her (you know sometimes I question how old Reader Rabbit is, I mean clearly he’s a very responsible teenager (and so is Sam Lion), I’m assuming Mat the Mouse is probably between the ages of six and eight (too young to be considered a tween too old to be in Kindergarten but then again she’s old enough to help out at a Summer camp and to rebuild the Carnival but might not know how to read as we find out in the future) and once we’re in the toy chest there are a few activities to play. Toddler has Mat arriving at Reader Rabbit’s house mostly to play with this very interactive book that leads to a special place with alot more activities to be had than Playtime for Baby, including a colouring book, an animal reunion game, a cute little train (that I’m not sure was in the original cut of the game I don’t think it was because I never used to deal with a freezing computer when playing the game) a bubble popper game where you free some animals, and a finger puppet game, there’s lots more but I think I can let the screenshots speak for themselves.

Graphics: Graphics of Toddler has some interesting CGI including a rather cool looking CGI Mattie when she goes down the bookmark ribbon slide and then she goes back to traditional animation once she lands in the storybook land. The Finger song game is Reader Rabbit’s only contribution to the game, and he looks like he got a nice CGI makeover as well. The art in both of the games is very pretty and colourful and inviting

Soundtrack: a good chunk of the soundtrack is full of well-known children’s songs including some that are exclusive to the game, most of them are less than 30 seconds long. Both games have fun sounds for their recommended ages they’ll love, especially in the Rainbow mountain game in Toddler and in the Finger Puppet theatre. There is a game in Baby that is similar to the finger puppet theatre from Toddler except Mat is doing all the actions, but one of the songs included among the track list in that game is a song that is a Reader Rabbit favourite (I ought to do an extras video for all the reader rabbit songs we hear in the games from the classic era)

Addictive: I’m sure this would be addictive for any child to play, I do know this is a very Special Needs friendly game if only The Learning Company hadn’t gone kablooie they could have made apps involving reader rabbit, the IPs they acquired have made comebacks but not the characters they created (the last Reader Rabbit release was in 2018...and I don’t think I like his new look that much) even if the Cluefinders did make a comeback everyone would be getting another makeover, Joni included, and I think one was enough for her except the entire body is involved. Anyway, the nostalgia factor is strong with this one, how strong? Well for one thing, my gameplay of Reader Rabbit Toddler is the second highest viewed gameplay on my Youtube channel.

Depth : Since there is no plot to either game basically it depends on if you want to play all of the activities in one sitting, the last time I played Playtime for baby I was done in less than 20 minutes, I did Toddler in less than an hour but again it would depend on how much time you want to spend at an activity, I try to do everything in a certain activity before I move on to the next one. However, Toddler makes me want to play for hours (mostly because there’s more to do as all you do is play in Baby so everything is chill no pressure, and Toddler actually does let you know if you did something right in an activity. Though I am pretty sure Playtime for Baby reused a game from Toddler, or rather merged two games from toddler as they merged the crayon activity with the bubble activity except we don’t have animals to free (speaking of which if you do play the bubble pop game in toddler I suggest you free the animals when the bubble is closer to the tower the animals enter once they’re free because they can be slow walkers)

Difficulty: *laughs hysterically* no they’re not difficult at all. Reader Rabbit Playtime for Baby and Toddler are both meant for babies like real little kids, Baby is meant for 0-2 (but in reality I wouldn’t have babies play the game it’s too early to get them addicted to computer games) and Toddler is meant for 18 months to age 3 however even I couldn’t be held back by the age restrictions, even I’ve played them, and I would know that a copy of Toddler was used in the special needs program at my elementary school so long ago. Playtime for Baby well I didn’t know it existed until the school offered kids an activity book to use during the summer (because of the demos and stuff) Let me put it this way: Playtime for baby it’s essentially learning to count to five, Toddler is learning to count to ten that’s the difference in the difficulty of these two titles

Post review follow up: To be honest I don’t think children should be on a computer at that young an age (we didn’t get a computer in my house until I was 9, that’s 28 years ago and even so we didn’t have internet until 2002 and high speed internet, not until 2009 and any video gaming I did was regulated to Christmas. Yeah they only let me have it hooked up for two weeks a year...at least until I figured out how to hook it up all by myself...however the computer games were a different story since a majority of the ones I had were educational but even those had to be taken from me at some points in fifth and sixth grade) even if they are used in certain school programs. Playtime for Baby was one of the last games released before the Dreamship era took over and started a bunch of new versions of their games If I had to pick between which preferred better I would have picked Toddler, I played that more, and though I didn’t grow up with it I did however take it out from the library a few times, and sometimes on the bus rides I would hear the kids in wheelchairs that had used a special recording device to hear the songs from the game.

So since this is meant for the youngest of sets I kind of have to give the rating a 6 (not really meant for me but still better than Spellbound)