Video game

Kid Pix

bitmap drawing program aimed at children

Released: —
Platforms: FM Towns Windows
Genres: —
Developers: —
Publishers: —

About

Kid Pix is a bitmap drawing program designed for children. Originally created by Craig Hickman, it was first released for the Macintosh in 1989 and subsequently published in 1991 by Broderbund. Hickman was inspired to create Kid Pix after watching his son Ben struggle with MacPaint, and thus the main idea behind its development was to create a drawing program that would be very simple to use.

The application is now owned by Software MacKiev, who had been involved in development of the Macintosh version of Kid Pix Deluxe 3 and has been the sole developer of the Kid Pix series since the initial release of Kid Pix Deluxe 3X prior to acquiring the brand from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt in October 2011. Sir Ringo Starr of The Beatles is an active fan of the program and has used it to produce art that he has since exhibited in art galleries.

The articlegameplay, story, development, reception

Development

Craig Hickman was studying photography at Evergreen State College in 1972 with the aim of taking a career in fine art photography when he encountered a friend entering code into a teletype in the college's terminal room. This impressed upon Hickman a desire to learn how to program. After leaving college, he continued to write programs for his own education. By 1988, he owned an Apple Macintosh and began distributing software in the public domain.

While using MacPaint that year, his then-three-year-old son expressed a desire to use the application. Hickman noted how quickly he adapted to the use of the mouse and keyboard, but also that he inadvertently activated pop-up menus and other user interface elements. This experience encouraged Hickman to write a simple paint program for his son to use, which he also decided to make freely available.

Reception

KidPix was given a blue chip award at the 1994 Oppenheim Toy Portfolio Awards. The judges described it as "a fun-filled multimedia art exploration program with a sense of humor" and "chockful of clever goodies that invite computer and artistic exploration", but they noted that the DOS and Mac versions were superior to the Windows version. KidPix Companion was reviewed in the Oppenheim Guide Book where it was described as a program that "make[s] a good thing better", alongside a review for KidCuts which was described as "a 21st-century evolution of an old kids' favorite" and "a springboard for off-line creative play".

All Game Guide gave Kid Pix Studio Deluxe a score of 3 out of 5.