Blog:I Learn With The Stivensons (fake game by KPyall)

'''Note: It's not a real game. You're welcome to edit it, but don't vandalize it. This is also a WIP.'''

I Learn With The Stivensons (stylized as I learn with the STIVENSONS) is an edutainment game developed and published by Stargate Entertainment Europe, based on a series of children's activity books by Spanish company Aprendo Con for PC and Mac. It has been criticized as a shameless rip-off of the Fox adult-animated series mh:besttvshows:The Simpsons, All remaining copies were destroyed as a result of a lawsuit with 20th Century Fox (now 20th Century Studios), and the Stivensons franchise is currently owned by 20th Century's owners, The Walt Disney Company, so it would never be released again.

Gameplay
I Learn With The Stivensons is a point-and-click game. You interact with the titular family (Matt (Bart), Linda (Lisa), Humbert (Homer), Margarita (Marge), Nancy (Maggie), Kringle's Pocket Partner (Santa's Little Helper), and their friends, family, and other citizens like Ted Flounders (Ned Flanders), Rolf Waggum (Ralph Wiggum), and Krunchy (Krusty), all around the town of Geyser Meadows (Springfield). It also has minigames, too.

How It Copies mh:besttvshows:The Simpsons

 * Many of the characters are direct copies of Simpsons characters, down to their suspiciously similar names and similar character designs.
 * Heck, the US box art even admits it's from "the people who watched The Simpsons", and the American localizers admit it too and were aware of the similarities, and they were only localizing it for money.
 * In both The Simpsons and The Stivensons most of the characters are yellow.
 * The theme song sounds similar, too.

In General

 * 1) Like Barney and Friends, it unnecessarily sugarcoats life. Granted, it's for ages 3-7.
 * 2) It overuses Comic Sans a lot.
 * 3) The characters, as seen in a cover of the original activity books look really strange, which tries to be cute, but looks kind of emotionless. They, of course, rip off the Simpsons characters' designs.
 * 4) The gameplay, for the most part, is boring.
 * 5) Some of the music is mediocre, forgettable, and outdated MIDI music. This is unacceptable because most video games switched to .ogg and similar files for music at that time.
 * 6) Not to mention, it's inconsistent because it both uses MIDIs and WAV for music, too.
 * 7) The game is very short, as it takes 1.5 hours to complete the game.
 * 8) There are some animation errors where the characters have 8 fingers in some scenes, but then they have 10.
 * 9) Most of the characters are Mary Sues or Marty Stus with no flaws whatsoever.
 * 10) Originally, when the game was running for too long and no one was touching the keyboard and the mouse, it would crash the game and present the BSoD or a kernel panic.

Original Spanish version
More coming soon
 * 1) The voice acting sounds stiff and unnatural.
 * 2) The instructions of the games are unskippable, forcing you to listen to the instructions. This can be a pain for games with long instructions.
 * 3) When the characters sing, it sounds pretty annoying.

US English version

 * 1) The game was overpriced. It sold for $39.99, and it was not worth the money.
 * 2) Although the voice acting is good, some characters, like Margarita, sound really annoying. Margarita's voice actor is trying way too hard to sound like Julie Kavner's Marge but fails.

Redeeming Qualities

 * 1) The animation, although sometimes stiff, is rather fluid and energetic.
 * 2) Some of the music is actually decent, catchy, and energetic.
 * 3) Some funny moments here and there.
 * 4) It does try to be educational.
 * 5) There are some funny lines like:
 * 6) "I'm loading!": Rolf
 * 7) "D'AW! That's my spleen!": Humbert
 * 8) "Professor Fronk has literally lost his marbles!" Linda
 * 9) "Matt, why you little! Seriously, why are you little?": Humbert
 * 10) Fun games like "Shrink Tag", "Fronk's Lost His Marbles", "QuiStivenson", "I'm Gonna Put a Spell on You", and "Super Stivensons" (a parody of mh:awesomegames:Super Mario Bros.)
 * 11) Its art program is fun and has lots of features.
 * 12) Marty Scorches, although a rip-off of Mr. Burns, is an excellent (no pun intended), yet funny villain.
 * 13) Richie and Tabitha, albeit rip-offs of Itchy and Scratchy (and Snowball II), are also great characters.

US English version

 * 1) You can skip the instructions if you'd like.
 * 2) Good voice acting.
 * 3) The American localizers can take criticism, and admit the game is bad and as said before, a 'Simpsons' rip-off, but they don't regret making it because it was a learning process to them.
 * 4) Some bugs were fixed.

More coming soon

Sales
It was a commercial failure. It sold 10,000 copies, but Stargate made 250,000 copies. Fox forced Stargate to recall every copy and dump the copies (including the unsold ones) into a landfill. Much to the chagrin of Fox, some people held on to their copies. Only 95 copies are known to be remaining today, mostly owned by Simpsons fans who also collect bootlegs.

Reception and Lawsuit
The game had a mixed-to-negative reception. IGN gave the game a 3/10, saying "The Stivensons is nothing but a poor watered-down kids version of The Simpsons. It may have its funny moments, but it's really terrible. Matt Groening's not gonna approve this." GameSpot gave it a 4/10, saying "I Learn with the Stivensons is a "meh" game. When you buy it for your kids, you'll say "D'OH!" to realize your mistake, and it's hours of fun (driving to the store and getting a refund.) It's not an ex-cellent game, but it's the worst. Simpsons. Rip-off. Ever! However, the only saving graces are that the animation looks decent, and the jokes are kinda funny." After an unidentified Simpsons crew member bought copies for everyone working on the show (including creator Matt Groening) in December 2005, its popularity raised up. But in February of 2006, 20th Century Fox sued Stargate for $5 million due to it copying too much from The Simpsons. Fox won and bought the rights to The Stivensons, so it wouldn't be released again.

Legacy
It later got repopularized in 2020 by a YouTuber known as Cromulent (real name: Thomas Scott, a YouTube who mainly discusses about The Simpsons and other cartoons for kids and adults) who played the game, and said it was "kinda bad". He uploaded the ISO to Internet Archive, but a few days, it got taken down by 20th Century's new parent company, The Walt Disney Company. However, people still privately share the ISO so Disney wouldn't take it down.

Trivia

 * The Stivensons, alongside mh:terribletvshows:The Samsonadzes, appear in a "Treehouse of Horror" sketch where the family meets foreign bootleg versions of themselves.

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