THE GOODS : Everything a Girl Wants in a Game--and Less

The good news: There is finally a CD-ROM adventure game expressly for girls.

“Hawaii High: The Mystery of the Tiki,” from the Sanctuary Woods company, breaks the stereotypes all too familiar to anyone who has browsed the computer software shops in search of alternatives to the space epics and martial arts sagas aimed at boys.

“Hawaii High” follows the adventures of Jennifer, who recently moved to Hawaii from New York City, and her Hawaiian friend Maleah as they investigate the mystery of a stolen sacred Tiki god carving. Along the way, the two girls have to solve various puzzles to make progress in the game.

Ayelet Sela, who produced a soon-to-air National Public Radio documentary on the female approach to computer game play, applauds the efforts of Sanctuary Woods in releasing the game into a marketplace that is, according to surveys on kids and computer games, at least 85% male.

“Not only are almost all the characters in the games male,” Sela said, speaking from her home in New York, “the game content makes it clear that the game player is also assumed to be male.

“There is a lot of rescuing of princesses.”

But what most interests Sela is what specifically makes a computer game attractive and appropriate for girls.

“I feel there is definitely a difference in the way females play a game,” she said. “You can’t just take a character named Joe and name him Mary and think that it’s now a great game for girls.”

Sela said serious research into gender differences in computer game play has not been done, but after untold hours of observing kids at computers for her documentary, she can make some educated guesses.

“There is a whole set of games in which you need to spend maybe 40 hours to get to the end,” she said. “A woman will generally sit down and play a game until she’s bored. She doesn’t have to work all the way to the end to get satisfaction out of game play.

“A man will sit there and keep on working at the game, no matter how repetitive it gets.”

There are some games, including the celebrated “Myst,” that both men and women seem to equally enjoy, but often in different ways.

“Myst” is one of those games that requires many, many hours of play to unfold its mysteries. “But it’s a beautiful game,” Sela said. “As soon as you sit down at it, you see the wonderful graphics and hear interesting music and sounds. A woman will appreciate that, but after three hours she’ll say, ‘This is great, now let’s go to dinner.’ ”

Now for the bad news.

“Hawaii High,” no matter how good its intentions, is a dreadful game. (This is my opinion--Sela declined to comment.)

The graphics are neither beautiful nor engaging and the action is stiff and achingly slow, often resembling a bad puppet show or the worst in Saturday morning cartoons.

“Hawaii High” does not make good use of the vast possibilities of the CD-ROM medium and even its female-oriented content, touted by Sanctuary Woods, is a bit askew.

When Jennifer goes to the school library, for example, just about all she finds of interest are video clips promoting other Sanctuary Woods games.

Furthermore, the game play in “Hawaii High” is muddled and confusing, and the narrative thread is never clear.

The kindest thing that can be said is that future female-oriented CD-ROMs have nowhere to go but up.

“Hawaii High” has a retail list price of $39.95, and it’s playable on both Macintosh and Windows platforms.

Sela’s documentary, “Video and Computer Games; Ice Age or New Age For Women,” will air on NPR’s “Horizons” series later this month. Check your local public broadcasting station for time and date.