Schoolhouse Rock!: Grammar Rock

Schoolhouse Rock!: Grammar Rock
Developer: The Cute Company Publisher: Creative Wonders Platforms: Mac OS Classic, Windows Released in US: October 1995 This game has hidden development-related text. This game has unused modes / minigames. This game has unused graphics. This game has unused sounds. This game has a prerelease article

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Prerelease Info

Unused Minigame

To do: See if the two errors can be fixed to make it playable.

An unused pinball minigame titled "Grammar Slammer" is present in /OFFSTAGE/GRAMSLAM.DIR. Loading it into the game by swapping its name with one of the used games will make its Game Over animation play and then only the background will be visible. Two errors will display:

Script error: XLib file not found
Script error: Handler not defined #ghandle

There is also this unused graphic in SHRMAIN.DIR. It seemingly depicts part of an arcade machine, and is located next to graphics for the two arcade machines for Tortoise & the Bear and Grammar Rocks, indicating that the minigame would've been playable from the arcade.

Early Toolbar

Located in /OFFSTAGE/SHRADJ1.DIR.

Early	Final

• The buttons are in a different order.
• The "video" button is absent.
• The "flying Rocky" button is flipped backwards.
• The numbers for the timer and question counter use a different font and color.
• The "options" button simply shows Rocky's head with a comic bubble displaying the level number.

Unused Graphics

A message for confirming overwriting a previously saved game. The in-game message is simply "Do you want to start a new game?", with no further prompts.

An unused tile for the Mixed Emotions minigame, where the player must match interjections to their correlating pictures. This tile was intended to be a match for the "Wow!" interjection, and was derived from the original animated segment which featured a similar shot of a girl holding a report card with an A+. The image that is used in-game instead shows fireworks being set off.

An unused animation frame for Rafaella Gabriela Sarsaparilla intended to be used during the character select screen for The Great Pronoun Race. There is another frame very similar to this one that's used, but her mouth is closed in that one.

There are four unused frames for Lolly in the Arcade which seem to depict a walking animation, despite him always standing still in this particular location.

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Unused Sounds

Sign-In Screen

A much louder and more chaotic background noise track, internally named "COOK cafeteria bkgrnd mix".

There are a few unused voice lines for the cook. These all feature a different voice from the one heard in-game. While the dialogue for the fourth and fifth lines is still used in-game, the first three lines were revised into one: "Hi, welcome to Grammar Rock! Please type in your name and press return so I can get back to my cooking." (If playing on a Windows computer, "enter" is used in place of "return").

File	Subtitles
	Hey, how you doin'? Welcome to Grammar Rock!
	Please type in your name and press return...
	...so I can get back to my cooking.
	You need to press return to continue.
	Please type in your name and press return.

The Great Pronoun Race

There are some voice files related to losing for all three playable characters. The file for Albert is just a placeholder that ironically says "This character has nothing to say." The lines for Rafaella and Rufus seem like they could've been used, but in-game Rocky is the only character to speak to the player after losing.

File	Subtitles
	This character has nothing to say.
	Rafaella: I'm sure we'll do better next time.
	Rufus: Let's try again.

Mixed Emotions

There is a set of placeholder lines for a losing scenario in SHRINT2.DIR. None of this dialogue is used in this minigame; the host simply says "Darn, better luck next time!" if the player loses.

File	Subtitles
	Nice try. Are you ready to try again?
	You got some good practice. I know you'll do better next time.
	Hey, you can learn some more when you watch the video. Bet you'll do better then.
	I know you're trying hard. Keep it up and you're going to beat that clock.
	Okay, you've gotten some good practice. Are you ready to nail it the next time?

Development Text

Some of the game's code includes notes for developers.

A comment in START.DIR, which deals with the game's startup.

instpath is set in the start.dir. it is composed by using the 
the config.cfg file created during the installation on the
ibm. So don't expect it on the mac (besides, the mac tries to 
save to the system:preferences folder

IBMSTART.DIR, which deals with the startup on IBM machines. A comment for when the machine type is 256:

Do the Hoky Pokey

Comments for if the game is being played from a CD instead of an installed version:

we are using this off of the cd
assume save path = c:/cwonders/grammar
find that damn cd