The Zoombinis software programs are a unique series, designed to help kids learn and develop the strategies and processes that underlie mathematical problem solving and fundamental scientific inquiry (observing something you don't understand, developing hypotheses and testing them). The ingenuity of the Zoombinis is that the designer has created highly engaging story and mission adventure frameworks around the thinking and problem solving puzzles, that will have kids fully engaged and most will not even be aware that they are doing "math" or scientific inquiry.

The newest in the series, Zoombinis Island Odyssey has the Zoombinis returning to Zoombini Island and facing the challenging task of getting little animals called Zerbles to the centre of the island. The island is in ecological ruin. The only way to restore the island is to husband a new Zerble population and get them to the centre of the island.

You start with an expeditionary force of 12 Zoombinis (each of whom has 1 Zerble). Your task is to get your expeditionary force through 7 challenging puzzle exercises that are part of the pathway to the centre of the island (see top right).

Your Zoombini expedition arrives at the landing to the island. To get them over the cliff, you need to catapult them using an interesting set gears that will drop a rock on the catapult spring. (See second right) This is easier said than done. You have to figure out the right sequence of mud balls and real rocks to get the gears to drop the rock on the catapult spring. This is a clever exercise in first figuring out how the mechanism works (hypothesis testing), then identifying the right sequence, and then getting all Zoombinis over the cliff.

Each puzzle challenge will have written instructions that will guide you. So on the right, for example, are the instructions for Arno's Garden where you are trying place the right plants in the right holes (this is a very challenging characteristic matching exercise)

Each time you return to a specific puzzle, it will have slightly changed and so becomes a new challenge. If you don't fully succeed on the first try of a specific puzzle, you still are able to advance in the game and return later to that puzzle to get it right.

The program has 3 levels of difficulty than you can set yourself or let the program automatically adjust upward as you become better ("raising the bar"). Once you get your first expedition of Zerbles through to the centre of the island, they start to procreate and the ecology of the island starts to restore. But then you need to get more Zerbles to the centre of the island to continue the restoration and so your start a brand new expedition. This game has lots of depth.