what sort of action the animal should perform. Pressing the B-button then throws the command. If the command reaches the animal, the animal will perform the command requested. Enemies are all normally inanimate objects like tennis rackets, kites, shoes, pizza, water, popcorn, etc. that Barbie must evade by leaping over them. At the end of each section a boss battle occurs with the boss usually being overcome with the help of an animal. Development and releaseBarbie was designed by Hi Tech Expressions in an attempt to get more girls to play video games,Burrill, William. "Life: Metal-mashing robots play nasty baseball game." Toronto Star. Saturday 2nd ed. p. K4. June 22, 1991. although the developers tried to make the gameplay appealing to boys as well. Following the 1984 release of an earlier title also called simply Barbie, the game became the second in the Barbie series. Together with the later Barbie: Game Girl and Barbie: Super Model, the Barbie series was aimed at a young audience that Hi Tech Expressions listed as 3 to 9,Shrieves, Linda. "Girls Tuning Out Violence." The Buffalo News. 12 June 1994. and that third parties recommend to those 3 to 8. The basic sales and research data that Hi Tech Expressions examined in designing the game suggested that girls tended to prefer activity-based or puzzle-oriented games over the shoot-'em-up games that were popular at the time. To accommodate this preference, the team endeavored to include puzzles and mazes while avoiding any reference to blood and violence. The game was originally slated for release in October 1991, but delays caused it to be released two months later in December. The game has two versions, one of which contains 3 new songs composed by Hi Tech Expressions producer Billy Pidgeon, Ken Kirschner, and Danny Ray. Reception and legacy A review published in Allgame praised it as "not just a game of silly fashions and changing outfits," but a game that "actually has simple puzzles and decent, albeit slow, platform action," and the Russian Velikij Drakon noted that the game even had a few secret areas (commonly denoted by the "B" block). Game Freaks 365 said the game was "much more interesting than you'd probably think. The pink, cute label art displaying the classic doll in 90s regalia doesn't stare you down as something with any sort of depth, but once you actually start to play it you find