Midas brings Clever Kids: Pirates and Farmyard Fun to DS in October

If only I'd had this sort of software to play as a kid I might not have ended up with an 'E' for science and put an instant end to my career as a vet.

Okay, so perhaps that's putting a lot of faith in the effectiveness of Midas's Clever Kids range of games, and expecting a lot from games entitled Clever Kids: Farmyard Fun and Clever Kids: Pirates, but they do promise to improve a child's memory functions, dexterity, attention span and knowledge. (Well, knowledge on farmyards and pirates, at least).

Two Clever Kids games have already apparently been released onto DS (as well as Wii and PC): Dino Land and Pony World. We're not sure how those gems slipped past us unnoticed. (Just teasing.)

These two are the next in the series, which is targeted at the five-to-ten age group.

In Clever Kids: Farmyard Fun, players join farmer Sprocket and his herds of animals to learn all about life on the farm and take part in games such as jigsaw puzzles, painting, memory games, spot the difference and animal pairs.

Clever Kids: Pirates meanwhile lets kids climb aboard a pirate ship, learn pirate code, identify famous pirates and their flags, find out what they ate and get to know about the dangers of combat and disease.

If you're a kid who wants to become cleverer or (more likely) a pushy kind of parent, you'll be interested to hear both games are due for release on October 24th.