Ribbon Hero 2

Ribbon Hero 2: Clippy’s Second Chance, released in April 2011, is Microsoft Office Labs way of making learning how to use the Microsoft Office Suite fun and intuitive. It is the sequel to the original Ribbon Hero. Specifically, it is meant to teach users how to use the new “ribbon interface” that was introduced in Microsoft Office 2007 Users take control of Clippy, a Microsoft Office assistant that many long-time Office users might be familiar with. Clippy and a number of other Office Assistants were bundled with Microsoft Office 97 through 2003. The plot goes that Clippy, who is no longer part of the Microsoft Office suite, is looking for a job and needs help with his resume.

Clippy, however, enters a time machine and is transported through time to many different time periods. Clippy is sent to the Middle Ages, the 1960s, Ancient Egypt, the future, and the Renaissance, to name a few. To progress to the next time period, and to get Clippy’s resume to his potential employer, players must perform many of the common tasks that are usually done inside Microsoft Office. These tasks range from formatting documents, inserting pictures, graphs, spreadsheet basics, and so on. With the Ribbon Hero games, Microsoft takes figures like Clippy, who have been long forgotten by some, and puts them into a new context to teach users about their products.