Freddi Fish 1 - Sending Out an S.O.S.

Written by Michael

Not unexpectedly, this was a quick game to solve.  But that doesn’t mean it was bad.  I enjoyed the little bit of time I spent in this game world.  Let me share that with you now.

I head a screen west from Luther’s tree, and begin to explore.  As is the case in nearly all the screens, the pathways are marked with posted signs.  Most of the arrow signs are blank, but some have icons, like the one we saw last time with Grandma’s face on it.  This screen has all blank ones.  

I click around all the items on the screen, looking for something I need, but I just get the cute animations.  I’ll be doing this on every screen, even if I don’t mention it, and many of them will give me a smile.  But for now, I’ll keep going west.

I swim over to a ledge overlooking various places.  We came from the mountains in the upper right, there’s a skull to the upper left, and we can go down into the abyss as well.  Also, to the left, which is where I head first.

I find a gate blocking the passageway to a volcano, connected by rope and pulley to a bucket.  There’s also another one of those purple sea urchins.  Picking up the urchin on this screen causes Freddi to throw it directly into the bucket.  It lifts the gate, but just a little.  So, I add the one from my inventory.  The gate lifts a little more, but Freddi still says she can’t pass through.  Looking at the bucket, she tells me that it will need two more.

Guess that’s our first puzzle.  I don’t know why I need to go to the volcano yet, or even if I need to, but now I want to.

Instead, I head over to Monkey Island™.  I can hear a subtle Caribbean motif underneath the background music in this screen, and I doubt it’s a coincidence.  Before I can do anything, however, an electric eel (named Eddie, of course) blocks my way and says he’s going to eat us, because he’s hungry.

Hungry?  I have the solution for that.  I give him the sandwich, which he immediately recognizes as one of Grandma Grouper’s famous Peanut Butter & Jellyfish sandwiches!  He chows down and then lets us have free reign of the skull.

I have three choices, all three end up being dark rooms.  Freddi tells me I need something that glows to be able to see inside the rooms.

Back exploring, I find a path to the dump, but on the way, I find a sleeping math teacher, Mr. Starfish.  By waking him up, I’m engaging him in a lesson, I suppose.  I’m offered my choice of difficulty levels, and I choose “Advanced”, the hardest of five starting with “Easy.”  

From the manual:

Starfish Math begins when you click on Mr. Starfish, the math teacher. Mr. Starfish asks how difficult you want the math problems to be. There are five difficulty levels in Starfish Math:

• Easy —This level is an exercise in counting and number recognition. Mr. Starfish presents groups of objects (such as seashells or fish). You click on the number at the bottom of the screen that corresponds to the number of items on the board.

• Medium —Simple addition and subtraction with groups of objects.

• Hard —Addition and subtraction of single-digit numbers.

• Very Hard —Addition and subtraction of double-digit numbers.

• Advanced —Addition and subtraction of double-digit numbers with carrying and borrowing

I, of course, wipe the floor with these problems.  It doesn’t end up unlocking anything, just an optional diversion.

To the junkyard, I find it is guarded by... you guessed it, a guard-dogfish.  Freddi thinks we’ll need a bone to get past him, and I concur.  We’ll have to leave this area for now.

So far, we need a couple more sea urchins, something that glows in the dark, and a bone.

As we handle this, we’re treated to a cut scene.  Two sharks, one smarter than the other, who work for the Mafia boss The Squidfather, are panicking.  It seems that the less intelligent of the two was tasked with hiding the kelp seed treasure, and he left himself hints where to find it, as messages in bottles.  And the first one is missing.  Uh oh!

Meanwhile, as we explore a path to the king’s castle, I come across a crab who can’t sleep because his shell is glowing in the dark.  His name is Herman.  As in, perhaps, hermit crab?

Well, I know I’m going to need his shell, but I’ll have to replace his first.  I promise him I will help.

On to the king.  First, I have to get past the guards...

... who welcome me with open fins...

...through the antechamber...

...to his majesty.  King Crab doesn’t help me in my quest, but instead offers me encouragement.

Oh, yeah -- there was another purple sea urchin near the guards, so I now have the remaining two I need to open the gate to the volcano.  Which, after passing through a beach scene, we land at the entrance to a cabaret show.

Going inside brings us to an emcee, introducing the first act.

After the act, which wasn’t very overwhelming, we can click on the title card on the left to change it, and then click on the stage to cause that act to appear.

None of these acts do anything to advance my progress, but a few are mildly entertaining.  I do somewhat miss the show from the first Leisure Suit Larry game, however.

Going back up to the mainland, if we can call it that, I explore some more passages and come across Ms. Halibut, who is concerned about her daughter Gabby.  But we’ll get to that in the next post.

The post is over when the fat lady sings.

Session Time: 30 minutes

Total Time: 30 minutes