Game 165: Freddi Fish and the Case of the Missing Kelp Seeds (1994) - Introduction

Written by Michael

We haven’t played a game from Humongous Entertainment in a little while, since Ilmari played 1993’s Putt-Putt Goes to the Moon.  While he tackled the first three of their games covered by the blog, I’m happy to settle in for a new series of theirs.

Much like Ilmari in 2018, I also had no exposure to Humongous Entertainment.  I might have heard something about Ron Gilbert making children’s games, but when I was 14, I would have thumbed my nose at the thought, since I had very clearly outgrown such childish endeavors.  Only now, with the wonder of adolescence but a speck in the rear-view mirror, can I truly appreciate this experience.

 

As much as Ilmari found the Putt-Putt games reminded him of Pixar’s Cars movies, there is an unmistakable similarity in today’s title to 2003’s Finding Nemo.  Is it because the same cartoonish style of anthropomorphism is used in both?  

I suppose it’s a little different with animals, though.  Imagine a squirrel looking at you with big, round oversized eyes, hunting nuts, and singing a Dean Martin classic.  Would you be okay with accidentally hitting him with the car? 

Apologies for that link in the review of a children’s game, by the way.

Today’s adventure was designed by the trio of Ron Gilbert, Larry Kay, and Tami Borowick.  Ron, of course, had a little bit of game design experience before this title, and this was one of many titles Tami worked on for Humongous, but Larry is a newcomer, at least as far as MobyGames is concerned, and did very little after.

Many of the development staff looks similar to the past games.  Some, like Dev Madan, will be around for nearly all of the Humongous titles this blog is likely to cover.  This game did well enough that it spawned many sequels and spin-offs; the fifth and final adventure-esque title, The Case of the Creature of Coral Cove, was released in 2001

This game marks the first time they bypassed DOS entirely, and the first release was for Windows 3.1.  Soon after the release of Windows 95 a year later, they released an updated version for the new system.  For authenticity, I’ll be playing the original 16-bit Win 3.11 version, which, as it wouldn’t work under WineVDN, I installed a copy of Windows into DOSBox and am playing it in perhaps the most memory-inducing method possible.

Wow, I forgot how primitive Windows 3.11 was!

Still, this is promising to be an interesting experiment.  After all, it’s a kids game, but Ron Gilbert rarely disappoints, except when he teams up with SEGA, I suppose.

We start off with Freddi Fish, whom according to Wikipedia is female (but really, who cares either way?).  She’s swimming to her friend Sam who has picked some pretty flowers to give to his friend.  Freddi takes them with many thanks, and proceeds to swim under the sea, to let out some breath bubbles to form our title screen.

And soon she comes upon Snappy, who is depressed, but suddenly perks up as soon as he is presented with a flower.

And we continue our way through the sea...

...until we meet Grandma Grouper.

Honestly, Granny Grouper would have been a better name, but I suppose not all parents want to teach their kids such informal nicknames.

But, Grandma has a serious problem for us to help with.

It seems that someone has stolen her treasure chest filled with kelp seeds, and the garden is now barren.  We watch as the last plant coughs a final time, and then keels over and dies.

Freddi is eager to help her grandma.  She gives us her last Peanut Butter and Jellyfish sandwich to aid in our quest.

WAIT... we’re eating jellyfish?!?!?  Does that mean we’re cannibals?

Sorry to interrupt a good dad joke with realism, but I noticed it right away, and I think I might have also had I played this as a kid.

So now we can start the gameplay.  The sandwich is placed in one of my inventory slots.

On this screen, the mouse pointer changes between three possibilities.  The white pointer, as you see in the shot above, means that an item can be interacted with.  Often, this just means clicking something and a funny animation occurs, such as a bit character walking in or something opening or closing.  A hollow pointer means no actions exist, and the pointer will change to a more-defined arrow when hovering near a screen exit.

I check out all the clickables on this screen, other than the door (I don’t want to bother Grandma just yet), and there’s nothing game-changing, so I head west.

I meet someone who is likely my best friend, Luther, who is rather kind of a lunkhead.  He shows off to me, trying to do a loop-de-loop, and ends up knocking himself silly on the tree above him.  We show him how it’s done, and he tries (and fails) again.

This time, though, he knocks loose a message in a bottle concealed in the tree.

Easily my favorite image so far, and I cannot really explain why.

The message tells us where to start looking for the treasure chest.  Luther suddenly has dollar signs in his eyes, at the mention of treasure, but we quickly tell him why it’s important Grandma gets the chest back, so all the fish don’t starve.  He offers to help.

A game note from the manual: each game session is randomized at the start, but as soon as you save a game, the random choices are preserved.  So, the path I take may differ from your own, if you choose to play along.

The message in the bottle tells us to start at the old whale’s bones.

Before we do that, I explore this screen as well, looking for items to interact with. Still, many funny actions, but there’s also a purple sea urchin we pick up and add to our inventory.

So, here’s where I’ll pause and let you guess the scores.  Ilmari gave the three previous titles scores of 45, 45, and 53 in that order, so it’s possible this game will continue to go up.  This game is an upgrade, right?  The cover of the game Ilmari played for 1992 advertises a good time for those ages 3-7.  This game adds on eight year olds as well, so I expect some highly sophisticated gameplay improvements.

Of course, the reviewer won’t be too mature, so it may just go over my head.