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.
How about 45? Should be fun.
ReplyDeleteWe start off with Freddi Fish, whom according to Wikipedia is female (but really, who cares either way?).
ReplyDeleteTami Borowick, for one:
"My second official act was to change Fred's gender. Years before Lara Croft, the industry believed boys would not play female characters, but I knew we could design a girl who would appeal to everyone. Humongous had a purple car and an animated teddy bear named Fatty, but no female lead characters, so it just made sense for our next series to follow a girl. I sent the script back to the writer and asked him to make the change. When it came back, Freddi wore lipstick, carried a clamshell purse, and was suddenly afraid to make a tall jump, which she did without hesitation as a male character. So, I sent the script back again with more explicit instructions to only change pronouns and her name.
Throughout her design, I pushed hard to keep Freddi fairly androgenous. I didn't want it glaring from her visually or through a diminished personality. Though I never wanted to hide her gender. Real little girls are strong and smart and have actual personalities and can even dress up without being girly girls. It's only hair, clothes, makeup that allow people to discern their gender at that age. But they shouldn't have to be sexualized with a pony tail, pink and purples, or skimpy clothes, just for players to recognize that the character is not a boy."
thanks for this, always nice to know a bit about the making of a game (or the character in this case!)
DeleteI had read this when I wrote the post, but I didn't write about it. I guess I was glib about it, because the game was written in a way that it doesn't matter what her gender is.
DeleteI understand that in one of the sequels the gender plays a small role, but that's a future play.
Put me down for a slight improvement at 55.
ReplyDeleteDoes that mean we’re cannibals?
In all fairness a jellyfish is about as closely related to actual fish as we are to snails. And if fish eating fish was cannibalism then sharks would count as cannibals and so would lions as they too eat other air breathing animals. I think your definition of cannibalism may be a bit vague, but I'm just splitting hair. Or would it be scales for an underwater game?
Easily my favorite image so far
I was wondering if the addition of teeth to the mouth is purely an artistic invention, but a quick bit of Google shows most fish DO in fact have teeth (apart from the usual suspects like sharks etc.). Most of them are not obvious rows of pearly whites but there are some truly unsettling examples of fish that DO have human like teeth!
Obligatory link, "No Such Thing As A Fish"
Delete"Apologies for that link in the review of a children’s game, by the way."
ReplyDeleteI don't think "Hew Mongoose Entertainment" was the most appropriate choice of a name for a company making such games to begin with.
"Soon after the release of Windows 95 a year later, they released an updated version for the new system."
Did they just compile the unmodified Win3.x source code on a Win9x compiler, or did they actually update it in some way?
Best I can tell, it's probably just an optimized recompile, but that release also added a Macintosh port on the same disk side-by-side.
DeleteI hated these games back then, knowing the LucasArts devs were doing these children things. I never played them, but they were in every magazine back then, in ads.
ReplyDeleteI will guess a 51
Same here. When Gilbert left LucasArts I was expecting his new adventures on his new company, but when I read that he was going to do children games I was a little sad about it. My guess is 56 because the art on this game seems nice
Delete57
ReplyDeleteHelp with the kelp
ReplyDeleteI'll guess 48, the art is nice at least
ReplyDelete
ReplyDeleteI'll guess an even 50.
BTW, I think Fatty Bear got 46, maybe wrong in the spreadsheet? That would confirm the 'upward tendency' even a bit more, but I'll stick to around the average of the previous games.
I’m going a 53 on this one. Also going to have my 8 year old son play through it and provide commentary this time around. I’m just slightly jealous that he gets something that looks half decent and I had to grit my teeth through KQ7 😬
ReplyDeleteStupid mobile web interface… that was me ^^
DeleteNever played any of these, but I'll be positive and guess 60. I've always heard that these are higher quality than you'd expect.
ReplyDelete