Lost Secrets of the Rainforest - Final Rating

Written by Reiko


I am more ambivalent about Lost Secrets of the Rainforest than any other game I've written about on the blog here. Most of the games I asked to write about were ones that I knew something about before I started, and this one is no exception, since it is the sequel to the cheerful Ecoquest. You might think that making a sequel would be easier, since some ideas or characters or settings get carried over from the original game. Yet I find that a sequel nearly always struggles to live up to the bar set by its original. What carries over tends to constrain the sequel rather than letting it be its own thing.

I could expand that into a thesis with examples, but we're here to look at Lost Secrets, so I'll focus on why translating Ecoquest into a rainforest setting didn't result in a similarly charming experience as the original underwater game. I wanted to like it, and some things I did like, but others I didn't.

Puzzles and Solvability

Most of the puzzles were reasonably straightforward; like Ecoquest, the story is pitched around middle-school age, so nothing is deliberately tricky, and there are no dead ends as far as I know. However, I really struggled with several puzzles that felt arbitrary. There was nothing in the first game that was tightly timed, so the sequence in the camp where the goon would catch you if you were in the wrong place too long was rather jarring. I spent the most time on that sequence, having to restart over and over to test where I could go and when in order to get things done. It was tedious at best.

I saw this screen way too much.

Lost Secret of the Rainforest - Homeward Bound (Won!)

Written by Reiko

Adam’s Journal #8: "What a ride! I’ve finally made it to the City of Gold, but I never dreamed I would be flown there by a giant eagle! At first I thought I was going to be the eagle’s dinner, but then she turned out to be really nice. Now we’re so close to finding Forest Heart’s seedling. I can’t wait!"

We've made it to the heart of the City of Gold, a small stone room at the top of the maze. Inside, the far wall displays a curious grid of nine squares carved with some shapes that look rather jumbled. Another panel on the wall nearby crudely depicts a king and a serpent, guarding the way. On the grid, I can press any of the squares to change which of three choices is displayed. One choice is blank with a solid red border, another has part of an image with a double orange border, and the third has part of a different image with a red zigzag border. The center square doesn't have a border, but one choice is clearly blank, so it's easy to match the other two in the same order to complete each image.

The orange image, complete. A king playing the flute?

The red zigzag image, complete. A king wearing gold dust?

Lost Secret of the Rainforest - Golden City

Written by Reiko

Adam’s Journal #7: "I knew a lot of kinds of bats existed, but before recently, I had never seen so many different kinds in one place before! I’m glad I could help them a little, but now I have to help Paquita too. The Fountain of Youth is the only thing that can heal her. Good thing it’s supposed to be in the City of Gold where I was going anyway."

Last time I was all set to board another boat to take us down the polluted river to travel toward the City of Gold. There we can find the seedling for Forest Heart and the Fountain of Youth to cure Paquita. Of course, it's not going to be quite that simple.

Poor Paquita.

Lost Secret of the Rainforest - Flight

Written by Reiko

Adam’s Journal #6: "I wish Paquita had hands! She’s comforting to have around, but she can’t really help me except for freeing me every time the goon ties me up again. But I’ve managed to find my stuff in the cabin, so now I just need to cause a distraction to get the goon out of the way. I’ve got to get out of here!"

First, an apology: I'm sorry for taking so long to get this next post out to you all. I haven't gotten sick or anything like that. There are two factors: one is that this section of the game is much trickier, with some timing puzzles, and also kind of depressing, which I'll discuss as I come to it. It was very demotivating to even open, honestly. I am hopeful that once I get past this sticking point, I'll be able to finish the rest of the game without so much difficulty.

Another factor is that the current US election has been taking up a lot of my attention in the past few weeks. This isn't a blog for politics and my personal political opinions have nothing to do with games we're playing here. So that's all I'm going to say about that except that if you are a US citizen, and you haven't been paying attention, you owe it to yourself to take a close look at what's really going on with the election.

Adam watches the goon pull vegetables to cook for his Bat Stew recipe.

Now back to your regularly scheduled programming. Adam is still captured by the goon in the shady surveyor's camp, and we must find a way to sneak away and get to the City of Gold to find Forest Heart's seedling. Last time, I had managed to retrieve all the items I'd had before, plus a few more, and I had also tried to get to a tower outside the cabin, but wasn't able to do anything there before being recaptured. As my little bat friend Paquita suggested, I need to do something to create an issue for the goon that he has to deal with so that I have a chance to get away.

Thanks to Ilmari, who gave me a nudge to get me going again, I discovered that, again, there is another whole screen that I hadn't even seen, off to the right from the cabin. I think this game really needs a much more obvious way to signal exits: the only way to know that an exit exists is to mouse over the edges of the screen with the walk cursor, which changes to an arrow for exits. Any other cursor does not change. There are other games with essentially the same functionality, but perhaps the artistic design here is particularly unclear or something, or maybe they change the cursor shape regardless of cursor mode. At any rate, this is at least the second time I have initially failed to find an exit and found myself stuck as a result. The other time was right at the beginning, when I didn't find the dock screen for a while. You might say that it should have been obvious, because the goon walks off-screen, and in retrospect it is. I just didn't realize I could also go that direction when walking behind the cabin.

Oops, I guess I can't just walk up and unlock the cage.

Lost Secret of the Rainforest - Escape

Written by Reiko

Adam’s Journal #5: "I’ve been kidnapped! This nasty goon tied me up in a hut in the middle of nowhere, and that awful surveyor is going to be back later to deal with me. I’ve got to get out of here! I’m glad I’ve made friends with that little bat, Paquita. I’m sure together we can figure something out."

Last time, the tribe came together in a ceremony to remember their origins and that of Forest Heart so that Adam could go there to find a new seedling. But then someone connected with the shady surveyor set fire to the great tree and captured both Adam and his new bat friend, Paquita. Now we're unbound but need to find a way out of the camp so we can continue the quest.

Unexpectedly garish.

Lost Secret of the Rainforest - Determined

Written by Reiko

Adam’s Journal #4: "I’m not going to be able to meet the shaman until I’ve helped everyone, am I? But the shaman is the only one who can help me. So I still have to get this poultice made for the poor baby, and then Sinchi wants a butterfly. I hope I can do everything. I’ve got to keep trying!"

I totally didn't notice this pool initially.

Last time, I had ended up quite stuck, but thanks to Leo Velles, I was able to get back on track. Apparently I had completely overlooked the existence of a pool inside the tree where I'd found the bark cup. I had no idea there was anything else useful in the tree, since I had acquired one object each time I had entered one of the three entrances. This pool contained sap, which I could use to fill the cup [5]. Then when I took the cup back over to the shaman's hut and placed it on the bench [1], Sinchi says he'll ask the shaman to make the poultice, since that's everything that's needed for it.

Lost Secret of the Rainforest - Concerned

Written by Reiko

Adam’s Journal #3: "I got to meet Forest Heart! But it’s so sad, she’s a huge tree, but she’s dying! And I have to find her sprout so the village will still be protected when she’s gone. She had one, but it didn’t survive, so there has to be another one somewhere. Maybe the villagers can help me?"

Last time, I finally found the Forest Heart and received the main quest to find a sprout of hers to replace her when she's gone. She gave Adam a special branch, some seed pods, and a bark cup, which should be useful for making progress in the village. So I head back along the path.

To my surprise, I find the village occupied again when I get back. Where was everyone before? Several groups of people sit busily doing things around the big hut. A potter worriedly tends her crying baby. An older man with a painted face talks with a younger one. A storyteller tells a story to some children. A couple more people lie in hammocks, resting.

Aww, poor baby.

One problem at a time. That doesn't work for me, though.

Lost Secret of the Rainforest - Branches

Written by Reiko

Adam’s Journal #2: "It’s another adventure! Some otters found me and told me that Forest Heart, whoever that is, needs my help. Now I’m deep in the rainforest with a wooden amulet trying to find this Forest Heart. Those otters that pulled me here were really cute, but the monkey wasn’t so nice. I hope I meet more nice animals while I’m here!"

When I climb the huge tree, I emerge onto a screen with several brightly-colored birds, including a pair of toucans making an awful racket. I scan the screen, of course, and find out that I've encountered these seven items: Epiphyte, Toco Toucan, 3-Toed Sloth, Orchid, Scarlet Macaw, Hyacinth Macaw, Ruby Topaz Hummingbird [7]. The hummingbird is particularly tricky because it's moving around the screen and sometimes even off the screen.

Why are you sitting right by something that's burning inside your flammable nest?

I look around and finally determine that somehow there's a lit cigarette butt in the toucans' nest, which is threatening to set the entire nest on fire and cook their egg! I have to do something about it, but what? I can't pick it up with my bare hands: if I touch the nest or the egg too much, the toucan parents might reject the egg. I can't just recycle the cigarette because the recycle bag isn't really fire-resistant. I have no water. The sticky leaf isn't going to help.

I try talking to all the animals, but none of them are any help either. I talk to the toucan pair twice [3] and try to reassure them, but they're still just as alarmed, which is fair, since I haven't actually done anything yet. There's a young toucan perched nearby who seems to be a previous child of the toucan pair. He's concerned for his potential sibling [1]. A sloth hangs nearby, but doesn't say much beyond mentioning that the "yellow hats" caused the fire [1]. The hummingbird comments about how he doesn't like orchids but does like purple flowers [1]. Six macaws of two different species also sit nearby, none of which say much more than "Fire!" or "Danger!" Yet I can still talk to each one individually [6]. I suddenly also find a snake, an Emerald Tree Boa [1] wrapped around a branch near the top of the screen, who complains that I smell disgustingly human [1], even with the sticky sap on me.

Lost Secret of the Rainforest - Abducted!

Written by Reiko

Adam’s Journal #1: "We’re finally here in Peru! I’m so excited to be able to help my dad with his project of setting up sustainable industries for the native peoples here. I wonder what kinds of animals I’ll get to see while we’re here? The rainforest is full of so much variety. I can’t wait to get started!"

This guy's totally shady.

Adam and his father Noah have just landed in Peru, but of course we have to go through customs before we can start exploring. In the introduction, I forgot to mention that the shady surveyor's character has a couple of actual voiced lines, which is an interesting contrast to most of the other dialogue, which is only text. He says, "This place is a sewer" and, after bumping into our ride, "Watch the suit!" before brushing himself off and stalking away to the right.

When it's Adam's turn, I open the passport in his inventory and show it to the customs officer [10 points], who stamps it, waves Adam through, and then promptly puts his head down on his desk and appears to take a nap. Nobody else is waiting in the customs line, after all.

Game 124: Ecoquest 2: Lost Secret of the Rainforest (1993) - Introduction

Written by Reiko

Almost four years ago, I covered the original Ecoquest here on the blog, and now we've arrived at the sequel: Lost Secret of the Rainforest. Instead of diving deep below the sea, this time we'll be exploring the rainforest. You may remember that Ecoquest had a bit of an agenda to introduce kids to concepts of conservation of nature and show them ways that human activity can harm the ocean environment. The rainforest is also a place with unique natural resources that can easily disappear if people mismanage them, so it makes sense as the subject of a sequel along the same lines. We'll keep an eye on how the game handles its message while we play through the story.