"Play again and again. New puzzles, new friends and new challenges await each time you play!"
Those words, or something along those lines, appeared on the covers of the large majority of Humongous Entertainment's point-and-click adventure games for children (latterly known as the Junior Adventures range), released between 1992 and 2003. But just how much replay value was there to be had? How many times could you hypothetically play the same game and not get the same set-up twice? How many unique configurations did each game have? Shall we go through each game and find out?
Before we get started, it seems fair to point out that we won't be covering the various minigames and hundreds of bonus animations each game included, just the various story branches actually beating the game entails, but those would add hours more to each game's replay value.
Putt-Putt Joins the Parade (1992)
Fatty Bear's Birthday Surprise (1993)
Putt-Putt Goes to the Moon (1993)
It is fairly simple to summarise the different paths of the first three games, as they don't have any - they were all initially released on floppy disk for MS-DOS, and it was presumably pretty much impossible to code multiple paths (indeed, in some cases the floppy versions had to remove things compared to the CD releases to make them fit).
Freddi Fish and the Case of the Missing Kelp Seeds (1994)
The first Freddi game was also initially being developed for MS-DOS, with the same pixel art style used for the first three games, and indeed screenshots and video of an early prototype of the game can be found on the Humongous Entertainment Alumni Facebook group should you wish to go looking. The game was eventually retooled for a PC release using the more familiar hand-drawn animation style which proved so groundbreaking back in the mid-nineties.
Perhaps because of its beginnings, whilst tCotMKS is the first Humongous game to feature story branching, it works a little differently to any of the subsequent games - you need to find three messages in bottles to lead you to the titular kelp, and you have to find them one after the other, whereas later games would allow you to find the various prerequisites to completing the game in any order and work on multiple puzzles simultaneously. In addition, puzzles and items still appear even if you don't need to complete them, whereas in later games generally only the relevant things to that playthrough would appear.
Anyway, the three bottles are placed thusly:
- The first will appear at either the old whale bones, near the beach, or by the volcano (Note that for whatever reason, the puzzle you need to solve to get to the volcano is much harder than the other two, which are simply matters of establishing the game's geography.)
- The second bottle will appear at either the deep canyon or in the junkyard
- The third bottle will appear at either the King's Castle or in one of the three caves
So I suppose it depends on whether you count the last bottle as having two or four possibilities (the three caves are all next to each other and the puzzle associated with all three is the same), but if we take it as the latter it would take a maximum of four playthroughs to see all the possible game paths, and there are 24 possible scenarios the game can be played in (although many of these have two bottles at the same place as each other).
Putt-Putt Saves the Zoo (1995)
This is the final game not to feature any story branching (that was brought out by Humongous in its original form, anyway); presumably there was some point where it was being developed before the decision was made to retool the first Freddi game, and it wasn't viable to introduce multiple versions of the puzzles.
Freddi Fish 2: The Case of the Haunted Schoolhouse (1996)
The object of the game is to collect items required for a Rube Goldberg-esque trap; there are eight possible items, and the game will randomly select five of them. This means there whilst there are 6,720 different ways the game could set itself up, in practice it would be possible to see everything by playing it twice. This is not counting the Purple Sea Urchins the game uses as currency - there are nine possible locations for them, and the game will choose four of them (plus a fifth urchin that is always in the same location).
Note that if the pulley is not one of the five items you need to find, then the Sea Urchins are totally redundant, but remain present anyway (every other game makes sure the urchins have a use no matter what path you are following, albeit not necessarily one that is vital to complete the game; sometimes they just unlock minigames or bonus cartoons); I wonder if there is any specific reason why they didn't make it so the pulley is always one of the items you need to find.
Pajama Sam in "No Need to Hide When It's Dark Outside" (1996)
Three items you need to find, only two possible locations each can be placed in. Seems simple enough, but each Sam game has a sidequest where you need to find items hidden in some of the locations, and the one in this one (collecting socks) is worth mentioning due to just how fiendishly difficult it is; the artists were very good at making them blend into the background, including them in areas you can't stop in, and it is entirely possible to accidentally render the quest impossible to complete by entering the endgame before you're ready (as the last sock may or may not be there). One of the minigames is also hidden in the middle of a maze.
Putt-Putt Travels Through Time (1997)
The titular anthropomorphic car loses four of his possessions (his calculator, history essay, dog and lunchbox) down a time vortex, and has to go in to retrieve them. There are four timezones - Prehistoric, Old West, Medieval and the Future - and one item will be found in each zone with every playthrough. This means a minimum of four plays to see everything, and 24 possible ways the game can set itself up.
SPY Fox in "Dry Cereal" (1997)
The first SPY Fox game worked a little differently to what had come before: there was one big branch right at the beginning, with each path having totally different puzzles to solve and having unique areas that don't appear on the other path, and then two smaller branches later on (one of three possible items you need to find to stop the villain's plan, and one of two obstacles in your way when trying to apprehend him). So, a minimum of three playthroughs to see everything, and a dozen different game setups all told (not including other, smaller things that can change - the villain-foiling item you need is always one of several, such as a safe containing six different punchcards or a key wallet with five different keys, and the game will choose a different one each time you get that path).
It is worth noting that the SPY Fox games were aimed at a slightly older audience than the other games, and were accordingly a little harder (in particular, one of the paths on this game requires you to beat the Go Fish minigame and its blatantly cheating AI). My childhood recollection is that each character's games were aimed at a slightly different age range - in ascending order, Putt-Putt aimed at the youngest players, then Freddi Fish, then Pajama Sam, then SPY Fox - but this doesn't seem to be borne out by reality, as the first three bear the legend 'for ages 3-8', and the last 'for ages 5-10' (although Putt-Putt pretty clearly seems to be aimed at a younger audience than the rest, at least). In any event, all three SPY Fox games also featured two different endings - one where the bad guy escaped, and another where you could go after them by quickly clicking on their getaway vehicle for a few bonus screens and puzzles ending in their capture.
Putt-Putt Enters the Race (1998)
There are four items you need to find to enter the race; gas, tyres, safety helmet, flag with a number on it. There are two possible paths for the gas can, flag and safety helmet, but the tyres are always the same on each playthrough...
Although technically there are six possible paths for the flag, as one of them involves feeding a baby animal which can be one of five, and the appropriate food is always in a different place depending on what the animal is (although oddly two of them want the same food, found in the same place). Similarly, the number for your flag can be anything from 1-9 although how you get the number is always the same, the crop-harvesting minigame you always need to play to get the tyres can choose 3 of any 13 foodstuffs, and there are six bottles you can find and recycle to get coins, which can be randomly placed in 10 different ways. Precisely how many ways the game can be set up is thus something I leave to the mathematicians amongst you.
There is also a rather curious divergence with the very first puzzle in the game, which involves getting rid of an animal that is blocking the road, and whilst it can be either a possum or an armadillo the difference is purely visual and the puzzle is always solved the same way.
Freddi Fish 3: The Case of the Stolen Conch Shell (1998)
The mother load! The object of the game is to find three golden pipes which have fallen out of the titular Stolen Conch Shell; there are eight possible locations for them to appear, but rather than randomly choosing any three of them as in Haunted Schoolhouse, there are three the game classifies as 'easy', three as 'medium' and two as 'hard', and on each playthrough you will get one from each difficulty level.
In addition, one of the puzzles you have to solve on one of the hard pipes involves finding a wallet and returning it to its owner, who can be one of three characters; if we include each of those as an alternate path, the number of ways the game can configure itself rises from 18 to 36. There are also seven possible places to find urchins, four of which will be chosen on any playthrough, ten different solutions to the phrasebook puzzle on the same hard pipe path as the wallet, three different colours of crystal you may need to solve the game's penultimate puzzle, and absolutely bloody loads of different ways the Terrific Tumble Tubes mini-game (which may or may not be where one of the 'easy' pipes is placed) can be set up. A link to a screenshot of the game's debug room on the Cutting Room Floor Wiki may be helpful. (And, as is wont for the games, there are a few more that are too minor to make it onto that - if the 'hard' pipe is in the darkened cave, there are several different positions it could be in.)
There are also six different endings to the game, with the thief being one of six characters (the clue being an item they drop which you find), each of which has their own extremely amusing punishment for the criminal at the end - so we can say it would take a minimum of six playthroughs to see everything. But suffice to say this may be the Humongous game with the highest replay value of all.
Pajama Sam 2: Thunder and Lightning Aren't So Frightening (1998)
An interesting one. There are four different pieces of the weather machine to find and return to their proper positions, each with two different places they can be, but this is a rare example of two story paths on a Humongous game being mutually exclusive: the Y-pipe being stuck in the vending machine and Wingnut being stuck in the water tank both require use of the vending machine, so the game cannot have both paths appear together. (See also the Cutting Room Floor's page on Stolen Conch Shell, which shows how one of the wallet owners is mutually exclusive with one of the golden pipes.)
Furthermore, the two different places the Snowflake Inspector can be are actually four places: he can either be in hiding or trapped by a miniature tornado, and in the former there are three different rooms he might be hiding in (not to mention that to find him you need the Snowflake Inspector Detector, which can be found in one of two different places).
Freddi Fish 4: The Case of the Hogfish Rustlers of Briny Gulch (1999)
This time the name of the game is finding items for a disguise: you always need a hat, which has two completely different story paths (it can also be one of three different colours, but the puzzle for changing the hat's colour is always the same), either a bandana or a bowtie, and a belt-buckle with a letter on it. Getting the buckle is always the same on each playthrough, but there are five different letters (placed across two different locations) it can be; as with the third game, there are also four possible suspects at the end.
SPY Fox 2: Some Assembly Required (1999)
One of the simplest Humongous games to write about in this regard: one big branch, right at the beginning (barring smaller things such as which of six waxworks has a secret code hidden in it). I don't know if it's a coding thing or what, though, but the game appears to be far likelier to give you the venus flytrap path (as evidenced by the proliferation of Let's Play videos on YouTube featuring that path and my own repeated restarting of it for the purposes of this article).
Putt-Putt Joins the Circus (2000)
The puzzles on this game are always the same on each playthrough (perhaps the nature of the puzzles - having to rescue various circus acts - proved too time-consuming to come up with alternate versions, as it is the only game post-MS-DOS and pre-Humongous takeover not to have totally different story branches), with only very minor examples of randomisation (a hole in a bucket that can be one of three different shapes, and a code to a safe that is always different).
Pajama Sam 3: You Are What You Eat From Your Head to Your Feet (2000)
Another straightforward one: Four delegates to a peace conference to rescue, and each has two possible places they can be stuck in.
SPY Fox 3: Operation Ozone (2001)
There are four items you need to find, two of which (and the relevant puzzles) are always the same; the other two (nicknamed the 'land' and 'water' paths) have two different possibilities each, with entirely different puzzles. One of the 'water' puzzles involves selling Girl Scout cookies; there are five different boxes, each pertaining to a different character in the game you can sell them to, and the game will choose three of them. There are also, as ever, several smaller differences in some puzzles - such as a password to a safe that changes each time - but for simplicity's sake we'll say you need a minimum of three playthroughs to see everything.
Freddi Fish 5: The Case of the Creature of Coral Cove (2001)
The final Junior Adventure made before the company was sold, and generally considered the best, TCotCoCC features just one big branch, and the two paths share many of the same puzzles (as well as another rather curious puzzle where the difference is purely visual).
Pajama Sam 4: Life is Rough When You Lose Your Stuff (2003)
Putt-Putt: Pep's Birthday Surprise (2003)
These were the two games produced after Humongous' workforce was cut in half in late 2001 and the company ended up under new ownership. Neither game has any random element at all (although as previously discussed, the former was planned to have some at one point as what remains of them is still in the game data), the latter in particular was obviously made on a very low budget, and their legacy is that any article that chronicles the history of Humongous' point-and-click games will always end on a real downer (to say nothing of what became of their Backyard Sports range). Why not go and buy some of the older games on Steam instead?
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| Visual example of the above point |
It is worth noting that the SPY Fox games were aimed at a slightly older audience than the other games, and were accordingly a little harder (in particular, one of the paths on this game requires you to beat the Go Fish minigame and its blatantly cheating AI). My childhood recollection is that each character's games were aimed at a slightly different age range - in ascending order, Putt-Putt aimed at the youngest players, then Freddi Fish, then Pajama Sam, then SPY Fox - but this doesn't seem to be borne out by reality, as the first three bear the legend 'for ages 3-8', and the last 'for ages 5-10' (although Putt-Putt pretty clearly seems to be aimed at a younger audience than the rest, at least). In any event, all three SPY Fox games also featured two different endings - one where the bad guy escaped, and another where you could go after them by quickly clicking on their getaway vehicle for a few bonus screens and puzzles ending in their capture.
Putt-Putt Enters the Race (1998)
There are four items you need to find to enter the race; gas, tyres, safety helmet, flag with a number on it. There are two possible paths for the gas can, flag and safety helmet, but the tyres are always the same on each playthrough...
Although technically there are six possible paths for the flag, as one of them involves feeding a baby animal which can be one of five, and the appropriate food is always in a different place depending on what the animal is (although oddly two of them want the same food, found in the same place). Similarly, the number for your flag can be anything from 1-9 although how you get the number is always the same, the crop-harvesting minigame you always need to play to get the tyres can choose 3 of any 13 foodstuffs, and there are six bottles you can find and recycle to get coins, which can be randomly placed in 10 different ways. Precisely how many ways the game can be set up is thus something I leave to the mathematicians amongst you.
There is also a rather curious divergence with the very first puzzle in the game, which involves getting rid of an animal that is blocking the road, and whilst it can be either a possum or an armadillo the difference is purely visual and the puzzle is always solved the same way.
Freddi Fish 3: The Case of the Stolen Conch Shell (1998)
The mother load! The object of the game is to find three golden pipes which have fallen out of the titular Stolen Conch Shell; there are eight possible locations for them to appear, but rather than randomly choosing any three of them as in Haunted Schoolhouse, there are three the game classifies as 'easy', three as 'medium' and two as 'hard', and on each playthrough you will get one from each difficulty level.
In addition, one of the puzzles you have to solve on one of the hard pipes involves finding a wallet and returning it to its owner, who can be one of three characters; if we include each of those as an alternate path, the number of ways the game can configure itself rises from 18 to 36. There are also seven possible places to find urchins, four of which will be chosen on any playthrough, ten different solutions to the phrasebook puzzle on the same hard pipe path as the wallet, three different colours of crystal you may need to solve the game's penultimate puzzle, and absolutely bloody loads of different ways the Terrific Tumble Tubes mini-game (which may or may not be where one of the 'easy' pipes is placed) can be set up. A link to a screenshot of the game's debug room on the Cutting Room Floor Wiki may be helpful. (And, as is wont for the games, there are a few more that are too minor to make it onto that - if the 'hard' pipe is in the darkened cave, there are several different positions it could be in.)
There are also six different endings to the game, with the thief being one of six characters (the clue being an item they drop which you find), each of which has their own extremely amusing punishment for the criminal at the end - so we can say it would take a minimum of six playthroughs to see everything. But suffice to say this may be the Humongous game with the highest replay value of all.
Pajama Sam 2: Thunder and Lightning Aren't So Frightening (1998)
An interesting one. There are four different pieces of the weather machine to find and return to their proper positions, each with two different places they can be, but this is a rare example of two story paths on a Humongous game being mutually exclusive: the Y-pipe being stuck in the vending machine and Wingnut being stuck in the water tank both require use of the vending machine, so the game cannot have both paths appear together. (See also the Cutting Room Floor's page on Stolen Conch Shell, which shows how one of the wallet owners is mutually exclusive with one of the golden pipes.)
Furthermore, the two different places the Snowflake Inspector can be are actually four places: he can either be in hiding or trapped by a miniature tornado, and in the former there are three different rooms he might be hiding in (not to mention that to find him you need the Snowflake Inspector Detector, which can be found in one of two different places).
Freddi Fish 4: The Case of the Hogfish Rustlers of Briny Gulch (1999)
This time the name of the game is finding items for a disguise: you always need a hat, which has two completely different story paths (it can also be one of three different colours, but the puzzle for changing the hat's colour is always the same), either a bandana or a bowtie, and a belt-buckle with a letter on it. Getting the buckle is always the same on each playthrough, but there are five different letters (placed across two different locations) it can be; as with the third game, there are also four possible suspects at the end.
SPY Fox 2: Some Assembly Required (1999)
One of the simplest Humongous games to write about in this regard: one big branch, right at the beginning (barring smaller things such as which of six waxworks has a secret code hidden in it). I don't know if it's a coding thing or what, though, but the game appears to be far likelier to give you the venus flytrap path (as evidenced by the proliferation of Let's Play videos on YouTube featuring that path and my own repeated restarting of it for the purposes of this article).
Putt-Putt Joins the Circus (2000)
The puzzles on this game are always the same on each playthrough (perhaps the nature of the puzzles - having to rescue various circus acts - proved too time-consuming to come up with alternate versions, as it is the only game post-MS-DOS and pre-Humongous takeover not to have totally different story branches), with only very minor examples of randomisation (a hole in a bucket that can be one of three different shapes, and a code to a safe that is always different).
Pajama Sam 3: You Are What You Eat From Your Head to Your Feet (2000)
Another straightforward one: Four delegates to a peace conference to rescue, and each has two possible places they can be stuck in.
SPY Fox 3: Operation Ozone (2001)
There are four items you need to find, two of which (and the relevant puzzles) are always the same; the other two (nicknamed the 'land' and 'water' paths) have two different possibilities each, with entirely different puzzles. One of the 'water' puzzles involves selling Girl Scout cookies; there are five different boxes, each pertaining to a different character in the game you can sell them to, and the game will choose three of them. There are also, as ever, several smaller differences in some puzzles - such as a password to a safe that changes each time - but for simplicity's sake we'll say you need a minimum of three playthroughs to see everything.
Freddi Fish 5: The Case of the Creature of Coral Cove (2001)
The final Junior Adventure made before the company was sold, and generally considered the best, TCotCoCC features just one big branch, and the two paths share many of the same puzzles (as well as another rather curious puzzle where the difference is purely visual).
Pajama Sam 4: Life is Rough When You Lose Your Stuff (2003)
Putt-Putt: Pep's Birthday Surprise (2003)
These were the two games produced after Humongous' workforce was cut in half in late 2001 and the company ended up under new ownership. Neither game has any random element at all (although as previously discussed, the former was planned to have some at one point as what remains of them is still in the game data), the latter in particular was obviously made on a very low budget, and their legacy is that any article that chronicles the history of Humongous' point-and-click games will always end on a real downer (to say nothing of what became of their Backyard Sports range). Why not go and buy some of the older games on Steam instead?
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