[typing]
The Secret Island of Dr. Quandary.
Developed and published by MECC in 1992 for computers of the IBM PC compatible
and Macintosh flavors.
And no, this has nothing to do with The Island of Dr. Brain from the same year, although similar,
and I've certainly mixed the two up before.
This one was created by many of the same people as MECC's previous hits,
including The Oregon Trail and Number Munchers.
So right off the bat, it had a high standard to live up to.
Although, judging by these floppy disks, my standards are already met,
seeing as it's distributed on both high-density 5¼" and double-density 3½" diskettes.
Mmm... More floppies are good floppies.
And you should definitely look at the manual to see what you need to do,
although calling this a manual is a bit of a stretch here.
This thing is grumpy.
It just tells you to play the darn game already and get off its lawn.
"Can you just tell me how to solve a puzzle?"
"No."
That's it.
Not even any hints as to how to, just "no."
I like that.
The Secret Island of Monkey Dr. Moreau Quandary begins with some logos and funky music,
but a suspicious lack of any secrets, islands, or doctors.
This confusion continues with a carnival clearly showing a carny continuously calling for compliance.
You move closer and are offered a free game of "Troggle Shoot,"
a shooting gallery where you take out the enemies from Number Munchers
without any need for mathematical skills.
Aw, yeah, now this is quality edutainment.
All the entertainment without the education.
Once you win, you're given the choice of three creepy dolls as a reward,
named B. Ginner, D. Feecult, and O.D. Nary.
If you find these pun-errific difficulty levels to be "Anne Oying,"
then you may as well "T. Urnback Nao"
because the game thrives on this stuff.
Pick your pleasure and–surprise, surprise–
your soul is sucked out of you and placed into the doll
and then you're teleported to a secret island designed to drive you insane.
Uh, actually that is a surprise. Whoa.
From this point on, you're in control of this brightly-colored sentient kewpie doll thing,
and it's your task to get back to the carnival to reclaim your human body.
That's... [chuckles] actually a pretty freakin' awesome concept for an edutainment game.
I approve.
So, it turns out that Dr. Quandary has a fetish for logic puzzles,
and the only way to escape the island is to complete all of them,
each of which drops an ingredient for a magic potion.
It plays a bit like a point-and-click adventure game
in that you point and click to interact,
you've got an inventory and you have to solve puzzles.
But it's really just a collection of logic and math-based mini-games
loosely tied together by a partially randomized map.
While the island is a bit creepy at first,
with the doc himself appearing all Predator-like in the bushes,
it's just a distraction and the twelve puzzles are your true foes.
So we're gonna talk about 'em.
First up is "Let's Make a Door,"
which is a spin on the age-old tangram puzzle.
You're shown a shape,
which the doc then breaks apart like a maniac.
Use the mouse to manipulate each piece to recreate the initial shape.
The catch is that none of the shapes can overlap,
so the initial obvious layout is almost never the final solution.
I love tangram puzzles.
Although, personally, I would not mind if the three on offer here were a bit trickier.
Next up is "Ape the Ape,"
and this is a game of music match or Simon.
The ape pays a series of notes
and all you need to do is play them back in the right order.
What makes this a little different is that you're actually mixing a cup of psychedelic coffee or something
and you have to time the drops to fall into the mug speeding by.
Timing is a bit weird here, but thankfully mixed drops don't count against you,
only incorrect drops.
Next you have "Num Lock,"
which has nothing to do with the Num Lock key on the keyboard,
as it tells you in a fourth wall-breaking moment.
Sir Edmund Pillory here is locked up
and knows the combination,
but he won't tell you directly because he's a jerk.
The combination is composed of three unique numbers,
but the only way to figure it out is by Sir Pillory's expressions.
A frown means nothing is correct,
a wink means you've entered a correct number but it's in the wrong spot,
and a big smile means that you've entered a correct number in the right spot.
Of course, which number he's referring to is up for you to deduce,
accomplished by using the process of elimination.
Next is the "Tire Tower" at the island dump,
and this is a Tower of Hanoi clone.
You've got three poles and one set of tires
and the objective is to get the tires on the correct pole in the proper order.
And of course, you can only move one tire at once,
and you can never place a bigger tire on top of a smaller one.
Oh, and you have a limited number of moves to do all this,
so you have to choose each move wisely.
The next puzzle isn't really a puzzle at all
and is actually one of the island's few dexterity challenges.
This is called "Acid Test,"
something that the developers at MECC maybe should have been subjected to when making Dr. Quandary.
Anyway, the goal is to get the glass of green gas on the opposite side of the room
without getting eviscerated by fire and lasers.
Once you get it, head back. That's it.
Kinda lame.
"Tunnel Vision" is up next, and this is just an annoying maze.
This one makes it strange to play by including both a first-person view and an overhead view simultaneously.
First-person window takes precedence,
which means the position of the arrow on the map view is tied to the first-person view,
rather than the arrow key directions like you would expect.
Ugh!
The "DiscAppear" game is much better
and this is a super-radical '90s take on the classic game of Nim.
Gnarly surfer girl over there has a bunch of lame CDs hanging around,
and whoever ends up with the final CD loses.
Here you can remove any number of discs from a row on your turn,
but you can only remove them from one row at a time.
It's a game of anticipating all your opponent's possible moves,
and is mathematically-strategic bliss.
Next is "Tad-Pult,"
and this is probably the most adventure game-like puzzle on the whole island.
You've got a catapult that can shoot either stones or popcorn,
and there a pterodactyl sitting beside a giant frog statue.
Obviously, both of them are hungry,
so you have to knock down a bug with a stone,
put the bug in the catapult,
shoot it into the frog statue to feed it and open the gate,
then toss the popcorn at the pterodactyl.
Makes perfect sense!
You've also got this "Tax Factor" game
with a leprechaun Elmer Fudd tax collector.
Definitely one of the trickier puzzles.
Here you've got to end up with more tokens than the other guy,
but the only way to do this is to eliminate the numbered stars by their factors.
Anything you don't eliminate goes to the tax collector
so you need to be careful which stars you take out
factoring in the fact of the factor factor.
Finally there's this music game called "Headstrong Hop,"
which is another dexterity and timing-based challenge.
Line yourself up between the notes on the music sheet–
and I mean EXACTLY line yourself up–
and knock the notes and rests into the music above.
If you're off by even a pizel, they'll just fly away,
and the saxophone will have to keep blaring notes out of his nutsack.
And yeah, once you've completed all twelve puzzles,
you'll be able to mix together the ingredients you've gathered into this witch's brew
and teleport back to the carnival via this trippy cutscene.
Frick, what a bizarre and quirky game.
I like it!
It's got educational value for sure,
but it doesn't shove anything down your throat,
which is what you'd expect in a game by MECC.
And I have no idea what compelled them to make something so off-beat compared to their previous titles,
but it pleases me that they did.
And it's also not *too* weird,
unlike some games for kids that I've played
where I truly questioned the sobriety and mental stability of its creators.
The Secret Island of Dr. Quandary is a unique little title,
even though it makes use of relatively ancient puzzles that you can get any number of other places.
It's the total package that makes this enjoyable even today.
Since other than the extreme use of dithering and that CD puzzle,
its aesthetics and challenges are timeless enough to make you question its age.
Sadly, it's pretty hard to find now,
so grab it if you ever run across a copy, especially boxed.
However you can get it though, I would say give it a shot,
because even as an adult, I find it to be both engaging and entertaining
in a way that few similar games match.
And if you enjoyed this edutainment review,
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like Dr. Quandary in the bushes.