Greetings and welcome to another entry into LGR Edutainment Month!
And today we’re looking at Rescue the Scientists,
a game released by Compton’s NewMedia in 1994 for MS-DOS PCs.
“Einstein needs your help,” among other scientists, due to the time-traveling hijinks
of the aliens from Planet Glixer II.
They’re kidnapping Earth’s great thinkers from all throughout history, wiping their
memories, and thus eliminating their inventions and influence on society.
Props to the Glixers for going against the grain and choosing something other than the
usual body-snatching, death beams, and stripping the planet’s resources.
And of course, with time traveling shenanigans in play, there’s only one man to call: Doctor
Emmett Brown, er, Time Cop Lieutenant Jack Tempus, played by the one and only Christopher Lloyd.
Yep, far as I can tell this was the first computer game he appeared in,
predating Toonstruck by a good two years.
But unlike Toonstruck, Rescue the Scientists is barely remembered, its obscurity due partially
to the fact that 1994 saw a Cambrian explosion in CD-ROMs.
Sales for the format totalled a record $202 million in 1993, and by the end of 1994 there
were up to 10,000 developers working on CD-ROM software.
And getting Hollywood actors on-board was an increasingly popular method of standing
out from the crowd, with Compton’s NewMedia hiring actor Christopher Lloyd to work with
Redwood Games on development of Rescue the Scientists.
And if Redwood sounds familiar, perhaps you’ve played some of the games from them developed
by Karen Chun, like Word Rescue, Math Rescue, or Pickle Wars.
Yeah Pickle Wars was a real thing.
But even that tends to be more well-remembered these days among DOS gamers compared to Rescue
the Scientists, so let’s dive into the package and see what we’ve been missing.
First up is a folding registration card from Compton’s, where you could apparently win
a trip to a vaguely-described “Disney Property Hotel” in Orlando, Florida.
Next is a pair of pulpy papers presenting proper warranty information
and technical troubleshooting tips.
Then we’ve got a scary-looking WARNING letting users know not to play the first track of
the disc in a CD player, because it was 1994 and not everyone knew about data tracks yet.
And finally there’s the CD-ROM and manual tucked into a classic jewel case, with the
manual packing 17 pages of blue-tinged documentation, clearly-presented and easy to understand from
beginning to end.
Right, so it’s finally time to get the thing installed on a DOS PC and rescue some scientists!
It begins with an animated logo dissolve, then the classic Redwood Games character selection.
Enter your name, choose either the girl or the boy character, and select your difficulty
from a selection of three difficulties using a difficulty selector
without much difficulty making a selection.
After this, you’re presented with an orbital view of Earth and a giant cosmic Christopher
Lloyd in glorious 256-color VGA.
Lieutenant Tempus continues to explain that the Glixerians, or Glixers since the game
uses both interchangeably, are not only wiping the memories of Earth’s past scientists,
but their continued time traveling is damaging the very fabric of reality, bringing about
the destruction of all time, space, and the entire universe.
He’d take care of the situation himself, but being that he’s a 437-year-old Time
Cop from 10,000 years into the future he is now too old for time travel.
Which, uh, kinda makes him bad at his job, right?
Or at least ill-suited.
Anyway, that’s his excuse for hiring a kid: Tempus needs someone young enough to time
travel and stop the Glixerian threat.
Speaking of which, the intro also has you listening in on the Glixerians, who are a
race of slimy green aliens with a penchant for all things smelly and foul.
Meanwhile, our two playable protagonists are hanging out in a diner on Earth, growing increasingly
concerned about the disappearance of certain objects.
Well, “concerned” is a rather generous description.
More like, “a little weirded out but pretty chill about things otherwise.”
Things really get going when the family hot tub craps itself and dies, and for whatever
reason, you’re tasked with finding a replacement motor and repairing the hot tub.
Kinda seems like a qualified adult should be handling hot tub repairs, but what do I know.
Besides, we’ve got a plot to unravel, which involves traveling to a junk shop and accidentally
buying up a Super Space/Time Translation machine instead of a hot tub motor.
See, this is what you get when you hire an underage repairman: a Hot Tub Time Machine.
Wait, Hot Tub Time Machine?
This can’t be the origin of the idea, right?
Nyagh, moving right along!
The aliens immediately see that the SS/TT motor is active and someone is traveling through
time, but they remain unconvinced there’s any threat since there are so many Translation
Vortices out there.
Yeah this intro just keeps going, man.
We’re six minutes in and still haven’t been allowed to interact in any way at all!
If I was an anxious kid I’d be itching to hit escape and skip all this, but since I’m
a slightly-less-anxious YouTuber I’m happy to sit back and enjoy more Chris Lloyd.
Does his voice sound somewhat higher-pitched to you, or is it just me?
I’ve played this on a few computers now and his voiceover always sounds like that,
like it’s slightly sped up or pitch shifted or something.
[high-pitched “Great Scott!”]
Anyway you can now, at long last, take the reigns and finally play the dang game
nearly eight minutes in.
Ancient Greece is the first of many stops on your travels through spacetime, followed
by France, China, England, Sweden, the US and so on.
Each of the ten time periods are split into four levels, each with their own unique visuals,
MIDI music, and amnesiac scientist in need of rescuing.
[upbeat MIDI music plays]
So there’s certainly no shortage of overall content, but how is
it to actually play?
Well, it’s an upgraded Pickle Wars, which was an upgraded Math Rescue, which was itself
an upgraded Word Rescue.
In other words it’s a Redwood Games game, and if you’ve played any of those then Rescue
the Scientists holds few surprises.
Mechanically it’s closest to Pickle Wars, being a 2D platformer that scrolls in tiled
increments both left and right and up and down.
You know the routine: lots of doors to unlock, colorful keys to unlock said doors, and hazards
in the form of creatures to shoot.
And these doorways act as warp zones,
teleporting you around the level providing access to new areas.
Meaning that it plays more like a puzzle platformer than a pure action one, despite all the running,
jumping, and shooting.
You’re always limited in where you can go until you unlock the next area, proceeding
in linear fashion section by section.
And of course, there are the aforementioned Vortices floating around, which if you touch
them, provide an extra challenge in the form of The Featureless Maze.
What fun.
After all, who doesn’t love random pointless mazes in their games
especially mazes labeled “featureless!”
Nonetheless, this counts as one of eight minigames, and these minigames are where Rescue the Scientists
differs the most from previous Redwood titles.
And these games are not optional, since exiting a level
requires specific components, just like in Pickle Wars.
But instead of salad shooters, here the goal is to acquire historical artifacts.
And in order to find each artifact, you have to play the minigames.
Well, any minigame beyond the Featureless Maze.
That doesn’t unlock anything, it’s just there to get on your nerves.
But yeah, the other minigames exist not only to provide much of the educational content
by building reading comprehension and logic skills, but also to provide the artifacts
needed to exit a level.
Once you’ve found all four for the time period, you’ll run into an amnesia-stricken scientist.
Select their name from the list of possible subjects and their memory will be restored.
Hooray, onto the next period in time and another speech from Doc Brown.
Thanks, Professor Plum.
So yeah, while platforming comprises a big chunk of the experience, the minigames are
really what sets Rescue the Scientists apart.
And one of the first you’ll play is Word Search, a pretty standard search for twenty
words hidden inside an alphabetical smorgasbord.
However, you’re not provided a list of words until after you’ve found them.
Not exactly helpful. Or normal for that matter.
Every other word search I’ve seen comes with a list of words to search for, but not here!
Just look at this mess of letters until you find a possible word
or until your eyeballs bleed, whichever comes first.
And if it weren’t for the hint system that just straight up tells you the next word and
its location, this would be far more irksome than it is.
Oh yeah, while you’re out platforming you’ll grab hint blocks by picking them up or by
answering questions at hint stations.
Read a short historical excerpt and then answer a question about it
in the form of a multiple choice quiz.
Do so correctly and you earn a minigame hint to jump ahead
during certain sections of certain minigames.
Pile up as many hints as you want, because word searches are only the beginning.
There are also Cryptograms, where you’re provided an unknown quote from an unknown
author about an unknown topic.
Using a hint will unscramble a single letter, otherwise you have to type in different letters
and figure it out using logic, guesswork, and a little knowledge of the English language.
Similarly, there’s the Phrase Scramble minigame, where you are once again in the dark as to
what you’re trying to solve.
Simply click the buttons along the bottom of the screen in the correct order and the
phrase will reveal itself.
Hints?
Who needs ‘em, just click things until you win.
Yeah, I dunno about you but I sure feel educated after that.
Another braindead minigame is the Jigsaw Puzzle, by far the easiest of the bunch.
There’s no need to explain this one, but hey
who am I but a slave to viewer watchtime and audience retention?
So a jigsaw puzzle is a piece of artwork that needs re-assembling, albeit with simplistic
rectangular pieces in the example I’m showing here.
You aren’t shown what the end result is, so just click around until it tells you it’s complete.
Next up is the Word Scramble, which again is a mixture of logic and guesswork, except
this time you’re decoding a crossword. Kinda.
It’s not really a traditional crossword since the words don’t cross so much as they
run parallel to each other.
Even though several letters connect in the middle along the Y axis, all you need to worry
about is the X axis, with definitions for each row appearing below the puzzle.
Once it’s unscrambled, one more word is spelled right down the middle of the board,
revealing the next artifact.
A bit odd but it’s fine once you realize what’s going on.
Another minigame that provides a little frustration is the Mastermind game.
And I mean, I’ve got nothing against Mastermind, it’s pure logic and I enjoy that.
My issue is the tedious execution here.
So you’ve got five doors and five lights, and your goal is to change the lights to the
proper color.
But you do this by walking over to each door, pressing enter to cycle the colors, then walking
back over to the question box and pressing enter again to check your results along the
bottom of the screen.
I’d much prefer using the mouse to click on each door instead but oh well.
Compared to the most annoying minigame of all though, it’s fine.
Say hello to the alien Card Game, which once again
revels in the player having no clue what to do.
Yep, this is a minigame where the only rule is that there are no rules.
Well, there are rules, but you’re never told what they are.
The only way to find out is by trial and error.
Not only that, but every time you play, the rules change!
This means that you’re guaranteed to fail for a while until you A, logically deduce
the rules before the alien wins, or B, get lucky enough to win enough points the fastest.
You know, it’s off-putting enough that these minigames stop the platforming action dead
in its tracks, making you forget where you were by the time you return to it.
But this card game is particularly egregious since it can take 5 to 10 minutes to complete
every single round since success only happens by losing enough times, deducing the ruleset,
and then getting lucky enough with each hand.
Not to say it's stupidly difficult -- none of these minigames are, it’s still meant
for kids after all.
But the more you’re forced to play the more tiresome it becomes, outright killing the
rest of the game’s momentum.
And with 10 worlds holding 4 levels each, that’s 40 times you’ll have to repeatedly
play these same minigames back to back, over and over, with half a dozen rounds of this
card game alone.
Come to think of it, I might enjoy these minigames a little more as part of a dedicated puzzle
game, rather than an unskippable roadblock within a platformer.
Kinda like The Fool’s Errand from 1989, a puzzle game bearing a striking resemblance
to the minigames in Rescue the Scientists.
Word searches, cryptograms, featureless mazes, rectangular jigsaw puzzles, crosswords where
you form a single word down the middle, and even a card game where you don’t know the
rules except by losing enough times to deduce them yourself.
Hm. Whether this is an amusing coincidence or an intentional rip-off, it matters little
to me since either way it doesn’t quite hit the mark as either a puzzle game or an
educational platformer.
Rescue the Scientists is one of those titles where the minigames detract from the action,
and the action makes the minigames feel like a chore.
This is unfortunately pretty common among mid-90s edutainment games, too.
Balancing educational side activities with arcade entertainment is always tricky, and
developers tried every method under the sun to mesh the two together.
But tossing a bunch of cumbersome minigames into a platformer?
No thank you.
Much as I’ve enjoyed the other Redwood games, not even digitized Christopher Lloyd is enough
to make me recommend this one.
[cheery MIDI music plays]
And if you enjoyed this episode of LGR Edutainment Month, then great!
More is on the way throughout April, and I’ve done a lot more in the past as well so check
those out if you haven’t.
And as always, thank you very much for watching LGR!