PHINEAS FROGG
Mirrorsoft, 1985
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Solution by Exemptus - November 2023
Overview and general hints:
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A very simple single-choice adventure game aimed at kids, but with enough meat
on the bones to provide some entertainment. As a secret agent, the amphibian
Phineas Frogg has to infiltrate the Terrible Hamsters HQ where Professor Mole is
kept after being kidnapped, rescue him, and dash back to safety without being
captured.
This is just a choose-the-option game, but with puzzles: some areas can be
accessible only if we carry the right objects. There is no inventory management,
as nothing can be dropped. The game can be saved to tape, which is a nice
feature. At some points the player has to play a few simple mini-games in order
to progress. A couple of these are arcade / reflex games, the others are
puzzles; but even the arcade sequences are simple enough to be handled well by
kids.
The original instructions included some additional hints about the obstacles to
be found; we'll ignore these as the game is really very simple. There is a sort
of score between 1 and 10, but it depends on how long it takes to solve the
mini-games. Pay no attention to it: the game is solved as long as you can
safely escape the castle with Professor Mole in tow.
Walkthrough:
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[We begin outside the castle. If we go in directly, we'll be captured right away
so it's necessary to enter in a roundabout way. We will need an object found
outside, so it's best to get that out of the way.]
2 [Take the path]
1 [Take path to bridge]
3 [Stop and go fishing]
[This is the first mini-game. It reminds us of Frogger, but not quite: we need
to catch three fish. You need to position Frogg below the black log then push
up, thereby climbing to the topmost log: then catch a fish (up then down) when
immediately below it, and get back to the floor again. Repeat twice more. Don't
worry as you have infinite lives within the games.]
2 [Return the way we came]
[From here we can also go fishing, just in case, but we won't be able to exit
the castle until the end. The first step is to find a lab coat.]
1 [Enter kitchen]
4 [Pick up coffee]
1 [Go into the courtyard]
[The cook is out for the moment. He will be back later, but can be distracted
with the fish we have. The coffee will allow us to bypass the next room.]
3 [Go into the guards' room]
3 [Give the guards coffee]
2 [Creep through the red door]
3 [Brave the dark steps]
[This is another mini-game. We must negotiate a maze, starting in the SW side
and exiting by the NE side. Each door can be opened with the corresponding
colour key. We move with the cursors, then use S to exchange the room's key with
ours. The trick is that we need to write the whole sequence of moves needed
from the start and finish with F. The maze is random each time so no solution
can be given in advance. I'll assume we have won the game, at the end of which
we find the lab coat and we'll be back at the dustbins again.]
1 [Enter kitchen]
4 [Give fish to the cook]
2 [Go into the dining room]
2 [Enter main hall]
4 [Enter Grand Hall]
4 [Go up the E staircase]
2 [Go upstairs]
4 [Try the door marked Library]
3 [Take some books]
4 [Take some newspapers]
[We can take books or newspapers in this room more than once, but not more than
twice, or else we'll be caught.]
2 [Go through the W door]
4 [Go through the opposite door]
6 [Give the weasel newspapers]
[The weasel goes away, allowing us to take the cleaning bucket, which is an
effective disguise.]
4 [Take the cleaning bucket]
3 [Go back to the landing]
3 [Take the room marked Library]
1 [Go through the E door]
1 [Go downstairs]
3 [Go downstairs]
2 [Go through the double doors]
3 [Try the comms room]
[Tischou is here, but he won't recognise us in disguise. We'll give him the books
and he'll send us off for the ladder. This is the only way to get the ladder,
which we'll need to go through the window and up the building]
3 [Give books to Tischou]
2 [Beat a hasty retreat to the hall]
5 [Go through door next to dining room]
4 [Take the ladder]
3 [Go back into hall]
4 [Enter Grand Hall]
1 [Climb through window]
2 [Use grappling hook]
1 [Try to climb up to window using pillars]
[OK, another mini-game. This time we have five coloured blocks of different
heights which we need to rearrange in order so they form a nice ladder up to
the leftmost window. There is an empty space; we can move left and right and
shift a block with M and a direction. The block can move only if it is adjacent
to the empty space or just two blocks away from it, in which case it will jump
over the block immediately next to it, effectively exchanging places with the
empty space. We can enter moves in advance but there is no need to solve the
whole puzzle this way, as we can enter a few moves then execute using F. Again,
the arrangement will be random. Remember that the yellow block has to be just
below the leftmost window, and to its right we need to have the green, magenta,
red and blue blocks, in that order. Once that is done Frogg will climb up to the
window automatically.]
[We finally enter the window and find the secret lab where Professor Mole is.
He comes with us, so now we must escape the castle. Some places are now unsafe
that before weren't. We find ourselves in the upstairs landing.]
1 [Go downstairs]
2 [Go through the double doors]
2 [Move outside]
[The way out is through the animal pits, which forces us into a new mini-game.
This is similar to the dungeon maze, but with the difference that we must now
clear all the pits. As before, each "door" is now an animal which we must feed
with the correct coloured "key" (basket). We need to enter the route in advance
in batches of 10 moves; keys are the same as in the maze. It's worth spending a
bit of time planning the optimal route, since all the animals must be fed
(otherwise we'll be caught) and we have to minimize the number of moves used.
Once finished we'll be in the courtyard.]
1 [Make a dash for the car]
[And the last mini-game, which just consists on keeping the car on the road by
steering left and right. Once done, we'll have completed the mission.]
[End of game.]
