Publisher: Sierra
Developer: Sierra
Year: 1991
Platform: DOS

Score: 3

One of several Sierra adventures designed with children in mind, EcoQuest is a very simple and very educational game with above average production values. However, a lackluster story and script make it difficult to recommend.

You play as Adam, a twelve-year old boy whose father is a renown ecologist and has just saved a dolphin. After teaching Adam how to clean oil off of duck and coral, he begrudgingly runs to a committee meeting and asks Adam to look after the dolphins While doing so, Adam discovers the dolphin, Delphineus, can talk. Delphineus informs Adam that their underwater kingdom is at jeopardy of dying unless they can find their missing whale king Cetus. Adam, who is already a certified diver, agrees to go on this quest without so much as leaving a note for Dad.

Most of the game takes place below water with Adam sporting the world’s longest lasting oxygen-tank. He will visit the underwater city of Eluria, gain their trust by helping undo damage done by humans, and then search for Cetus. Play uses the familiar Sierra icon system, with one extra icon added that asks Adam to deposit garbage into his trusty sack. Doing so is rarely necessary, but the game rewards you with points as well as a pat on the back.

Puzzles start out incredibly simple, mostly involving picking up obvious items and following specific instructions provided by documents or other characters. Nicely though, as the story progresses, puzzles require a little more forethought, requiring clever use of your inventory and deciphering vague prophecies delivered by the Elurian oracle (which is a fish). A bulk of the game takes place in Eluria as you help clean up not only the seabed, but the apartments of creatures whose lives have been threated by various pollutants, such as bleach, soda can rings, and plastic bags. Most puzzles are related to helping the environment even if the situations themselves are a bit fantastical. The only time I raised my brow a bit was for a slider puzzle, though at least it’s skippable.

The game truly is educational. Many sea creatures are portrayed accurately, including crabs, turtles, rays, and various sponges and coral. I did learn some things, including the symbiotic relationship between clownfish and anemones. The game doesn’t shy away from the horrors humans have inflicted upon the ocean; while no animal deaths are portrayed on screen, the catastrophic results are bore witness to.

The graphics are what you’d expect from an early 90’s Sierra game, with richly-detailed pixel-art drawings and slick animations. Most of the animal characters are given cartoonish close-up portraits. The digitized music is perfectly pleasant with the occasional foreboding tune when there’s danger. There’s a pleasant ding when you procure points, but since there are over 700 points and they come in droves, it’s not nearly as satisfying as it could be. The CD-ROM version comes with full voice-overs. The narrator is perfect, believably emotive while kind and encouraging. The rest of the cast is rather amateur, with some obnoxious caricaturizations, though nothing so annoying as to wish the sound off.

As proof Sierra was capable of not being endlessly cruel to the player, there is no way to die or get stuck. Other features also cater to children, such as regular hints provided by both Delphineus and the oracle as needed. Answers aren’t handed to you on a silver platter, but if you look at everything you see, most puzzles present themselves plainly. And if that fails, clicking everything on everything doesn’t take long as the inventory is kept at a manageable level. The narrator also provides encouraging and useful feedback if you try reasonable alternate solutions. The only time I got stuck was when room exits were unclear.

But despite all of these good qualities, I was rather bored. Adam doesn’t feel like a real person, even given the context that this is a hero fantasy story. The relationship between Adam and Delphineus is supposed to be touching, but their conversations are so rudimentary and shallow that I couldn’t care what happened. In contrast, Adam’s relationship with his father had a lot of potential, but Dad is never seen from again after he leaves for the committee meeting, not even for the ending. There are many jokes scattered throughout, though they’re mostly obvious with plenty of puns that are delivered with so many winks and nudges that they lose their bite.

Moreover, Delphineus leads you to believe that their kingdom is doomed if you don’t save Cetus, but Adam more or less saves the kingdom prior to encountering him. Not only that, the climax is a huge letdown. Nearly every puzzle in the game prior had been related to helping the environment, yet the finale involves a violent showdown that would not actually occur at sea.

If you’re trying to introduce your kid to adventure games, Ecoquest would have been an okay option back in 1991, though I contend that a more difficult game with a better story would be more likely to hook them. Either way, there are so many better options today that are funnier and more endearing. So unless you’re jonesing for an adventure about environmental cleanup, then you’d be better pass this one by lest it wind up in the recycling bin.