random item

Troperville

Tools

Find recent edits by troper:

back to: Main / JumpStartAdventures4thGradeHauntedIsland

edit article | go to discussion page

1st Apr '13 5:27:06 PM Random888

Send Random888 a PM notification explaining the badness of natter: natter-fy

Changed line(s) 1,50 (click to see context) from:

[[quoteright:350:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/js4g_9795.png]]
[[caption-width-right:350:Repsac might jump out at any moment...]]
A discontinued though somewhat infamous entry in the ''JumpStart'' series of {{Edutainment Game}}s. Four years after its release, it was replaced by a new version which was about [[UndergroundLevel mining]]... or something. In any case, it was not as memorable as this one.

As its subtitle might suggest, this game is remembered for its NightmareFuel, which was presumably a factor in its discontinuation. Okay, the plot: You are a fourth-grade student who has missed one day of school. While you were absent, the substitute teacher was a WickedWitch named Ms. Grunkle who [[BalefulPolymorph turned all your classmates into monsters]] and imprisoned them on a creepy island where everything looks like it was designed by TimBurton. So now ItsUpToYou to rescue them, wandering through the [[TheLostWoods spooky woods]] of the island to find the {{Mini Game}}s which provide you with {{Plot Coupon}}s. Occasionally, an evil ghost named Repsac will pop out of nowhere and force you to answer a question. Answering a question wrong will cost you [[HitPoints health points]] and losing all your health points will land in [[TheMaze the Labyrinth]].

Essentially, it's a DefangedHorrors version of a SurvivalHorror game. You can see a {{Walkthrough}} starting [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Upx8ZCALzR4 here]] and a review noting its scariness [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-vUh_PZ5SK4 here]].
----
!!This game provides examples of:

* AlphabetSoupCans
* BeautyToBeast: Many of the children, especially Tiffany.
* BiggerOnTheInside: There's no way Ms. Grunkle's tiny little house could contain all those rooms you have to pass through. But hey, [[AWizardDidIt she's a witch]].
* DefangedHorrors: You don't actually ''die'', and the monsters won't actually ''hurt'' you...however they try to scare you. 
* DifficultyLevels
* TheDragon: Repsac with Ms. Grunkle as the BigBad
* EvilLaugh: Repsac has an impressive one. Ms. Grunkle has one too.
* ExpositionFairy: Flap, a giant purple bat
* FantasyKitchenSink: Haunted Island is a grab bag of anything conceivably Halloweenish. Ghosts, vampires, and witches are to be expected, but ''[[AncientEgypt an Egyptian pyramid]]''? In the middle of a spooky forest with gnarled trees? God knows how ''that'' got there.
* FetchQuest: The game is mostly a series of these. You have thirteen classmates to save and four items are required to save one. You have to play three mini-games to get just one item. So in all, you have to play 156 mini-games to save all your classmates. On top of this, you have to be play three rounds of all the mini-games, except for the pirate activity, to count as having played it once. So unless you get the pirate activity, you have to play nine rounds (three rounds for three mini-games) to get one item. Also, the game keeps track of which mini-games you're bad at and assigns those ones to you repeatedly. Yeah, it's a long game.
* GuideDangIt: Early releases of the game only include the island map in the user's guide. Thus, if you don't have the user's guide, you can't navigate the island effectively and are pretty much screwed. (Clever form of CopyProtection, though.) Later releases dropped the user's guide and included the map in-game.
* HealingSpring: The Fountain of Health in the Labyrinth, if you can find it.
* HollywoodDarkness: Nearly ''everything'' on Haunted Island appears black and blue. That is, until you get close to it, which somehow makes it show up in full color.
* KarmaHoudini: [[spoiler:After you've saved all your classmates, Ms. Grunkle pulls a VillainExitStageLeft, telling you that WeWillMeetAgain.]]
* TheLostWoods
* MediumBlending: The game constantly flips between CGI animation and 2-D animation. For the most part, the main game is pre-rendered CGI while the mini games are 2-D. The main characters (Flap, Ms. Grunkle, etc.) are always CGI. Your classmates look CGI in the opening sequence, but they are 2-D animated in the yearbook and Madame Pomreeda's CrystalBall.
* MissingEpisode: This version of ''Jump Start 4th Grade'' has not been officially available since TheNineties. If you want a copy, [[EBay eBay]] is probably your best bet.
* OurVampiresAreDifferent: They are {{Classical Movie Vampire}}s who have to [[CoolAndUnusualPunishment solve long division problems]] in order to make it into their coffins.
* PirateTropes: The geography activity is pirate-themed, so it includes a number of these:
** BoardingParty: Implied. If you lose one of the cannon battle mini-mini games mentioned below, your ammo and supply counts go down.
** InstantPlunderJustAddPirates: Well, pirates make at least as much sense as the Egyptian pyramid.
** {{Pirate}}: Type 1. The pirates are your enemies, and if you run into one of their ships, you'll have to sink it in a cannon battle mini-mini game.
*** GhostPirate: Possibly. You don't actually see the pirates themselves, but their ships are all white and ghostly. Oddly, your ship is too.
** PirateBooty: You have to identity the countries with this, based on the geography clues.
** PirateParrot: Picking up supplies is accompanied by a parrot sound effect.
** TalkLikeAPirate: Naturally. While you don't see the pirates, a pirate voiceover gloats at you during the cannon battle mini-mini game and follows this trope.
*** Oddly averted on ''your'' ship, where the only pirate you hear (presumably your first mate) speaks with a BritishAccent.
** TreasureMap: The game is played on a parchment-looking world map, which nevertheless has modern-day (i.e. 1990s) countries and borders.
* PunnyName: Madame Pomreeda (Palm Reader?)
* ProperlyParanoid: A lot of kids would use the WarpWhistle specifically to avoid Repsac. 
* RandomEvent
* RetroUniverse: Some of the children are explicitly from the modern day while others seem to be {{Disco Dan}}s and they all go to school together in an old-fashioned one-room schoolhouse. The pirate activity seems to take place during TheCavalierYears, but none of the rest of the game does. Most of the stories you create in the cemetery activity are set in the present day. And, of course, the history activity has information updated to TheNineties (the time when the game was made) even though Flap says it was "a long time ago" that anyone was in there.
* SdrawkcabName: The evil ghost is named "Repsac". Yeah, "[[CasperTheFriendlyGhost Casper]]" spelled backwards.
* SinisterSilhouettes: How the children are shown being changed into monsters in the opening {{Cutscene}}.
* ThemedCursor: As you can see from the screenshot, the game makes the cursor look spooky and ghostly.
* UpdatedRerelease: Two years after its initial release, the game was rereleased with an onscreen leveling feature (previously leveling was activated by pressing "Ctrl-L") and an in-game map (previously the island map was only included in the user's guide)
* WarpWhistle
* WhatMeasureIsANonCute: Flap the bat, the game's ExpositionFairy and the closest thing it has to a main character, is a somewhat ugly/creepy looking bat.
----
<<|EdutainmentGame|>>

to:

30th Mar '13 4:59:24 PM StoryMakerEchidna

Send StoryMakerEchidna a PM notification explaining the badness of natter: natter-fy

Added What Measure is a Non-Cute?

Added line(s) 47 (click to see context) :

10th Mar '13 7:53:49 PM ThisIsATestTai

Send ThisIsATestTai a PM notification explaining the badness of natter: natter-fy

Added line(s) 36 (click to see context) :

11th Nov '12 12:55:52 AM PurpleShirt

Send PurpleShirt a PM notification explaining the badness of natter: natter-fy

Added line(s) 13 (click to see context) :

Added line(s) 37 (click to see context) :