Video Game / Jinx

Jinx is a 2005 series of point-and-click adventure games from YTV.com.

You play as Jinx, a young child in a ghost costume trick-or-treating on Halloween, who wanders into the mansion of a mad scientist and gets locked in. Explore the building, collect items to find your way out, and read the various books scattered around the place to find clues.

The games are no longer available to play on YTV.com, but have been archived by BlueMaxima's Flashpoint, a Web Game preservation project.

Unrelated to the 2007 young adult novel Jinx or the 2003 Europe-only PlayStation 1 title of the same name.

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This game provides examples of:

The games in general

• Ambiguous Gender: Jinx is a small child whose body is always entirely hidden by their ghost costume, and other characters refer to them with they/them pronouns.
• Bag of Holding: Jinx's little trick-or-treat bucket is able to hold the player's entire inventory.
• Bedsheet Ghost: This is Jinx's Halloween costume, which they never take off.
• Eyes Out of Sight: Dr. Frantic's eyes are always hidden by his green goggles.
• Kleptomaniac Hero: Jinx takes and hoards every loose item they can find.
• Riddle for the Ages: We never get to see what Jinx looks like without their ghost costume on.

Jinx 1: Dark and Stormy Night

• A.I. Is a Crapshoot: Dr. Frantic's robot assistant malfunctioned and started destroying everything, forcing him to lock himself in his secret lab.
• Apocalyptic Log: Dr. Frantic's journal reveals that he was building a robot assistant to help him get groceries, but it went completely haywire.
• Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: In the storage room with the bucket and plunger, there are three boxes labeled "burial shrouds", "mummy bandages", and "scary hawaiian shirts".
• Chromatic Arrangement: The three gemstones are blue, red and yellow.
• Cliffhanger: The game ends with Jinx pressing a button and activating a portal which takes them, Dr. Frantic, and the malfunctioning robot to who-knows-where.
• Curiosity Is a Crapshoot: While trick-or-treating, Jinx decides to investigate the mad scientist's mansion before going home...and gets locked in.
• Didn't Think This Through: When trying to escape his haywire robot assistant, Dr. Frantic accidentally locked himself in his secret lab with the Gemlok door, which can't be opened from the inside.
• Duct Tape for Everything: Jinx finds a roll of duct tape and uses it to repair the broken dumbwaiter.
• Halloween Episode: The game takes place on Halloween.
• Mad Scientist: Dr. Frantic lives in a giant haunted mansion and has science equipment and strangely labeled boxes everywhere. There are signs outside his house that say "Keep out! Mad scientist at work!" and "I mean it!" (which isn't enough to deter Jinx).
• Mineral MacGuffin: Three gems are scattered around the mansion, which are needed to unlock the Gemlok door.
• Mirror Scare: If Jinx looks at a mirror, they get scared from seeing a ghost. Said ghost is just Jinx's reflection, since Jinx wears a Bedsheet Ghost costume.
• Room Escape Game: The objective of the game is to help Jinx escape the mad scientist's mansion.
• Shout-Out: The title references the famous opening line of Edward Bulwer-Lytton's Paul Clifford, "It was a dark and stormy night."

Jinx 2: Miracle in the 34th Dimension

• Advanced Tech 2000: The Gem-erator 9000™, which is used to power the elevator in the Lumpa Coal Mine.
• Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: At one point, Jinx comments, "It's bad enough I've been transported to another dimension...now there's this Evil Santa guy all mad at me...and I'm still dressed in my Halloween costume!"
• Bad Santa: Apparently in the 34th Dimension, there is an Evil Santa who employs goblin-like "elves", owns a toy breaking factory, and gives out nothing but lumps of coal.
• Beard of Evil: Evil Santa has a big, bushy white one, naturally.
• Christmas Episode: Jinx and Dr. Frantic get teleported to the snowy, Christmas-themed 34th Dimension, where Evil Santa rules.
• Cliffhanger: Once again, the game ends with Jinx and Dr. Frantic getting sucked into a portal...while accidentally taking one of the E.L.Fs with them.
• Comical Nap Drool: The sleeping E.L.F. in the security office, who is definitely not doing his job.
• Conspicuously Light Patch: A pile of purple rocks is blocking the Elevator Power Room. Moving the light purple rock on the bottom of the pile makes the rest fall down.
• The Ditz: Evil Santa's minions, the E.L.Fs, aren't very smart. One of them leaves a note in plain sight telling another E.L.F. not to tell anyone that the symbol to access the control tower is the Christmas tree.
• Fun with Acronyms: Instead of elves, Evil Santa employs Evil Loyal Followers (E.L.Fs).
• The Guards Must Be Crazy: The E.L.F. in the security office is asleep and drooling, so Jinx can walk right in and steal the key to Dr. Frantic’s cell. Apparently he wrote a note to himself not to do that, but it didn’t work.
  Note taped to the wall: Note to self: Be very very careful not to fall asleep on the job, or someone might sneak in and take this key, and then Evil Santa will get mad. Signed, E.L.F. #1138.
• Immediate Sequel: Picks up immediately after the first game, with Jinx, Dr. Frantic, and the robot assistant falling out of the portal.
• Servant Race: The E.L.Fs appear to be mass-produced for evil overlords; Jinx can find a catalogue selling them.
  Catalogue: Why do all of your dirty work yourself, when you can have legions of small, brainless, loyal creatures do it all for you? Manual labor is a problem of your past, with the help of our exciting new line-up of E.L.F.-brand products!
• Shout-Out:
  • The game title is a reference to Miracle on 34th Street.
  • As the robot assistant falls out of the sky and hits the ground, it says, "ROSEBUD..."
• Snowy Sleigh Bells: Heard at the beginning of the game as the portal opens into the snowy 34th Dimension.
• Straight Edge Evil: Evil Santa might own a toy breaking factory and be rude to his E.L.Fs, but at least he recycles his trash.
• Trapped in Another World: Jinx, Dr. Frantic, and the robot assistant get sucked into a portal to the 34th Dimension.
• Visual Pun: Jinx and Dr. Fantic agree to meet at the North Pole... which is a literal pole secured in the snow.
• Wintry Auroral Sky: Evil Santa's toy-breaking factory has a machine that turns on the Northern Lights, which Dr. Frantic needs to power his portal.
• Worthless Yellow Rocks: The Gem-erator 9000™ uses diamonds as fuel. One of the E.L.Fs hangs a lampshade on it, commenting that it seems like a big waste.
• You Are Number 6: The E.L.Fs don't have names, only serial numbers.

Jinx 2 1/2: Portal Peril

• Art Shift: This game has a slightly different art style than the others in the series, with cel shading instead of gradient-style soft shading.
• Help, I'm Stuck!: The portal starts to close before Jinx is able to get out, leaving them stuck.
• Oddball in the Series: This is the only Jinx game that isn't a point-and-click adventure game. Instead, it is a catapult-type game with the goal being to shoot Jinx as far as possible. Points are gained by collecting candy, getting the trick-or-treat bucket, and passing the E.L.F. and Dr. Frantic.
• Pun-Based Title: Combining "portal" and "mortal peril".

Jinx 3: Escape from Area Fitty-Two

• Air-Vent Passageway: After Jinx helps him escape, the E.L.F. hides in an air vent, which can be used to reach the inside of the spaceship hangar.
• Ambiguously Human: The X-ray machine shows absolutely nothing to be under Jinx’s ghost costume, even though Dr. Frantic is revealed to be a robot (or at least, a cyborg) and the E.L.F. has a skeleton.
• Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: Jinx's summary of their situation after being thrown in a jail cell.
  Oh NO! I've been captured by some government guys...I'm miles away from home...and my Halloween costume is starting to smell like corn chips.
• Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: In the epilogue, a 1,000-foot-tall chocolate Easter bunny attacks the Strange Happenings Headquarters.
• Blah, Blah, Blah: In the opening cutscene, a sign attached to the barbed-wire fence surrounding Strange Happenings Headquarters says, "WARNING: Military installation. It is unlawful to blah blah blah yadda yadda blah."
• Blank Book: There's a red book in the spaceship hangar; attempting to read it will cause Dr. Frantic to comment that it's empty. Jinx can pick it up and bring it to the writer, who fills it out. It turns out to have a drawing of the Little Green Men in it, giving the E.L.F. an idea to disguise himself as one of them.
• Broken Bridge: Gameplay involves switching between Jinx, Dr. Frantic, and the E.L.F. Since the gang is breaking out of a secret government facility with agents around every corner, several areas are initially impossible to access until the player obtains the appropriate disguise.
• Circling Birdies: Happens to Agent 42 after he's KO'd by the flood coming out of Dr. Frantic's cell.
• Does Not Like Spam: Clicking the peanut butter sandwich in Jinx's inventory reveals that they hate peanut butter.
• Don't Touch It, You Idiot!: A rookie S.H.H. agent finds Dr. Frantic's portal device in the middle of the desert, is told not to touch it by another agent, puts it on, and promptly gets teleported to another dimension. He returns in the epilogue and accidentally brings a thousand-foot-tall chocolate Easter bunny with him.
• Duct Tape for Everything: The rest of Jinx's duct tape roll from Episode 1 gets used to patch an Air-Vent Passageway.
• Everyone Knows Morse: Jinx uses the metal spork from their prison lunch to tap out a message to Dr. Frantic in the adjoining cell, receiving the message "flush the banana."
• Fun with Acronyms: In this game, Jinx, Dr. Frantic, and the E.L.F. are being held at a government facility known as the Strange Happenings Headquarters (S.H.H.)
• Fun with Flushing: Dr. Frantic and Jinx use bananas to clog the toilets in their prison cells. When Agent 42 tries to open Dr. Frantic's cell, he gets knocked unconscious by the flood of water.
• I Choose to Stay: The E.L.F. is delighted when he finds out that this world's version of Santa is kind and caring, and never shows any sign of wanting to return to his home dimension, where he was treated like crap by Evil Santa.
• Leitmotif: In any scene with Major Downer or the S.H.H. agents, there's a military drumbeat in the background.
• Little Green Men: The E.L.F., who has green skin, is mistaken for one and locked up by S.H.H. agents. In the hangar, there's also a huge spaceship containing real Little Green Men.

• Mugged for Disguise: Happens several times to Agent 42 after he’s knocked out by the flood of water coming from Dr. Frantic’s cell. First, Dr. Frantic switches jackets with him to get past some guards, then Jinx steals his wristwatch communicator to distract Major Downer, then Jinx steals Dr. Frantic’s jacket off of him, then the E.L.F. steals Jinx’s ghost costume off of him. In the ending scene, he’s left with a big bump on his head and wearing the E.L.F.’s purple coveralls.
• No One Gets Left Behind: After accidentally bringing the E.L.F. to their home dimension, Jinx helps him escape from being Strapped to an Operating Table and he is treated as the third member of the party from then on.
• Paper-Thin Disguise: Dr. Frantic steals a suit jacket from one of the government agents while not bothering to disguise his pointy nose and goggles, which still fools the other agents.
• Puppy-Dog Eyes: The E.L.F.'s overjoyed reaction when he finds out that the Santa in Jinx's and Dr. Frantic's dimension is kind, caring and gives out toys to children all over the world. He looks like he's about to cry.
• Robotic Reveal: The X-ray machine reveals that Dr. Frantic's body is robotic. However, it doesn't affect the story, and is only a sight gag.
• Shout-Out: A couple references to The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Trilogy. One of the agents is named Agent 42, and at one point Major Downer exclaims, "Sweet Beeblebrox!"
• Stock Animal Diet: To get into the six-armed chimp's cage, Jinx gives him the bananas from the prison toilets. A single banana isn't enough to distract him from closing the cage, so Jinx uses the cloning machine to make him a huge pile of bananas.
• Strapped to an Operating Table: How Jinx finds the E.L.F. after escaping their jail cell, under a device called the Alien Inside-Outer.
  Manual: Congratulations on your purchase of the Alien Inside-Outer! This industrial-grade operating table comes complete with a powerful precision zapper that will help you discover what makes your little green man tick!
  *Warning, in the process of using the zapper, your little green man will probably stop ticking.
• This Is Gonna Suck: When the gang is being dropped out of yet another portal at the beginning of the game, Jinx comments, "This is going to hurt, isn't it?"

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