The ClueFinders 6th Grade Adventures: The Empire of the Plant People

The ClueFinders 6th grade Adventures: The Empire of the Plant People
Developer(s)	The Learning Company
Publisher(s)	The Learning Company
Platform(s)	PC (Windows, Macintosh)
Release date(s)	1999
Genre(s)	Educational/adventure/mystery
Mode(s)	Single player

The ClueFinders 6th Grade Adventures: The Empire of the Plant People is a personal computer game in The ClueFinders series of educational software.

Premise

While playing a game of frisbee, Joni accidentally tosses the disc over the fence into the overgrown yard of Miss Rose, an apparently friendly old woman living next door. When Joni and Santiago enter Miss Rose's yard to find the frisbee, the ground literally opens up and swallows them. Owen and Leslie rush into the yard to find Joni and Santiago have vanished. They are able to make contact with them through the Red Videophone, and learn that they have been trapped underground somewhere.

Owen, Leslie and LapTrap discover that under the yard is a passageway that leads into an underground labyrinth inhabited by self-aware, anthropomorphic plants who happen to speak English. They learn from a friendly plant named Ficus that the plants have captured Joni and Santiago, and are concocting a plan to attack the town above.

Gameplay

For almost all of the game, the player guides Owen, Leslie, Laptrap and Ficus around the Plant Kingdom as they try to rescue Joni and Santiago from the army of plants. For most of the game, the player travels around the underground kingdom to collect planks of wood to cross the perilous canyon. Ficus assists by telling the Cluefinders how to get each of the planks. This is done three times before the player reaches Joni and Santiago.

Mysterious Locks This is the first obstacle that the player faces. It involves reading the map or text and scrolling for the three correct answers, unlocking the vine locked door.

Perilous Faults The player is given a clue like a crossword and the first letter of the word. They must guide Owen by clicking the correct tile so he jumps onto it, cracking the tile. He will then need to be guided to spell the rest of the word, which when spelled correctly, deepens the cracks. When enough words have been completed, and the remaining tiles cannot be used to spell words, the layer of tiles will crack and collapse. There are 2 layers of these tiles that must collapse before the plank of wood is obtained.

Recipe for Disaster A three-headed plant holds the plank of wood that is needed to enter the throne room. Combining several chemicals will help to put each of the three heads to sleep, but each head will only pass out for a certain chemical combination. Once each head is out cold, the plank can be taken.

Cave of Danger 4 coloured plants guard the cave entrance which contains the plank of wood that is needed to enter the throne room, these plants fire spores which hatch plant version of guarding pit bulls. The player must help Leslie fire the berry with a matching solution to the colored leaf of the corresponding plant at the matching spore in order to explode the spore on contact. The player must hurry to destroy the spores as they are liable to hatch at any time, If 3 spores hatch and the game resets after the 3 newly hatched pit bulls scare the Cluefinders. 8 spores must be destroyed before the plank of wood is obtained

Skills

Language Arts

Mathematics

Science

Social Studies

Problem Solving

The game's conclusion

It turns out that the plants want to attack the town because various factories have been polluting the water supply of the plant empire for years. The ClueFinders are reunited in the "throne room" of the plant empire, only to discover that Miss Rose is the plants' queen, having disguised herself as a human to go above ground. She explains that she doesn't want to attack the town, but feels like she has no other choice. Santiago informs her that polluting the environment is illegal. Santiago suggests the ClueFinders could track down the polluting factories and report them to the authorities, thus saving both the plant empire and the town.

Miss Rose agrees on the condition that they must also clean up the existing pollution, she gives them 8 hours to clean up the pollution. If the water isn't cleaned by then, they attack. She also demands a "hostage for security" and Joni promptly volunteers herself. As the user completes the activities that entail tracking down the polluting companies and cleaning up the plants' water supply, Joni starts to turn green and seems to begin transforming into a plant herself as a result of the pollution in the plant creatures' food supply. Once all the pollution is cleaned up, Joni is saved and the memories of the human hostages are wiped, leaving the other ClueFinders the only ones who know of the plant empire. Owen and Leslie promise to keep the existence of the empire a secret before they are transported back to the surface.

Notes

• This is the only ClueFinders game where Leslie is a lead character for most of the game. In ClueFinders 4th grade Adventures she is playable as part of the group and in the ClueFinders 5th grade Adventures and The ClueFinders: The Incredible Toy Store Adventure!, she is playable for part of the time.
• In the game's box art, Joni was seen wearing a backpack like the previous games; but in the game, only Leslie wears the backpack, since she and Owen have the primary roles in contrast to Joni and Santiago.
• Also, Leslie's backpack in this game is only used to check how many items have been collected, as opposed to taking items out to begin solving clues (for the items are automatically placed outside the area that needs to be solved upon collecting all the necessary items). Also, the backpack when checking for items takes up the whole screen, and closes when the player clicks anywhere on the screen. Unlike Joni's backpack from the previous games, there are no separate compartments.
• Unlike all the other games, this is the only game where Laptrap will have a different sound when you click on him to pause the game

External links

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• Official website