Uploaded February 2019 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
Ladies and gentlemen, this may be the single most obscure computer game I ever do a video of in the entire history of this channel. In fact, I'd be shocked if you even knew a thing about this game before watching this video.
This is another old edutainment game, and this one is centered on spelling. Umm...yay?
So, I'll just cut to the chase. The only reason I even know what this game even is is because, well, I actually know someone who worked on this game. I won't be more specific than that, but that should answer about the first twenty questions I get. When I was very little, said person sent a copy of this game to me in the mail. I had donated it away years and years ago, but then it randomly crossed my mind again and said person volunteered to let me have another. So, yes, I've had this game twice, and both times it was provided by the same person free of charge. Thank you, kind person! I fully expect them to run across this video when the game inevitably crosses their mind again (it was one of the first projects they ever worked on), so when you do, hello. Fancy seeing you here.
The development history of this game isn't anything to write home about, but the reason it's remained so obscure is because it never got a wide retail release. As far as I am aware, it was only ever officially sold in a few local Seattle computer stores for a very brief period of time. It never hit any of the retail giants though, dooming it to a fate of unknownness. One thing worth noting, though, is that another one of the folks who did background art on this game later went on to work on Spy Fox. And that connection is how I got a free copy of Spy Fox 1 when I was only 2. So, in a way, this game's existence is what indirectly led to me being a Humongous fanatic. Isn't it funny how some things work out?
Okay, enough about the development history, is the actual game anything worthwhile? Ehh...well, the basic premise of it is that you go around an island with the host, a talking TV named Sparky, gathering souvenirs for a "tangled tale" (essentially a mad libs story). To get each of these, you have to go to each location, look for Sparky (which is actually an illusion, you just keep clicking until he shows up; there's no real "searching" going on), and then play the spelling game where you're given up to three hints to spell out a word. Once you gather all souvenirs, they are randomly placed in the tangled tale which is read out.
And...that's about all there is to it. I'll be real, the potential is there for a well-made game, but it's just too shallow to work well. Sparky is voice acted very well, the environments are creative, the click points are fun to poke around with, and honestly, for 1994 standards this is a pretty impressive game visually. But the game's focus on spelling just constrains it way too much. There's only a single spelling minigame and its novelty wears thin quick. If they had multiple spelling minigames I could have seen this having more lasting appeal. The different tangled tales are a nice touch and probably my favorite part of the game, but they don't give enough replay value. Overall, it's a solid effort for sure, but a bit shallow.
There really isn't much to this game beyond what I show. I did two rounds on the highest difficult level. For those who care, the differences between it and the other two difficulties is that "hide and seek" foregoes the spelling game entirely and all you need to do is find Sparky, and the regular spelling game is the same as "super spelling" but with easier words. I tried to trigger every click point I could, but on the second go-around, if Sparky appeared before I had clicked every click point, I simply wasted one guess so I could go back to the location and get the remaining click points (you are locked out of a location once you get both items). There's a lot more tangled tales in the game, but honestly I cannot be bothered enough to play this game however many times you're supposed to in order to get them all. Oh, I also showed the alphabet and phonics videos the game comes with. Wonder where all the children seen in the videos are now.
This was played on my trusty 486, the exact computer I first played this on way back in the day. The animation was more or less fine-tuned to a lower clock speed than what my PC has though (least, that's the idea I got when tampering with different processor speeds on PCem), so the animations run a bit faster than intended. In most cases this is not a problem, but the credits noticeably run way too fast on this machine so that was done on a separate recording in PCem. If you're wondering why the quality seems to jump way up high at the credits, that's why.
Enjoy the walkthrough, and have fun seeing a game you otherwise would probably have never known the existence of.
Recorded with an Avermedia Game Broadcaster HD via VGA. Specs:
486DX4 100 MHz
16 MB RAM
Trident TVGA 8900B video card
Sound Blaster 32
44X CD-ROM drive
Ladies and gentlemen, this may be the single most obscure computer game I ever do a video of in the entire history of this channel. In fact, I'd be shocked if you even knew a thing about this game before watching this video.
This is another old edutainment game, and this one is centered on spelling. Umm...yay?
So, I'll just cut to the chase. The only reason I even know what this game even is is because, well, I actually know someone who worked on this game. I won't be more specific than that, but that should answer about the first twenty questions I get. When I was very little, said person sent a copy of this game to me in the mail. I had donated it away years and years ago, but then it randomly crossed my mind again and said person volunteered to let me have another. So, yes, I've had this game twice, and both times it was provided by the same person free of charge. Thank you, kind person! I fully expect them to run across this video when the game inevitably crosses their mind again (it was one of the first projects they ever worked on), so when you do, hello. Fancy seeing you here.
The development history of this game isn't anything to write home about, but the reason it's remained so obscure is because it never got a wide retail release. As far as I am aware, it was only ever officially sold in a few local Seattle computer stores for a very brief period of time. It never hit any of the retail giants though, dooming it to a fate of unknownness. One thing worth noting, though, is that another one of the folks who did background art on this game later went on to work on Spy Fox. And that connection is how I got a free copy of Spy Fox 1 when I was only 2. So, in a way, this game's existence is what indirectly led to me being a Humongous fanatic. Isn't it funny how some things work out?
Okay, enough about the development history, is the actual game anything worthwhile? Ehh...well, the basic premise of it is that you go around an island with the host, a talking TV named Sparky, gathering souvenirs for a "tangled tale" (essentially a mad libs story). To get each of these, you have to go to each location, look for Sparky (which is actually an illusion, you just keep clicking until he shows up; there's no real "searching" going on), and then play the spelling game where you're given up to three hints to spell out a word. Once you gather all souvenirs, they are randomly placed in the tangled tale which is read out.
And...that's about all there is to it. I'll be real, the potential is there for a well-made game, but it's just too shallow to work well. Sparky is voice acted very well, the environments are creative, the click points are fun to poke around with, and honestly, for 1994 standards this is a pretty impressive game visually. But the game's focus on spelling just constrains it way too much. There's only a single spelling minigame and its novelty wears thin quick. If they had multiple spelling minigames I could have seen this having more lasting appeal. The different tangled tales are a nice touch and probably my favorite part of the game, but they don't give enough replay value. Overall, it's a solid effort for sure, but a bit shallow.
There really isn't much to this game beyond what I show. I did two rounds on the highest difficult level. For those who care, the differences between it and the other two difficulties is that "hide and seek" foregoes the spelling game entirely and all you need to do is find Sparky, and the regular spelling game is the same as "super spelling" but with easier words. I tried to trigger every click point I could, but on the second go-around, if Sparky appeared before I had clicked every click point, I simply wasted one guess so I could go back to the location and get the remaining click points (you are locked out of a location once you get both items). There's a lot more tangled tales in the game, but honestly I cannot be bothered enough to play this game however many times you're supposed to in order to get them all. Oh, I also showed the alphabet and phonics videos the game comes with. Wonder where all the children seen in the videos are now.
This was played on my trusty 486, the exact computer I first played this on way back in the day. The animation was more or less fine-tuned to a lower clock speed than what my PC has though (least, that's the idea I got when tampering with different processor speeds on PCem), so the animations run a bit faster than intended. In most cases this is not a problem, but the credits noticeably run way too fast on this machine so that was done on a separate recording in PCem. If you're wondering why the quality seems to jump way up high at the credits, that's why.
Enjoy the walkthrough, and have fun seeing a game you otherwise would probably have never known the existence of.
Recorded with an Avermedia Game Broadcaster HD via VGA. Specs:
486DX4 100 MHz
16 MB RAM
Trident TVGA 8900B video card
Sound Blaster 32
44X CD-ROM drive
