Flo: Return of the Water Beetles

Details: Category: Computer; By ccgr; 10.Jan; Hits: 9103

System Requirements: Windows 98/Me/2000/XP Mac OS X or later 300MHz or better CPU, G3, G4, or G5 100MB HDD space 64MB or 128MB RAM for Mac

Story

Stringo from the popular band ?The Water Beetles? sent Flo the Ant a latter asking her to have everything ready for a concert in a few days. Flo can?t do this all by herself and needs the help from Hermie and Wormie the caterpillars and other bug friends. The only catch is that Flo has lied in the past about The Water Beetles and her friends need to believe and forgive her. Preparing for the concert won?t be easy since there are many emotional and spiritual hurdles as well as puzzles to solve along the way.

How do I play?

Hermie and Wormie are the main characters in this game. They are trying to plant a musical garden. As they complete puzzles to help Flo and prepare the concert they will get seeds as rewards. Each puzzle must be completed three times and the puzzles get harder each time. You can always check the status or preparations completed. You can even replay puzzles as much as you like. Some of them are easier than others.

What kind of puzzles are there?

There are pattern, logic and matching puzzles in this game. One of the harder puzzles is collecting flowers from a river. In order for Wormie to get to the flowers you have to rotate various log shapes to make them connect. When you complete this puzzle once, you also have to avoid and/or rotate frogs so they can?t reach Hermie. One of the easier puzzles is to help the Lady Bugs make cookies from the ?Sarah Leech? cookbook. In this puzzle you have to mimic the cookie pictured in the book using the ingredients given.

Graphics

The characters in this game totally remind me of the move Bug?s Life. The graphics 2D but they use pre-rendered 3D clips. This is so it can run on slow 300MHz machines no doubt. The movie quality also suffers from this pre-rendering. The graphics do the job though.

Controls

This game is mouse driven. There are hot spots you have to find to move around from different areas, this is normally pretty painless but it was a tad annoying in the river-crossing puzzle.

Stability

This game ran with no crashes but I did have a problem in the cookie making puzzle. There were a couple cookies that would not register as complete even though it matched the example perfectly. This was either a glitch or a small ingredient was covered completely by a larger one. I solved the problem by exiting out and re-starting that level.

Sound

The sound effects and back ground music was pretty good. Hermie made a squishing sound when he was crossing the river. The voice acting was good but after having to play each puzzle, three times, you often heard the same phrases over and over.

Appropriateness

This game teaches great spiritual values such as forgiveness, praise, trust and truthfulness. Hermie and Wormie talk to God a few times through the game and it?s great to know He?s always there for us. I highly recommend this game for any child.