The Day of the Jellyfish

The story kicks off with a setup reminiscent of a classic favorite, but instead of a tentacle, it’s a jellyfish that’s wandered too close to factory pollution and decides to storm the shore. Worse yet, it rallies others to its cause, creating a whole army of jellyfish. Caught in the chaos are three friends who play in a band, dragged into the mess simply because they are scheduled to perform there. You control two of the characters, switching between them by clicking on their portraits. The reason for the separation is that one of them has a broken foot and can’t make it down to the beach. Each character has their own goals and items to collect, so they never need to meet or exchange inventory. Gameplay follows traditional point-and-click conventions: you guide the cursor across the screen in search of hotspots, interacting with them via the left mouse button (the right button serves no purpose). Clicking a hotspot brings up a row of possible actions. Usually, the first available option is “examine,” which can then unlock further actions like picking something up or using it. Talking is possible too, but since everyone has a jellyfish stuck on their head, conversation only results in getting zapped. Even the band’s third member isn’t spared. Item interaction works as expected. You activate an item from the inventory and use it on a hotspot, or combine items directly. The game keeps things streamlined, with only a small number of usable objects and hotspots, making solutions fairly straightforward. The one real challenge comes from a keypad puzzle, where you need to match musical notes to the correct keys to uncover the code. The entire adventure takes about 30 minutes to complete and acts as a brief introduction to a larger game featuring the same trio.