If you played Treasure Mountain and thought it would be a better game if it were a bit more nautical, then Treasure Cove is for you.
This time the Master of Mischief has gone eco-terrorist and is polluting the oceans. In order to stop him the crystals of the rainbow bridge needs to be gathered so the bridge can be rebuilt. At the same time the Master of Mischief’s goobie sucking tubes need to be stopped up with a special puffer fish.
The levels progress by capturing orange starfish and answering their questions. Each question you answer correctly will give you a clue. Along the bottom of the screen there are various marine life. Three clues describe among which of the marine life you’ll need to search with your flashlight to find a special puffer fish to stop up goobie tube. Shine your flashlight on something that can be described with two of the three clues and you’ll find one of the gems for the rainbow bridge.
Once you’ve found the gems in each area find the hole made by the goobie tube, swim over it, press ‘enter’ to stick it up with the puffer fish, and you’ll move on to the next area. After three areas you’ll face down a shark. Simply shoot it with your bubble gun, shine your light on the bonus gem to multiply your gems, and the go off to deliver them to the elves who will add your gems to the rainbow bridge and give you a gift for your troubles. Your treasures are kept in a special place for you to review whenever you want.
Keep track of your flashlight. You have a limited number of uses from it and you’ll need it not only for searches but also to refill your bubble shooter. If you find your flashlight running low you earn more by catching starfish and even more by answering questions correctly. But beware the goobie fish as running into one of them will steal power from your flashlight.
If you’re at a loss as to where to find either starfish or the appropriate marine life, be sure to go into the shortcut tunnels. If you played previous games in the series you may not think to search there, but in this game there’s actually stuff to find there. To enter a cave swim over it and press ‘enter’.
Treasure Cove is a reading and science adventure aimed at ages 5-9. It was remade for windows CD-Rom in 1997 with enhanced graphics and sound, if you can find it.
If you choose to run the game in DOSBox 7.0 know that it works, but occasionally the up and down arrows don’t. For those times you’ll have to use the mouse to make your selection.