The ClueFinders: The Incredible Toy Store Adventure!

Developer(s)	The Learning Company
Publisher(s)	The Learning Company
Platform(s)	PC (Windows, Macintosh)
Release	August 31, 2001
Genre(s)	Educational/adventure/science fiction/mystery
Mode(s)	Single-player

The ClueFinders: The Incredible Toy Store Adventure is a personal computer game in The Learning Company's ClueFinders series of educational software. In the game, the ClueFinders are trapped in a toy store after hours and Joni, Owen, and LapTrap have mysteriously shrunk to three inches tall. While Leslie and Santiago attempt to reach their friends trapped on the sixth floor, Joni and Owen search for items to build an Unshrinker and discover a diabolical plan surrounding the store.

Premise

The ClueFinders are heading on a San Francisco cable car to the recently-built toy store, Ultimate Toys. When they get there, Owen realizes that he lost his wallet, so Joni, Owen, and LapTrap return to the cable car to retrieve it, while Leslie, Santiago and AliTrap (a smaller "second LapTrap" who appears to be one of the LittleTraps from The ClueFinders Reading Adventures head into the store. However, just as they find it, they are shot by an energy ray which shrinks them, the wallet, and the cable car, to the point that Joni and Owen become only three inches tall. They are then scooped up by an unknown hand and placed in a sack. Once they escape from the sack, they realize they've been taken to the sixth floor. Using Owen's red video phone, they contact Leslie and Santiago and inform them of their plight, prompting Leslie and Santiago to try to get to them. Unfortunately, as it is by this time after-hours, they are barred from using the elevator unless they solve puzzles involving math problems. In addition to this, LapTrap has managed to scan the device that emitted the energy ray, allowing him to determine what parts they require in order to make a machine to undo the ray's shrinkage affects. Gameplay alternates between Joni, Owen and LapTrap exploring the sixth floor and playing games in order to gather the parts they need and Leslie, Santiago and AliTrap solving math problems in order to go up floors until they reach the sixth. On the floors they visit, they also look for parts for the "unshrinker", as LapTrap has uploaded his discoveries about necessary parts to AliTrap as well.

Gameplay

The 6th Floor

Here on the 6th Floor of Ultimate Toys, Joni, Owen, and LapTrap find themselves among the toys—but the friends are only three inches tall! While they want to stay put, there are many exciting and mysterious things for them to explore. As you pass the cursor over different areas of the 6th Floor, it will change to show special areas that will lead to activities. Click on an area to begin another part of the adventure. As you assist the shrunken ClueFinders in these challenging situations, the solutions to the activities will lead you one step closer to helping them out of their dilemma.

Catapult Fling

Joni, Owen, and LapTrap are picked up by Flo the Robot and deposited at the bottom of a bin full of mismatched toy parts. They must aim at a bag of toy parts in order to release some of the parts for the Unshrinking Device.

Directions: Aim and launch wheels of different weights to hit the hanging bag of toy parts. Adjust the launcher arm, move the launcher, and choose a wheel in order to hit the target.

Activity Focus: Physics experimentaion, Logical thinking

Taxi Bug Express

Joni, Owen, and LapTrap are at the edge of the toy boat pond and are too tiny to get across the water to the marina. Taxini the bug will let them earn the taxi fare if they assist him with his spelling.

Directions: Navigate Taxini to the correctly spelled words. Each correctly spelled word that is reached earns $1 toward the fare. Use the mouse or the arrow keys on the keyboard to move Taxini around to avoid floating obstacles and collect the correct words.

Activity Focus: Spelling

Escape from Alcatraz

The shrunken ClueFinders are trapped inside the “Escape from Alcatraz” board game display! The ClueFinders can help rescue Lucky Lucy the Mouse from prison by using knowledge of grammar.

Directions: Choose an appropriate word from the rotunda and click-and-drag it to fill in a blank on the game card. Fill in both blanks on each card and a section of the game board will light up. Answer four game cards correctly and then put the sentences in order to make a paragraph.

Activity Focus: Grammar, Ecology

Global Trek

Joni, Owen, and LapTrap are lost and are too small to get back without the help of Marlena the Mini Car. But Marlena is stubborn—she will carry them back only if they plot the courses outlined on her navigation system.

Directions: Plot the course by reading the directions on the navigation system and clicking the correct locations on the map. After successfully plotting four points on the map, you’ll move forward to the next navigational problem.

Activity Focus: Geography, Following directions

Pneumatic Pipe Blast

The shrunken ClueFinders jump into Ultimate Toy’s pneumatic pipe system to escape a hungry rat! Joni, Owen, and LapTrap must avoid the rat to get out of the pipe system. They must continue each pattern to navigate a way out.

Directions: Choose a sequence by clicking on a pipe segment. The ClueFinders blast through to the next set, where there are three more pipe segments. Click on the one that continues the chosen pattern and move to the next set.

Activity Focus: Patterns, Sequencing

Eldon the Talking Elevator

Each time you successfully help the shrunken ClueFinders out of a predicament on the 6th Floor and collect an item for the Unshriking Device, you will automatically join Santiago, Leslie, and AliTrap in Eldon the Talking Elevator. They are trying to reach the other ClueFinders by solving the puzzles that Eldon poses. After you correctly solve each of his puzzles, Eldon will visit new floors in Ultimate Toys. These floors are Clue Spots where you will collect more parts to build the Unshrinking Device. As you visit the Clue Spots, the story behind the mystery will be revealed.

Eldon the Talking Elevator will take Santiago, Leslie, and AliTrap to the next floor to look for clues, but only after they solve the puzzle presented on his game board grid.

Directions: Answer the questions correctly to connect five numbers on the grid horizontally, vertically, or diagonally.

Activity Focus: Addition, Subtraction, Multiplication, Division

Along the way, Leslie and Santiago discover important clues on each floor. On the first floor, they find a sack containing what seems to be toy cars, but then find the cable car they were riding and Owen's wallet, shrunken as well. Someone is in the habit of shrinking things. On the second floor, they see store owner, Mr. Swiffel, fretting about a newspaper article saying that Alcatraz has sunk, all while holding a "model" of Alcatraz in his hand. On their way to the third floor, Eldon accidentally stops at a restricted section where Leslie, Santiago, and AliTrap see Mr. Swiffel in the middle of testing an unsuccessful Unshrinker. At the fourth floor, they discover the store manager, Pericles Lear, attempting make high-energy fuel. Why would a toy store manager need high-energy fuel? It all comes to a head on the fifth floor where Leslie and Santiago overhear Mr. Swiffel confront Pericles about possibly going through his office and taking a "very important piece of machinery." Pericles says he did nothing in an overly perky voice and Mr. Swiffel leaves, still highly suspicious. However, it is revealed that Pericles did in fact steal the Shrinking Device and is threatening to shrink the whole city. After they reach the sixth floor, Leslie and Santiago find Joni and Owen, but are caught snooping by Pericles. He shrinks them and traps them inside a gumball machine. Joni and Owen have to rescue them.

Gumball Jackpot

Chewy the Gumball Machine towers in front of the tiny ClueFinders. They need what’s inside Chewy to continue their adventure.

Directions: Using the money provided, calculate the correct amount to reach the target price. The coins that have been used are shown, but the running total is hidden from view. When the target price is achieved, turn the dial and receive a prize.

Activity Focus: Calculating money

Reunited at last, the ClueFinders follow Pericles in the hopes of building the Unshrinker and stopping him. But they have to cross a moat of toy alligators using their reading and logic skills.

Decoding the Divide

The ClueFinders stand in front of a moat that is filled with alligators. There is no bridge, but there is a code over the entrance on the other side of the moat. Each of the alligators has a coded word on its back. Can the ClueFinders break the code?

Directions: Click on an alligator to work on decoding the message on its back. Fill in the blanks with letters chosen from above the entrance to solve the puzzle.

Activity Focus: Logical thinking, Spelling

They arrive at a room where AliTrap has taken Leslie's backpack and find that Pericles had been building an arsenal of Shrinking Devices. Using an empty shell of one of the devices, they build the Unshrinker.

Ultimate Toys’ Creation Lab

Directions: Assemble the items collected from the activities and Clue Spots and put them in their correct places to build the Unshrinking Device.

Activity Focus: Logical reasoning, Spatial visualization

The game's conclusion

After successfully building the Unshrinker, the tiny ClueFinders watch Mr. Swiffel confront Pericles again and the store manager reveals his intentions of shrinking the city and aims the Shrinking Device at his boss. Mr. Swiffel ducks as the beam hits the ClueFinder's Unshrinker. Santiago picks up their now small-enough-to-use device and aims it at the Shrinker in Pericles' hand, which causes it to grow exponentially in size and pin Pericles to the floor. The ClueFinders return to their normal sizes and Mr. Swiffel thanks them for saving San Francisco. At the very end of the game, Joni, Santiago, and Leslie wait for Owen, who emerges from the store carrying an enormous lollipop.

Notes

• This is the first game where entirely different voice actors were used for the ClueFinders themselves.
• It marks the first appearance of AliTrap, who looks exactly like the Little Traps from The ClueFinders Reading Adventures. She functions as a secondary LapTrap that follows Lelsie and Santiago on their journey to the sixth floor.
• On the 2nd floor, there is a toy that looks like Mathra from the 3rd grade adventures.
• This game is neither grade-based (such as 3rd, 4th, 5th, or 6th) or subject based (such as Math, Reading, or Search and Solve). It covers all the basic subjects from the games over the 3rd and 4th grades.
• For the first time, both Joni and Leslie have worn backpacks to serve as inventory storage during the game.