Game:

Space Quest IV (1991)

Duration: 7:02

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EcoQuest is a series of two educational adventure games developed by Sierra Entertainment. The original concept was developed by Sierra VP of Creative Development, Bill Davis. The authors of the series game design are Jane Jensen and Gano Haine, but Jane was not involved in creating the second game, having moved on to her famous Gabriel Knight series.

The last of Sierra's various "Quest" series, EcoQuest is designed to teach children about the importance of environmental ethics. The games are considerably easier than most Sierra adventures and cannot be lost or rendered unwinnable. Both use a fully mouse-driven version of SCI, in the manner of Space Quest IV and King's Quest VI.

The protagonist is a 10-year-old boy named Adam Greene: the son of an ecologist, and an expert scuba diver.

The first installment, titled The Search for Cetus, was released first on floppy disk, then on CD-ROM with full speech. Adam's attempts to help a dolphin named Delphineus his father has rescued take a turn for the weirder when he starts talking. In no time flat, he's trying to seek out Cetus, the sperm whale king of Eluria, an underwater kingdom populated by marine animals. He has assistance in the form of several creatures found in the various ecosystems of the world. Aside from the considerable liberty of sentient talking and semi-anthropomorphic animals, the game is more realistic than cartoony - it needs to be, to tell about the real world's environment and pollution. The Search for Cetus introduced the recycling symbol to Sierra's standard palette of command icons, giving the player bonus points for picking up litter.