Freddi Fish 3: The Case of the Stolen Conch Shell

Freddi Fish and The Case of the Stolen Conch Shell
Developer: Humongous Entertainment Publisher: Humongous Entertainment Platforms: Windows, Mac OS Classic Released in US: March 6, 1998 This game has unused areas. This game has unused graphics. This game has unused items. This game has unused sounds. This game has unused text. This game has debugging material.

Freddi Fish 3: The Case of the Stolen Conch Shell is the third (obviously) Freddi Fish title. This time, Freddi and Luther have been invited to the Founder's Day festival by Luther's Uncle Blenny. Upon arrival, they discover the great Conch Shell (a horn-type thing) has been stolen, and Blenny has been wrongfully imprisoned for theft as he is the Conch's keeper. It's up to Freddi and Luther to find three golden pipes to make a lazy dogfish find the Conch and make sure everyone is able to celebrate the creation of their one-sided society.

Unused Text

Debug Output

To do: document

Also like most Humongous games, this one has a substantial amount of debug console output. The easiest way to view it is to run the game in ScummVM and set the debug level to 0 or higher.

Subtitles

Like most Humongous Entertainment games, Freddi Fish 3 includes subtitles, but there is no way to turn them on in-game. Adding the line TextOn=1 to the hegames.ini configuration file will display the subtitles. The subtitles can also be turned on through ScummVM's interface.

Debug Mode

Like many Humongous Entertainment games, this game features a debug mode. Adding the line SputmDebug=40468 to the configuration file will enable the following debug rooms:

Room Debug

Press G during gameplay to bring up the room debug (room 42 in ScummVM). Click on any room to warp to it.

Item Debug

Press I during gameplay to bring up the item debug (room 43 in ScummVM). Clicking on any item crosses it out and places it in Freddi's inventory.

Path Debug

Press C (note if C doesn't work try pressing P) during gameplay to bring up the path debug (room 44 in ScummVM). Here, you can set the locations of the golden pipes and change many other variables. This menu is quite large compared to the debug rooms from other Humongous Entertainment games.

Unused Graphics

General

If you came here expecting the typical kinds of storyboard graphics found across most Humongous games, you're going to be very disappointed.

Graphic	Notes
	A placeholder image for the load/save screen. Similar images exist in most Humongous games.
	The title screen for the demo, an obvious leftover.
	An unused frame at the very end of the first temple cutscene with an X marking its status as unused. This is found at the end of Freddi's conversation with Old Soggy.
	Another unused frame, this time found in the key room of the temple. Several versions of this same image exist in the room, but they all look almost identical with the only difference being Freddi's placement in relation to the text. They are typically placed at the end of animations, likely to note where to cut it off.

Cursors

Only one purple sea urchin can be taken out of the inventory at a time, so all of these two to five urchin variants are unused.

While you can take out one or two golden pipes at the jail, the cursors for three and four golden pipes go unused due to being taken to the temple after receiving the third pipe. You can however see the cursor for three golden pipes by warping back to the jail or giving yourself three golden pipes via debug mode; since there's no fourth golden pipe at any point ever, the four-pipe cursor goes entirely unused altogether.

The folder containing the suspects is not a usable item in the game – it's simply used to remind the player what the task at hand is.

While the foreign language book is used as a cursor, it's not one in the true sense; it's just an in-game graphic that follows the cursor, leading to these going unused.

When the flashlight is used in the proper area, it skips the cursor and goes straight to lighting up the cave. Since it has no known use on any of the characters, these cursors are not used.

Unused Items

Thief's Bag

While the thief's bag does show up in the game, it is not an item that can be picked up and it only shows up in the ending -- the only interaction after Freddi and Luther find it before the credits roll is deciding who the thief is with the item inside the bag as evidence. The item debug screen allows you to actually pick up the bag and place it in the inventory. There are also equivalent cursors and an "examine" dialogue piece along with it:

File	Character	Subtitles
	Freddi Fish	It's the bag that the conch thief dropped.

The item cannot be used on anything in the actual game, so even if it is placed in the inventory, the cursors go completely unused.

Five Sea Urchins

Only four urchins will be in the game at once, but the graphic for five is in the data anyway. The only way to pick up more than four is to first add at least one urchin to the inventory with the item debug screen and then pick up another in-game. No dialogue exists for examining five or more though (attempting to examine it if you have more than five does nothing), and no graphics exist beyond five.

Four Golden Pipes

There are only three golden pipes in the game, but an inventory graphic containing four is in the game data anyway. Unlike the five urchin graphic, this cannot be seen in-game; if you stick three golden pipes in your inventory with the item debug screen and attempt to take a fourth one in-game, the game will simply behave as if you found the third one. There does not seem to be any evidence that four golden pipes were going to be in the game at any point in development beyond this graphic.

Unused Dialogue

To do: Somebody (coughcough) should see if some of this dialogue not playing is intentional or the result of a scripting error.

File	Character	Subtitles	Notes
	Luther	Now let's get outta here!	Placed with the dialogue after putting the jewel back in place, but it never plays.
	Claw	I did it.	All of the potential culprits have an "I did it!" line meant to be spoken after "I confess" in the ending, but only Gill Barker's is ever played. All of the other characters have an equivalent line, but they're all skipped for some reason.
	Horst Fedders	I did it.
	Nadine	I did it.
	Pierre	I did et.
	Rosie Pearl	I did it.
	Freddi Fish	We have enough sea urchins.	Rather bizarrely, this game has an unusual amount of dialogue recorded specifically for the debug screens. This is played if you attempt to take any more than four sea urchins using the item debug screen.
		We have enough golden pipes.	Likewise, this is played if you try taking more than three golden pipes.
		Selecting this Golden Pipe means Nadine can't be the wallet owner. Pierre or Blenny will be chosen instead.	This is played on the path debug screen if you try to set the "medium" golden pipe to the surface (the one that is locked in the cage) while Nadine is set as the wallet owner. The reason this is impossible is because Nadine has the bolt on her tooth in this path; the developers probably didn't want to animate her again and record another set of condescending dialogue for this circumstance so the easier choice was picked instead.
		You must deselect the surface Golden Pipe first	This is played in the reverse situation; in other words, if you try setting Nadine as the wallet owner with the surface golden pipe chosen.
		You must de-select an urchin first.	This is played if you try to pick more than four urchin locations on the path debug screen.