While this makes sense considering the game's target audience was children between the ages of eight and ten, it still seems like a shame that a title that was many '90s kid's first experience with survival-horror games is lost to time.JumpStart Adventures 4th Grade: Haunted Island is a computer game created by Knowledge Adventure.ĭialogue Flap: Well, hello. After two rereleases that significantly reduced the difficulty, Haunted Island was removed from the JumpStart roster and replaced with Sapphire Falls - likely the result of negative feedback from parents of terrified children. Outside of emulators or CD-ROM copies from the '90s, the game is no longer available. It's perhaps because of this that the game is so hard to come by nowadays. The use of then-new 3D art only added to the game's off-putting feel. With a first-person viewpoint, dim lighting, a dreary environment and a villain that's basically an eldritch fae horror set on tormenting them for fun, this is basically a non-violent, gore-less horror game that wouldn't look too out of place next to some Resident Evil titles.
JumpStart 4th Grade: Haunted Island didn't just have a spooky aesthetic - it was basically a horror game. RELATED: Resident Evil: Welcome to Racoon City Reveals a Chilling Easter Egg The rereleases of the game included a map to teleport to places, which many players used just to avoid Repsac. Losing too much will cause the player to be sent to the Labyrinth, where they'll have to find the Fountain of Health to restore their candle and get out. Grunkle, Repsac asks riddles which, if failed, will cause the player to lose health. Grunkle, he can come up on you anywhere, including the Labyrinth. Still, of all the characters that terrorized the players, Repsac is the most dreaded. Grunkle is not above swooping down on you at any time to remind you that you're only able to progress because she enjoys watching you squirm. Grunkle's previous victims according to supplementary material. Flap, who helps you get your classmates back, is one of Ms. Madame Pomreeda might be helpful, but that doesn't make her any less terrifying. The characters players encounter in Haunted Island add to the lingering terror. RELATED: Gotham Knights Teases More Court of Owls With Spooky Clip
#JUMPSTART 6TH GRADE HAUNTED ISLAND FULL#
The monochromatic art makes it easy to get lost while wandering the mazelike island and the even more mazelike Labyrinth - a place you go if the candle representing your health gets extinguished. The music adds to the tension while wandering this world full of tortured faces visible in tree bark and the tormented echoes of characters from previous JumpStart games. Early on in the game, there's even an abandoned version of the town from JumpStart Pre-K. Once you start playing, however, it becomes clear that Haunted Island is more creepy than charming. It's also populated by spooky characters and, on the surface, seems no more innocuous than the previous games.
Grunkle's house bears a passing resemblance to Jack Skellington's, and the island is monochromatic with bursts of color at points of interest. Haunted Island's aesthetic has been compared to the work of Tim Burton, and it does seem to take some aesthetic inspiration from The Nightmare Before Christmas. This requires playing various mini-games that test the player's knowledge of subjects like math, English and history. They'll also need to find 25 skeleton keys and Ms. To turn them back, players need to remind their classmates of their humanity by retrieving items that belonged to each of them. Grunkle was actually a witch who turned the other students into monsters and took them to the titular Haunted Island. However, they soon learn that absence was for the best, as the substitute teacher Ms.
In Haunted Island, players are a fourth-grade student who missed a day of school.