• 70 levels of plush Underwater Environments
• Loads of Mini-Games, Puzzles and surprises!
• On-screen prompts help you navigate through the treacherous terrain!
• Play in either English or Spanish!

Discussion
If I were to tell you a game played like Pac-Man with Lemmings tossed into it, would you play it?

That’s the principle behind the Amazing Virtual Sea-Monkeys, a game that is both weird and wonderful all in the same way. An obvious budget title that I rescued from a Toys R’ Us bargain bin years ago, a fan request brought this to my reviewing table and I have to admit, it does have a charm to it.

We can ignore whatever storyline may be in the manual – all you need know is that you play Nautilus, the vacuum-equipped submarine that has a single purpose in life: save the sea-monkeys from peril while devouring goldfish. It’s a rough life, I know.

So here’s the catch – our little mail-away buddies are dumber than a brick. Like the Lemmings, you can’t control them directly, but must make sure they can follow a path to their seashell destination. This is done via rock wall assembly, creature maneuvering, and object usage. Every few levels will provide a new challenge or an interesting twist on an item usage. What makes the game shine is that you must collect all of the goldfish in the same stage before the first Sea-Monkey hits the shell. That’s right: you’re essentially in a race against yourself, doing two objectives at once.

This sounds confusing, but the game thankfully takes everything slow, acting as if each stage is your first one by allowing for a complete level overview, as well as on-screen hints to any and all objects in the level. By example, in an early stage, you simply must grab all the goldfish before the monkeys hit their goal with no assistance from you. By the 12th level, you need to figure out how to have one sea-monkey trigger an open switch before the other reaches the closed shell, all in 20 seconds while trying to nab the few goldfish in the area.

Some of the puzzle elements include property infused fish (they kill you, not the monkeys), object fish (some attract, others repel), and rocks which are used to create barriers to have the sea monkeys either kept at bay or swimming in a new direction.

The music is simple, the control is just a smidge sluggish with turning, and the stages, though creative in layout, don’t differ enough in actual graphic styles, but for some reason I like this game. While there is a time limit, it’s not brutal on you. While nowhere near an addiction fest as say Puzzle Fighter or Intelligent Qube, the title has this really odd charm to it.

I don’t recommend trying to marathon it as you’ll be bored by the repetitive graphic styles, but taken in 3 to 5 level chunks, The Amazing Virtual Sea-Monkeys can be a relaxing time-waster on a penny-pinching budget.
 

• The game has red book audio - you may listen to the music tracks on a standard CD player.
   
• Released under Conspiracy's Premium Value Product label.
   
• Each Sea-Monkey that reaches the sea shell does a different pose when being counted.
   
• For those that never knew of Sea-Monkeys from back in the day, there's a pretty good article on Wikipedia.