PINK PANTHER IN HOKUS POKUS PINK

The Pink Panther Returns...

He may be out of the espionage business but this time Pink's in double trouble. Not even his new job as a travelling encyclopaedia salesman can keep him away from the magic and mayhem.

It's up to you to help Pink find:

1. the correct ingredients to reverse a spell gone horribly wrong on an innocent little girl.
2. the pages of his encyclopaedia which have been mysteriously wiped clean.

Our feline hero is again hurtled to the heights of adventure, sorcery, intrigue and peril that will keep him and YOU soaring for hours. So prepare for a puzzle-solving, dagger-dodging, side-splitting wail of a time.

Hokus Pokus Pink is no mere abracadabra. It's sheer magic!

Features:

• Takes you across the globe to Siberia, Israel, Kenya, Indonesia and Greece.
• Broadens general knowledge of the world through THE BOOK OF KNOWLEDGE.
• 20-40 hours of hilarious, engrossing gameplay.
• Endless puzzles, challenges and escapades.
• Top quality animations and graphics.
• On-line help.
• 10 catchy songs.

~ from the back of the box

Rarely has an edutainment title been as funny as Pink Panther's Passport to Peril. When I played it for my review (posted just a couple of days ago), I was shock at how much I physically laughed out loud. It may have been only a few days since I played it, but I was itching to play its sequel; Pink Panther in Hokus Pokus Pink. Is it as funny? Is it as adventurous? Is it educational? Let's find out.

Pink has left the spy business for a new, less dangerous job as a travelling salesman. He's got a set of encyclopaedias to flog and that multi-million-pound mansion on the top of the hill looks like it'll host the perfect patsy... or patron. The owners are a bunch of uber-rich dentists hosting a dinner party for their friends, but little do they know their little tyke has begun practicing magic. Real magic. And when his cousin barges into his room, he accidentally turns her into an ugly gargoyle when all she wanted to be was an immortal magical ninja princess mermaid. The world-spanning fetch quest that ensues to brew the magic potion might not be anyone's business, least of all that of a light-red big cat, but at the same time, the pages of Pink's encyclopaedia have been magically wiped! Way to suck you into an adventure.

Use Spot the sentient black hole on the ground to enter a wormhole (left).

It will take you anywhere you want to go, as long as it's one of the three chosen for you (right).

With the help of a sentient black hole called Spot who will transport you all around the globe (don't ask), Pink's first task is to find a bunch of super weird stuff like a living organism from the dead sea and a woolly mammoth. So, our first port of call is the Dead Sea of Israel and the frozen lakes of Siberia. Occasionally, you'll get some entertaining educational titbits, but they rarely interrupt the flow of the traditional point-and-click adventure you'll be playing through. Songs are back to teach you about rats, ostriches and a Kenyan legend about god making it rain cows via a 50s-style doo-wop track. They are each well-written and more than a little catchy. And they're bloody hilarious! I can image as a kid the jokes about puberty and frat pads going over my head, but ostriches? I'd have been rolling on the floor.

Like before, all of the songs are available to play from the main drop-down menu, as is your standard save and load options. Sadly, the readme and help files don't work within ScummVM and as such must be viewed outside of the program. It's not too big a deal as the game is fully playable without visiting defunct websites, but it does show the limitations of the program in its current state. Thankfully, much like the music videos, the encyclopaedia is viewable in the game engine. This is where the drier side of education is stored, but the content available is detailed, thorough and entirely unbiased. When a 25-year-old game for kids talks about the Israel-Palestine conflict with more truth and nuance than current politicians and news outlets, it's an indicting commentary on the state of our current world leaders and journalists.

The encyclopaedia isn't as entertainingly packaged as the PDA from the previous game,

but at least it treats complex world politics with more objectivity and nuance than current news feeds.

But back to the game. Passport to Peril, while very funny and entertaining, was also very easy. Hokus Pokus Pink has a lot more attention given t its puzzles. Most of them are there to set up a joke, but the complexity has somewhat increased from "find the thing the guy wants and give it to them". Take the woolly mammoth for example. You have to use some nasty toenail clipping to tear down some icicles that will lead you to a frat pad of giant rats who you need to convince to do some exercise so you can cause an earthquake which will raise the frozen mammoth from the bottom of the lake. Somewhere in there, you'll need an life-size ice sculpture of your good self and a freshly laid ostrich egg. Somehow it manages to make sense, if only barely.

Along with these puzzles that's part of the magic potion scavenger hunt, you'll also need to find the missing contents of your book. Pages of the encyclopaedia are scattered around the five countries you'll visit and most are found out in the open. It doesn't really add anything to the book as all information is accessible from the very beginning, but it's a nice little side-mission that's accompanied by a nicely animated cartoon sequence.

Looks like Pink has collected a missing page from his encyclopaedia (left).

The music video selection menu. Time to jive down to the Ostrich song (right)! 

The only thing I can say against the game is that the animation does show its age at times. There is zero attempt at synchronised mouth movements and side character drawings look a little janky at times particularly during the music videos. When you think about other games of its time, it's par the course - perhaps a little better than average - but don't go in expecting the majesty of a Broken Sword or Curse of Monkey Island. This is a kids game after all.

But both of these Pink Panther point-and-clicks are much more than merely kids games. They are about as entertaining as any comedic adventure out there with an indelible charm and a quick-witted sense of humour. Hokus Pokus Pink is the better overall game of the two, having a better story and a more involving puzzle design even if some of the Pink Panther mainstays are missing. There's no Inspector Clouseau, Big Nose or  Professor Von Smarty here, but with the colourful cast of new personalities they are not missed. It may be fun for all the family, but it might just be a guilty pleasure I'll return to on a regular basis. 

To download the game, follow the link below. This custom installer exclusive to The Collection Chamber uses ScummVM to allow the game to run on modern PCs. Manual and Help file included. Read the ChamberNotes.txt for more detailed information. Tested on Windows 10.

File Size: 296 Mb.  Install Size: 633 Mb.  Need help? Consult the Collection Chamber FAQ

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Pink Panther in Hokus Pokus Pink is © Wanderlust Interactive, Ltd
Review, Cover Design and Installer created by me

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