Freddi Fish 3: The Case of the Stolen Conch Shell, also known on iOS as Freddi Fish and the Stolen Shell, is a PC Adventure Game by Humongous Entertainment released in 1998. It's the third main game in the Freddi Fish series.
Freddi and Luther have traveled away from home for more tropical waters to visit Luther's Uncle Blenny, who invited them to partake at the local Founder's Day Festival. However, Blenny has been arrested under suspicion of stealing the festival's Great Conch Shell and its three golden pipes, as his position as Grand Exalted Keeper of the Conch makes him the prime suspect. Pleading innocence, Blenny hands Freddi and Luther a list of six possible suspects and asks the duo to find the missing Conch and clear his name.
In addition to the randomized Plot Coupon locations that are standard to many Humongous titles, The Case of the Stolen Conch Shell also randomizes the culprit; any one of the six characters Blenny mentions at the beginning of the game may have stolen the Conch. While this doesn't change much from a gameplay perspective since the clue to their identity is only given at the end of the game, it still provides Multiple Endings that assist the replay value.
Tropes:
- Achievements in Ignorance: When Freddi and Luther find one of the golden pipes at the top of a tree on an island, Luther will try to get it down using telekinesis. While he fails to move the golden pipe, he does manage to lift a plane out of the water behind him, though neither of them notice this.
- Artistic License – Biology: Bananas are shown growing on palm trees on an island. In real life, bananas grow on stalks.
- As Long as It Sounds Foreign: Horst Fedders, the odd foreign tourist, speaks in a language that can best be described as Foreign-Sounding Gibberish.
- Blackout Basement: A cave in the back of the carnival is completely shrouded in the dark. A Golden Pipe can spawn here, but Freddi and Luther need to obtain a flashlight to be able to search for it.
- Cave Behind the Falls: The waterfall on one of the tropical islands has a fairly sizeable cave behind it. It's big enough to host a fish club.
- Clam Trap: One of the pipes can end up inside a clam, and when Luther goes to retrieve it, the clam threatens to snap him up. The two must get the Shim-Sham-Jimmety-Jam-Flapper-Gapper from Horst Feathers so it will prop the clam's shells open while Luther gets the pipe, although the clam nearly snaps him up at the last second and ends up eating the device.
- Clear Their Name: Part of Freddi and Luther's goal is to prove Uncle Blenny is innocent and didn't steal the Great Conch.
- Cool and Unusual Punishment: All of the culprits get weird punishments for getting caught. Nothing too serious since this is still a lighthearted kids' game.
- Gill Barker is sentenced to silently work in a library for 4,672 hours for violating penal code 214 for excessive greediness.
- Claw is sentenced to attend ballet for bullies and has to wear a tutu and little pink dance slippers for the rest of the school year for violating penal code 119 for having a really bad attitude.
- Nadine is sentenced to teach how to brush and floss for many long hours for violating penal code 121 for the narwhal gate coverup.
- Rosie Pearl is sentenced to teach humor-impaired fish how to be funny for 4,231 hours for violating penal code 682 for wrongful conch-napping.
- Pierre is sentenced to sew hand puppets for underprivileged humpback whales for 4,284 hours for violating penal code 919 for thinking only of himself.
- Horst Feathers is sentenced to write a new foreign phrase book that isn't as silly as the one he brought on his trip for violating penal code 525 for granny larceny.
- Demoted to Extra: Spongehead and Boss, the Big Bads of the first two games, are reduced to a background joke here (which is a Vacation Episode), and don't show up again after that.
- Guilty Until Someone Else Is Guilty: Uncle Blenny was thrown into jail because he was marginally more likely than the other suspects to have stolen the Great Conch despite a lack of evidence. He isn't let out until Freddi and Luther find the real culprit.
- It's Up to You: Freddi and Luther are the only ones trying to find the missing Conch Shell and its three Golden Pipes, despite the fact that the Founder's Day Festival cannot go on without them.
- Jack Bauer Interrogation Technique: When the suspect says Freddi and Luther got nothing on them upon being accused, Soggy the dogfish bites their tail until they confess.
- Misplaced Wildlife: Nadine is a narwhal in tropical waters, when narwhals are supposed to live in the Arctic Circle. Unlike Horst, who is a tourist, Nadine is also implied to be a native.
- Multiple Endings: Any of the six suspects can be the culprit, and the ending is slightly altered depending on which of them did it. The biggest changes comes from their various motivations and the differing punishments they receive.
- My Hovercraft Is Full of Eels: Horst the tourist doesn't speak English and has to use a translation book to talk with other fish. However, it's a very spotty book, so his responses are typically word salads.
- Peer-Pressured Bully: In the ending where Claw turns out to be the thief, he admits that he only stole the conch shell because the other bullies in his "Bullies Club" pressured him to do it. Though we don't get to see these other bullies, Claw claims that they're even bigger bullies than he is.
- Plot Coupon: Freddi and Luther need to collect all three of the golden pipes that fell out of the Conch before Old Soggy can track their scent.
- Protagonist-Centered Morality: In the temple area, Luther removes a jewel from its place and accidentally activates a trap that locks him in a cage as punishment for his greed. To save Luther, Freddi must solve a puzzle using one of three other jewels in the temple. Freddi only needs one of the gemstones to solve the puzzle, yet the player can take all three with no consequences. Both Freddi and Luther can take jewels they don't need, but only Luther gets punished for it! Granted, the jewels Freddi takes are replaceable unlike the one Luther takes.
- Red Herring: If you talk to any of the potential suspects enough times, Freddi will ask if they know who took the Golden Conch and they will blame someone. This has absolutely no bearing on how the game decides who the culprit is, as the clue to their identity is only given at the very end.
- Scandalgate: If Nadine is the culprit, the ending refers to the incident as the Narwhalgate coverup.
- Smashing Watermelons: One of the shows at Rosie Pearl's Luau involves a turtle smashing a watermelon with a mallet, Gallagher style.
- Temple of Doom: The final area is an ancient, sunken temple, containing statues, gemstones, and a handful of traps. Freddi and Luther get trapped inside after Luther tries to swipe a jewel from a pedestal, and Freddi needs to find a way to get him out of the cage he gets stuck inside so they can put the jewel back and chase after the thief.
- They Have the Scent!: Old Soggy needs to smell all three Golden Pipes in order to track the scent of the Great Conch Shell.
- Useless Item: The drain plug you can pick up at the beginning of the game will always be available, but can end up completely useless unless a Golden Pipe spawns in the banana tree. The plug is used to fix Magenta's boat, a puzzle that is tied to that specific Golden Pipe location.
