Fleens? You're not Fleens! Yes, it's the legendary edutainment game Zoombinis! Later released as Zoombinis: Logical Journey by The Learning Company (this walkthrough is of the original Brøderbund version) this is a fondly remembered and well-loved game centered on logic puzzles. It surprisingly does a fantastic job both on a creative side and an educational side, as it has a very unique premise, charming visuals, and some pretty memorable voice work. On top of that, unlike most edutainment games, this one can be quite challenging regardless of your age.
So, right off the bat you will probably take note of the fact that this is not a "625 Zoombinis to the end" walkthrough. Simply put, doing that would test my patience to levels not seen since JumpStart 3rd Grade. That takes an absolute eternity to do and there's no reward for doing so. And while I realize I could have potentially tried getting all of the buildings, that also takes more time to do than I really care for. If someone else wants to try for that, be my guest -- it's not going to be me who does it. In order to advance the difficulty of the paths, you have to get a full group of Zoombinis through them three times each without losing any -- in total, that would mean I'd have to do every path six extra times in addition to recording the first attempt, which would just mean a lot of wasted time on my end, all to see some extra building graphics at the end. Yeah, sorry, no chance.
This walkthrough, for obvious reasons, is heavily edited down to remove the parts where I agonize over what choice to make.
Difficulty acronym key:
NSE -- Not So Easy
OSH -- Oh, So Hard
VH -- Very Hard
VVH -- Very Very Hard
Allergic Cliffs: The most straightforward of all the puzzles. With OSH, you will look for another iteration of the same feature, while on VH and VVH you will look for two and three specific features respectively.
Stone Cold Caves: Honestly, this is pretty much Allergic Cliffs but with two more paths and way more room to mess up.
Pizza Pass: Only the last difficulty of this poses any real threat. The other three can easily be cheated by simply checking all the toppings once and then giving what all the trolls want. I only narrowly got through VVH without getting any Zoombinis lost, and it was sheer stroke of luck.
Fleens!: With careful focus this never really gets difficult at all, even after they try to mix it up.
Hotel Dimensia: I somehow managed to get through VH on my first attempt without being forced to leave any Zoombinis behind. That's not an easy feat, since they board up several of the rooms and you can potentially set yourself up to be unable to progress.
Mudball Wall: This one never gives me any sort of trouble, even on the ones where the pattern shifts diagonally.
Captain Cajun's Ferry Boat: Believe it or not, this one actually consistently gave me the most trouble out of all the puzzles. This is one of those that is significantly harder than it looks. And, yeah, I admit it, I cheated on VVH. It was going to take me hours to get past it if I didn't and I know good and well it makes very little difference to watch me cheat as opposed to doing it legitimately, since in the end you still get to see a solution anyway. Thank you very much to Colorful Arty for his Python program to help solve this puzzle for you.
Titanic Tattooed Toads: This one is painful. Due to my own insecurity I frequently trace the same paths over and over just to be absolutely sure I don't accidentally screw myself over. In VH and VVH, it's best advised to only swap lily pads of the same shape -- the crabs are set up to be able to get through no matter what, and they only ever move by shape, so swapping shapes can break the flow.
Stone Rise: This didn't give me any real issues until VVH.
Lion's Lair: A lot of people consider this the hardest puzzle in the game on VVH, but I don't see why. If you use two Zoombinis that share all but one trait, that already can help you narrow it down significantly.
Mirror Machine: Ironically, I think this one actually gets easier the higher the difficulty. Once you figure out the "flow" of this puzzle it's really not too bad.
Bubblewonder Abyss: This one can be problematic if you try to rush it. You really have to be good at planning to succeed at this one. Thankfully, there are a finite amount of layouts you can get, so once you figure out the trick to a layout you can keep using that same tactic all future times you get it.
After all that was done, I went ahead and showed what happens when you fail/lose a Zoombini in each puzzle, then ran the credits. Hope you enjoy the walkthrough!
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