Super Solvers

Edutainment Game series released by The Learning Company, mostly during the early 1990s. The games star a nameless, gender-not-given individual in a heavy blue coat and Nice Hat who, time and time again, is called to thwart the schemes of Morty Maxwell, a.k.a., the Master of Mischief, a villainous magician/mad scientist. The games featured math, science, logic, and reading exercises. Many of the games take place in the town of Shady Glen, Wisconsin.

The games consist of two related series:

• The Treasureland Series, aimed at a younger audience.
  • Treasure Mountain! - The Super Solver travels to the titular mountain in hopes of recovering the treasures of the elves there.
  • Treasure Cove! - The Master of Mischief has broken the rainbow bridge by Treasure Mountain and is polluting the ocean. The Super Solver must collect gems from the bottom of the ocean and rebuild the bridge.
  • Treasure Math Storm! - The Master of Mischief uses a machine to cover Treasure Mountain in snow. The Super Solver must once again recover the treasure of the elves and restore the mountain.
  • Treasure Galaxy! - The Master of Mischief invades Crystal City.

• The Shady Glen series, targeted at older children.
  • Midnight Rescue! - The Super Solver must find out which robot Morty is hiding in, by reading short stories peppered with clues, to stop him from painting the Shady Glen school invisible.
  • Out Numbered! - The Super Solver must find out which room in the Shady Glen TV station is Morty's hideout to stop him from taking it over.
  • Challenge of the Ancient Empires! - The Super Solver travels to ruins in different countries to find artifacts.
  • Spellbound! - Morty enters his robots in the national spelling bee, in hopes of winning its big cash prize. The Super Solver must compete against them.
  • Gizmos & Gadgets - The Super Solver must solve science puzzles to build different vehicles and beat Morty in races.
  • Mission: T.H.I.N.K. - The Super Solver must collect puzzle pieces to stop Morty from taking over the Shady Glen game factory.
  • Operation Neptune - The Super Solver pilots a submarine to the bottom of the ocean to recover data and samples of a powerful chemical mined from an asteroid. Originally released as a separate product, before being incorporated into the Super Solvers line.

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This series provides examples of:

• AFGNCAAP: Besides the game letting you name yourself, the Super Solver's gender is never given. And thanks to the large hat and turtleneck shirt, it's impossible to tell.
• Alphabet Soup Cans
• Applied Phlebotinum: The games involve such things as invisible paint, weather control machines, high-jumping shoes and advanced robots. Morty's magic tricks are out of this world.
• Collision Damage: You'd think that the deep sea submersible you pilot in Operation Neptune would be able to handle coming into contact with the myriad creatures of the ocean just fine, what with its metal skin and pressurized hull. But no, touching even the most benign of sea creatures like angel fish and barnacles causes you to take damage and depletes your oxygen supply (your oxygen meter being your health bar).
• Continuity Nod: The painting robots of Midnight Rescue and Telly from Outnumbered reappear as the spelling bee contestants in Spellbound, and your Spellbinder device is given to you by one of the elves from Treasure Mountain.
• Cosmetic Award: The paint and decals in Gizmos & Gadgets, and the treasures you get to keep in the Treasure tetralogy.
• Deflector Shields: Force fields in Challenge of the Ancient Empires protect you from harm for five seconds at a time, but only have four charges.
• Dismantled MacGuffin: The player will have to collect multiple clues to solve a case, multiple parts to build vehicles, or multiple artifact pieces.
• Durable Deathtrap: Ancient Empires, of course. Conveyor belts, sliding walls, eternally rotating prisms, floor switches, ceiling buttons, and light sensors. Of course, when you see the gong-controlled teleporting bricks in action, you have no choice but to conclude that magic must be involved somehow. Although the way some levels wrap vertically may clue you in before then.
  • And this was meant to be an educational game??
    • The intent was to learn about history- but solving the puzzles could also be seen as involving logic. (Maybe.)
• Excited Show Title: Every single one of them.
• Large Ham: Morty Maxwell. Big surprise there.
• MacGuffin: Treasures, Artifacts, etc.
• Mad Scientist: Guess who?
• Nintendo Hard: Operation Neptune. Having the math skills to solve the problems is one thing; having the gaming skills to actually beat the game is another.
  • Mainly the last level of that game, which features large, mutated, invincible fish which kill you in one hit.
    • Or, on the Expert level, an unmercifully long level infested with vicious, super-fast sharks that enjoy ambushing you and can kill you with one hit. At least they can be stunned for about half a second, rather than no seconds at all.
  • And speaking of Super Solvers games with two levels of difficulty, how about that Ancient Empires? Especially the Expert difficulty, which rehashes the first 16 levels by sprinkling in some extra monsters, changing some puzzles slightly, and removing some of the health power-ups. And then, for the Ancient World, you're treated to 4 brand new levels, containing some of the hardest, longest puzzles in the game, and monsters that just don't play fair at all.
• Psychopathic Manchild: Morty is 39 when Midnight Rescue takes place. He doesn't seem to have a real job, and acts selfishly and immaturely. A diary entry from when he was a kid can be read in the game where he states he longs to be a kid forever, which explains a lot about his behavior now.
• Public Domain Soundtrack: Many of the songs are classical pieces.
• Ruins for Ruins Sake: Challenge of the Ancient Empires had ruins filled with obstacles and monsters.
• Shout-Out: On the Wordville map in the front of the Reader Rabbit 3 User's Guide, Treasure Mountain can be seen. This seems to suggest that the two worlds are located relatively close to one another. Another location is Shady Glen, where all the Super Solver series take place in.
  • In one of the data logs found in Operation Neptune, one of the scientists references Ancient Empires as one of the ways the scientists on the space exploration journey like to pass the time