Released in 1998 by Gorilla Systems Corporation, wait, wasn't that the same year that Pokémon came to the USA? Wow, I guess this year really had a lot for me.
I remember this game all the time: the music, the visuals. It has a place in my heart forever. ..
Ken went to a Carnival and got himself lost/kidnapped. Barbie and crew are on the case! I remember that we had this CD-ROM game for our computer when I was 8 or a little older. I can't remember if we got it right when it came out.
I've always thought Barbie as a character is fun, not so much the dolls though. This game was right up my alley. I've always enjoyed carnivals. And you got to help Barbie with a MYSTERY while going through the Carnival. There was ALL sorts of interactable parts to the game. You would have to play carnival games to get a clue, follow the trail of footprints, question suspects. If you never knew about this game then I wonder what whacky soundtrack YOU hear in your mind randomly during the day.
Supposedly there was a whole little series of Detective Barbie games... 3 of them. I had the first the second. The second was about a seaside mystery. I didn't like that as much as the carnival though; visuals definitely not as fun for me. The third game takes place on a cruise, but I didn't even own that one.
The whole reason I wanted to talk about this game is because it just gives me such a nostalgic feeling seeing the graphics. Heck, sometimes I let the OST play in the background. I tried to download a ROM of it once to play it again, but I couldn't get to work. I'm sure there's more out there and I will have to look into it. I think my system was just too new. Though there does exist at least one playthrough with no talking on YouTube as of right now.
You can see above that the graphics were typical for the late 90s/early 2000s. It was colorful and fun. Barbie got a little more smooth looking in the later games, but I prefer this one honestly. Something about it is really charming.
One of the really cool things about it was also that you could RIDE the carnival rides, just like you could play some of the games to get clues. Ultimately you were doing so to get the clues, but you could do it even if you weren't looking for something. As a fan of the earlier Roller Coaster Tycoon games this was so cool to me.
As I got older I became a really big fan of that green grass/computer/bubble aesthetic known as Frutiger Aero, and then later things like Vaporwave, Kidcore, and Liminal Spaces. Liminal Spaces is a bit of a newer obsession in aesthetics, but I feel like it just didn't have a name before. This game really gives me a specific sort of feeling. In addition to giving me that sort of feeling, I actually used to be a bit scared of some of the areas in the game too. The suspect, until caught, was a shadowy figure who would sometimes run somewhere and you would have to chase them. There was this very specific scene where you had to ride the slide and pick the correct directions to turn to follow the perp. That part really freaked me out... I'm not really sure why, maybe because you could fail it, or the music?
The Tunnel of Love weirdly freaked me out too, and yet in the year 2023 I am checking Roblox servers to find dreamcore/weirdcore places to explore. I think there was definitely some shaping here.
Some of my other favorite games back in this era were things like iSPY Spooky Mansion, and Bear in the Big Blue House. I also vividly remember a game I liked with a rabbit at a school house... I know there was a mini game with growing things in the garden? But I can't quite remember the rest.
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