The_Dolphins_Rune-TSI Commodore 64 game

This is an unusual action/puzzle game in which the player controls a dolphin. The player must first learn to swim through a large ocean world, avoiding sharks, and surfacing for air after being at most eight minutes under water. When surfacing for air the dolphin must also avoid being caught in the nets of a tuna boat.

The player must find a “color current” below the surface, a sort of tunnel through which their dolphin must swim without being pushed out by the strong current. Success is rewarded with a visual insight (dream) into the meaning of life and dolphin lore. This is accompanied by a particular pattern of dolphin clicks and whistles that is important to remember.

Next the player must find a particular color current in the ocean, from which emanates the click and whistle phrase heard in the dream. Successfully swimming through this color current leads the dolphin to the seabed. There the player must find a mysterious rune, which might be a particular fish or piece of coral reef, and touch it. This releases a fragment of hieroglyph that appears on the bottom of the screen.

The player must then arrange the hieroglyphic characters in the proper order, using the “Dolphinese-English dictionary” found in the printed manual. Doing so correctly leads to another visual insight sequence, and a new click and whistle phrase. The player then finds the next corresponding color current, seabed rune, and hieroglyph fragment, and so on until all nine hieroglyph fragments are found and solved. Supposedly, the hieroglyph puzzle, when completely solved, gives clues to where, in real life, there was an actual pearl hidden somewhere in America.