The New Adventures of The Sweet Treets: Louise's New Quest

The New Adventures of The Sweet Treets: Louise's New Quest (also commonly known as simply Louise's New Quest) is a 3D action-adventure video game developed by Kubokartoonz Interactive. It is based on the Sweet Treets franchise and is mostly based on its animated series from the 1990s, The New Adventures of The Sweet Treets. Franchise creator Taylor Ridley served as the game's director. The game was released exclusively for the Nintendo 64 in PAL regions on 21st November, 1997 and later in North America on 7th December later that year.

According to Ashley Maverick the game chronologically takes place three months after the last episode of The New Adventures, "during the middle of a cold and dark February". The game borrows several gameplay elements from the previous game in the series Louise's World, which was released for the PlayStation in 1995.

A PC version was released exclusively in China in 2003.

Game Modes
Louise's New Quest is divided into three game modes; Story Mode, which is the main mode of the game, Free Play, which allows the player to freely roam around a 3D environment, and Multiplayer, which allows up to four players to compete in a series of challenges.

Up to four files of Story Mode can be saved. There are two different difficulties that Story Mode can be played on; Normal and Kids Mode. Kids Mode slows down the game's pace, provides arrows for the player to follow and makes the overall game easier. The difficulty can be toggled between at any time.

Plot
Taking place three months after the events of The New Adventures, Eastwood Park is slowly returning back to its normal life. As her best friend Nate's birthday is coming up, Louise is eager to get him a good present but is unsure what to get him. When her other friends ask her for help, Louise goes on all sorts of adventures when doing favours for them. Meanwhile, a crook called Derrick Mangle, who was a childhood friend of Louise's mother Liane, is planning a scheme to steal from Nate's house, and tries to manipulate Louise into helping him.

Gameplay
Louise's New Quest is divided into six different levels. It is set in a 3D environment and has a camera which pans around to follow the player whilst always remaining positioned in the same semi-high angle shot. The player plays as Louise, with her three Treets (Pinky, Shiny and Galaxy) always floating behind her.

Controls and actions
Louise can walk by using the control stick or directional-pad, jump by pressing the A button (holding down A allows for a bigger jump) and perform certain actions with the B button.

The L or R buttons can also be held down to make Louise run, though there is a meter at the top right corner of the screen that empties as Louise runs. If it runs out, she will begin to pant and the player will be unable to do anything for a few seconds. The meter fills up slowly over time. If it depletes completely, Louise cannot run again until it completely fills up again.

Collectibles
The game's main collectibles are called golden rings, which are hidden inside certain objects in the environment. Enemies also drop golden rings upon being defeated. Once a golden ring lands on the floor, it will automatically be magnified to and collected by Louise.

Golden rings are sometimes needed in order to progress through the game (i.e. the player needs to "buy" the next portion of the game). They can also be used to purchase more maps in the Multiplayer mode.

Enemies
Sometimes when the player enters a room, it will contain some enemies in it, which must be defeated before the player can leave the room. In order for the player to defeat enemies, they must get close to them and press the B button, which will make Louise point one of the Treets forward and get them to shine brightly in the enemy's face.

If the player gets too close to an enemy, they will attack Louise, causing her to lose a heart piece. After losing three heart pieces, the player will get a Game Over and have to restart from the beginning of the room. Scattered throughout the levels are Cola Fountains, which restore Louise's health completely.

Some enemies will require extra effort to defeat them, such as having to press a combination of buttons quickly, only pressing B at a certain time or having to press it mutliple times with timing. Some enemies also take a while before they flee, and the Treet attacking them cannot be used again until the process of defeating them is over. Louise can end up defenceless if all three Treets are taking care of enemies at the same time.

In Kids Mode, both Louise and the enemies have a faded area that surrounds them, which indicates when they can attack each other. Louise will also automatically run to a spot that has no enemies nearby of she gets attacked whilst Kids Mode is on.

Free Play
In Free Play, the player is allowed to casually explore Eastwood Park. The player has no real objectives, though there are eight missions the player can do for the NPCs they come across. Completing all eight missions in one playthrough (without quitting - the missions reset everytime the player quits and returns to the mode), they unlocked a map for the Multiplayer mode.

Multiplayer
Louise's New Quest features a Multiplayer mode which allows up to four players to compete in a series of challenges. Players play as multiple different colour-coded versions of Louise.

The three multiplayer modes include:
 * Balloon Challenge - Players compete to pop balloons scattered around the map. One balloon appears at a time, and whoever pops the most after a set time limit is deemed the winner.
 * Chip Challenge - Chips/french fries are scattered around the map. Whoever has collected the most when time runs out or all the chips have been collected is the winner.
 * Bomb Challenge - One player is given a bomb which counts down, starting at 30 seconds. They have to pass it on to other players, with whoever holding the bomb when time runs out being eliminated. This continues until only one player is left.

There are a total of seven maps the player can pick between. Three are available from the start, whilst the other four have to be unlocked.

Any number of players up to four can play in Multiplayer mode. However, there is no computer AI, so if only one player is playing, they will always win. The Bomb Challenge mode cannot be selected if less than three players are playing.

Development
Development of Louise's New Quest began in mid-1995 after Ashley Maverick acquired a SGI Onyx development kit for the Nintendo 64 and later the Nintendo 64 Development Unit in late 1996. Franchise creator Taylor Ridley served as the game's director. As 3D games were still novel at the time, Ridley had difficulty coming up with ideas that would work well. She used the 1994 PlayStation video game Jumping Flash, the previous game in the franchise Louise's World and the Mirror House Cornflakes tech demo as inspiration.

Although Louise's New Quest was intended as a launch title for the Nintendo 64 in Europe, it was delayed in order to allow more development time, as Ridley felt the game in its then-current state was unpolished. In addition to being released in PAL regions and North America, the game was also released in Japan in 1998. Despite this, the Japanese version is completely untranslated aside from adding Japanese subtitles to the in-game cutscenes.

Reception
According to Ashley Maverick, Louise's New Quest sold 600,000 copies worldwide.

The game received generally positive reviews from critics, with Nintendo Magazine stating "with fun, addictive gameplay and a nice selection of side modes, children of all ages will enjoy Louise's New Quest", awarding the game a 75% rating. IGN awarded the game a 7.0/10, praising the visuals as "some of the best on the N64" and the easy-to-pick-up nature for kids, though also noted that the game can get repetitive.

In 1998, Louise's New Quest won a Junior Entertainment Award for Best Video Game.