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Missed Classic 4: The Scoop - Choir Boys in a Lemon Party

January 2, 2015, 4:00 am
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Written by Kenny McCormick

Kenny’s filthy notebook (with copious amount of badly drawn hooters) legible page #5: Ah! Sleeping is great! Wait a damn minute… I just slept a few hours ago! The Inquest is still going on? Lords, how long will this take?!

After fat Fisher fuc- uh… walked off, this dame with an apron walked in.


Denis, Denis… I knew there was something wrong with you.
Look at you. Eyeing that GYLF with those beady eyes of yours.

Once again, I Observed the shit out of the hearing.




Yawn…

Zzzzz…

Wha…? Oh, you’re done?

Finally! This beeyotch sure can talk. Let’s organize a little bit of our thoughts so far, shall we? Geraldine Tracey seems to be a bit of a player herself. We could have gotten along famously had she still be alive. The possibility of her being killed in a crime of passion escalates through the roof.

Fisher and Tracey are now Prime Suspects which, in any Agatha Christie novels, automatically become innocent based on her style of writing. And we’re done! I think we’re done. Is that wishful thinking?

Sigh… yes, it is.





Yes, yes. Are we frickin’ done?

Finally! If this kept going on, I’ll start murdering people. Leaving the courthouse, I went to the East for some fresh air and there’s a café. Might as well go grab a cuppa.


I smell coffee… and cheap lawyers.

But who do I spot snuggling together in the corner of the café but Denis and the dame whose ass was eye-raped by him a few minutes ago…


Oh, Gladys… I love it when you rub your tush against mine.

Better use the power of my NormalMan to Observe them and capture some screenshots for a granny porn entry.












Oliver gets the Bribe command in his menu? What about me?


Like I said, the more the arrow of incrimination is pointed at Fisher and Mr. Tracey, the less suspicion I have of them. My suspicion on Gladys, however, is slowly getting up like a parishioner’s erection during a choir boy serenade. Anyway, better leave them lovebirds in case it escalates into a full-scale lemonparty. Please don’t ask or Google what the hell that is. I’m still trying to get that image out of my head and… I just piqued your curiosity so much that you’re gonna Google it anyway, aren’t you? Fine, it’s your funeral.

Going further east, I was absolutely sure I’m going to come to the boundary of the game’s boundaries. And I did but… just not what I expected.


More places to go? WTF?

Seriously, just how big can this game be? By selecting the Travel command, I’m able to take a bus to Jumbles, which is where Geraldine Tracey’s home is located. Like I professed before, amateur killers leave the most clues. All aboard!
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Missed Classic 4: The Scoop - Des Wahnsinns Fette Beute

January 3, 2015, 4:00 am
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By Kenny McCormick

Kenny’s filthy notebook (with anatomically accurate drawings of asses… and mules) legible page #6: Mrs. Tracey, apparently, is a woman with expensive tastes and can’t seem to keep her legs closed. A woman after my own heart. Except that I’m cheap.

Before carrying on, I just noticed, and let it be known, that I have not provided a subtitle for the editing team to work on. Ever. Meh. I’m sure they can think up something. They’re a smart bunch. They’d probably call this post: On the Trail of The Killer. Or something with similar amount of ‘Oomph’. I’d have called it: “Kenny Still Lives” or “Kenny Not Dead Yet”. 

Admin's note: Whatever you say Kenny, Oomph it is then!

Picking up where we left off, I was on a bus to Jumbles; some hoity-toity place where rich folks live away from the common unwashed masses. But guess who was on the same bus with me?

Howdy, neighbor! I mean, neighbour!]

Blast it, Mr. Oliver! Why are you following me around? Haven’t you any ideas of your own to work out?

Great minds think alike and I suspect Oliver is also hot on the trail to unravel what the late Johnson (Teehee! Johnson!) had discovered prior his untimely demise in a phone booth reeking of hobo-pee. I’m gonna beat him at his own game for I! Am! NormalMan! *Cue 80’s Superman theme music*

Looks as though he’s going West. To avoid looking like I’m his lapdog, I’m going East, like I always do. West is so gay (they may be gay but The Pet Shop Boys are da BOMB, guys).


Nope

And here’s where Glady lives. Nothing of importance to be found here, sadly, and it also happens to be a dead-end. Better rush after Oliver in case he scoops up my scoop!

Aha! What do we have here? Ye Olde English Pub! Getting myself a strong Irish brew!
Is gá dom a fháil ar meisce.

Yet again, Gladys is here but with another man. Hey, Gladys! Are you sure you’re not the one who can’t keep your legs closed? Let’s Observe again, shall we?








Uh… well… duh…

Scandalous! It almost looks as though Fisher had an agreement with Sharp for her to do in Geraldine to rob some jewels from her! Of course, knowing Agatha Christie, this is just a little side note to throw me off track. Then again, Gladys can be a potential help to me in uncovering what actually happened on that fateful day of Geraldine’s murder. I should try to get my hands on those jewels myself. As evidence, of course. Not to fund my retirement from this pathetic excuse of a newsman career.

Since I was caught out, I slinked my way out of the pub and continued on my Journey To the West.
You know what they say: big feet, big *beep*.

This is, I believe, where the goddamn jade dagger was found. 3 sets of footprints were here. 6-D is obviously Geraldine’s. Fisher, being the humongous fat man that he is, is probably the 9-DD who came to visit her. That leaves 8-E, our killer. With feet that size, the killer should be a man. But then again, it is also possible that Johnson (Teehee! Johnson!) was the 8-E who came over to pull out the dagger from that hole. Which would mean that 9-DD is the killer.

Am I reading too much into this crap? Gods know but I’m continuing on to the next screen towards Geraldine’s home. I’m sure I could pull out loads of wank materia- uh… evidence, I mean, from her residence.
Welcome! To the! *CENSORED*! Yeah, I’m trying my best to make this family-friendly.

Well, well… seems like someone’s been busy with the door. That’s strange. Only someone who does not have the keys to the home would need to do that. Which makes my initial suspicion, that Mr. Tracey is definitely not the killer, totally valid since he obviously has the keys to his love nest. This would, once again, put Fisher into the spot of Prime Suspect #1. I doubt those pigs in Scotland Yard would believe otherwise as well. Heck, if this wasn’t an Agatha Christie game, I’d throw Fisher in jail myself.
11-EEE? Mmm… Geraldine sure likes her men big…

Tally-ho! The door’s unlocked! Boy, does this look luxurious in a monochrome-y way. Strangely, there’s another set of prints belonging to an even large shoe size. 11-EEE? Is that the shoe size of people who contracted podiatric elephantiasis?
My my… someone’s having a heavy flow day.

And here in the sitting room is where the murder was committed, I presume? By the gods, is that another door? How big is this house?! Upon entering, I found that it’s Geraldine’s bedroom where she commits most of her sordid affairs. I don’t know. She might be doing it everywhere.
Yoink!
Let’s see what we got here, shall we?



WTF?!

Eeewww… ew ew ew… Incest? Agatha, you naughty wench, you. That’s a little below the belt, actually. Just how many men was Geraldine humping? Is she a nymphomaniac? What the heck is going on here? Stay tuned for the next episode.
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Missed Classic 4: The Scoop - How's it hanging Cliff?

January 4, 2015, 4:00 am
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Written by Kenny McCormick

Kenny’s filthy notebook (with plans to patent for of an obviously functionally unsound X-Ray Goggle design) legible page #7: Gross! Murders, I can handle but… incest? This is London, not Bradford, for God’s sakes.

Carrying on my westward sojourn, I came to (what we call ‘filler screen’) an area named “Grass and Trees”.

Pardon me for the time jump as I forgot to take a screenshot of this place earlier… which has nothing. And I want you entertained but can’t do that if there’s nothing.


But seriously, this is an adventure game which is based on Agatha Christie’s novel. There are going to be plenty of red herrings but I definitely do not believe that there will be any wasted spaces like these. It’d be the equivalent of getting circumcision for no reason other than that you can.

As much as that space left a lot of intrigue, I just couldn’t find what I could do with it at this point of time. So I continued my way to the next screen on the west.

Ah… Ye Olde Personale Peepshowe?

At the end of the western path, I come to this building called the “Hargot Hovel”. Within the house lives the Hargots. Terribly original, I know. Anyway, there’s a chubby housewife with a couple of cute kids clinging to her apron strings like the goddamn mama’s boys that they’ll grow up to be.
You can see Geraldine’s window from here? Be glad the boys aren’t in their teens yet. (Also, this screenshot is again taken after my first visit. Uh… ARE YOU NOT ENT- *smack* “Stop screaming in the house!”, says Mrs. McCormick)

From our discussion, she knows about Fisher and Tracey but is quite dismissive of Geraldine (for her promiscuous ways) and Gladys (for her acid tongue). Other than some slight confirmation that what Fisher and Gladys had said during the inquest was true, there was nothing else to ask. The only strange thing was that Tracey would come visit Geraldine regularly ‘like clockwork’, based on Mrs. Hargot.

If that is true, where is he now? Does he even know Geraldine is dead? Or is he the killer and now in hiding? Or is he, himself, already dead?

With nothing else to do in Jumbles, I took the bus back to Brighton Street and selected the Travel option. Holy fuuuu~chsia sandwich. Not only can I take the train here, I can hail a cab to go to a few more different areas that I can’t get to when I was at Victoria Station! The more clues I got and more people I questioned, the game gets larger as well.

In order not to get overwhelmed, I opted to go back to Victoria station to find Amethyst the Hottie in Piccadilly Palace first. I had a short interview with her and she seemed like a bit of a slut herself. I guess birds of a feather do fuc- er… flock together. When I showed her Pott’s Letter (that incestuous son-of-a-gun), she is either too ditzy or too smart to acknowledge that sexual undertone and instead espouses how much sibling love both have for each other. Seriously, woman? Are you that stupid or think that I’m that stupid?  

Pick-a-diddly Palace? Count me in!

Oh, another thing about showing stuff to people. Be careful who you show your shit to. You don’t show Oliver’s Journal to Oliver or Redman’s Scrapbook to Redman. They can and will grab their shit back. Inspector Smart is the worst of the lot as he will grab ANY evidence that you might need to win the game (I presume) and say that it’s meant to be kept within Scotland Yard as Criminal Exhibits, so f*ck you. This is another gameplay mechanic not included in any other game. I’m wondering; if I give him enough stuff that I stole, will he solve the mystery and win the game for me? Psshh… yeah, right. My large spotted dick can sing too.

Being the wuss that I am, I opted not to travel too far out in this new area and followed my trail back to my good ol’ neighbor, Mr. Denis Oliver. Where would he be? The Morning Star, maybe? It’s pretty late and I think he should be needing to submit his findings of the day to the editor for next day’s article.
How I long to join in the ranks of these top dogs under the esteemed tutelage of Ernest Hemingway. F*ck Wrightley, his pathetic tabloid paper and every blistering idiot willing to work for him. Er… that didn’t sound right

And so starts my raid on the rival newspaper house. You just can’t keep a reporter, who’s hungry for success and punani, down.
I can’t believe I’d actually steal something as shitty as a log.

Right at the reception area, I grabbed a phone logbook detailing all the calls made to & fro The Morning Star. It might help stop a bullet or a knife. Who knows. One great thing about this game, the Search command will let you find all the things available to take in the area. No goddamn pixel-hunting which plagues almost every adventure game in that era. How bloody cool is that, huh, Trix? Look at how much fun I’m having while you end up playing Psycho and Emmanuelle!

With my mission accomplished (stealing shit) here, I went to the east because west is still pretty gay to me.


They have a printing press. THEY HAVE A PRINTING PRESS! F*CK YOU, WRIGHTLEY!

It’s a pretty sad day when a news journalist had to read the news written by another news publisher instead of writing one himself. And that day is Tuesday. I stole the newspaper from the press and, in my own mind; I’m secretly imagining Oliver doing the same to the Daily Courier. After which, I spoke to the night foreman who looks like a responsible fellow.
And his name is Printer. Foreman Printer.

Agatha sure is being creative in her naming convention. I’ll bet Foreman Printer and London Bobby were really popular in High School. Or Grade School. Or Secondary School. Whatever you Brits call the congregating place of kids who just started growing their first set of pubes and hate to be there.

With my mission accomplished (stealing shit) here, I tried going to the east because west is still pretty gay to me. But the only way is to the west. Going back to the Reception area where I came from and walking past it, I find myself in the Reporter’s Lounge. The descriptions of the areas are pretty whimsical. Like myself, but classier.
Just like a spinster’s titti- er… titillating hairdo.

Traversing further inwards, I came to the Throne Room of The Morning Star. Both Hemingway and Redman are not here, strangely, Anyway, I found the Hemingway’s note here so… you know how it goes.
YOINK!

 Finally, passing through the grated door beside the editor’s work desk, I’m faced with an extremely apt end-game scenery of a late 60’s/early 70’s mystery drama show – a scaffolding.

♬I believe I can fly♪… NOT!

Hmm… could one of The Morning Star’s Editors be the killer? And this is where he will plunge to his death, face first into a huge pile of cliché (probably not in the 60’s)? It would be pretty badass if it was. Anyway, knowing Agatha Christie, they are also not very possible suspects. I am starting to think that a woman did it because there are too many incriminating evidence against almost every man in the game (except Smart, me, my boss, London Bobby and Foreman Printer).

Only time will tell if I’m right. Let’s stop here for the cliffhanger. Or scaffolding hanger.

Admin's note: This marks the end of The Scoop -marathon - next week we will return to our regular schedule with Elvira-post coming up 7th of January. But when will Kenny's Scoop -odyssey continue and has anyone nerves to bear the excitement? Who is the mysterious killer and what sleazy bar is he hanging in? What will be the final rating of The Scoop and have we finally found a contender for Monkey Island? Can Kenny become a reporter of the year or will he have to find new job from McDonalds? Will he ever get to experience true love or at least a reasonable facsimile? Is he truly the Prince of Darkness and why I am suddenly feeling a stack of oven-hot coals piling on me? Only time will tell...
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Missed Classic 4: The Scoop - Marathon Encore

January 5, 2015, 4:00 am
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Written by Kenny Mccormick

Admin's note: Surprise, surprise! Due to a number of urgent pleas from our readers (and a visitation from a bunch of angry bearded gnomes with rusty pitchforks) we've decided to extend The Scoop -marathon by one day. Enjoy!

Kenny’s filthy notebook (with poorly illustrated stick figures depicting the whole Karma Sutra) legible page #8: Wow… great view from the scaffolding. Vertigo feels awesome!

Anyway, I’m feeling pretty stupid of myself that I couldn’t recall what I had played more than 20 years ago. In Hemingway’s note, he stated that the weapon was from Bond Street, not Brighton Street. With that clue, the game will open up Bond Street as one of my available traveling options via taxi.

In any case, Tuesday had been extremely packed with activities and I’m left with little time before my narcolepsy kicks in. In order not to wander too far, I hailed a cab and went to Scotland Yard to steal some evidence, if possible. That “Out Of Order” sign I want is still weighing on my mind.

F*ck tha Police.

But before I commit a serious felony in the name of a shitty underpaid job, I saw an exploration opportunity to the west. Gay or not, here I come!

Screw you kids! I’m at the forefront of 60’s London fashion!

Cool. Redman lives here. Just beside the cops. Oops! Someone left his door open too. Poms can be so careless with us Scotsmen sometimes. They should really have some PSAs about unlocked doors and impoverished Scotsmen with limited employment opportunities, even if they live just beside Scotland Yard.

Bugger is poorer than me?

With nothing else to hold my severely limited attention and this being a dead-end, I crept my way back to Scotland Yard for my prize.

F*ck yeah.

With that, my job here is done. If I ever lose my job as a reporter, I should probably turn to a life of crime – breaking & entering and stealing shit right under someone’s nose despite heavy security with absolute ease. Since it’s apparent that my character has no qualms about committing legal infringements, I simply don’t understand why his career choice is to work as lowly reporter with measly payouts. Self-righteous prick that I am.

Seeing that I still have some time to spare before bedtime, I opted to go back to the Morning Star to steal their next day’s paper. Because I can. However, I’m a little too early, I guess. To while away the time on my hands, I started to review (with the Examine command) all the clues I ‘gathered’ for the day.

The murderer will have a blue pencil and a large piece of cardboard (missing one of its corners) somewhere in his/her usual locales.

Each ‘Examine’ attempt takes up a 3-minute block. Also, this game is operating in Real Time. So, even if your character isn’t doing anything, leaving it to run while you jack off to some dwarf porn in another window will still advance the game time. Not that I found out that way, of course. Ahem.

Phone log shows that Johnson had been busy like a bee. Who’s this “Blackwood” character?

Having read everything I had in my Inventory, I chose to Wait till midnight.

I literally waited for a day to get hold of this, kids. That’s the way of life before The Internets.

I may have the shittiest employer in the field of journalism but, on the other hand, I also have the most tolerant boss in the world. He placed absolute trust in me; an unknown upstart that has zero experience whose sole previous working experience was as a shoe salesman, with the future of the company and that I’m not just lazing and gallivanting around while collecting his paychecks. And here I thought I was the idiot.

What kind of stupid non-clairvoyant dream is this?

So it seems that I can’t see the future via sleeping. I’m disappointed. I expected more from you, Agatha Christie! After crying for 2 hours at my unrealistic expectations from a dead author, I hailed a taxi (in the rain, looking for something to ease the pain) and went to Bond Street.

How do I know where to grab a cab to get to Bond Street? In the original boxed copy of the game, a map of London is included. Since mine obviously was lost in a battle against Time & Termites, I used the alternative.

Look at that classy monocle. LOOK AT IT.

Here I finally met the key person to identify the murder weap- FUUUCCC~~~*censored for the next 17 minutes* and your mother too!!! I forgot that I have absolutely nothing to show to him! Okay, my next task would be to recover the weapon or maybe a photo of the thing? Seeing that the last time the dagger was found in the vicinity of Geraldine’s murder, I have a hunch that it should also be near the latest crime scene; Victoria Station.

And with so many cops on that fateful day who only managed to find the ‘Out of Order’ sign (which I then stole in Scotland Yard), the possibility that those useless pigs probably missed a spot goes to 100. Psshhh… Brits, amirite? Anyway, since I’m here in Bond Street, I might as well check out the environs.

Nothing.

More nothing.

Again, noth- Hellooo~~~, there.

Why, if it isn’t Ms. Amethyst Manwaring, one of the man-wearing women in this game. Chatting with her reveals that she is working in this snooty upper-class haberdashery (good lord, it’s been years since I last used that word!). After failing all attempts to get into her panties despite her obvious sexual attraction to me, I continued with my company-sanctioned joy trip around the neighborhood.

Oh, come on. Do I look like a kleptomaniac to you? Is there no trust left in the world for us Scotsmen? Would you take away that last shred of liberty from me? Well, you may take our lives but you. Will. Never. Take. OUR FREEDOM!

I can steal crap in front of a visible policeman but I can’t search for shit in the presence of an invisible doorman. WTF? Not cool, man. Strangely, I’m still able to trespass my way into Amethyst’s home which is just beside where she works. If I can’t get into her panties, I might as well get her panties. Please do not apply patented Kenny Logic© in real life. Most of it is felonious and the rest are obscure procedures to summon Elder Gods with unpronounceable names.

In case you still have any doubt of her night-time activities.

Sadly, other than reaffirming my opinion of Amethyst, there’s nothing of note to be found here. Better to skitter out of here post-haste. Well, well… what do we have here?

Darn. Possible 3rd victim of this game?

So, this is where the last person Johnson (Teehee! Johnson!) talked to before his untimely demise (when are demises ever timely is what I’d like to know and hope to be subjected to… in time). And who could it be?

Pixelated boner rising.

And with the addition of Ms. Beryl Blackwood, the Lusty Lady Trio of The Scoop is now complete. Time for a little interview with her.









Mind if I join Oliver and Johnson (Teehee! Johnson!) to complete the Horndog Trio of The Scoop?

Looks like Oliver is back in the running as a Prime Suspect. Now he has 2 motives to kill off our unfortunately-named victim. By the way, if you notice the character portraits, this is the first adventure game to illustrate different emotions of each NPC.

A love poem? Horny and corny!

Okay, I’m done with this area. On to Southampton Station to see what other clues I could get.

Ah… absent on the day of the killing, eh, Mr. Potts?

Upon my arrival, I am clued in that A) Arthur Potts live in this area and B) he is not the murderer because Agatha Christie is just begging for me to suspect him. Oh no, you don’t. I know how you work, you sneaky woman, and I ain’t falling for it.

How could a game programmed with only 0.5 MB worth of codes have so many places to visit and so many characters to talk to?!

On one hand, I’m mighty impressed and excited with so many things to do and so much to see. Yet on the other, I’m just daunted. The Scoop makes The Colonel’s Bequest look like a game made for preschoolers.

Fancy taking a long walk off the short pier?

Aha! Look at this place! This looks like the endgame scene of a mystery thriller drama in the late ‘60s/early 70’s. Could there be a cross-London chase of the killer that ended up here where he/she would end his/her life in a watery grave?

Is this another cliffhanger? Look at that scrolling bar of the window to your right. Yeah, it’s a big NO.

Since I have no wish to end my sociopathic journalist (and part-time criminal) career prematurely, I turned back and went to the East where everything’s just more exotic and cool.

And suffers from more diseases apparently.

Another ‘filler screen’ in an adventure game? Really? With only 1.44MBs of space on a single 3.5” floppy dick, Telarium, and you’re squandering it off like that? Do you know how bad you make other developers look? Apparently, they didn’t have any f*cks left to give to have any make-believe conversation with me. So, I just went my merry way.

Another clue! Potts, you murderous maniac! It is you, isn’t it?!

There we have it: the charming abode (which is not an adobe) of Arthur Potts; the sinister sisterf*cker. Searching here, I found an empty vault. Could this be one of those vaults?

Talk about shameless self-promoting.

Wait… if this game is based on a novel by Agatha Christie and the novel is inside the game, would the outcome of the game be affected if I ask Agatha Christie in the game to write the novel, which this game is based on, to make me Superman instead of Normalman? How about if I kill Agatha Christie in the game? How about me calling up her spirit In Real Life and force her to change the outcome of the novel retroactively? Argh! My head hurts from the paradoxical possibilities and relativity issues!

Anyway, it’s not like Telarium is putting in distracting adverts about Below The Roots or having anachronistic computers running their software in the game, unlike some other more popular company named after a mountain range which I’m not going to mention here.

Right, I’ve digressed enough. Back to the game. Potts ain’t home but here we have Mrs. Hardney, their housekeep. Let’s talk to her and see what we can dig up from her, shall we?








With the absence of a radio guide, television and the Internet, being able to tell me what was on the radio at what time, the radio station can become a potent double-edged sword of an alibi for a scheming villainous mastermind.

But of course. I’m sure your uncle is busy fighting off Air Elementals as well.

The amount of possible “filler screens” is mindboggling. Entertaining, nonetheless.

I want to see… your insides.

That said, as every NPC has their own schedule, I believe that some characters may go to these “filler screens” during certain time on certain day(s). This establishment is most possibly one of them.

Pah! Londoners and their ‘orrible inflated pricings!

I am extremely sure that this screen would be visited by, at least, one character during the entire span of the game. When? I dunno. If I have more time to play, I might create an Excel spreadsheet to tail after every mother’s son and jot down their whole schedule throughout the game like what Trix tried to do in The Colonel’s Bequest. It’s, therefore, not a huge coincidence that both games are based on Agatha Christie’s novels. But a game with only 8 screens versus this behemoth that I’m handling? Trix, you sux.

Another NPC and possible murderer’s home!




Ooh… you dirty old man, you. I’m taking that for my… investigation. Yes. I’m gonna investigate several times tonight with this picture.


Wait, how did you know I’m McCormick? I don’t recall introducing myself! What? Oh, the press badge. Ha! Silly me. Now I’ll have to kill you. Silly you.


What have we here? Is it Page 3 from The Sun Newpaper?


Guess not. Is Redman gay? Not that there’s anything wrong with that. It’s the 1920s.

Armed with the new evidence, I made my way back to Southampton Station to take a train back to Victoria Station. Since I’m passing by Pott’s place, I swooped in to show Mrs. Hardney both pieces of the new stuff I procured. But she only had something to say about the photograph.

Yes. Yes, she is. But I’m afraid she’d be coated with loads of organically produced sunblock later to show off that bathing suit.

Finally, I’m back just after lunch. Let’s check out if the cops really missed a spot, shall we?

Well, well, well. What have we here?


I may look calm and collected here but I’m doing this inwardly.

In your f*ckin’ face, Scotland Yard. I rule.

Admin's note: This is the real ending of The Scoop -marathon. The penultimate part of Kenny's odyssey will be published next Monday, 12th of January, same Scoop-time, same Scoop-channel!
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Game 49: Elvira - Who you gonna call?

January 7, 2015, 4:00 am
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Written by Deimar

Jake Spenser Journal Entry #1"We got one! I can't believe that ad in "Broomsticks Weekly" has finally paid off. And the client is no other than the crazy American star that moved to Killbragant last summer. Considering my mother always said that my correspondence course on catching ghosts was stupid and I would never amount to anything, I'm doing pretty good with my first client. She said something about an evil relative trying to bring hell on earth but I'm fairly sure it will be just a case of a playful poltergeist. Now, where is my exorcism book?"

Visit England, they said. You will see beautiful castles, they said. They forgot to mention the undead

The game manual is surprisingly detailed with the story of the game. After the events of the movie, I guess, because they changed the name of the evil uncle, Elvira inherits the castle of Killbragant in England. A proper castle if I may, with dungeons, a hedge maze and a moat. Being the sensible person she is, she tried to transform the castle into a macabre bed & breakfast. And I say tried because soon after, a horde of undead was roaming the castle and placing Elvira under house arrest in her own kitchen.

And that's where we come in. We are an anonymous ghostbuster that Elvira contacted before being imprisoned and our mission is to save the world. You see, this is not your average random undead horde. They have a purpose. It seems a long time ago, Elvira's grand grand grand grand grandmother was an evil witch. There is something in the manual about an evil wizard too and some extra marital and marital affairs but there is enough exposition as it is, so we will skip it. The thing is that Emelda, the witch, made a pact with Hell to come back to life. And she got an answer, which means that bureaucracy in Hell is way more effective than here. She got a scroll with instructions on how to get brought back to life... and how to stop it. Why the scroll has the instructions on how to stop the ritual is anyone's guess, but my bet is that the devil really likes messing with people, even his own followers.

Sorry. I think you are trying to say something important but somehow my mind keeps getting distracted by other things. Big things.

As she couldn't use the scroll herself -there is no point in resurrecting yourself while you are still breathing- she put it in a chest and locked it with six keys. She then gave the keys to her most loyal flunkies and promised them that if they held onto them, they would come back with her and then proceed to... RULE THE WORLD!!. Insert evil laugh track here. The catch is that they were resurrected before the evil witch was, so now they are our problem as the official ghostbuster of the castle.

And after three paragraphs of exposition -and believe me, I’ve been brief- it's finally time to actually play the game. We start outside the castle with an empty bag in our possession. We didn’t find the exorcism book after all. There is not much to do here. We can click on the sign next to the main gate and get a close up, but that’s about it.

Seems so peaceful in the pic...

The moment we enter the castle, the grate falls behind us and we are trapped. We have three options here. Two doors at either side of the main gate and the courtyard. The right door brings us to a small room containing some display cabinets with an axe, one small shield, one leather shield and some urns and crosses. We can take the axe and the shields but we will leave them be.

But… but… but… that’s an axe… AN AXE!! I want to satiate my homicidal impulses :(

The moment we try to step onto the courtyard or the left door, we are stopped by the captain of the guard. A blind man that captures us and, after saying some bravado about us not being able to save the lady, throws us into the deepest cell in the dungeon.

So… the gatekeeper… don’t you have a… blind spot? *wink* *wink*

But that doesn’t last for long. Our client, Elvira, comes to our rescue. Which costs us no small amount of teasing from her. But seeing as we are the only living souls in the castle, she gives us a knife, two potions with offensive spells and a cake which can heal our wounds, and send us on our way to try to stop Emelda’s resurrection. And now the game finally begins.



A dagger and a cake? A dagger? Where is my AXEEEEEEEE?!?!?!

For real.

I’m being honest here.

And I’m also going to finish this post here. I just wanted to get the story out of the way. Join me on the next installment for the first real gameplay post.

Session Time: 0 hours 05 minutes

Total Time: 0 hours 05 minutes

TBD's note: Want more CAPs? Review an Elvira movie:
As everyone's probably forgotten (including me until Ilmari pointed it out) in the comments of the 1990 'Year Ahead' post I offered to give some of my hard-earned CAPs to anyone who writes a short review of either/both Elvira movies. That offer still stands, but the reward is doubled! Anyone who reviews an Elvira movie will get 10 official Adventure Gamer CAPs as well as 10 of my personal second hand CAPs. 20 CAPs for reviewing a movie or 40 CAPs for reviewing two movies - sounds like a great deal to me. Get on it, readers!

Note Regarding Spoilers and Companion Assist Points: There’s a set of rules regarding spoilers and companion assist points. Please read it here before making any comments that could be considered a spoiler in any way. The short of it is that no points will be given for hints or spoilers given in advance of me requiring one. Please...try not to spoil any part of the game for me...unless I really obviously need the help...or I specifically request assistance. In this instance, I've not made any requests for assistance. Thanks!
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What's Your Story - Kenjab

January 8, 2015, 4:00 pm
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Answers by Kenjab
Introduction and Captions by TBD

A newcomer to The Adventure Gamer, Kenjab first found the site during Trickster's hiatus in October. Images come from Mobygames, IMDB and Wikipedia.

My Photo
Like most people who haven't set up a profile picture, I assume Kenjab looks like this

My home country is… USA. Baltimore, Maryland area

My age is… 37. I'm about a week younger than Trickster.

The first adventure game I played was… Despite my age, I got a later start to adventure games than most of you here. My first exposure to adventure games was King's Quest IV at a family friend's house, but I only got to play it for a few minutes. The first one I played at home was, I think, Police Quest 3. You know, on second thought, I was more into consoles before that and I definitely remember playing the NES versions of Shadowgate and Deja Vu, so I guess those were actually the first ones.

Or perhaps Kenjab looks like this. This guy looks 37, right?

Does Kenjab even know what Kenjab looks like?

"Kenjab!" replies the mirror.

The police are frantically trying to find a new profile picture for Kenjab.

My favourite adventure game is… I have to go with The Longest Journey.

The Longest Journey appears on many people's favourite lists!

When I’m not playing games I like to… With two kids, "not playing games" is most of the time whether I like it or not! However they are now coming to the age where they are starting to get into video games. My son is big into Minecraft and Terraria. Not exactly adventure games yet, but in time I'm sure!

I like my games in (a box, digital format)… I'm not much of a collector, so digital suits me fine. I do miss all the goodies that used to come in the box though.

The thing I miss about old games is… as stated above, all the cool stuff that came with the game box added a lot to the experience.

The best thing about modern games is… with almost limitless memory now, the ability to make complex stories and characters. Too bad so few games take advantage of it.

The one TV show I never miss is… I watch a lot of sports, and the only scripted shows on my TV on a regular basis are Spongebob and the like. The most recent shows I've watched were The Wire (because Baltimore) and Homeland.

If I could see any band live it would be… I was never much of a concert goer but my favorite band right now is probably Alter Bridge.

According to wikipedia their music is heavy, yet melodic.

My favourite movie is… I have to go with The Usual Suspects. "The greatest trick the devil ever pulled is convincing the world he didn't exist."

One of the most iconic images in movie history

One interesting thing about me is… the way I found this site is so completely random. As mentioned before, I'm a pretty big sports fan, and one sports/pop culture site that I frequent is called Grantland.com. They have a feature on the site where the columnists talk about some personal interests of theirs. My favorite sport is ice hockey (kind of unusual where I live), and one of the hockey columnists mentioned and linked to this blog, along with CRPG Addict. That was almost 2 months ago now, and I've been hooked on the site ever since!
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Game 47: Spellcasting 101: Sorcerers Get All the Girls - LOST in Spellcasting University

January 9, 2015, 1:14 pm
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Written by Aperama

Ernie Eaglebeak's Journal #1: Journals are for nerds.

Ernie Eaglebeak's Journal #1, take two: I've just met the other guys from my dormitory.. yeah, I'm a nerd. But thank god my life has turned for the better since joining the hallowed halls of Spellcasting University! I'm going to be a real sorcerer before I know it, I'm sure. It was just weeks ago that I was being chased down by my evil stepfather, Joey Rottenwood. I'd kill the guy if I had half the chance.. but hey. He's way bigger than me, so maybe I'll just have to find a different way to settle the score. He was trying to get me to join the Dragon Tending Guild.. shovelling dragon dung and rebuilding charred cages isn't my idea of a good time! He tried to lock me in until I got dragged away, but after I.. uh.. made my cunning escape under the guise of a gardener, I was at SU before I knew it. I already feel like I'm a part of the furniture, here. I'm learning so much, even if I can't really cast any spells yet, and.. well, it's nice to be around guys.. and girls my own age. They're all second to my one true love, though.. my next door neighbour, Lola Tigerbelly. I'm going to be with her before I know it.. but I'm still allowed to get some practice in, right? Anyway, there's a girl sleeping next to me – the president of the university's own daughter! Now, time to get some shut eye before I have to make first period...”

Ah, the bliss of old-school 'cutting edge' graphics..

Spellcasting has proven itself to be far less ingratiating than I had feared it might be. The puzzles are reasonable and straightforward (even if the parser is somewhat weighted towards words I might not innately use, I can always double check what might be best fit as a word to use with the rather gigantic)verb lists that sit to the side.) This is actually really nice – I'm far too used to games that leave you guessing in the field of text adventures, so the hybrid nature that comes of the Legend games is actually quite refreshing. Well to me at least. I should also point out that I'm writing this with ten days of the 'poll' left – and as though by fate, the response to 'naughty or nice' has been overwhelmingly weighted towards 'naughty'. 'Both' and 'Don't care but wanted to click on something' both have 5 with 11% of the vote a piece, 'nice' having 3 and 6%.. which according to Blogspot leaves 'naughty' with 30 votes – or 69% of the vote, if you will. This may not add up in simple math (and probably involves a whole heap of rounding down), but the fact that it came up like this tells me that I simply can't ignore the strings of fate. I also tried using the 'script' format, which didn't work as well as I might have hoped – I hit 'restart' instead of saving in the first thirty or so moves I made, and that's where the text file ended. Oops. I can continue to use it and all, but think it'd simply give too much random text to read through.

I'm not sure whether they're going for 'book page' or 'school graduating parchment' here.
Either way!

I'm of the mentality that you take everything possible in an adventure game – and broadly speaking, IF makes this all the more easy by allowing a 'take all' command. Our first room is a nondescript bedroom with a pile of hay and a desk with a drawer. The drawer has an application form to Sorcerer University and a love note to Lola Tigerbelly, the next door neighbour -

"Dearest Lola,

I am a secret admirer. For years, I have worshipped you from
afar. I am not worthy of your attention yet, but shortly I
leave for Sorcerer U, and when I have become a great and
powerful wizard, I will return to claim you. Please wait for
me, my little treasure chest.

-- Ernie Eaglebeak"

It's safe to say that he's not quite the poet he thinks he is. (Yes, 'my little treasure chest'.) Soon after discovering this less than magical prose, Ernie's evil stepfather Joey Rottenwood slams through the door and goes on to snatch the application form from him and throw it on the ground. The first quest of 'run away' becomes pretty obvious, given Ernie has been forcibly pushed towards 'Dragon Tending Guild', where he's to spend seven years cleaning up after dragons. Only right, then, that we instead take a different tact..

Just in case you were wondering how this command works, Canageek – just fine!
 (Typos don't actually take time, though.)

I actually made sure to wait and assure there was a time limit – if you're still in the vicinity of Mr. Rottenwood by 6 PM, you're toast. (I spent most of my first attempt trying to open the windows in Ernie's bedroom and throwing hay down to save me a nasty fall.. it didn't work except to lose me my useless hay.) Moving the potty reveals a small grate full of your own 'waste' (it doesn't use a harsher word even with 'naughty' mode turned on!) which you can move.. and a quick 'take all' garners you a spider hanging over the lavatory. There's really nothing left to do up here, so after pulling the grate out of the way, you take a less than lovely slide down the tunnel and into the main street outside your house, losing your cloak somewhere on the slide down. There's only a few interactibles here – a horse and cart, some cow manure and a gardening shed. Turns out you know where the shed door key is – the game even tells you so. It's underneath the small rock outside the shed. When you go to move it, two things happen. Lola happens to take a stroll down to the gate between your houses, where your evil stepfather explains that he plans to send you away to 'a clinic that specialises in bed-wetting cases' to your would-be paramour.. and the old lady from down the street with bad eyes, Miss Beancounter, puts her foot down on your hand and stumbles for her glasses to make sure that you're not a deviant (though she suspects it to be you anyhow.) Given I had a spider in hand, this one didn't seem so difficult to work out..

I'm by and large typing all of this. 
The abbreviated 'b'counter' works just as well as 'beancounter' though.

After she falls over, the key unlocks the shed. The shed has virtually nothing in it – just some garden tools and some spare overalls. We're not left with too much to do here, so in spite of my repeated attempts to do something with the horse and cart outside (maybe I could have hidden in the cow manure? I'm not sure, but I couldn't get as much to work) Ernie just strolls on by Lola and Joey, and after some hitchhiking (why didn't it just let me steal the old horse and cart?) We're here!

I'll assure that all of the humour is on this line of tact, don't worry

The game starts in full swing from here – the only time limit from here appears to be on things that occur during certain times, like turning up for classes. I've played through the first day a few times now to get a fair idea of everything that goes on. (Technically, the 'first day' is just a copy protection scene, but I'm talking about the first interactive day of gameplay – the enrollment scene is where that 'application form' that came with the game comes in handy.)

My love for you is tick-ing clock berSERK EERRR... Would you like to..

The layout of the campus itself (we come in a couple of months into Ernie's freshman year, where he's already established enough a name to have people know who he is without necessarily having done anything of note) is pretty simple, without too many interactible objects to speak of - at least for now. There's a newspaper in the opening area, the centre of the college / fountain at its center ('Batguano Court'..) To the east is Meltingwolf Hall, where all of the studying itself takes place. The freshman house is to the south (where Ernie's room is), to the north is the cafeteria/enrolment hall (sigh.. Donkeydung hall) and to the west is the sport stadiums and fraternities..

If you guys want me to do this far cleaner I can. This is how I tend to make maps.
I do something super rough to refer to which I can glance at, adding items underneath and making several small maps that link up together. I can also write them more politely.
This is just to show you what you are or aren't asking for)

Our first class is Mythology 101, being taught by Professor Barleybreath. I sincerely hope that there's no real information being thrown out here, because it largely seemed like it had no real information. The world Ernie lives in is 'Peloria', which is part of the body of a goddess who is the daughter of Ocarina and Glockenspiel, another god and goddess.. it didn't really pique my interest, even though I technically sat through the 'whole class' (in my final save, just in case I get graded on these things!) as the game didn't seem too interested in it itself.

Break us some fourth wall, Mr. Meretzky! (The trap door is too heavy to open, and the only spell in your spellbook to begin with is 'BIP'– 'create smooth music'.)

In that side of the university, our advisor Prof. Tickingclock reminds us that we're 'to have dinner with him tomorrow at 7:30'. Next to him is the bizarrely familiar 'simulation lab' from Star Trek – er, that is to say, the extremely serious testing chambers. It's a nice little introduction to the magic system, though. It takes us to a simple 'damsel in distress' scenario, where we're given a large, leaden sword and three spells.

I'll admit, I thought that the spells would be named more tongue in cheek given the examples in the manual

The simulation is on a very tight budget time-wise – you can only make two wrong moves before the damsel is killed by an over-elaborate death trap. Given that the game offers everything you need for this without needing to search up new stuff, it's pretty simple. You knock over a tree to create a bridge, give yourself 'increased fighting ability', wound a dragon, make some creeping ivy overtake the most of a wall, climb up it and then pull the lever before the damsel has the swinging pendulum blade over her descend low enough to kill her. The annoying part for me here is that the extremely tight timing means you can't sit and look at individual things without letting the damsel die. (Including looking at the damsel herself!)

Maybe I shouldn't have stopped to look at her, hm?

But a quick reload gives us a sterling result of 100 of 100!

There's another lecture that goes on about Ethics 101, telling us all about how a sorcerer isn't supposed to use his/her powers to steal things (even when they really think they're right about them) and other such quandaries. There's a rather strange introduction given about, instead of sorcery... how all restaurants work. They explain that all restaurants have six stages. 1) It opens. 2) 'The Golden Stage'– everything's cheap and it's never crowded. 3) It's still cheap, but really crowded. 4) It gets expensive and gives smaller portions. 5) People stop going. 6) It closes. I still don't get this, but hey.. it's out there.

Admin's note: Just to confuse you some more, Aperama...

I'm already feeling like this post could be split into two, but this is only our 'first day'– so I don't feel too bad keeping on and explaining more about the university.


Our fellow freshmen playing inverted-fantasy D&D.. we're not allowed to play without at least 6 months' notice and a devotion to 60 hours a week minimum

On the other side of the campus, there's a party in two of the fraternities to visit – I Phelta Thi is sending a boat across to the 'Balmoral Finishing Academy' to get some girls around, and Tappa Kegga Bru is putting on a party with some drinks. (Go figure, right?) Visiting there first gets us our second spell, which we can't actually cast yet due to our low level, the SKONN spell – a spell for increasing bust size...


Free stuff? TICK!

The I Phelta Thi party has a slightly less liquor-fuelled vibe, though they certainly do have a keg of ale themselves – but if you stick around for a little longer, you get a tap on the shoulder by 'Gretchen Snowbunny', the daughter of the president of the school. She's insistent that she's had an 'intoxication spell' or two cast upon her, and we're to gallantly take her home.. well, maybe not home. (Her father would get the wrong idea.) Take her somewhere she can sleep it off, anyhow..

Corset-back goodne-- uh-oh!


The game doesn't exactly like the idea of you being gallant, here. I did try my best, actually – she didn't want a kiss or a hug, just to be carried to a bed.. where she's insistent on having a little more than just a kiss and a cuddle with you. The game's own description is 'Without being TOO sexist about this: va-va-va-VOOM!' Naturally, I make sure to 'search' her body after she has the fun she expects to have (and passes out accordingly) and she drops an 'embossed key'. Clearly, that's something we're going to have to find the lock to! So, that's the first day of college at Spellcasting U.. and I think it's as good a point to leave off as any.



I'm going to continue my inventory list idea from my last game played here, as nobody complained about it in Countdown, so at the moment, Ernie has:

A spellbook with BIP (plays smooth music) and SKONN (increase bust size)
A cloak
A college registration form
A (full) pack of cigarettes
An embossed key
A notebook

Session Time: 1 hour
Total Time: 1 hour

Note Regarding Spoilers and Companion Assist Points: There’s a set of rules regarding spoilers and companion assist points. Please read ithere before making any comments that could be considered a spoiler in any way. The short of it is that no points will be given for hints or spoilers given in advance of me requiring one. Please...try not to spoil any part of the game for me...unless I really obviously need the help...or I specifically request assistance. In this instance, I've not made any requests for assistance. Thanks!
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Missed Classic 4: The Scoop - For Whom the Bell Tolls

January 12, 2015, 4:00 am
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Written by Kenny McCormick

Kenny’s filthy notebook (with stick figures animating his favorite pornography in the top right-hand corner) legible page #9: Yes! I found what those losers in Scotland Yard couldn’t! I’m like CSI! Who~~~~ are you? Who, who? Who, who? Wait a minute… what happened to the last guy who found the weapon? Oh, shiiiii~~~

So, here we have the weapon that had opened up a couple of new orifices in a woman and a man. Probably without their permission. My first impulse was to get back to Bond Street and show it to the owner of Araby’s. But you know I’m dumber than that. It’s time to explore the entire confines in the game since finding the murder weapon (and corrupting it with my fingerprints all over) is akin to winning half the battle.

Come roam the game with me, fellow adventurers! First up, the Hove.

Oh, now you tell me.

Sometimes, these cabbies will give you little tidbits of helpful information. Here we have Mr. Taxi telling us that Fat Fishy Fisher was leaving town for London on Monday at 8.30pm. Ooh… the intrigue!
Mmm… Catsby. I like cats. Yup. Love myself some pussy.

I seem to recall that Mrs. Catsby was Gladys Sharp’s ex-employer. So, it would be good to ask her about that conniving and greedy witch. Probably about all the other rich and famous people in the game as well since they would be in the same upper snobbish echelon of society.
Oh, I know some shit about that.


My word! What a bitc- uh… bitcoin worth of character this Gladys Sharp has!


Yes. She could have wound up with me. Between her leg- uh… legendary Tupperware parties.


The stifling air of bourgeois arrogance is so thick around here; 
you could cut it with a plasma knife.

With nothing else to see here, I took a cab and left for North Avenue. Check it out! A newsstand! What does my newspaper, the glorious Daily Courier, have to say?
Nope!

Hmm… I wonder what the newsboy’s name would be. Could it be Oswald? Cornelius? Manfred? Huxley, maybe? I’m very sure it’s going to be one of those quaint English names you could only get in Great Britain since this game is ba-
Goddammit, Telarium!

Yes, that’s a very fitting name for a… uh… newsboy. Another thing I like about this game. It operates financial transactions in the form of Wealth in D20 Modern RPG system. You can afford anything in the game as long as it’s within the means of your character. Because you can take all the buses, trains and taxis you want, that’s why.
Mr. Wrightwell is more than happy to pay for your cross-country bumbling attempt to apprehend a murderer, who is escalating into the ranks of a serial killer. Since you will be the one who gets stabbity-stabbed in the face if you fail as he prints his paper to lament the loss of his progeny reporter and probably charge your moms and pops for the obituary space, the bastard. I hope your paper never sells.

Anyway, I’ve still got the whole of London to explore. Hold it. What’s this?

Ka-ching!

And? And? Not getting any?

Dammit, where are the gems that Fisher got from Gladys who got them from Geraldine who got them from Tracey who got them from… er…


Ooh. What’s this?


Ka-ching-ching!

I told you (well, not literally) that I’m gonna rob you blind, Fisher. I am the master thief (and most well-groomed man) of London! Gem pouches are as easy to grab as nut pouches!



What? Where’s the doorman? Is this one of those haunted hotels that the UK is notorious for?

Look at who we have here. One of your dirty dealings to feed your gambling habits again, Gladys? Terrible. But not as terrible as that maitre’d over there.
Another victim claimed by the God of Bald Pates in London.

Let’s eavesdrop on them sordid little affairs again, shall we? No? Screw you. I’m the one playing here and that’s what I wanna do, you hacks. Sorry. Gotta do something about my Tourette’s Syndrome.












Ha! Little do they know that I already hold the pieces they are bartering! Since this pair is here, I reckon that this may be one of their usual hangouts. Might as well check with the waiter to see if he knows anything.


It’s funny you should mention that, Mr… uh… Waiter. I was wondering whether I should slap that ugly mug of yours which only a thrice-blind mother could love. And how the fu- uh, fudge did you know my name?

Are… are we playing Ultima V? Is it something this British eatery staffs do? You’ve never played Ultima? What are you, five? Okay, anyway, start digging for information with my Petty Cash Of Infinity +12.
Ah… the fat jokes.


I remember that he have some inheritance from a dead uncle, so, thanks for trying to throw me off.


Wednesdays, eh? Oh, will you look at that! It is Wednesday today.


Oh the indecency!




Wait. This is strange. Fisher (or, at least, his car) was spotted racing towards London at 8.30pm on Monday. How could he be in his office eating a meal meant for two from 8.15pm to 8.30pm, rush out for God knows what (possibly murder?) and return by 9pm?
Fisher deserves a harder look. I don’t believe that he’s the killer but someone (Agatha Christie, you feisty tease, you) is trying all out to frame his rotund rump. Time to check out his house for some clues.
*grumble* Rich uppity gem-dealing bastard who lives in a nice house while I dwell in squalor beside a 2-bit reporter while working as a 3rd rate reporter. *mutter*


Nothing?! WTF?!

After turning up short, I figured I might as well go check out the weapon with Araby’s. Which is probably what I should have done in the first place.
Coo! Coo! Bang! F*ck, I’m dead! – Guess a movie quote.


What did I tell you about the Bald Pated Plague of London?


I want that monocle!

Fisher! Really? No, that’s really too obvious. This is Agatha Christie, for crying out loud. It has got to be someone else. But who?! Who are you? Who, who? Who, who? Damn, I hate that song. I know you hate it too, which is why I’m going to insert it here now and then.

Out of leads to follow, I figured I might as well go see what my rival has gotten so far. To the Morning Star! And, oh, who’s this looker at the Reception?

Dammit! I missed eavesdrop- er… “observing” them.


Oh… a dear “friend”, eh? What did I do to get all those inside dope from you? Did I have to dope something inside you in exchange?


Speculative, not even circumstantial.


True, but he ain’t no killer.


That’s actually pretty insightful

Yep, she is a bi- uh… damn… I ran out of words that start with “bi”.


Why does he want to fire Johnson? It’s not like he could threaten his career. Unless Hemingway didn’t want a reporter smarter and more experienced than Johnson to chase after the story and uncover the true killer! <- Speculative, not even circumstantial.




Hmm… Redman never even showed up in my suspect list so far… which means! Dun dun dun!


Yeah. She just needs a real man to give her some deep dic- uh…
dichotomous enunciation. Yes. That.


Is there anybody you don’t know?


And now, he’s like a dead dog. Geddit? Because he’s dead?
And he was a horndog? Fine, I’ll come up with a better one next time.


Whoa, I’m not that rich. Unless you’re planning to hook up with someone who is while me and you cook up a scheme to siphon his wealth off as you get knifed by the jealous husband with a jade pin. Wait, what was I saying?


Oh, you were, weren’t you? Can’t get enough of blowin’ the ol’ Scottish Bagpipe, eh?


We did? The entire evening? Wow… I didn’t know I could last that long. I mean, of course I did!


No. Don’t think so. It is used because it’s easily identifiable so that it makes it easier to incriminate the actual owner.




Accountants, secretaries, graphic artists and… editors? So, now my list of suspects is finally reduced to the following: Fisher (private business owner; accounting done by self), Irene (Receptionist), Beryl (Secretary), Hemingway (Day Editor of Morning Star), Redman (Night Editor of Morning Star) and… Wrightwell (Editor of Daily Courier)!
Ha! You’re a funny one, Irene! That really turns me on…


I believe he’s actually Tracey but I don’t think he’s the killer.



Hmm… You’re right, Irene. My list of suspects is again reduced to the following to incorporate only Morning Star staff: Irene (Receptionist), Beryl (Secretary), Hemingway (Day Editor) and Redman (Night Editor).
Yeah, he’s a total @$hole. Unlike me. Give Beryl my number, will ya?
I will try my best to… “console” her.


To be loved is to not to know you were holding it until you have lost it.
– Rare non-sexual and sentimental moment from Kenny McCormick.


Oh, so that’s what this item is used for; a poontang magnet



See? I knew it wasn’t just me and my perverted outlook of life!


He didn’t. But Johnson sure did… with a River God Jade Hairpin!


Ah ha! Redman, you sneaky killing bastard! But no. I can’t link him with Geraldine’s death at all, even if he might have the means and motive to do in Johnson.

Wow, Irene sure is a verbose one. I’ll make sure to put that tattling mouth of hers to good use on my ol’ Scottish Bagpipe later. That said, since the killer is somewhere here in the Morning Star, I might as well check out the rest of the place. Lo! There be Ernest Hemingway! Pulitzer Prize Winner, Nobel Prize Winner, celebrated author and venerated journalist! Why the heck did this Yank end up in London as an editor is anybody’s guess. Mine is that he’s up to no good.
Look at him. Just like the real McCoy. Look at me. Just like the real McCormick.





Do you teach him murder as well?


Wait, aren’t you the one who sent him out on this assignment?
If you are going to doubt his ability, why send him at all?


Listened to Lord Mayor’s Concert at 10pm? Hmm… I’ll check with BBC.


Sounds fishy… No alibi in the evening.


Wow. Fisher this, Fisher that. It’s like you knew. Or you framed.


Again, Fisher this, Fisher that. You’re the one getting fishier, Hemingway.

With nothing else to do, I thought I should follow the people I’ve just met back to their homes to unlock new areas in the game. I figured I might as well start with Irene.
Follow that cab! I’ve never had the opportunity to say that


I nominate Aperama, TBD and Joe Pranevich for the next Mop Bucket Challenge!




They are neighbors?! How did I miss exploring that area?! What a waste of time! I could have followed Hemingway, who’s the Prime Suspect #1, home instead! Better get back to The Morning Star again and see if he’s still there!
Argh! Shift has changed?!

Fine. Whatever. I’ll just interrogate Redman instead since he’s Prime Suspect #2.

Oh yeah? Well, you leave a skank everywhere.

I figured that, since Redman wouldn’t want to talk to me, I might as well explore the environs around The Morning Star instead for clues since I’ve narrowed the killer to be either a staff or someone who frequents this place on an extremely regular basis. To the left of the building’s entrance, I found the place where, if you fell from the scaffolding above, you would end up in.


A knothole? Not a glorious one?

With the dead-end, I proceeded to go back eastwards.


Look at that florist! Isn’t that sweet? He must be the killer!

Oh ho! What have here, old chap? It’s a nice little boy selling flowers! I’d bet he’ll have a name like Benny, Robbie, Tommy or some such. Y’know, because this game is based in London and there ar-

Goddammit, Telarium!

There must be some kind of terrible kid-hating parent groups with equally terrible last names lurking out there in London who just can’t wait to spawn ill-fated kids destined to fulfil their uninspiring and unsurprising namesakes. They ought to have an Unfortunately-Named Anonymous support group for such kids.

Guy 1: “Hi, my name is Foreman Printer. I work as a Foreman Printer.”
All: “Hello, Foreman.”
Guy 2: “Hi, my name is Bestiality Pornstar. I work as a Be-”
All: “Holy shi-”
Guy 2: “-ekeeper.”

Jokes aside, there’s a lot you can glean from florists situated beside any workplace if they do not honor any business transaction confidentiality. Any man buying flowers are definitely in it for the punani, so you could easily find out who’s getting horny just by knowing if they had been buying flowers.
Hemingway; Prime Suspect #1. Again more likely now.


That’s for Beryl. Nothing strange.


Redman is officially struck off my list of Suspects. Now I’m only left with Hemingway since the shoeprints at Geraldine’s house already confirms that the killer is too large to belong to either Irene or Beryl


Er… Good to know?


Eh… Nice to know too?


Of course he did. Else I’d kick his dead ass for being a pansy.

Speaking of pansies…

Further down the road, I chanced upon a pub named Cheshire Cheese. Mmm... I love cheese.


Ah ha! More sh!t going on, I see!


Yeah, thanks to yours truly. Wait, how did you guys know?!


Yeah, mine.


 This is the 1920’s, sucker. Fingerprints aren’t in vogue yet, let alone a database of prints to correlate them to. And how the hell could they check when the pin’s still with me?!

I don’t wear gloves! How could the pin not have my prints?! Also, the pin is still with me!


Hah! Ahead of you, losers!



And yet, my boss still didn’t run my story on our paper. What an idiot. It’s not like I don’t repo...r...t...




Okay, seriously, I have to get back to The Daily Courier today or tomorrow at the latest. But first, let’s check out what the pub keeper with a probably very jazzy name (like Caleb Coolridge, Angus Deloitte, Terrence Gottfried or some such, because London) has to say.

Yup. Cool name. F*ck you, Telarium.


 I prefer GIMLETs.


 Ha! Stupid Yanks, amirite? Uh... I mean; Pip pip, tally-ho, cheerio and all that, old chap!
By the way, have you heard of the Hair-Loss Epidemic of London?


 Kidney pie? I’ve... I’ve never heard of any offal confectioneries before. Has anyone ever tried that?


 Hah! The funny ones are always the ugly ones. Which is why I have absolutely no sense of humor.


Oh, you NPCs trying to throw me off my scent again. It’s almost adorable the way you try it.


Oh, really? Wait till I impress her with me ol’ Scottish Bagpipes.


At least, it’s her ears that are open and not her legs.


 Hahaha! Johnson! Under his belt! Hahaha! Johnson getting on your nerves!
Hahaha! You are one funny barkeep!


 Hmm... Oliver must have heard the news about Johnson and came here to gulp down a drink before heading out to Victoria Station.


And Redman is off the hook.

Finalizing my findings, I checked with Oliver whom is still in the pub to exchange our ideas on a strictly professional basis, reporter-to-reporter.


Yes, he most probably did. May I ask how did you and Redman know about this when I’m the one who found and hoarded it thus far without anyone knowing about it?
Did someone film me with a cellphone and upload it on Youtube or something?


Oh, you did not just bring me moms into this, you ugly rat-faced sonofabi-

Know what? I had better get back to the Daily Courier to check on things. I forgot I was a crime reporter for a moment and was totally immersed by the sheer amount of details of this game.


Look at that smug mug. If this had been a modern open-world game…

But first! To BBC!

Oh, why didn’t such shit happen in RPGs where money actually matters?

No kidding! I’m at the illustrious Savoy Hill where The Scoop radio plays were recorded prior to its relocation in 1932. Looks pretty small compared to the real thing though.


Well, that’s just disrespectful. You should have given him a full beard.

Look at that guy with purple tinted glasses. I wore that shit in my teens and thought it was cool! I didn’t know they had that in the early 1920s! This guy reminded me of Elton John, actually. I guess he should be a prominently named character then. Jelton On, maybe?


I think tee-tum-tee-tum is great because Brits sure love their tea-tum.


Are you sure it’s your dream and not what your parents wanted?
Naming you like that will really limit your aspirations.


Damn! Hemingway’s testimony and family alibi takes him off the hook!


Hmm… not much clue to be had for Saturday night here.

Finally, I’m dead-ended. I am left with a single suspect and he has an ironclad alibi. Right. I had better get my ass back to Wrightley or Wrightwell or Whoever-My-Boss-Is. He could probably point me to the correct direction.


Joke’s on you, fatboy! All-expense-paid cross-London escapade! ZING!


Ha! You’re so funny! Also, you don’t need to pay him his last paycheck since he’s dead, right?


I have a photo of Manwaring wearing bikini that you could run.


Wait, what?! Give it to Scotland Yard?! Could have told me so earlier! Oh… er…


Wait, what?! Give it to Scotland Yard?! Could have told me so earlier! Oh… Déjà vu…


It would help if you actually print anything to sell.
  Or are we running an e-news website where Canageek lives?


He’s an @$hole, that’s why.


How could I? Because I can.




Yeah, well, the bugger wouldn’t even talk to me and I can’t stand him.

After checking everything new I could with fatboy, the time was close to 1am. So I went back home to sleep.



Yeah, yeah. Been there, done that.


The game continues to provide hints through dreams to get you access to certain areas of the game if you had not been able to find them before. Which is a first, again. However, since I’ve already been to Araby’s, I opted to get my ass straight to Scotland Yard and hand in my ill-gotten gains (sans the gems, of course).
Oh, yes. Yes, it is. Can I have it back? I needs it. I wants it. My precious…
Filthy thieving hobbitses.


That worked out better than I thought.

After being arrested, I learnt a valuable lesson that stealing (especially from cops) is wrong. Oh, so very wrong.

Er…


Hmm…

Following my boss’ advice last night (or this early morning), I went to The Morning Star to find Oliver and found him in deep conversation with his boss.











Potts! I forgot about that sisterfuc- er… guy!

Since I just came from Scotland Yard, I opted to take a journey to Southampton instead to track down Arthur Potts. He may not be the killer but I’m sure he will be of great help to unravel this tangled ball of intrigue. Seriously, having 6 people writing the same story will cause a gigantic clusterfuc- uh… well… you know what I mean.

A wireless radio? Rich @$hole.


Am I the only one to think that he looks like Popeye with a different color scheme?

And with that, he shut me off. I lost an entire day tracking him down to hear that load of bull. Saturday? Okay, then. Let’s see what you have to say then. But, back to bed!

Forsooth! I canst see yonder across temporal and spatial realms!

I guess I must have missed a clue or the chance to follow Hemingway home when he knocks off from work. At least, now I know where Prime Suspect #1 lives. On to his home!


Editors make good living.


Wireless radio again! Rich @$hole.

Hmm… broken tubes. I guess that radio ain’t gonna be of any use anytime soon. Might as well speak to that old wrinkly thing knitting… something.


Uh… Monday, eh? Beethoven’s 5th… That’s what Hemingway said too.


A tube? Not 3? That’s a little strange…


Wait a goddamn minute. That doesn’t sound right.
So, Hemingway wasn’t the one who killed Johnson?!


So do bad ones, Mrs. Kent. So do bad ones.

Being an uppity high-society ex-socialite, Mrs. Kent could not offer any other information except that Hemingway was home during both murders.


8:10pm? Killing time!

Why, if it isn’t Mrs. Hemingway herself. Certainly looks less than pleasing. I don’t think she is the recipient of those flowers that Hemingway bought from Flower Boy. Best to check with her on her possibly philandering husband.
It sure is. I doubt clocks have a habit of stopping whenever Hemingway sat down for dinner unless his ass is Magneto.


Kent? It sure is distinguished, alright. Especially in Romania.


Oh, don’t you worry. He is definitely scoring some holes.


Like a moth to an open flame, no doubt.


Yes. That horrible green turtleneck does that to people.


Sounds like acting to me.


10:15pm? Bullshit time!


How do you tell time when both the clock AND radio are down for the count? A sundial?


Oh, hey, big guy. Don’t mind me.

Notice that the Search command is greyed out. Shit like this happens when someone is there to stop you from rummaging around. Now, I’ll just have to annoy him constantly until he leaves the home or use the Wait command which is more convenient and spends less game time. Being me, I chose the former.

Haha! Too late! I’m gonna be here till you move your fat ass out of your own bedroom!

Unable to deal with my incessant questioning and provoking, Hemingway hightailed out of his own home for me to commit multiple counts of larceny in the name of... something… good but… unlawful. Perhaps a hitherto unknown Chaotic Good deity or some such? I shall now christen said deity as Kilroy; because I hate Roy.

Woot!


Holy shiiii…

And Bingo was his name-o. This is probably what those two womenfolk had heard. The radio must have already been tampered with earlier on since there were actually 3 tubes and not 1 tube broken within. Now, to tally what those people in the household heard with BBC. Back to Savoy Hill!

Wait, his name is Turnkey? Why the hell didn’t you just put that as his official name on the top-left hand corner then, Telarium!?

Turnkey might not know why someone would wish to fake that signal but I do.




Well, well, well. What have we here? Hemingway, you bullshit artist, you.

Hemingway is the only person that corresponds to all my clues to be the killer. Except that I can’t find the motive or prove that he actually killed Geraldine and/or Johnson. I am missing something very important but I can’t find it anywhere. I seriously believe it has something to do with Gladys Sharp or Arthur Potts but the former is too tight-lipped to talk about anything important while Potts is too damn elusive to offer much help.

But, I’m sure Inspector Smart of Scotland Yard would be smart enough to figure this shit out. He is the fuzz, anyway, not me. If the world had to rely on crime reporters to solve them, we won’t need cops. So, off to Scotland Yard with this evidence!

Dafuq?!
Yay. Hooray for ineptitude of useless police worldwide. Now I have to do your job, Inspector? Can I get your pay as well? Do I get a gun and a badge? Only time will tell. Stay tuned for the last game post before the Final Ratings.

Also, it has come to my attention that the Digital Antiquarian had written a piece that had something to do with The Scoop. Well, f*ck that. Royally. I’m enjoying this game thoroughly regardless of whatever your opinions of what a masterpiece is. It doesn’t even sound like he tried.
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Game 49: Elvira - I ain’t afraid of no ghost

January 14, 2015, 4:00 am
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By Deimar

Jake Spenser Journal Entry #2: This sucks. This chick asks me to banish a five hundred year old dead witch and gives me a dagger, a kick in the ass and a “I don’t what are you waiting for”. She has her castle full of soldiers and monks trying to kill me and she expects me to bring her her spell book? I don’t know who is crazier of the two, she for asking or me for doing it… On the other hand I have met a beautiful girl today. She is kind of shy and sleepy, but I think we can have a beautiful relationship.


We are no longer in Kansas. Not even in the US. Just in this land of fantasy called England.

So, the last time around, we had been left to fend for ourselves in the castle courtyard with a little dagger, two offensive spells, a healing cake (someone doesn’t care about my carb diet), our trusty bag and a meager excuse to explore the castle and eliminate its inhabitants. And these are not the friendly-ghost kind of undead, I decided to run directly into that room we explored last time with the axe and the shields, just next to the main gate. Go arms race!

Navigating Elvira is quite simple. Movement is controlled by the four arrows at the left, which allow you to go forward and turn to the left, right or 180º degrees. Basically, we are a tank. Although a limited one, because some of these options may disappear when the artists didn’t feel like drawing that part of the game… erm… I mean, when options are limited by the environment. A clear example of this are the up and down arrows which only light up when there is a way of going upwards or downwards.

We can examine any item in the graphic window by double clicking on it, although don’t expect the witty messages from Sierra or LucasArts. This is a pretty straightforward description. An axe is just an axe. We can take items by dragging them to the inventory at the bottom of the screen. We can select any item by clicking on it and some verbs at the right will light up depending on which actions are available for that object. For example, almost any item can be examined and you get a simple although longer description than by double clicking. Or we can use something, like the axe and the shield, which makes our character equip them. I seriously don’t know where this obsession with axes comes from…
Now I have an axe. Ho ho ho!

Now that I am armed and dangerous, it’s time to try to chop the main gate down and get the hell out of here. No way out. So after accepting our current predicament I decided that the best way to get started was to get even more weapons and armor. And for that we have to explore the main keep of the castle, whose entrance is directly in front of the main gate. At the end of the post you can see a whole map of the keep. As there is no point of reference, north is the location of the main gate.

I entered the main keep and got up a set of stairs. I was in a hall with several options. One door at each side, a set of stairs going up, and ahead through a hallway. I recalled the existence of an armory in this first floor, but I couldn’t remember which door it was, only that it wasn’t one of those. So I started to wander the hallway but got interrupted by what was clearly a renaissance faire actor, fully in character. With a real sword even. Such dedication is commendable. I tried to speak with him to no avail. Sadly, the man was not interested in roleplaying, just in soft combat. But with real swords. And real blood.
He just wanted to show me the quality of his weapon. And how the tip can be inserted into my heart

Combat in the game is also quite simple. We get a close up of the enemy in the main window, the cursor changes to either a sword or a shield and two new options appear over the verb list. The enemy and we take turns attacking, and defending when an attack gets blocked. When defending, we can block or parry, which is what the programmers understood for block left and block right. And there I thought these guys were English and knew how to write in the language... The enemy has a different animation when attacking to either side of the screen, but to be honest it is so fast and the cursor so imprecise that it is better to just guess an option. Hey, It’s a 50% chance! It is almost a viable strategy! When attacking, we can lunge or hack. I haven’t noticed any difference between them. So to sum up, my combat mostly consists in me spamming parry/hack.

As the door from where the guy came from was already opened, it seemed like a good place to start. Luckily, it was exactly the place where I wanted to be, the armory. A crossbow (without bolts), a sword, several axes, several shields and even two old flintlock pistols. I didn’t mention it before, but once we have double clicked an item in the room, if it can be taken, it appears in a special inventory called “Room”, accessible by selecting it at the upper left corner of the screen. We can also see which items have been left in the room, which cannot be seen on the main window unless the item had originally been found there. And we can drag the Room icon to the Inv icon to get all the items in the room.

Wherever you find a large quantity of weapons, it feels like Christmas

I took the sword, the armor, the crossbow, and the best shield. Just by getting the armor we wear it. Feeling very protected now that there was a layer of fine metal between me and the other soldiers which may be roaming the castle, I started to make my way into the keep. Sadly, as soon as I put my foot outside the armory, a message appeared telling me that the weight I was carrying was too much, making me lose one point of strength. 

I considered my options and decided to go to the kitchen, a nearby location further ahead in the hallway, down some stairs, where Elvira told me she would wait for me. I left everything I was carrying there but the sword, the armor, the spells and the bag. I am kind of attached to the bag, it was a present from my mom. And then I explored the kitchen. There are a lot of items in the kitchen: frying pans, casseroles, spices, wine, ham… And a dark passage behind the goods lift which Elvira offers to explore, but because of the darkness she can’t do anything there.

But it is not as if the trip has been in vain. If you know what I mean.
Wink Wink. Add more sexual innuendo that I couldn’t think of...

And now it is time to explore the keep. With just 44 points of strength left from the initial 50. And yes, I realize I could have left everything in the armory to avoid losing points… but where is the fun in that? Probably in Hawaii with my brain instead of in this castle. In any case, this first exploration allows me to kill every single guard in the first floor safely, and discover some objects along the way, but without getting anything due to the weight limitation.

The door across the kitchen stairs leads to the bar, but the only interesting thing here is a bottle of absinthe. At the end of the hallway there were two rooms. The one to the left was empty, while the one to the right had a yellow soldier, instead of the red ones I had found until now, and leads to the chapel. Here there is a prayer book, a strange silver cross with an octogonal hole in the center, a gold chalice and two gold candlesticks.
If only I could somehow get out of here with these, travel to France, use the money obtained from selling them to become the mayor of a city, take under my care the daughter of one of my workers and spend my life fleeing from the police… If only…

The left room in the entry hall leads to the library, where I take Elvira’s spellbook. Whoever took it from her clearly had OCD and needed to leave it in the right place. The other door leads to the sitting room, where we can find Elvira’s diary, saying something about a lost ring, a stake and some monsters among other things.

With the first floor totally explored, I went upstairs to the second one. The enemies on this floor are some jawa… I mean… monks, which are far easier to beat than the soldiers. The whole floor is mostly unremarkable. There is a bathroom with nothing in it but a bottle of laudanum hidden in a hole in the wall. I’m guessing Elvira is just that kind of girl. There is a locked room, to the west, next to an empty room. And there are a lot of bedrooms where we can find crossbow bolts in the drawers and wardrobes, a bible with a christian prayer in it and this girl...

Just like the sleeping beauty. I wonder if I should kiss her...

I think it’s better if we leave her be for the moment. And so, we have finished exploring the main keep. I came back to Elvira to give her the spell book, hoping for a warm, and maybe wet, thank you. But not even a glance. Elvira is surely playing hard to get with us. But that’s something we will see in the next session.

MAIN KEEP MAP:




DEATH BONUS ROUND (TOTAL DEATHS: 1):

No. Definitely no kisses
Session Time: 0 hours 45 minutes
Total Time: 0 hours 50 minutes

Note Regarding Spoilers and Companion Assist Points: There’s a set of rules regarding spoilers and companion assist points. Please read it here before making any comments that could be considered a spoiler in any way. The short of it is that no points will be given for hints or spoilers given in advance of me requiring one. Please...try not to spoil any part of the game for me...unless I really obviously need the help...or I specifically request assistance. In this instance, I've not made any requests for assistance. Thanks!
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What's Your Story - Laertes

January 15, 2015, 4:00 pm
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Answers by Laertes
Introduction and Captions by TBD

My googling has suggested that Laertes is both one of the Argonauts and a character in Shakespeare's Hamlet.

Is Laertes named after one of these guys?

My home country is… Spain 

From my limited knowledge of Spaniards, I assume Laertes is an expert right-handed swordsman on the hunt for a six-fingered man.

My age is… 40

The first adventure game I played was… I am not sure but it must have been Monkey Island I. I played the Spanish translation, and I only understood the "red herring" puzzle much, much later, in fact a few years ago. 

Language specific expressions must be very hard to translate effectively

My favourite adventure game is… Difficult to choose one but probably Monkey Island II with Day of the Tentacle as a close second. 

Maniac Mansion: Day of the Tentacle DOS References to other Lucas Arts' games
Day of the Tentacle is likely the first fully-voiced adventure game many people played

When I’m not playing games I like to… I seldom play games anymore. Only some oldies in ScummVM, Dosbox or emulators or some Roguelikes from time to time. My main leisure activities are reading and playing guitar. Rather trying to play guitar more than actual playing.

I like my games in (a box, digital format)… Probably in a box.

The thing I miss about old games is… I don't miss them, they are still with us in all their pixelated glory!

The best thing about modern games is… I don't play modern games, only some roguelikes as I said above, if we can consider them modern. When I see friends or relatives playing new games they really don't appeal to me. Too much eyecandy and little game. I am only attracted to flight simulators but I don't want to spend the time required to really enjoy them. The last games I bought probably were simulators like Falcon 4.0 and Flanker 2.0, but that was many years ago.

The one TV show I never miss is… I prefer to read over watching TV, but I'd say here The Big Bang theory. 

I assume the TV series is based off the science textbook


If I could see any band live it would be… Of the active ones maybe Rush. Of the gone ones plenty: Queen, Led Zeppelin, Triana, Paco de Lucía (not a band, I know)... 

Paco de Lucía - flamenco guitarist


My favourite movie is… An old Spanish film called "¡Bienvenido, Mister Marshall!". (Welcome Mr. Marshall!)

One interesting thing about me is… Well, I don't know if I can be of interest to anybody.
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Game 47: Spellcasting 101: Sorcerers Get All the Girls - Pheasant and SCONNs

January 17, 2015, 4:00 am
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Written by Aperama

Ernie Eaglebeak's Journal #2: Wait.. what just happened? This journal was supposed to be about how I was learning all of these new spells, and about how my dinner with Professor Tickingclock went a completely different way to how I was imagining (given that his wife Hillary was definitely more interested in me than in the dinner she'd made) – but now I'm stuck trying to work out why the back of my head hurts so bad more than anything. Okay, so after I'd finished my usual schedule of classes, I decided to use that key I.. found that Gretchen dropped.. and found my way into the President's House, where I got to see the Sorcerer's Appliance itself! Plus I picked up another spell, which led to another one after some work finding my way through dusty passages and a weird, corn-filled room or two. If I can work out how to use all of these new spells, I'd be way on my way to being able to kick the living heck out of Joey Rottenwood – but instead, I was sure.. my mom was there, I got hit in the back of the head, and now everything's trashed? After I get over this headache, it's time to find some answers!”

Told you I was being gallant, Kenny!

I definitely don't feel like I'm very far into Spellcasting, and I already get the feeling that having played previous Steve Meretzky games in the past is helping me. (I played The Hitchhiker's Guide as a younger man, and fondly remember a puzzle requiring me to have 'tea' and 'no tea' at the same time.) In that way, I suppose that I 'get' the idea of humour being interlaced into puzzles, if that makes sense – there is one that I looked at, rolled my eyes and immediately went on to solve as I realised that they were actually using an immense double entendre. I'll admit that after the pointer (thanks, Ilmari!) that the command 'take notes' would literally provide me with an in-game set of notes, I reloaded and received some extra notes on the classes that I'd already attended. My own notes were similar (albeit without pointers like '**GET ACNE CREAM BACK**' or little love poems to Lola Tigerbelly) but having them there makes me feel a little better about myself. It also makes me feel less like I missed out on anything.

A simple little set of notes on the 'Math and Science 101' class. Peloria sounds an awful lot like Discworld at this point!

When I last left off, we were going to bed after our first 'on screen' day of school at Sorcerers University (and our first in-game incident in a boudoir). Ernie appears to be very consistent – you can keep him up until around about 11:30, where he unceremoniously passes out until just after 8:00 every single day. The first screenshot in this post explains why we're sans one Gretchen as we wake up as she left us a note – she didn't re-steal her key back, which I think of as really quite nice of her. I noticed a 'President's House' when I was out on the boat dock near the Sorcerer's Stadium earlier, so I've got a fair idea of what the key unlocks – but first, class! Being the titular 'Spellcasting 101', this is (probably rightfully) the 'premiere' class of SU – the one where all of the people who don't really turn up to class miraculously find their way into the lecture hall. Ironically, for all that I was sorta looking forward to it, very little seems to come of it. I've got Ernie's notes in front of me, and aside from a few little jokes (such as telling people not to cast while drunk, as HURVON, 'clean tarnished silverware', can easily turn to HURBOM, 'summon a cloud of flesh-eating locusts', which I think could actually come into play eventually as I was told I couldn't cast BIP after drinking from a keg at Tappa Kegga Bru due to not being able to properly enunciate my words).. there's not too much to go off of. I'm looking at Ernie's notes here and the only three things I noted down that link in with this were 'we get MUK – 'raise dough'– on Monday's class, try casting a spell in a thunderstorm at 11:50 PM (impossible due to Ernie's sleeping schedule) and Sunday at noon will be the Junior Spelling Bee'.

I need to remember that you need to get a 'spell box' to learn a spell. Not that I think 'WIX' will exist in truth.. or will it?

The game takes five minutes per action.. and I have between 11:30 and 1 PM to explore – or in other words, 18 actions. This is actually plenty to run down to the docks and open up President House (5 actions, or 7 if you struggle with things like 'unlock door'– with what? - 'key' as I am quite wont to do) and rush back to class without missing out on anything between lectures. I was a touch disappointed with the insides of President House – though I was quite pleasantly surprised when a 'Graduation Nymph' popped out of nowhere and gave a little message explaining that Ernie is now a level 2 sorcerer! (The 'levels' matter as they enable you to cast spells, as I touched on briefly in the previous post.) There was a spell box with 'FRIMP' in it which I swiped before I was even able to take any more stock of the room I was in, giving me a new spell in levitation. The rest of the room seemed remarkably uninteresting – some books, a desk.. and what I can only assume is this game's MacGuffin, the 'Sorcerer's Appliance'. According to the game, 'The Appliance is about the size of a small closet. None of the five Great Attachments are in place. There are two buttons, one black and one white, on opposite ends of the Appliance. As always, its purpose is impossible to divine.' (The manual explains that it was first built by Waldo Nimblefingers in the years of the Great Melon Shortage, but doesn't actually let you know what it does.)

Oh, the most powerful item in sorcery might be there.. but I just graduated for breaking into a room with a stolen key. Best school ever!

The next lecture is on General Magic 101 – or to put it in a slightly different fashion, 'more lore under a different name'. This one has a little more information, I'm thinking, giving a list of assorted nasties (Mud Devils, Pufferslugs, Hellhamsters, Cankersaurs..) and ways in which to defeat them. I already know that one is to be paid attention to – the 'atomic dragon' which we took out in the simulation room was killed with a 'lead-lined sword', which the game makes mention is its hidden weak point. Does this mean that we're going to be fighting the Vamoose, 'a creature that is half moose, half gorgeous woman that lures its victims in with spells promising sexual delight only to gore them on its great antlers'? Perhaps, though I rather doubt it. Again, it feels largely as though I'm not going to have to worry about this too much. Still, it seems like we've got plenty to do on campus grounds yet, so I'm just keeping my three sets of notes (the ones I'm making, the in-game ones and having a full transcript of each play session) and worrying about it later. There's one thing that a 'levitation' spell seems like it'd come in handy for – the trap door in the lecture hall was 'too heavy', so my mind immediately flashed to trying out my new magic fingers..

I love it when a plan comes together

The notion of a foreboding empty hole to jump into was rather a strong force to ignore, but Ernie's schedule explains that between 4 and 6 he's to have 'Physical Skills 101'– and I've been such a stickler for forcing him to attend classes, so I simply can't explore. Turning up only gives us a short message about how 'he's excused due to a rather severely bruised pinky finger', though, so we're off to the deep, dark tunnels..

Caption contest? I think so!

You'd never believe it – it's a MAIZE. Yes, no good (or bad) adventure game can go without a ma(i)ze. This one is somewhat less egregious than most, though. It's a 5x5 square with no exit except for the manner in which you enter, with each room having a letter assigned to it. I'll include the little map I haphazardly scrawled to work my way through it – more fool all of you for not complaining about my handwriting earlier!

Once the letters were in front of me, there was no other way through I could see apart from 'TEX KIK QUIK(ISH)'

About five minutes of scribble later, and the obvious lettering (you probably can't read my terrible handwriting, but I assure you it's there) leads you down 'THIS WAY OUT'. When you go to the final and second 'T', an opening appears underneath you, leading you to yet another trap door and the 'Secret Society Meeting Room', along with a DISPAR spell box ('remove magical protection'), though again I feel like I'm expecting something more out of the room that I'm just not seeing. I'm mentally listing here and President House as 'come back to later' spots.

I feel like 'skull and corn' is some sort of pun I'm not getting...

I almost managed to get myself stuck, here. The next goal is to get to Professor Tickingclock's dinner – the only problem I had was finding where he'd actually invited me to come to! My first thought was the President's House – no such luck. He wasn't in his office – a whole bunch of running around finally led me to realise that I could actually go UP in the dorm hall. (I didn't see the tiny arrow in the top left of the screen – my bad.) I'd timed my maze run quite well and was perfectly in time to have dinner – a lovely affair with pheasant and potatoes. Prof. Tickingclock seemed a little tired, though, so after briefly discussing the Sorcerer's Appliance and his prized mystical surfboard of Spittul (both being 'magical', 'legendary' and 'dangerous'.. though I do note given our most recent spell that the surfboard has a protective enchantment on it), we leave the room.


Oh, like you actually thought we were here for the PROFESSOR...

The professor, it turns out, has a little bit of a snoozing issue – as soon as he gets his potatoes into him, he conks out almost straight away. This is, it turns out, why he has potatoes almost every night. Hillary makes no bones about it – Ernie is not there for every night, he's there for tonight and.. well, maybe he can make his way onto a schedule after that between the masseur, and.. maybe someone else.

This game's parser is very limited. Apparently, it doesn't understand the word 'be'.

I was willing to call it a night with the luscious splendour of Hillary's expensive crockery (she breaks several pieces) and sweating (I'm imagining we did some minor home redecoration whilst the good Professor was asleep), I felt like there was still more to be had from the day. With the revelation of 'up', I ran around like a crazy person looking for upstairs rooms. Above Meltingwolf Hall was what I feel I should have been looking for far before this point – a library! Inside wasn't an awful lot to look at, just a 'popular book' (points!) which reads like.. popular fiction. Enough said, methinks. No other books actually come up as interactive. However, there is a BUST..



I actually thought I'd be SKONNing it to read the bust – it turns out all I needed was a ladder...

KABBUL is to 'restore lost souls'– at this point, I'm not going to be surprised if it involves 'fixing shoes'. If there's more to be had 'In the Stacks', I couldn't find it – and after this discovery, we're about due to head to sleep. The next day seems like it'll go off without a hitch, so I head us off to the final class we have yet to cover, 'Math and Science 101'. We get a free map for our troubles (which is apparently the one that comes with the game box). It gives a short idea of some areas surrounding SU along with some ideas of how the seasons work, using a whole bunch of references to gigantic ice monsters, dragons and rodents controlling the seasons. It's more in the 'note this down for later' basket in my mind, with one lone exception that definitely caught my eye, albeit not due to THIS game..

Uh.. Corey Cole, do I detect a hint of homage here? I feel like my original QFG2 manual did delve into what we all know to be the true fifth element, but it might be my mind being revisionist..

I was looking forward to the second set of classes at this point – all of them had quite a bit of character to themselves, with each day having new things to search for. With an open mind, I started searching around for new things to interact our new spells with..



And a nice little cliffhanger to leave off on!

Inventory..
A spellbook with BIP (romantic music), SKONN (statuette enlarger), FRIMP (levitation), DISPAR (remove magic protection) and KABBUL (restore lost souls)
A cloak
A college registration form
An almost full pack of cigarettes
An embossed key
A notebook
A scribbled note
An ancient map

Session Time: 1 hour 30 min
Total Time: 2 hour 30 min

Note Regarding Spoilers and Companion Assist Points: There’s a set of rules regarding spoilers and companion assist points. Please read ithere before making any comments that could be considered a spoiler in any way. The short of it is that no points will be given for hints or spoilers given in advance of me requiring one. Please...try not to spoil any part of the game for me...unless I really obviously need the help...or I specifically request assistance. In this instance, I've not made any requests for assistance. Thanks!
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Game 49: Elvira - Ladyhawke

January 20, 2015, 4:00 am
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By Deimar

Jake Spenser Journal Entry #3: The job is going well I think. Better for me, as there seems to be no escape from this hell hole. The main keep is clean of ghosts, although one of them still attacks me from time to time. I went to the garden to see if I could escape from there but I only managed to meet some more monks, a guy obsessed with archery training and the castle gardener. A pity he was dead. Not dead as in “returned-to-the-world-of-the-living-to-feed-on-brains” but more in the vein of “viciously-killed-and-tormented” dead. I really want to get out of here but I only get complaints from Elvira that now wants me to get rid of some lard.

Having cleared the main keep, it is time to explore the rest of the castle. Or at least another section of it, the garden, with the hope of finding a way out of this madhouse. I left the armor in the kitchen, because it was quite the burden, and took with me a large shield and the crossbow with the crossbow bolts we found on the first floor. Leaving the keep, I notice that there is a large shield with a written inscription, but we don’t know the language yet. There is a spell in the spell book that can help with that, but we can’t cast it for now. And so, to the garden!!


Let’s see the many horrific ways of dying in this apparently peaceful place

The entrance to the garden is on the opposite side of the castle courtyard from the keep. Once we enter the garden the scenery changes completely. The music changes from a somewhat repetitive and mysterious tune to a slow-paced melody. It makes me sleepy. The grey stones transform into a green yard, but with walls covered by plants and moss. The road from the garden entrance is quite straightforward, with no branches. There are quite a few trees and bushes in the way containing several plants that we can take to make spells later.

The first crossroad takes us to a locked door we can not open at the moment. In front of the door we can find a straw archery target. In the vein of the first Quest for Glory, we can also practice our archery skill here. And that’s exactly what we do. The first bolt gets lost into the bushes, but after three more shots hitting the target, we become a master crossbowman.

Doesn’t have the appeal of throwing knifes in a goblin infested forest but it will have to do

I think now is a good time to explain the RPG part of the game, the character stats. There is a bar just over the inventory showing our six stats: Strength, Resilience, Dexterity, Skill, Life and Experience. Life is just our hit points and experience, contrary to typical RPGs, is just a score pointer that rises whenever we solve a puzzle and is not related to combat. Strength influences the weight we can carry and how much damage our hits cause. Whenever we are damaged, we lose life and strength. This is quite important because the more damaged we are, the less we can carry and the less damage we do in combat. We can get really screwed, although healing spells also restore strength.

Luckily for us, resilience reduces the physical damage we take. Wearing the armor gets us to 68 resilience and mobs did very little damage. With only the shield we just reach 22 so we need to be careful. Dexterity affects the time we have to chain hits and who starts the combat. Finally, skill is the stat that decides if our hits connect or not. It’s based on the weapon we are using and increases with use. With the dagger I had 20 skill, with the axe 10 and with the sword I started at 40 but now I’m at 46. Taking into account that if you hit you can keep chaining strikes, taking the axe instead of using the dagger was a very poor decision. But come on, it’s an axe. AN AXE!!

Hence, what we just did was raising our skill with the crossbow. Which is actually quite a good thing because as we continue through the garden the only way we can, forward, we reach a T crossroad, and continuing east we reach another of those friendly guys. Only this one wants to play with us, and launches a disc to see if we can hit it with a bolt. Only that the disc has the shape of a falcon going for our eyes. And flies like a falcon. And cries like a falcon when we strike it down with a bolt. But it is definitely a practice disc. The man must be a really sore loser, as he dissolves after watching his falc… emr… disc fall to the earth. Please don’t call PETA on me.


Not at all something a pet protection agency should be concerned about...

And that was our first puzzle. The reward is our first chest key, which is tied to the fake falcon disc’s leg and has the name “Tertius” on it. For those of you lacking knowledge of Romance languages or Latin, that means “Third”. Five more to go!. We also recover our bolt, one simply doesn’t know when you are going to need to shoot a disc from the sky again, and a feather.

But this part of the garden was another dead end, so I went back to the T cross road and took the other way. That led me to the entrance to a maze, but I’m going to skip this for the moment, as there are some nasty creatures inside. Following the road along the maze wall we reach the gardener’s cottage. It seems to have been assaulted. The door has been bashed down and the windows are broken. When we enter, the view is not prettier.

Yea, look at that decoration. Hideous! And the furniture! Don’t make me talk about the furniture!


Summoning my inner CSI, I examine the gardener’s body. He seems to have been trapped under the door. His throat was ripped off and now he is completely covered by worms. I even take a few of them for further examination, as my “Bones” sessions have taught me bugs can be very important to determine date of death. Or maybe I just saw worms are an ingredient for some spells. Whatever suits you best.


In spite of these posts, I am not that sadistic. This is just for giggles 


After cleaning my hands on the deceased’s jacket I proceed to take everything that isn’t nailed to the floor. A silver crucifix, a sledge hammer, some onions, sage and a biscuit tin. The tin is full of small packets of seasonal seeds, but taking them from the tin reveals a hidden key. Translated to game inputs that means looking into the tin, putting the seeds in our inventory or the room and then the key appears. It seems a little far-fetched to me. It would have been more natural to say something about the key after examining the tin or the seeds.

I have a feeling about the key and race back to the locked door. I try dragging it to the door to no avail, but selecting the door and clicking on “unlock” does the trick. However, now a pair of Jawas block our way. I deal with them swiftly thanks to the “even-more-awesome-than-the-axe” sword and enter the new room, which is a vegetable patch, full of plants that we can’t identify and that our character refuses to take until he knows what he is dealing with. As with most problems in life, anything can be solved with the right spell. In this case, Herbal Honey, which requires honey and hay.

I forgot to show these guys in the last post.
They tried to sell me some droids but we didn’t reach an agreement.

I had seen some hay in the courtyard so I decided it was time to explore it, albeit avoiding the four castle towers. I decided to go counterclockwise and the first room I found was a forge, just opposite to the entrance to the dungeons, our starting position. Not a lot to do here at that point but I found a crucible inside a box. I have to say that the enemies we can find behind almost every door always produce a very gratifying “AAAAAHH” each time they are hit.

The next room had a pile of hay just outside the door, from where I took a bit. As the hay hinted, this room is the stables. Again, nothing very flashy. Only a tormented guy that said something about saving him by killing a hound with a silver something. He must be a very bad kennel keeper who hates his job or something. The guy even started revolving in pain so I opted to leave him.

Some people just want to be noticed. Such a drama queen!

With no other things to do in the courtyard, I went back to the main keep, but when I went in, a woman’s cry got my attention and Elvira came running. She said that she was not going to go back to the kitchen until I got rid of that “lard bucket”. Wondering what she is referring to? So am I, but that will have to wait until our next installment.

GARDEN MAP:

COURTYARD MAP:



DEATH BONUS ROUND (TOTAL DEATHS: 4):
Go for the eyes, Boo!! Go for the eyes!!


The colour of each mob indicates its difficulty


This guy takes work too seriously. You have to guard the kennel, not become it...



Session Time: 0 hours 45 minutes
Total Time: 1 hours 35 minutes

Note Regarding Spoilers and Companion Assist Points: There’s a set of rules regarding spoilers and companion assist points. Please read it here before making any comments that could be considered a spoiler in any way. The short of it is that no points will be given for hints or spoilers given in advance of me requiring one. Please...try not to spoil any part of the game for me...unless I really obviously need the help...or I specifically request assistance. In this instance, I've not made any requests for assistance. Thanks!
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Missed Classic 4: The Scoop - LOST!

January 21, 2015, 4:00 pm
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by Kenny McCormick

Kenny’s filthy notebook (with a frustrated looking smiley pulling out his own hair) legible page #10: Scotland Yard? I’m seriously disappointed with you guys. Don’t you solve crimes, serve the community & protect the people? Do I pay you taxes just so that I can say “Officers, arrest that man!” (even though that statement is totally badass and worth every penny to do it)?

Following up with my misadventures earlier, I have finished the game. There are things that I would do differently on my next play-through to win the game but I won’t be blogging about it. It was definitely longer than what I had expected and what you desired. I should have blogged about The Sex Olympics or one of those Japanese Adult Adventure Visual Novels or Hentai Eroge.

Since Scotland Yard could not do anything to help, I went to Fisher’s house to find something that could get him off the hook that Hemingway had so brilliantly set him up for. I may not be able to incriminate the killer but I could still try to vindicate the innocent.

Hey! This wasn’t here before!

Dammit. This game is so time-sensitive; it worries me to no end that I may have missed out some time-specific events, clues and/or items. I’m sure that my waiting-around for things to happen in the last couple of days will come back to bite me in the arse and probably stick its long spiky tongue into my tender rectum.

Whoa! How does a housekeeper staying in a run-down hovel manage to pay off 500 big ones back in the 1920s (about US$3,700 today) in full without selling her own body parts is anybody’s guess.

I took a trip to Brighton and boarded the bus to Jumbles where Gladys lived to ask her about it but she remained tight-lipped about it. Beeyotch. Wasted 2 hours of my life. So, I just went back to sleep.

The powers of my clairvoyance know no bounds.

After a good night’s rest, I took a cab down to The Morning Star to meet up with Inspector Smart to see if my clues up till now are enough to warrant an arrest of Hemingway.


Dammit! I missed a key event last night!

I guess I’m too early since Smart’s still not here. Might as well pick up the papers for the day while I’m at it.



Tracey, Oh Tracey! Wherefore art thou?

Arthur Potts is linked with drug smuggling, eh? Explains the amount of money he earns. Just as well that he’s promised to grant me an interview today. I’ll talk to him later. But, what’s this?

Yoink!

Hmm… Who’s G?

With time to spare, I made my way to Beryl’s home to check out if I could find any clues.

Nope.

Maybe her neighbor?

What the?!

Oh Fisher, you sure act fast for someone so fat. Girl-on-top-like-bouncing-on-trampoline as usual? What does the girl have to say for herself?

An all-nighter, eh? Guess the Beryl-Beater ain’t here.

Seeing that I could get nothing done here, I left for Southampton to meet up with Potts for the interview. Finally, I caught him at home around 9am and began questioning him.

Who and where the hell is he?! Why doesn’t even the brother know?!

So would I, that beeyotch.

Yeah. Now she’s Amethyst Fatmanwaring.

That’s not the kind of expression I was expecting when talking about a recent dearly departed. Fishy…

That, I did. You certainly didn’t kill Geraldine but Johnson?

Oh, really! Does business include Johnson-stabbing? Wait, that came out wrong.

And I’m sure you won’t need glue to stick it up there, eh? Eh? Eh?

Having exhausted all I could ask of Potts, I went to the pub in the vicinity and found a new NPC. Dammit.

It’s Leisure Suit Larry in a hat! And facial hair!

He certainly looks like an undercover Sonny Bonds-type.

See the following picture to prove that I ain’t bullshitting about that, mate.


Is it a nod to Police Quest? I don’t know but I’m gonna talk to this guy anyway.

Teehee! Smallpiece

Oh, so he’s the cop who has been hunting Potts. Don’t worry. I may be a Master Thief but I ain’t no drug peddler. I may hail from part of the UK but I ain’t no colonial drug pusher

Whoa! You followed Potts’ trail all the way from Egypt? Commendable!

So, what’s this then? A side quest?

A drug trafficking sister-lover! Do his sins know no end?

Yes, that’s what reporters do: solve crimes. Games like Police Quest got it totally wrong.

Yeah, I got that. But Johnson?

Sounds like a total perv.

Odd. Potts didn’t have much to say about her though.

Ah… a World Heritage Site.

Yeah, yeah. Potts didn’t kill Geraldine, I know.

Damn, what?! So, this letter is just a coded message for dirt merchants and not some hot sibling incest thingy?

After finally unravelling my longtime suspicion of Potts and Geraldine, I made my way to Pyecraft to find out more about that crumpled note that Hemingway wrote

Not covering for your friend, are you?

Once again, dead-ended, I went back to the Morning Star to meet up with Smart at the entrance.

For f*ck’s sake, do your job already!

Not sure if I could achieve anything, I showed him the Promissory Note I found in Fisher’s Office.

Yup.

That definitely did not achieve anything. Perhaps if I confronted Hemingway directly in his own office?

It’s a deal! Remember that, Hemingway!

Whoa! Easy does it!

Yeah, typical Agatha Christie style.

Mayhaps I should talk to Redman?

Still nothing. I’m at my wit’s end. I made my way down to The Cheshire Cheese pub beside The Morning Star to drown my virtual sorrows. Redman was in there too, also drowning his sorrows.

Why aren’t you called Greenman? Y’know, since London Bobby is a London Bobby and Flower Boy is a Flower Boy…

What? This isn’t even at Victoria’s Secret level of flesh exposure!

Johnson’s a nasty bugger with a naughty name, ain’t he?

Baubles? I’m a goddamn Master Thief! You? You’re just a Baiter! A Master Bai- uh… next item!

Oh, I’d like to see you try, old man in green.

And immediately after leaving that conversation, I suddenly received a telepathic message directly from my useless boss with a pathetic newspaper running with a financially unsound business model:

Oh, don’t worry about that. I’ll be at The Morning Star. Harhar! Loser.

And that concludes my play-through. I might not have caught the killer, but I got a better job at The Morning Star with Hemingway as my boss and a pouch filled with gemstones. All in all, I’m set for life. Until I get stabbed in a phone booth in the (hopefully, far far) future.
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Game 47: Spellcasting 101: Sorcerers Get All the Girls - The Impossible Isle of Putrescent Puns

January 24, 2015, 4:00 am
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Written by Aperama

Ernie Eaglebeak's Journal #3: So, my quest to both reclaim my lost Lola and find out what my mother meant has started.. strangely. Spellcasting U has been completely trashed! The last thing I got out of Professor Peelerofsmallfigs was so cryptic – how could it have been the ones who write the horrible university newspaper that were guilty of everything? Either way, nobody's really talking. The University is just about empty. I managed to learn some spells from the simulation chair.. maybe it's stopped by the person who ran the simulation normally. Heck, I wasn't even sure it was safe to be in there, I was just so lost! I've got Tickingclock's magical surfboard, have managed to make a whale land in the middle of the busted up Batguano Court.. and after looking around a bit, I ended up at the Island of Lost Soles! It's not as fun here as it was cracked up to be in the booklet.. I've mostly just been spending time finding people and saving them with my KABBUL spell. I'm really glad I climbed up that bust! Now, is this set of trees a STAN or a CLYDE...




The continuation of our cliffhanger from last post...

It's difficult to say whether this past hour and a bit playing Spellcasting was actually.. pleasant. I only really had one thing in mind for this play post – getting the surfboard in Tickingclock's room which he'd insisted was so 'magical'. Everything else was due to be a mystery, as far as I was concerned – that wouldn't have been so bad were it not for the fact that there was no more clear goal ahead of us. Sure, the 'end aim' of reclaiming the Sorcerer's MacGuffin looms overhead, along with perhaps 'saving Professor Tickingclock' or 'finding out what the mysterious talisman that Ernie's mother gave to him is'. After a fair bit of trial and error, I ended up finding what I can only presume was our intended destination for the next section of the game – and that has taken the game to a mixture of frustration and minimal laughter. Anyhow.. back to the story!


Aw, she really had a moustache?
If I'd known that, I might not have.. rearranged furniture with her!

After assuring myself that we couldn't revive Professor Peelerofsmallfigs with a 'KABBUL', I slipped around Sorcerer's University. Some rooms looked very similar (the dock, the entry hall, the arena, the maze, the professor's office and Ernie's room look literally identical) but the dormitories, both fraternities and Batguano Court all had evidence of the chaos caused by the ruckus that clearly took place while we were unconscious. Still, I had one clear aim, and sure enough, a DISPAR took the surfboard off of the wall for us, dropping a BLUBBA spell box out from behind it ('summon a whale'). I immediately thought that we'd be riding a whale about the place when I saw this – but every time I summon him near water, 'the great blast of air summoned as the sperm whale drops from the sky throws my spellbook out of my hands'. And when I summon him elsewhere..


Fun fact: outdoor whale summoning far funnier than indoor whale self-splatting.
 Don't try this at home, kids

About ten minutes of frustrated searching was in my future, however, as after realising that the whale was doing nothing for me, I started searching elsewhere. The simulation chair had the exact same puzzle to get through, though regardless of where we 'fail' it (even as the simulation last ended, one more turn leads a 'beast' to come in and savage us no matter what we do) it appears to leave us with the three spells from inside the simulation still in our spellbook. (A recap: ZEM, 'increased fighting ability'', 'GUB', 'disease plants', and 'VAI', 'healthy plants') Unfortunately, none of them really help us out of our situation. After looking at the talisman (a largely featureless rock) and then the surfboard a touch more closely, I realised that I'd been holding our escape mechanism from the University since the start of the post. It took a little to realise that I had to actually float it in water to use it as a transportation device. The surfboard has two dials – one that goes from '1 to 15' and the other that has 'the names of many creatures – specifically, the ones you'll find along the side of the map you'll find in your game package' (or in the introductory post written on here for the game). Clue taken! My first few destinations were given 'cautionary warnings' or were 'too far for the surfboard'– and after being mauled, sent to Dragon Tending Guild and cleaned up by a barge, I ended up picking the random island that sits in the middle of the land mass for kicks.


I actually selected this as a joke, game...

But there again, choosing jokes is probably the right decision in this game

The Island of Lost Soles, indeed. I actually feel a little ripped off – I really meant this as a joke! However, it's good to see that they at least acknowledge the double meaning. Instead of spamming you all with pictures of it, I'll just include the transcript from the sign found on the beach of the island: "Welcome to the Island of Lost Soles (Population 80)." Below, someone has scrawled, "Listen to our story, O Traveller, and then help us if you can: We were always content being the Island of Lost Soles, until by and by, some grew tired of the constant splinters and blisters, and summoned a famous cobbler from a distant land, Waldo Bootlacer. He performed remarkably, and for the first time in anyone's memory, we had Soles. Unfortunately, due to a bank error, our check to Bootlacer bounced. Thinking that he was being cheated, he contracted the evil warlock, Lars Stormkiller, to enact revenge upon us. Stormkiller cast a horrible spell, which has transformed us from the Island of Lost Soles to the Island of Lost Souls... at least, until some kind-hearted sorcerer arrives to restore us. The spell has entrapped us, one by one, in non-human forms. Only I, Blaise, Mayor of the Island, remain human, and even now I feel a f"


I understood the puzzle at first, but my mind skipped a beat

I took my usual stance of 'pick everything up first, consider it later'. The island is fairly small – there's a forest to the northeast (which in the picture of the opening screen looks like it should be northwest given the directional compass supposedly works in conjunction with the pictures ingame), a small fishing hole/brook to the southeast, and to the east is a suburban home filled with all of the sorts of things that a normal suburban home has – a doorbell, a gym, a car full of men, a 'handtruck' (I'd have called it a trolley), a kitchen, stuffed animals ad nauseum.. well, perhaps not 'all' of the things. It's almost difficult to admit how long it took me to realise exactly what was being asked of me, but instead of 'KABBUL BLAISE' being the first thing that I did when I made my way onto the opening screen, instead, it took until here for my brain to kick into gear..




This is where I cracked my knuckles and got ready for what was to come..

As I say – embarrassing. After 'BLAISE' put out the fire when he was KABBUL-ed, it soon brought out a pair of things that were no longer on fire, for instance – a 'lot'.. I just began throwing out random 'CHAR' names in truth – 'CHARLIE' (a charred lea) and 'CHARLOTTE' both gave me a point a piece, along with a bee (BEA) who was hovering over the top of the fire. It seemed straight forward enough, so I just began randomly running around. Some of them I didn't even get – I just typed out names that seemed to make sense and came up with a favorable response.


A CAR full of MEN, a 'device to (JACK) up a car'..

I'm not proud of myself, but I'm willing to say that I didn't put too much thought into things at first. Realising that the 'nymphs' that came up every now and then were actually giving clues, I went back through my script-log to come up with a few extra names that it was trying to insist on. A WALDO in the kitchen screen, for instance, I may well not have gotten if a nymph hadn't come up with “Have you seen Waldo? No? Okay, I'll keep looking.” Trial and error will more than likely be enough to make our way through here if the clues keep up.


After picking up everything not bolted down, my inventory bloated a little

I'd probably technically be able to fire through all of the assorted puns that flew past. The 'nest full of ornamental vases' being ERNEST. The more obvious ones – 'BROOKE' being the brook/small stream of water. If there's one design choice I can really complain about here, it has to be that in its desperate attempt to make things less obvious for the puns being made, the game chooses very wishy-washy language. It'd be quite difficult for a non-English speaker to make it through this one. (Hell, I didn't even understand a couple. I've never heard of a lime RICKY, which I fluked while throwing random names into the parser preceded by 'KABBUL', and 'NICHOLAS' as an 'accounting statement'? I'm still not even sure what the joke is there.) To use 'a man's silk neck ornament' is one thing – to use the description of 'if you've seen one man's silk neck ornament, you've seen them all' is another.. even if it's quite obvious that it's a TY. My assorted journeys throughout the Isle led me to receive an upgrade to Level 4 – it seems to be related to points (which I'm receiving one of per solved pun.)


And here's where I found myself desperately wishing for more characters in a save file

My brain was beginning to melt at this point. Bad puns, some of which I couldn't really make heads nor tails of (a PAT of butter I've heard of.. but not very often) led me to just desperately want to stop. I was nearly crying. And not in a good way. I'll list all that I've found as of posting - BILL PATTY BARB ROBIN WALDO TEDDY BUCK BLAISE BROOKE BEA STU PEG TOM ROD CHIP TY FRANK BUNNY ADAM BO JACK NICHOLAS JIM BELLE DOLLY BERNIE KERMIT CARMEN CHARLIE CHARLOTTE ERNEST PAT WILBUR WILTON WILLIAM WILLIE WILBUR WILMA WILTON WILHELM WILL SHERRY PENNY JULES and RICKY. The clues left over that I have yet to find are GABBY LULU NOEL BLAIR and WINNIE. I might like some hints as far as the salamander and bristly pad in my inventory – I literally don't know what a 'bristly pad' is. A scourer? Looking at the item gives a result of 'once you've seen one bristly pad you've seen them all'...





My inventory!

A salamander
A bristly pad
A surfboard of ocean crossing power
An ancient map (also found in my game box™)
A talisman
A popular book
Seemingly useless: president's house key, scribbled note, registration form, pack of cigarettes
Notebook
A cloak (I'm dressed, yay!)
A spellbook with BIP (romantic music), VAI (healthy plants), GUB (diseased plants), ZEM (increase fighting ability), SKONN (increase bust size), FRIMP (levitation), DISPAR (remove magic protection) KABBUL (restore lost souls) and BLUBBA (summon a whale)

Session Time: 1 hour 30 min
Total Time: 4 hours

Note Regarding Spoilers and Companion Assist Points: There’s a set of rules regarding spoilers and companion assist points. Please read ithere before making any comments that could be considered a spoiler in any way. The short of it is that no points will be given for hints or spoilers given in advance of me requiring one. Please...try not to spoil any part of the game for me...unless I really obviously need the help...or I specifically request assistance. In this instance, I'd not mind a clue or two regarding salamanders (Lizzy isn't the answer!) or a bristly pad (A sponge? What the hell!)
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Missed Classic 4: The Scoop - Final Rating

January 25, 2015, 4:00 pm
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Written by Kenny McCormick

 Finally, I can take off my rose-tinted glasses and start getting really critical on this game. I had fun while it lasted but that sudden ending really sucks. Do they have cellphones in the 1920s? Now, the gloves are off. Get ready for my punching, Telarium!

Puzzles and Solvability

As an adventure game, The Scoop lacks the “use this on that” convention so widely and prevalently used by its contemporary peers. Instead, you use it to show it to people whom are most likely to have certain knowledge of these items to unlock more people you could ask about or even new locations. It is rather refreshing but lacks a certain action-y part that may endear it even further to adventure buffs. Since there is only one big puzzle to solve, I will have to be pretty harsh on this and give it a 2; 1 point for the murder and another 1 point for creativity.

Rating: 2

Interface and Inventory
Its no-nonsense Interface is very clean and user-friendly. Inventory, however, is not sorted out in a more bird’s-eye-view manner and relies on the player to scroll through each of them one-by-one with the arrow keys. Serviceable but not astounding. What is great, though, is that there are no pixel-hunting nightmares. You only need to click the Search command followed by a Take command (if there is something to be taken) to grab your shit.

Rating: 6

Story and Setting

It’s written by Agatha Christie and 5 other accomplished mystery writers. That’s 6 writers. Repeat after me, S-I-X. Very good! Joking aside, this game is chock full of content. Each NPC have loads to say about one another and so many locations to visit that one could get lost in it. This is no easy feat for a game that has no stupid mazes to entrap players. 1 point for each writer!

Rating: 6

Sound and Graphics

The monochrome backgrounds do a good job in lulling you into thinking of an old-timey black-&-white noir thriller. Juxtaposing that with brightly-clothed characters that burst out of the screen that demand your full attention whenever they appear and you have a never-before-seen application of this pop-art style in this medium. It will not be until 1998 when we see a similar attempt in the Movies, Games & Videos sector. That said, the character portraits look horrible. Also, there is no music other than the little introduction ditty. Sounds are limited to the little steps your character make while walking and the screeching of tires made by taxis.

Rating: 4

Environment and Atmosphere

I’m a little torn here. On one hand, we have a huge gaming arena filled with many real-life locations. On the other, probably because of aforementioned pop-art style, the game gives a more Andy Warhol vibe rather than a Film Noir vibe. The locations fail to give me an “I was there!” feeling as I felt more alienated to the black-&-white background because of the characters’ colors.

Rating: 2

Dialogue and Acting

This is where The Scoop truly shines. Each character has his/her own agenda. All of them are colorful, not only because of the graphics used, but because of their pronounced differences from each other. You only need see Fisher once to remember him as that Rich Fat Boy.

Rating: 7

Total

We have a nice round number of 45. Closest guess was Andy Panthro's. Congratulations! I’m off for a second run. This time, as a hot chick!



Cap Distribution

50 CAPs for Kenny McCormick
  • Classic Blogger Award – 50 CAPs – For blogging his way through The Scoop for our enjoyment
231 CAPs for Canageek
  • Biched Bicipitous Bicorn Bibbing Bibulously? Bibble-babble! - 25 CAPs - For finding new innuendos for Kenny
  • Mega Genre Support Award - 201 CAPs - For announcing plenty of sales
  • Meticulour Linker Award - 5 CAPs - For linking each played game to a library of DOS games
50 CAPs for Joe Pranevich
  • Classic Blogger Award – 50 CAPs – For blogging his way through Merry Christmas for our enjoyment
20 CAPs for El Zoof
  • Cartographer Award - 20 CAPs - For finding out what's missing in Joe's map on Adventure
 20 CAPs for Kenjab
  • What's Your Story -Award - 20 CAPS - For sending in answers for What's Your Story -questions
20 CAPs for Laertes
  • What's Your Story -Award - 20 CAPS - For sending in answers for What's Your Story -questions
20 CAPs for Aperama
  • Barber Award - 5 CAPs - For recognizing Sonny Bonds' hair
  • Black or White Award - 5 CAPs - For revealing the ultimate fate of Michael Jackson
  • Biscuit Award – 5 CAPs – For finding new innuendos for Kenny
  • Crow Award - 5 CAPs - For guessing Kenny's movie quote
15 CAPs for Rowan Lipkovits
  • Christmas Spirit Award – 15 CAPs – For finding three Christmas themed games for Joe Pranevich
15 CAPs for Andy Panthro
  • Psychic Prediction Award - 10 CAPs - For getting the closest prediction for the final rating
  • Christmas Spirit Award – 5 CAPs – For finding a game involving Santa Claus for Joe Pranevich
 15 CAPs for TBD
  • Birrotch Award – 5 CAPs – For finding new innuendos for Kenny
  • Genre Support Award - 5 CAPs - For announcing a sale on Steam
  • Genre Support Award - 5 CAPs - For announcing a sale on GOG
5 CAPs for Deimar
  • Genre Appreciation Award – 5 CAPs – For linking to a library of DOS games
5 CAPs for Laukku
  • Genre Appreciation Award – 5 CAPs – For announcing a preorder of Grim Fandango Remastered
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New Poll: How many game posts should we schedule each week?

January 26, 2015, 9:12 pm
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Since The Adventure Gamer became community-run in October, we've been playing two games at a time and posting one post a week on each game. We've also been slotting extra posts ('Missed Classics' and 'What's Your Story' posts mainly) between main game posts.

With multiple reviewers we've been able to continue writing posts at a rate that would have a single person collapse with exhaustion

Now, we're asking you, our readers, what you think of our schedule and whether we should change it. Our reviewers are dedicated and working faster than expected so we've been considering increasing our posting schedule. The options we were thinking of appear on the poll in the left hand side of The Adventure Gamer's web site. Vote now! Or read further for more information.

That's right, a new pole! [This pun was brought to you as a tribute to Spellcasting 101]

To put it simply, we're looking at doing either 2 or 3 main games at a time (we currently do 2) and 2 or 3 main game posts a week (we currently do 2).

Note that if we do 3 game posts a week we'll get through the game list quicker, but have less room for extra posts (one a week) while with 2 regular posts a week we've had either one or two extra posts in a typical week. This assumes we continue with out current maximum of 4 posts per week.

No matter what the result, we'll keep things flexible and adjust the planned schedule if it seems like a fun idea, as we did when playing The Scoop Holiday Marathon (TM).

If you don't like any of the options or have any other suggestions let us know here in the comments.

Disclaimer: The Adventure Gamer takes no responsibility for not being able to keep up with our intended schedule due to...

...alien invasion...


...ghost pirate kidnapping...


...or any other reason...


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Game 49: Elvira - Hell’s kitchen

January 28, 2015, 4:00 am
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By Deimar

Jake Spenser Journal Entry #4"There is no way out. And now Elvira wants me to throw the cook away from the kitchen. If it wasn’t for her… personality I would quit. If I could leave the castle also. In any case, my ghost busting skills were useful when I dealt with the vampire in the second floor. They didn’t help with the multiple skeletons I had to fight in the dungeon but that’s where my trusty sword came through. Man, this castle is amazing, they even have their own torture chamber. If only I could put the cook in the iron lady..."

Previously on The Adventure Gamer...

When we left the last post we were at the entrance to the main keep. Elvira came running to say something about a lard bucket, which we should probably check... but the encounter with her reminded me that I am a man of a single woman. I had to do what any decent human being would do: break my affair’s heart. Literally. With a stake from the sitting room and the new sledgehammer. Strange use for a sledgehammer but when the need arises…

She didn’t take it too kindly

Searching the room I could only find some bolts and vampire dust left by the previous tenant. My last girlfriend didn’t leave me too much either, so I’m used to it by now. Time to check the mysterious danger that made Elvira run away from the kitchen. I went down trembling, expecting the unexpected, the horror, the fear, the cook… wait… the cook? Yep, that’s basically the charming lady that made Elvira turn tail. She was even making a stew. Poor sweet old woman.

She was just reading this book titled “How to cook for humans”

I left the good woman to herself and decided that it was time to explore the dungeons. I was hesitant to go back, especially now that Elvira was hiding somewhere unknown and was not available to save me. I left everything in the hallway next to the kitchen stairs and went to pay a visit to the castle dungeons.

Entering the dungeons changes the music again. If the keep and the courtyard are kind of adventurous and the garden is calm, this one is tense, even without much to worry about. The dungeons are a 10x10 rectangle with many rooms on both sides of the hall. Or maybe I should say room, because the image used is always the same. There are four items in each room: a wooden stool, a wooden bed, a wooden shelf and a sawdust covered floor. In each room you have to click on all four of them, because there can be either a spider, a centipede, an earwig or a beetle which is not visible in the graphic window. It gets tedious quite fast.

If you say so

To make things more interesting, while exploring the dungeons you have to pay attention to two things. First, there are spiderwebs all around the place that you can pick up. And, as was the case in the main keep, any door can be guarded by an enemy, waiting for you to open the door or walk into the the hall. In the dungeons we have to fight the nasty skeleton soldiers, which are exactly like regular soldiers but with a little more heath. Exactly in this case means that they even shout when hit like regular soldiers, which begs the question of where is that sound producer that is inserting all those Wilhelmscreams. The only exception is an orange guy guarding the torture room. I marked him as the “Orange Bastard” in the map, so you can see it is not a simple enemy. I even had to take two healing spells. Maybe I am bad at this combat thingy.

He hurts so much that he can wound my eyes just by seeing his clothes

The torture chamber is a welcome variation after so many identical rooms. It’s not like it brings a lot of color to the dungeon, but I find the crimson hue of blood soothing at this point, especially when it’s not mine. There are only three items in the room: First, a bag of salt, described as “A bag of sodium chloride. Useful for the avoidance of decapitation”. I don’t have the slightest idea what that is about, but I think the cook can surely add some salt to her stew. There is also a pair of tongs, and something tells me I should leave alone for now. And finally an iron ring loosely fastened to the floor.

Bah, amateurs! Nobody expects the spanish inquisition’s tooling in every torture chamber, but this one is severely lacking some torture power

This is one of those puzzles that are more difficult because of the interface. You see, the iron ring can be brought to the inventory, revealing a skeleton, truly dead, with another golden key, “Cuartus” (fourth). The problem is that you can get a description of the iron ring by double clicking on it, but it does not appear in the Room inventory nor any of the verbs lightens. By the game logic, that would mean that you can not do anything with it, but you can actually drag it to the inventory to remove it from the screen revealing all the items. I think it is a little unfair.

By the way, see that little R? These close-ups can be closed by clicking it

In any case, I took the key and the skeleton. Examining the skeleton reveals that those are “the bones of a soul, tortured eternally, seeking a resting place of everlasting peace”, which may or may not have something to do with taking those tongs, but that probably should be left for later. Now it is time to go back to sunlight and learn a little about cooking.

Apparently, she can’t cope with salt

Everyone's a critic nowadays!! The cook was so offended by our suggestion of using salt that she left in a hurry. More specifically, she dissolved in a hurry. The moment she disappeared, Elvira came running to recover her precious kitchen, ready to do one of the two things she does in this game: cooking spells. But you will have to wait for the next post to learn about that.

Me! Me! Me! I’m a strong big boy!!

DUNGEON MAP:


DEATH BONUS ROUND (TOTAL DEATHS: 6):
Oh no!! The title of the book was “How to cook forty humans”!! AHHHh!!

Don’t play with his tongs...

Session Time: 0 hours 55 minutes
Total Time: 2 hours 20 minutes

Note Regarding Spoilers and Companion Assist Points: There’s a set of rules regarding spoilers and companion assist points. Please read it here before making any comments that could be considered a spoiler in any way. The short of it is that no points will be given for hints or spoilers given in advance of me requiring one. Please...try not to spoil any part of the game for me...unless I really obviously need the help...or I specifically request assistance. In this instance, I've not made any requests for assistance. Thanks!
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What's Your Story? - Mad Welshman

January 30, 2015, 4:00 am
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Answers by Mad Welshman
Introduction and Captions by Ilmari

Our group of reviewers is growing! We got eager posts detailing his wish to play and blog some games from Mad Welshman already back in December, but our posting schedules were then pretty filled up. He may not yet have appeared in the comments, but Mad Welshman has been reviewing games in another setting for few years. He'll be starting his review experience in The Adventure Gamer with a Missed Classic in February - we'll see what game he has chosen in couple of weeks. But now for his answers!

He sure looks mad, but I wouldn't have guessed he's a Welsh!

My Home Country Is... Wales, glorious Wales, land of harps, sheep, rain, and interesting myth cycles which may predate Arthurian myth, but we're not sure because we only have two main written sources, and they're both post christianisation and waaaay past our use of the oral tradition, go us!

My Age Is... 32, which translates to "I'm 30 something" until I can't lie about it any more.

The First Adventure Game I Played Was... either Granny's Garden or Twin Kingdom Valley, primary school was mostly a bit of a blur, barring some things like playing King's Quest IV and Mixed Up Nursery Rhymes at an education expo where we were extolling the virtue of computers in education. Got away with it, too!

I assure you, this is NOT the Missed Classic we will be seeing---


My Favourite Adventure Game is... actually a tough call. I loved a lot of the Infocom games for their humorous writing (And Graham Cluely's work for exactly the same reason), but at the same time, there's the Space Quest series, Sam and Max Hit the Road, the Blackwell series, Grey Matter... Er, let's go with Sam and Max hit the road, for the amusing dialogue and strange world. Ask me again next week, it'll probably be something else.

Who wouldn't like these two?


When I'm Not Playing Games, I Like To... Tabletop roleplay, go for long walks, the occasional amateur freehold rock-climbing, swimming, reading, doodling, singing, playing guitar badly, attempting to compose music and make my own games and aaaaaaaaah not enough time in the world, dammit!

I Like My Games In... mostly digital, these days. But I do seriously miss the days of cluebooks and cloth maps, and when a dev makes a package for a game involving such things, my wallet gets this strange itching. Which is stranger still, because it's definitely not a sense organ of mine...

The Thing I Miss About Old Games Is... not a whole lot beyond the attention to things that came with the box, to be honest. I appreciate both old games and new, and prefer to judge them on their own merits. Indie developers do a fair bit of experimentation, AAAs do... Ah, I was about to say polish, but that's not always true, is it? Something, then... But old games were just as prone to being rushed, or development difficulties, as any modern game. We just tend to catch them in the act quicker these days.

The One TV Show I Never Miss Is... technically none. I mainly watch my TV series via DVDs or VOD, so I can better organise my free time (IE devote a day to watching Batman The Animated Series, or Doctor Who. :D )

If I Could See Any Band Live It Would Be... aaaaaaaaaa! So many good bands, some of which are gone, and not nearly enough time and/or money in the world! Pomplamoose and Depeche Mode and Talking Heads and Pink Floyd and Queen and... The list just goes on and on!


I hadn't heard of Pomplamoose before this, but now I am intrigued


My Favourite Movie Is... Trick R Treat. Didn't even have to hesitate. It's a Warner Bros horror movie that's well written, well directed, and for one scene, they used four different methods (suits, CGI, animatronics and makeup) to get it just right. I've heard rumblings of a sequel quite recently, and I'm hoping it's true!

One Interesting Thing About Me Is ...Er... I... Gimme a minute, I'm sure I'll... I have a personal library that comprises two thirds of my room's wallspace. Yeah, that's... Interesting... [runs and hides]
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Game 47: Spellcasting 101: Sorcerers Get All the Girls - Eaglebeak's Erotic Amazonian Adventures

February 1, 2015, 4:00 am
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Written by Aperama

Ernie Eaglebeak's Journal #4: Okay, so my problems aren't the ones that I'd expected. After infuriating myself around the Isle of Lost Soles, I managed to finally free all eighty of them. Silly guys, the lot of them – some of them were even in a human form.. I wonder why they didn't try to free themselves! Still, it seems like the Isle is pretty much a dead end. There's nothing much left to do here – honestly, I think I KABBULed all of the fun out of them, as they just ran off to attack their accountant. My trusty map came into play again as I pretty well picked a point at random and made my surfboard fly off there – it was strange, because the surfboard doesn't align with 'BOA', which is clearly half way down the map. Still, the next isle was easy enough to get to. I knew I was in for a little fun when I looked at the galleys out there – I know an Amazon design when I see one! Unfortunately, uh.. yeah, they're very.. willing to meet me. I'm not sure I can take much more of this.. oh great, another one. I'm just a piece of meat to these women!


Thanks, Ilmari! (I still say that 'bristly pad' is nigh-unsolvable...
 I've never heard of a doormat described as such)

Ever feel like you've wasted an hour of your life? I think of all of the things I could be doing other than traversing this stupid island. I was at least happy that I managed to find a different couple of screens (I seriously struggle to notice the 'down' arrow, and the long descriptions of the rooms only come up once) – but it goes without saying that this is the sort of thing that, were I not playing for the group, that would have turned me off of the game altogether. I can only imagine that this is true of a lot of people who played through these games. Given I don't have feeling that I need to finish something bought at retail for a considerable amount (even if it was purchased, I imagine it would have been quite cheap these days), it's not like there's a real impetus to keep going. Only two things have maintained my sanity. One, waiting about an hour and a half by repeatedly pushing 'z' or 'wait' gives a direct clue from a fairy (which I used incessantly). Two, all of the objects that correspond to a soul give the same message informing you that the KABBUL spell doesn't work by naming the object, but the person (so MATT, not 'bristly pad'.)


But that doesn't mean that I understand how 'Pierre' is a 'stuffed moose'...
Admin's explanation: Reading the will tells that the stuffed moose 
will inherit a small green round vegetable. So, the moose is a "PEA HEIR"

So, I left off last time around slightly over 40 of the 80 required and a small handful of the number that I had yet to solve. I did my best to actually make it through the puns as a puzzle as opposed to using the simple cheapness of repeatedly waiting for names to pop up. (It would have taken almost as much time to get through them unfairly as it did mostly fairly, to be completely truthful.) I managed to puzzle out some of the names in the outer screens already shown fairly – for instance, 'DAWN' was in the forested area in the description. LEIF was a pretty obvious jump from there, given I was just listing off every last 'forest-related' pun name I could think of. KNUTE was a fluke that popped up almost perfectly in time after looking at the first hint given by Ilmari in regards to the salamander I picked up (which makes me come up with all sorts of bad jokes about lizards being in pockets, naturally.) And then, after managing Pierre off of another fluke fairy namedrop (I simply ran the name in each screen until the moose jumped off of the wall). And then, I saw the 'down' arrow at the top left of the screen..


The room full of bad puns ending in 'e'.
I got half of the names before even looking at the descriptions

GABBY, the loudmouth. HARDY, the 'tough seeming e'. GOLDIE, the one 'made of a shiny yellow metal'. LUCY, the trampy letter. LACEY, the one with a 'fine white tatting'. ARCHIE, the one that 'forms a large curve across the room, like some improbable stone rainbow'. CONNIE was the one who was putting down bets on a gambling match on the phone. DUSTY I got again from a fairy later on (the description being 'covered with a thin layer of powdery substance'– I might have gotten this one fairly if it weren't for the terrible description used to intentionally make it difficult to follow this.) DAISY, similarly, the confused (or 'dazed') e.. I picked this up less from the description given than the desperate listing of names that seemed like they'd fit in with 'bad E puns'. There was also a 'conventiongoer E'– but when I tried to KABBUL that on its own, it came up with the 'guess this isn't a lost soul' prompt and led me to continue exploring the rooms..


I've never heard of anyone called 'Gaylord' before, but maybe I'm just ignorant like that

And from the 'room full of e's' to.. 'British Aisles', the room full of bad puns related to British names. There was only the one difficult name here (as listed above, GAYLORD) – the rest of them in here were really pretty easy. BOBBY is, of course, a British policeman's uniform. LULU, a pair of loos. (Okay, already having that one listed in the clues didn't hurt.) The broken toilet seal? A LUCILLE, of course. BILLY? A billy club. A 'truck' was almost a little difficult to work out, but after a quick think, a LAURIE (a lorry) and I was out of the room almost immediately. Now feels like a good point to state that the game has a sincere issue with the in-game script not being scrollable, given that an extra five minutes is taken every time you use the 'look' command – the fact that I've been using the 'script' command to keep a log of everything that happens is quite helpful for this, repeatedly opening up the log in notepad while playing to re-read.. but not giving the opportunity in-game is just silly, particularly as it comes to this area with writing all themed towards being obtuse in favour of bad puns often creating three screens of text to read.


I was already pretty deep into my list of eighty by this point,
but reading this immediately made me think of a (christmas) CAROL.

The vacuum tube that was bizarrely without noise, of course, was HUM PHREY. A MIKE was hanging over the recording room, and a MELODY was playing throughout the room. I'm not entirely sure why, but 'NOEL' worked in here – I'm still not sure exactly what it was in relation to as I had no interactive object to deal with. (I looked back through my log, and even ticking off each item in the room, I was able to tick off each.) Sure enough though Fry, it gave a little speech with the very predictable joke - "It's a peasure to meet you. I'm much obiged for heping restore our ost sous. Someday I wi repay your kindness..." I'm more than perfectly willing to admit that I'd lost count by this point and was just hoping not to get stuck at 79 or something similar. ADLAI popped up by fairy-gram in the room I walked downstairs in from an advertisement on the wall – it might have been easier if I'd ever heard the name 'ADLAI' before, indeed. WOODROW, a row of trees, and I'd KABBUL-ed almost everything I could find. CLIFFORD and SANDFORD in the valley area left me with just the following: “A wooden structure spans a dried-up stream bed. A pronoun stands atop the structure.” (I needed the clue to finish up this degree of hell and find BRIDGITTE and my way out of this god-awful place..)


My reward? A key!


The next closest island seemed to be on the 'BOA' line of the map
 – but that seems like it'll have to come another time..


So we go to the next best pla--

So, going from the island of horrible puns to.. an island with a slightly different view on things. I wasted most of my play-time in the previous area in truth – landing on the dock of the 'Island of Horny Women' was nearly as far as I managed to get after the severe burnout in trying to learn names like ADLAI and GAYLORD. The opening dock has a few 'large galleys' which 'indicate the boats to be of Amazon design, featuring all-women crews'. How Ernie manages to see this much from the distance of the dock is beyond me – but anyhow, we go on happily enough. Unfortunately, a gust of wind happens to shoot up over our cloak, covering our face from the impending horde of Amazonian VGA beauty. It's soon drawn down by the Amazon leader, Ursula Unquenchablefire, though.. and all of the Amazons then exclaim the same thing - “A Man!”


Ursula, in case you were all wondering, is the one in the red..


And has called first dibs on us. (And given our next destination, methinks!)

There's nothing wrong with this, and all – there's more than enough Ernie to go around! The first woman goes down without a problem.. and the next is kicking down our door before I even get to look around the room. There's obviously a key to pick out of Ursula's uniform, but she's far stronger than us – even a quick ZEM on ourselves isn't enough to give the additional vigour that we'd clearly need to wear her out and pinch the key. Turns out she's just locking up the door that leads to the no longer present Attachment to the Great Appliance, anyhow.. and she leaves rather quickly after joining us, given we're literally thrown down to the bed (or the ground) by each and every woman around here! Opening the 'Hope Chest' in the room produces a pair of high heels, and the idea of what we've clearly got to do now is quite clear as another woman jumps out and has their way with us. Ernie's beginning to find this painful, Kenny! Climbing 'up' leads to a different room with an armoire (or as the game so eloquently calls it, a 'whaddyacallit') for Somewhat Important People...


I'm not sure whether this is a joke, or if Mr. Meretzky just got lazy here

Another item pops up inside the closet – a gown. So, it seems pretty clear to me here that we're playing the old 'cross dress our way out of trouble' card. The last game I can think of with a similar theme was dressing up in a loaded bikini and a wig in Leisure Suit Larry 2 to get past the KGB – so it's been a little while since we of the adventure gaming clan were forced to pretend we were the opposite sex for the sake of escape. (Technically QFG2 with Zayishah, sure, but not as a main character doing so.) We're allowed out of our room regardless (though trying to move around within the Somewhat Important People's room just leads us to getting jumped at by a happy chambermaid who starts to apologise – then sees our masculine shape and decides she's less than sorry. Back out into the parade grounds and all we get is a healthy amount of groping, though sitting in public does at least allow us not to be sexually assaulted. Head south from there? We end up in a shop where it appears we're paying...


In enthusiasm, I suppose?

The store has a few items, and the game chooses now to mention that there's an item weight limit. The 'lead-plated sword' within (another atomic dragon to slay?) I can't pick up, but after a touch of re-jigging my inventory, I'm able to at least end up with most of the shop's items. Dropping my SU registration form and Gretchen's scribbled note in exchange for lipstick, a pomegranate and 'the current issue of "Amazon Monthly." The lead article is about a group of seamstresses from Fort Blackwand coming to the island to study the Amazons' collection of intriguing local etchings.' (Obviously, Fort Blackwand is where we're going to end up at the end of the game!) I've got to point out that the normal 'sexy music' on emulated Roland MT-32 is beginning to go weird by about the third time it plays, making a grating set of noises that makes me very glad for the 'MUSIC OFF' function. Still, after quite a bit of bumping around, I couldn't work out how to hide my masculinity fully, even wearing my gown, high heels and lipstick. I feel like I'm supposed to be doing something with the cowl of Ernie's cloak, but I'm a touch lost as to how to use both at once – attempting to leave in the cloak but not the gown leads to 'Look at that body! A man! Don't let him get away!' and the vice versa leads to 'Look at that hair! A man!'.. Oh well. Perhaps it's just time we give up and let fate set in..

Plus side? Ernie doesn't have to go through all of these smokes the Amazons are stealing off of him! Perhaps Sir Lancelot was right about all of the peril after all, though..

I'd list inventory here, but I am sensing it's going to become very redundant if the weight limits are truly of concern and I have to start jettisoning things to pick up lead-plated swords. Spells are all the same since last post, and all of the new items that I have access to are a key given to me by the Isle of Lost Souls, a pomegranate, a magazine, a gown, some lipstick, high heels and a lead plated sword.

Session Time: 1 hour 30 min
Total Time: 5 hours 30 min

Note Regarding Spoilers and Companion Assist Points: There’s a set of rules regarding spoilers and companion assist points. Please read ithere before making any comments that could be considered a spoiler in any way. The short of it is that no points will be given for hints or spoilers given in advance of me requiring one. Please...try not to spoil any part of the game for me...unless I really obviously need the help...or I specifically request assistance. In this instance, I've not made any requests for assistance. Thanks!
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Missed Classic 5: Wizard and the Princess - Introduction (1980)

February 3, 2015, 4:00 am
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Written by Joe Pranevich



King’s Quest was not the first adventure game I played, or even an early favorite, but it shaped how I viewed adventure gaming. I was thirteen when I first played it, one of a handful that my girlfriend introduced me to on her Tandy when I would come visit. We played the first three together. I loved the whimsy of the series, the haphazard way that the they blended familiar stories, and the joy of exploration. As I got older, I continued to view Kings Quest as something of a bellwether for adventure gaming trends. I was awed by the sound and “multimedia” experience in King’s Quest 5, then by the challenge and depth of King’s Quest 6, and finally by the simplicity and cartoon-like experience of King’s Quest 7. Each game brought something new to the formula. I regret that I never played #8 —it came out while I was in college and what little I had heard about it was less than good— but perhaps I will look it up when the blog eventually gets that far.

It was a surprise to me, and it may also be a surprise to some of you, that Wizard and the Princess, “Hi-Res Adventure #2”, is actually a King’s Quest game —or rather, takes places in the same universe as the later games. Thus, two out of two games in the “Hi-Res Adventure” series inspired later Roberta Williams games! I look forward to finding out whether that trend continues with the subsequent games. I have not played this game before, both because the PC version is quite rare and because it is a bit before my time. I did have a large number of Commodore 64 games of uncertain origin that were provided by my parents, but this was not one of them. Either way, I look forward to playing it now!


Title screen from 1986 re-release. This is the version that I played for this review.
It may not be possible to have a more boring title screen.

But first, a little history: Earlier in 1980, Ken and Roberta Williams published the first game by their fledging software company, MysteryHouse. They had intended On-Line Systems, as it was then-known, to be a business software company, but they saw the way the wind was blowing and shifted to games instead. Mystery House was the first graphical adventure, in a time when text adventures were just hitting their stride. It was primitive, ugly, and short, but it was also successful, selling enough copies to convince the pair to keep going. Wizard and the Princess was their second attempt and was marketed as “Hi-Res Adventure #2”.

Why did Ken and Roberta call their series “Hi-Res Adventures”? The answer seems to be two-fold. The first part of the answer comes from Apple itself: they called their 280 x 192 pixel graphics mode “Hi-Res” to distinguish it from their pong-level 40 x 40 low-resolution graphics. This was a nearly 34x increase! It seems laughable now, but that must have been a big deal at the time. The second part of the answers comes from their competition: Scott Adams was marketing his “Adventure International” games as “Adventure #1”, “Adventure #2”, and so on. Whether this was a common way to market games or simply Ken and Roberta not being above a bit of consumer confusion, I cannot say, but it must have seemed like a good idea at the time. This nomenclature was kept for a further five games in the series before being retired in 1984. Scott Adams would later rebill his games as “S.A.G.A. #1” and so on during his graphical refresh in 1982. More on that later, if I get to cover some of his games for this blog.

Watch out! This WizArd is in camel case! Doesn’t this cover just scream “romance novel” to you?
Although I have not played the game yet, I know that Wizard and the Princess makes some technical innovations over its predecessor. First and most obviously: this game is in colour! In fact, Ken and Roberta moved straight past blocks of color and into dithering to provide a wider variety of colors than the Apple ][ was technically able to display. My emulator tends to show this as tight individual pixels, but I have heard that on the original systems, the pixels blended to provide a better color experience. They also added support for up to 15 save slots on a second dedicated save-game disk. Beyond that, I will find out as I play.

I know this game takes place in Serenia —the same setting as King’s Quest 5— but otherwise I am a bit rusty on connections with other King’s Quest games. It has been many years since I played any of the early KQ games and I encourage you to comment on any connections you see between this and the later games. Obviously, there is a downside to not being Trickster and having all of these games in my own recent memory.

No one could possibly buy this game twice by accident, could they? 

Before I get into playing, this game has one more curious bit of history. In 1982, IBM and On-Line Systems released a version of Wizard and the Princess for the PC. Although the game appears to be the same (at least through the first several screens), it was retitled as Adventure in Serenia. Why? I am not sure, but several sources suggest that Roberta Williams was unhappy with the port. While it is usually the practice of this blog to play the PC versions when available, I have decided to play the Apple version to ensure a more authentic play experience. I want to be fair to the game, especially if the PC version is a lower quality.


IBM PC version (above) and Apple ][ version (below).

Reading through the manual, the plot of the game seems simple enough: you are a “happy wanderer” just passing through Serenia when you hear a tragic tale. The king’s daughter, Princess Priscilla, has been kidnapped by the evil wizard Harlin and taken to his castle, far to the north. Being the completely clueless wanderer you are, you head off in that direction before buying any supplies. Time to play!


Happy Wanderer Travelogue #1: Man, I hate magic. I bought a copy of “Daventry on Five Gold Coins Per Day” from a quaint little shop in Llewdor and the gnome proprietor offered to throw in some “magic transportation” to speed up my journey. I said sure! Big mistake. Next thing I know, all my money is gone and I’m in Serenia of all places with a nasty headache. Serenia! The only thing Serenia is famous for is how much sand they put in the sandwiches. I tossed the book aside just as a crowd was gathering on the other end of the square. A royal crier was spreading the new: Princess Priscilla was kidnapped by an evil Wizard. My ears perked up when I heard that the reward would be half of the kingdom! Maybe the gnome did me a favor after all. I packed up what was left of my traveling supplies and marched off to the northern desert. Princess, here I come!

Argh, a snake!

And we’re off! I start the game in the “Village of Serenia”, and it takes me only 30 seconds to become disappointed. None of the town is explorable, there are no people or shops, and the buildings are just for show. It’s a complete facade of a town and just a lazy and disappointing way to start the game. Oh well! I know from the manual that the evil wizard is off to the north, so let’s start off in that direction first.

Just to the north of town, a snake is guarding the path. Despite the miles of desert in all directions, there seems to be no way to walk around the snake and the only way further north is through it. I check my inventory: water, knife, bread, and blanket. I try to use the knife, but it is not big enough to kill the snake, but even that failure gives me a clue. How else can I kill the snake? Can I get a bigger knife? Not having the answer, I head east to see what else is around.

Twisty little maze of cacti all alike?

A few seconds later and I realize what I have walked into: a maze. This game drops you into the middle of a maze as the very first puzzle of the game. We have the snake and the town, but all of the surrounding screens are identical, in the style of a classic adventure game maze. Going west in one screen does not mean you can get back by going east, for example. The only way forward is careful mapping. Yes, I do know what to do-- this is not my first adventure game after all-- but mazes are not my favorite kind of puzzle. I restart the game to get a fixed reference and start to build my map using the four items that I started the game with. As I explore, I realize that there is a small help as not all of the screens are exactly identical. Several of them have rocks which, on further observation, have scorpions hiding behind them. I cannot pick them up without dying, but they add a bit of variance to the terrain and makes mapping it somewhat easier.

But damn. No sooner do I think that than the game throws me a curveball: some of the rooms are almost identical. In fact, I only realized that they weren’t when my maps were coming out wrong. The only way I realized was with careful screenshots, which 1980s players would not have had access to. Take a look at this:


Oh yeah. Just try to figure this out without screenshots. I dare you.

That just does not seem fair! Still, I work it out and my mapping is coming along well until I run out of items. I only started with four and so I can only map rooms with rocks and four more and the maze is clearly bigger than that. But by luck, I think I found what the end of the maze is supposed to be: one of the rocks does NOT have a scorpion behind it! In fact, I can pick it up and take it with me. Hooray! I have found a rock. From there, it takes a couple of tries to work out a path that gets me to the rock and back without dropping any items, but I succeed and am back at the starting town with one new rock in my possession. What a victory!

I head north again and “use” the rock on the snake, thumping it until dead. I pick the rock back up in case there are more snakes, but I suspect this is just the beginning. Once I get more items, I will have to go back to the maze and make sure I found everything. I do not trust this game not to hide an important object there. Already, it has proven itself to be somewhat annoying.

Thus far, I admit to being rather unimpressed. After an hour of looking at nearly identical screenshots and mapping, I have managed to solve one puzzle, and I’m not 100% sure that is the right way to do it. (Can you get by without killing the snake?) I am also not sold on starting the game in a maze. Still, there must be a lot of the game left and I am eager to see what Mrs. Williams is going to throw at me next. If there is another maze, I am not going to be pleased.


On the bright side, at least it looks like a scorpion...

Since this IS a first post for a game, do not forget that you can make wagers and vote on the final score for the game. I am also eager to hear of what King’s Quest connections you see, if any!

Session time: 1 hr
Total time: 1 hr

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