Well, having done it every other day. I turn on the TV. The solicitors dead hampering the police search for a key to the house. The thing that strikes me as odd about this death is it happens away from the house (in his office) Also this now stymies the police. After so many days (remember Simone has been here longer than Trilby) are they not now justified in breaking open the door? Love Trilby's snide comment about it being news only because of Simone's celebrity.
Something odd just occurred to me in this chapter. There is a blazing fire in the room beyond the TV room. Since the characters seem to spend hardly any time ni there who is keeping this going?
Philip's stuck in the dining room, even more surly than before. He must be a rubbish treasure hunter. Trilby showed him a map with a hidden staircase and he hasn't cottoned to it yet. As with Day 2 the other characters are pretty static, preventing the missing character sundrome.
Trilby's car in the back garden provides us with the inventory item we've wanted since Day 1. Lockpicks. Nice setup for a later puzzle here as well.
Spoiler:Emergency lockpick in tie
The weird thing about this is he left it parked out front. Didnt' the police notice it there? Haven't they now noticed it missing?
Simone's in the pool (I don't think talking to her is vital for this day so you might not have found her) Anyone else try refilling the pool while she's in it? No? Just me then?
Fruther signs of Britishness. AJ is government but the agencies he works for are MI5 and CID. Maybe he should have been JB instead of AJ.
Further bonanza on inentory items. The shed has the a pickaxe and saw in it. We hit a classic adventure game problem here. The pickaxe is an awkward shape and the saw is huge yet Trilby slips both in his suit without leaving a bulge. Hardly a unique AG problem though.
At last we get to see where the hidden staircase leads and open up the other two rooms in the house. The additional work to get in the second room is a fairly easy to follow puzzle with sufficient prompts (Trilby not wanting to slam into the tree. Saying cutting it down is a two-man job) to prevent it being too taxing. The biggest problem I have here is that Trilby is an actionable item and the windows are quite small. Selecting a window to climb in through is quite tricky as a result because Trilby is in the way. Also, where does the tree go when they cut it down. Over the wall. Won't someone notice?
With this and the items you have already, you can piece together most of the story. One thing I found awkward is you have to make sure you've read everything for Trilby to make the connections. If you don't, you can''t look at the occult books in the library. Since Trilby was already speculating about ghosts this comes across as forced.
Constructing the Defoe detector is a combination puzzle that shouldn't overly tax any experienced AGer. All the needed items are in fairly plain view. Using it is very similar to the Navigators head in MI1. The awkward part (which I've heard people complain about before) is finding a specific place in the cell room. It would help if Trilby said something like "He must be buried here" when you find the right spot. Silently acquiring an "Area" hotspot doesn't quite work.
Smash, there goes the bell jar you pick up the idol and blam another dream sequence.....
..... except it isn't this time. This is what I meant about the repeated dream sequences having a purpose. We're primed to expect a dream sequence but instead we get a horrible event playing out in reality. The horrors of Trilby's nightmares are seeping into the real world.
