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Old 01-31-2006, 01:01 PM   #81
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Actually if you try EVERY option, you should be able to discover the correct choice by accident but this shows whether you were paying attention at the start of Day 3. Trilby slips an emergency lockpick in his tie then. You should therefore know that if you can get your tie back there's a good chance it has a lockpick in it.

Did the objects that were left with Trilby strike anyone else as odd? Let's strip the demented killer of everything except a book on white magic and an ancient teddy bear!

Sir Roderick is looking a little peaky today isn't he? (The portrait in the dining room anyway) Speaking of unwell looking people, isn't it a bit macabre that Phil has just been left lying in the middle of the kitchen floor?

You can try the TV again. I think that sort of sensationalist programming is much better suited to ITV instead of BBC 2.

At last, an opportunity to die! Given how threatening the house has been set up to be its a bit of a surprise its taken this long. One quick thrust and its all over. Could have done with Triby collapsing at least. Still, I got to see a lot of that scene first time I played it. I just couldn't cotton on how to defend myself. "Back off foul fiend. I have a teddy bear and I'm not afraid to use it!"

Minor plot hole. Trilby acts like he's combed the house once you enter the bathroom. (even if you've played before and go straight there ) Bit tricky otherwise though . The end of day confrontation has to happen in the bathroom.
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Old 01-31-2006, 01:38 PM   #82
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Quote:
Originally Posted by stepurhan
Minor plot hole. Trilby acts like he's combed the house once you enter the bathroom. (even if you've played before and go straight there ) Bit tricky otherwise though . The end of day confrontation has to happen in the bathroom.
Not really, he just says "not in here either", and seeing as you had to walk through several rooms to get to the bathroom, it makes sense. Anyway, I agree with most of the other minor plot holes people are mentioning, but I don't think (apart from perhaps the teleporting people) anything that really breaks the S of D, or impedes the enjoyment of the game. As for the person who said that they ought to break the door down; IT'S MAGICALLY LOCKED because this is a GHOST STORY. I somehow think they probably tried breaking the doors and windows already.

By the way, does anyone else appreciate the symmetry that there are five people and five days?
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Old 01-31-2006, 01:54 PM   #83
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Not really, he just says "not in here either",
He then says "Where the hell is everyone" which implies he's looked everywhere (though it could be interpreted as he's covered a lot of rooms and not found anyone).
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IT'S MAGICALLY LOCKED because this is a GHOST STORY. I somehow think they probably tried breaking the doors and windows already.
Funny you should mention that. One of the dialogue options (I tried them all because they're all nicely written) has Trilby saying the police won't be able to break in and Simone saying it'll just need a whack with a good battering ram. As you say, the house is magically sealed (by the unquiet spirit) and thus unopenable.
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Old 01-31-2006, 02:38 PM   #84
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Actually if you try EVERY option, you should be able to discover the correct choice by accident but this shows whether you were paying attention at the start of Day 3. Trilby slips an emergency lockpick in his tie then. You should therefore know that if you can get your tie back there's a good chance it has a lockpick in it.
Well, that's what I did. Sheepishly says " At the end, I did remember about the lock pick in the tie".
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Old 02-01-2006, 07:14 AM   #85
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Catching up with the last couple of days...

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Originally Posted by stepurhan
Does onyone else think this is where AJ met his fate? After all, assuming he found a key, this is about the only place he could have legitimately gone on Day 1. That would resolve the one abolutely inexplicable disappearance.
I'm almost positive this is where AJ went during Day 1 (as for why Trilby didn't see him enter... err, his mask obscured his vision). It could certainly be where he died, and the claw marks might be evidence of that, though remember that he must have left the room to break open the library.
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Old 02-01-2006, 07:17 AM   #86
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We don't know its Trilby that got possessed and killed AJ. Good question about how ANYONE got possessed prior to the bell jar being broken. Any ideas anyone?
I suppose someone lifted it.

According to the commentary, the person who killed AJ was... Philip! He got possessed by the Welder, killed AJ, then covered it up when he got back to his senses. Which is why he was so freaked out.

... No, I don't think it makes sense either. Yahtzee's just doing his best to cover a plot hole.
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Old 02-01-2006, 07:20 AM   #87
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Originally Posted by Kurufinwe
Another question: what was Matthew's teddy bear (and diary) doing in his room? I mean, didn't he die almost two centuries ago? Don't tell me nobody had used the room since then. Or had all the children in the family been using that 200-year-old teddy? Yuck. (and that would have thrown off the detector, by the way)
I think the haunted house restored (some of) the rooms to their original appearance. The commentary offers some support for this idea: "Ghosts do weird stuff."
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Old 02-01-2006, 07:38 AM   #88
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In Day 3, I quite enjoyed making the corpse-finder. Part of the fun is the inventory names you generate: "Salty bear on a stick" Very Monkey Island-ish.

The bit where you swing between the windows seems like a good place for a fair death. I think if Trilby tried it without sawing down the tree, he should fall down. That way, the first opportunity to die wouldn't be in Day 4, which is a bit late in the game.

The dialogue puzzle in Day 4 makes sense to me now, more than it did on the first playthrough. The problem with puzzles like this, to my mind, is that you have to go through a number of levels that have little to do with what you're trying to achieve, so it's pretty much impossible to figure out what kind of strategy the game is looking for without exploring most of the tree.

I also prefer these puzzle conversations to be closed, with loops back to earlier levels, instead of requiring me to restart the conversation. Having loops also makes it more difficult to navigate, adding to the challenge of the puzzle.

If you go all the way back to the trophy room, you'll find someone has done some cleaning, replacing the idol on its perch. Uh-oh! By the way, I assume that that's a gas fire, which is how it can keep burning.

The scene in the bathroom is effective and scary... the first time around. After replaying it a half-dozen times, it becomes pretty tedious. A better way to do this might be to offer players a retry option, and make the Welder move more and more slowly each time the player fails to figure out the puzzle. I'd also like to point out that there's a remarkably similar scene to this in Stranger by Night, another "trapped in a house with a killer" amateur game which is quite good.
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Old 02-01-2006, 07:39 AM   #89
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DAY 5
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Old 02-01-2006, 07:43 AM   #90
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OK, I'm almost done flooding this thread, I promise.

I just want to say that the dialogue at the beginning of Day 5, where Trilby and Simone explain the mystery, is really neat. I just wish it offered more gameplay, that it involved a puzzle of some kind. Now if you get it wrong, Simone will just correct you.

Are there any games where you'll have to actively use evidence and reasoning to puzzle together a story? Dagger of Amon Ra has something similar at the Inquest in the end, but I don't think that was done very well. People sometimes mention Discworld Noir. Any others?
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Old 02-01-2006, 08:10 AM   #91
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Snarky
Are there any games where you'll have to actively use evidence and reasoning to puzzle together a story? Dagger of Amon Ra has something similar at the Inquest in the end, but I don't think that was done very well. People sometimes mention Discworld Noir. Any others?
Case of the Silver Earring. Granted, it doesn't work perfectly because the quiz parts are separated from the game as a whole, and there is no indication which questions you answered wrong when you fail. But I found it really satisfying to be awarded for keeping track of the acquired evidence, rather than just completing ingame challenges and dialogues unaware of the overall context.

Unfortunately, the game gives you too few clues to really solve the mystery, complete with all the details, before Holmes does, but, fortunately, the final quiz is skippable.
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Old 02-01-2006, 08:11 AM   #92
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Quote:
Are there any games where you'll have to actively use evidence and reasoning to puzzle together a story? Dagger of Amon Ra has something similar at the Inquest in the end, but I don't think that was done very well. People sometimes mention Discworld Noir. Any others?
I'm not sure if this is what you mean, but I've just finished Alida.......
Spoiler:
Part of the story has you figuring out that there is a good twin and a bad twin. There is plenty of evidence in the game - dressed differently, wearing a necklace - but since the bad twin is trying to deceive you, you can be mislead if you are not paying attention to the details.
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Old 02-01-2006, 09:58 AM   #93
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Snarky
OK, I'm almost done flooding this thread, I promise.

I just want to say that the dialogue at the beginning of Day 5, where Trilby and Simone explain the mystery, is really neat. I just wish it offered more gameplay, that it involved a puzzle of some kind. Now if you get it wrong, Simone will just correct you.

Are there any games where you'll have to actively use evidence and reasoning to puzzle together a story? Dagger of Amon Ra has something similar at the Inquest in the end, but I don't think that was done very well. People sometimes mention Discworld Noir. Any others?
Thats what the whole gameplay of Phoenix Wright is about
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Old 02-01-2006, 11:29 AM   #94
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Finished Day 5.
Well, I liked it. The last day was a bit of a rehash of the teddy puzzle, and though I saw the scissors, I missed the one pixel needed to pick them up. The dialogue with Simone was nice, as I seemed to pick the right responses and got to the end quickly. I needed a hint for the end sequence; it didn't occur to me to ask the Simone and Jim for help.
Some unanswered questions:
- Who buried the twin's body?
- Exactly what role does the idol play?
- Is the house itself haunted? I mean it locks its own doors and windows, and the portrait changes of its own volition.
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Old 02-02-2006, 01:10 AM   #95
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Snarky
Are there any games where you'll have to actively use evidence and reasoning to puzzle together a story? Dagger of Amon Ra has something similar at the Inquest in the end, but I don't think that was done very well. People sometimes mention Discworld Noir. Any others?
Betrapped! If you play the story game right to the end it asks you a series of questions regarding the solution to the mystery. A decent chunk of your final score is based on getting the questions right (for which you'd have had to gather most of the evidence around the house AND understood its significance) If you get the questions wrong it just tells you you've chosen a wrong answer fot that question though.
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Old 02-02-2006, 01:58 AM   #96
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Quote:
Originally Posted by colpet
Finished Day 5.
Well, I liked it. The last day was a bit of a rehash of the teddy puzzle, and though I saw the scissors, I missed the one pixel needed to pick them up.
But where on earth did they suddenly appear from. This is the part that drove me nuts first time around. I wasn't expecting any new objects to spontaneously appear this late in the game
Quote:
I needed a hint for the end sequence; it didn't occur to me to ask the Simone and Jim for help.
There is a sort of hint for the end sequence in the book telling how to summon an angry spirit. The warning at the end mentions about raising other spirits to possess those holding their possessions. I worked out the teddy bear for Matthew quite early on but it took me ages to find Sir Roderick's possession. I hadn't looked at the pictures in the fire room (which show Sir Roderick holding the gun above the fire)

Speaking of pictures, I don't think much of the art in the dining room in Day 5.

Quote:
Some unanswered questions:
- Who buried the twin's body?
- Exactly what role does the idol play?
- Is the house itself haunted? I mean it locks its own doors and windows, and the portrait changes of its own volition.
I think the idol just acts as a focus (why is another question, maybe its deformity and the twin's make a connection) and the house sealing itself is a manifestation of the angry spirit inhabiting it (the doors unseal when its shot)

But the question of the twin's burial is a good one. You don't see that on home improvement programs.
"Bathroom lacklustre? Hideous body lying around the house? Solve two problems at once by tiling the body under the floor!"
I like the closing sequence with the ritual, though I can't help thinking a ritual that requires you to arm the undead spirit needs a bit of a rewrite. You get two death options here. On your own and with company. The reaction of your companions is great. I also think the animation of the spirit rising is very effective. Slight dialogue anomaly. You can still ask Simone where the body is when its laying on the floor in front of her.

Did anyone think Trilby had died at the end. I must admit, first time round, I considered it a possibility. Glad that he got away though. Can't see how he achieved it mind.

Karmillo. This is your last chance to cite Hugo references.

Anyone up for playing 7 days a Skeptic after this?
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Old 02-02-2006, 02:42 AM   #97
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Finished it too. I found the scissors easily, but really had a hard time thinking how use them (both times: I couldn't see why I should cut a part of the apron when there should have been far easier ways to get a piece of string somewhere in the house; and then I wanted to use the machete, but didn't think I needed to actually cut the thing to retrieve it: the game should have told me that the knot was too tight or something similar).

I found the end sequence easy, as I was expecting to have to do something with the teddy bear (why would it have been left in the inventory otherwise?), and I had been trying to find a use for the rifle from day 1.

The connection with the idol is still rather mysterious for me. It should have been explained better. Hell, it should have been explained, period.

And I also wondered who had buried the body. If he died in the bathroom, and his body was found some time after his death, why not give him a proper burial? This doesn't make sense.

The thing with 'is Trilby dead' in the end was, I felt, quite an awful cliché. It's just too predictable and cheapens the ending (which was still nice, though).

At the end of the day, it wasn't a bad game, certainly had its moments, but wasn't great either. A frequent risk when making games is to focus only on what you're interested in (the puzzles, some aspects of the story), and be very careless about the rest, both in terms of realism (or, rather, internal consistency) and player's enjoyment. Between the lack of food, the idol, the mysteriously buried body, the car suddenly appearing for no reason, the characters disappearing and those two puzzles consisting in having to look at / use again something you'd already tried, it's obviously a pitfall that this game hasn't avoided --- but, then again, neither have many commercial games.

Well, thanks to all those who participated in this thread. It made it all much funnier and more interesting (I'm not sure I'd have gone beyond Day 2 if I had been playing the game on my own). I hope there'll be another such thread, though I don't know if I'll have time to take part in it (I have a very tight schedule at the moment, and I wouldn't want to miss the GK1 playthrough, which should start soon).
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Old 02-02-2006, 04:54 AM   #98
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Quote:
There is a sort of hint for the end sequence in the book telling how to summon an angry spirit. The warning at the end mentions about raising other spirits to possess those holding their possessions. I worked out the teddy bear for Matthew quite early on but it took me ages to find Sir Roderick's possession. I hadn't looked at the pictures in the fire room (which show Sir Roderick holding the gun above the fire)
I did get the hint, but to be honest, after having Trilby die a few times, I just though that Simone could use the gun as a weapon. That it was a connection to Sir Roderick never entered my mind. I thought the hint was to warn you not to use the personal possessions, I mean you already have one angry spirit around.
I did have a moment when I thought Trilby died, but it was fleeting. One thing we all seem to accept in the name of entertainment (and this goes for movies too), is that there never seems to be any consequence of the carnage left after the story ends (a burning house with 2 bodies found in it). It would be hell to be Simone and Jim in the aftermath. Like, who is going to believe them?
Big thanks to Snarky for moderating this thread. Is 7 Days a Sceptic a sequel? Even if its not, I'd be in to play it as a group.
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Old 02-02-2006, 05:40 AM   #99
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7 Days a Skeptic is a sequel of sorts (it's set in the future on a spaceship). I think it's more flawed than 5 Days, but it's probably still worth playing.

As my review tells. Though, looking back, I was rather harsh on it.
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Old 02-03-2006, 06:02 AM   #100
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So whats gonna be the next playthrough?
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