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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01-31-2006, 01:38 PM | #82 | |
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By the way, does anyone else appreciate the symmetry that there are five people and five days?
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01-31-2006, 01:54 PM | #83 | ||
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01-31-2006, 02:38 PM | #84 | |
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02-01-2006, 07:14 AM | #85 | |
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Catching up with the last couple of days...
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02-01-2006, 07:17 AM | #86 | |
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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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02-01-2006, 07:20 AM | #87 | |
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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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02-01-2006, 07:39 AM | #89 |
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DAY 5
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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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02-01-2006, 08:10 AM | #91 | |
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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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02-01-2006, 08:11 AM | #92 | |
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02-01-2006, 09:58 AM | #93 | |
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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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02-02-2006, 01:10 AM | #95 | |
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02-02-2006, 01:58 AM | #96 | |||
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Speaking of pictures, I don't think much of the art in the dining room in Day 5. Quote:
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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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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02-02-2006, 04:54 AM | #98 | |
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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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02-03-2006, 06:02 AM | #100 |
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So whats gonna be the next playthrough?
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