[Fien]

Welcome to the Unofficial GAG Playthrough, fellow adventurers. Meet Gary Tusker, your neighborly Peeping Tom, made impotent by a mean little penguin. Let’s give Gary a helping hand, shall we?



GAG was developed by the Russian company Auric Vision. Actually, there are 3 versions: Russian 16+, Russian 18+, and English 16+ which is the one we’re going to tackle, so you’ll be quite safe. The Russian 18+ version is soft porn. Really soft. Yes, I’ve played it... nudity but not a man in sight.

To the best of my knowledge, the English version was unfortunately published only in the Netherlands. It comes with a Dutch manual and a Dutch walkthrough in a Dutch box.

The manual. Black-and-white. It consists of 5 or 6 pages of instructions and 16 pages of a fake and humorous Making of section. Years ago, the Auric Vision site was still active. I remember reading the English Making of GAG posted there, in color too. I wish I’d saved it, sorry. You don’t really need the instructions, it is all simple and straightforward. And there’s also the Help button in the start menu.

The walkthrough. Black-and-white. Terrible translation, you don’t miss anything if you don’t speak Dutch. Need a hint? Just ask. Or consult the walkthrough at JA.

There are a couple of minigames which involve dexterity. Hey, where are you going? Come back! You can play them in easy mode and they’re not hard anyway. Except the Gagboy tetris minigame, which is fun but tricky. We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. For now, let me put your mind at ease: I beat Gagboy and I still have a savegame somewhere if anybody needs it. Very Important Warning: Due to a bug you cannot play Gagboy on CD 1 (= Gary’s apartment), so don’t try.

Starting now, you have one week till Monday July 18 to explore Gary’s apartment and gain access to the castle. You’ll know you’ve made it to the castle grounds when the game wants you to change to CD 2.

Click on everything you can click on and have fun!

[millenia]

Yay. Too late to start it now but I'll see if I can tomorrow. I tested that it would play and seemed to work fine in my Win7 just changing the color to 256 from the compatibility mode.

I'm wondering should I change the resolution of my screen to make the game look better or is there any alternatives? The windowed box seemed awfully small but stretched to fullscreen it looked quite messy. "Comments" or something like that in the options means subtitles or something else?

And thanks to Fien.

[diego]

I thought it was going to be official


Oh boy, playing FMV again, i feel so... ALIVE! I got this super obscure game today, and being the "Peeping Tom" myself went a little ahead and tried it just a little.

First of all: Pengin dance is something most random and funniest i've seen in years. I've been clicking it again and again and laughing out loud almost neighboors could hear me.



I'm surprised of two things so far: graphics are rather nice for an obscure Russian developers who created only one another game beside GAG, and that game mechanics are rather original with a mix of bit of an Pyton-ish absurd humor and abstract gameplay on one side, with a traditional adventure game elements on the other, although i'm still very early in the game.


On a technical note, i also only had to right-click the exe and set it to 256 colors. It's VERY important also to right click setup.exe - properties and set compatibilty to Windows 95 (i also disabled visual themes, turned off advanced text and set it to 256 colors) or setup won't work, at least in my case.

As for full screen, you only have to switch it from the options menu

[Matt Berkeley]

Hi all,

I'll install it, play some, and see you all back here tomorrow at or before this same time.

[zobraks]

Originally Posted by Fien

Welcome to the Unofficial GAG playthrough, fellow adventurers.

Thank you for starting this, game mistress! I'm very glad to take part in the whole thing.

Originally Posted by Fien

Meet Gary Tusker, your neighborly Peeping Tom, made impotent by a mean little penguin. Let’s give Gary a helping hand, shall we?

I'll give him a hand, but I'd never place my private parts into his care. How on Earth could he ever let that penguin almost bite his d*ck off or something?

Originally Posted by Fien

GAG was developed by the Russian company Auric Vision. Actually, there are 3 versions: Russian 16+, Russian 18+, and English 16+ ...

Nice info! Thanks!

Originally Posted by Fien

The walkthrough. Black-and-white. Terrible translation, you don’t miss anything if you don’t speak Dutch. Need a hint? Just ask. Or consult the walkthrough at JA.

I won't use the walkthrough; if I get stuck I'll ask for help here. That's one of the things a playthrough is for. Mutual help.

Originally Posted by Fien

There are a couple of minigames which involve dexterity.

Run for the hills! Women and children first!

Originally Posted by Fien

Hey, where are you going? Come back! You can play them in easy mode and they’re not hard anyway.

Phew! For a moment I felt lost.

Originally Posted by Fien

I beat Gagboy and I still have a savegame somewhere if anybody needs it.

It's good to know that .

Originally Posted by Fien

Starting now, you have one week till Monday July 18 to explore Gary’s apartment and gain access to the castle.

I'll start right now (as soon as I visit my john , that is).

Originally Posted by millenia

The windowed box seemed awfully small but stretched to fullscreen it looked quite messy.

Yes, GAG looks sharp in windowed mode (my laptop screen resolution is 1440 x 900), but I prefer a full screen mode, which is very good.

Originally Posted by diego

I thought it was going to be official

Official status is for pussies bad playthroughs that would soon fall to page four (in obscurity) if they weren't made sticky.
When the previous unofficial playthrough was played it was always near the top of the list .

Originally Posted by diego

On a technical note, i also only had to right-click the exe and set it to 256 colors. It's VERY important also to right click setup.exe - properties and set compatibilty to Windows 95 (i also disabled visual themes, turned off advanced text and set it to 256 colors) or setup won't work, at least in my case.

I didn't have to do any of those tweaks and install went without a glitch. I only changed the Color Quality, as I already explained.

[millenia]

I haven't found a way to change the color quality in Win7, weird system. Resolution is easy to find but other settings seem to be impossible, can't find such a setting from card options either. So ticking the 265 box is easier but now after actually trying out with smaller resolution I noticed that my full screen mode looks ugly because the colors get screwed up, not because of the size. So I'll be playing it with 1024x768 resolution and windowed which will be around half the screen size. Should be nice.

(edit. Found it now, sneaky advanced settings written so small... With 16bit color the fullscreen mode works properly too.)

Still haven't even gone through the opening movie with this tweaking. And baby needs attention now. Perhaps tonight if I don't fall asleep before kids .

[harald]

Wow, this is very nice but... the game is impossible to find. No hits on ebay or Google except the odd review and a few dead torrent pirate downloads. I'd really like to join (FMV!? ) if I can get my hands on it, but things don't look so good.

[seagul]

I'm at work now - and can't wait to start the game this evening.
How nice to be part of another crazy playthrough!
Thanks, Fien!

[Arial Type]

Just my luck. I left the game back at home, 1500 miles away..

[Phod]

I managed to grab this and will give it a try. Will follow the instructions for Win7 play, will let you know if I can't get it running.

[diego]

Anyone entered castle yet? I'm stuck

The thing that frustrates me is that

Spoiler:

i did call chinese laundry man and selected random object but don't know how to get it, or how to contact him again since there is no money bill in inventory after it

I suppose it has something to do with passing through that lunatic guard and entering the castle.

[Fien]

Originally Posted by diego

Anyone entered castle yet? I'm stuck

The thing that frustrates me is that

Spoiler:

i did call chinese laundry man and selected random object but don't know how to get it, or how to contact him again since there is no money bill in inventory after it

Yeah, that was a problem for me as well the first time I played GAG.

Spoiler:

You can only contact him again by sending him stuff via the laundry chute in the bathroom. What stuff, I can hear you scream in despair. Well.... you're a peeping tom, so find a spot where you can get a closer look at your lovely neigbors.

I suppose it has something to do with passing through that lunatic guard and entering the castle.

Lunatic guard? That's the Marquis de la Bourbon, have a little respect.

[millenia]

Bwah, I'm already stuck too.

Spoiler:

I recorded the video using the telescope but the laundry guy keeps telling me it's too lame stuff. I don't see anything else to record anywhere.

[Fien]

Millenia, hint:

Spoiler:

there are 4 things to record if you're high up. And you can get an object there too.

[millenia]

Thanks, it helped.

My problem was that

Spoiler:

I didn't notice you could pull twice.

[millenia]

This game seems to be too hard for me . I didn't get far. Now I need the

Spoiler:

photo but I can't do anything with the one inside my wallet on the table. I got two videos accepted and got the ID and the housekeys and picked up the Iberium. Tried to find more to shoot (the dancing boobs and the original stocking girl weren't good enough) and to use anything and everything on the ID and the photo without luck.

I'm so lucky that Just Adventure seems to be down too atm. Well, it's sleepytime anyway. Will have to try again tomorrow. You can give me hints with spoilertags and I'll check them if I don't come up with a solution fast enough myself.

[Fien]

Millenia, concentrate on the second part of my previous hint in spoilers.

In general: click on everything clickable. If you try every object on everything and don't get anywhere, chances are you've missed something. Yeah, so what's new...
And don't forget that the whole game is an outrageous parody, including the puzzles.

[Matt Berkeley]

Does anyone know what codec is used for the fmv? Because I'm pretty sure that this is causing my situation to fail on the launch of the game.

And, yes, I've set it to use 256 colors; and I've combined that with with all the Compatibility Modes and all the other Compatibility switches. It installed fine. It launches fine (as far as catching the fact that there is no CD in the drive or incompatible color depth if I want to test that it's working as far as those 2 things go). But then it goes to darkness... and it's not that it has become unresponsive -- I have to kill it thought it seems to be happily happy. So I'm of the mind that it is trying to play some intro video and blissful oblivious that it is failing. And I'm thinking the root of this is because of the wonderful way in which the chaos of the market place has brought us so many wonderful codecs to our wonderment and made things so wonderfully wonderful over the years.

Arrgh!

Is it that miserable QT? Of some 'version'? Or does anyone have the manual to maybe see a trademark of some sort?

(I am hating particularly on QT at the moment, because, playing some other old game recently, I had to install 2 different versions of the GD thing AT ONCE to get the game to play properly... and then the game kind of sucked... but I still haven't uninstalled...)

Anyway, needless to say, with it launching to a steady black screen... this ain't been fun so far

[zobraks]

Originally Posted by millenia

This game seems to be too hard for me . I didn't get far. Now I need the

Spoiler:

photo but I can't do anything with the one inside my wallet on the table. I got two videos accepted and got the ID and the housekeys and picked up the Iberium. Tried to find more to shoot (the dancing boobs and the original stocking girl weren't good enough) and to use anything and everything on the ID and the photo without luck.

Hey, you seem to be stuck at exactly the same point I am!
I sent a PM to Fien asking for help before you posted.

I just came home and will commence the play in half an hour. I expect to get unstuck in the next couple of hours.

I find something extremely frustrating/stupid:

Spoiler:

I have the gynaecologist name tag without picture and I have Gary's ID with his picture in and still I can't use the picture with the name tag. I guess I need the scissors or a knife (or an axe? ) to cut the bloody photo out of the ID! How come Gary can't rip the photo with his teeth or something?

Originally Posted by Matt Berkeley

Does anyone know what codec is used for the fmv?

I don't.

Originally Posted by Matt Berkeley

Is it that miserable QT? Of some 'version'?

I don't think so. The game was made in the reign of version 3.0 (QT) and I believe it's less notorious than versions 2.X I have the nightmares about too.
Either it's a different codec or the version of QT is compatible with the newer QT I have (6.5.1 it is on my XP SP2 computer). Either way I have no problem with video in GAG (or any other problem for that matter).

Originally Posted by Matt Berkeley

I am hating particularly on QT at the moment, because, playing some other old game recently, I had to install 2 different versions of the GD thing AT ONCE to get the game to play properly... and then the game kind of sucked...

You have every possible reason to hate QT (I do hate it myself), but I don't think that's the issue with GAG. What operating system do you use?

P.S. I remember having a blank screen problem with video in Starship Titanic, but that was due to Intel video codec and adding a certain DLL in a game folder solved the problem.
Perhaps you can post your system specifications here to make it easier for someone more tech-savvy to help you. I'm only 'an advanced beginner user' .

[zobraks]

Originally Posted by Fien

Millenia, hint:

Spoiler:

there are 4 things to record if you're high up. And you can get an object there too.

Originally Posted by Fien

Millenia, concentrate on the second part of my previous hint in spoilers.

I guess all this means we have to...

Spoiler:

... do something with the 'Flyboy' magazine (seems that, beside penguins, the authors of this game are obsessed with flies, and specially with their 'excremental activities' ). I tried sending the dirty magazine to Lao but Gary wouldn't part with it (he has to 'browse' it a couple of more times)!

Still, my efforts were not in vain since I discovered another hot spot with something to collect

Spoiler:

(unscrew, that is)

later.