Adventure Gamers - Forums

Karlok - 24 June 2021 11:34 AM

Here, let me help you.
Overboard!
Not Another Weekend
Black Mirror 2
Dragonsphere
Les Manley
The Dark Eye
A couple of Nancy Drew games
Many Sherlock Holmes games

Ok, that got me good.

But seriously, it’d be lovely if you’d join this playthrough. Playing DoTT once in a year and saying ‘that’s enough’ is like uhhhh….hmmm….eating ice cream once a year and saying ‘okay, I’m good for the next 18 months or so with ice cream.’

Karlok - 24 June 2021 11:34 AM

Hmm… okay, if you promise not to ask me how many butlers I remember. 

Luhr28 - 24 June 2021 11:35 AM

.But anyway, that’s 12. Can you name a dozen games with butlers? 

Oh snap.

Anyway, I had the same thing, played the remake about a year ago. Even then I found this is the one game I can pretty much solve from memory. But the ice cream analogy got me thinking. Which kind of ice cream are we talking about?

VP and Karlok, glad to have you aboard. You know what they say…“Better aboard than Overboard.” (Capitalization on the penultimate ‘O’ is mine, not Theirs.)

VP - A good vanilla. Peach. Pistachio. Chocolate Mint. Cake of Birth (there is an ice cream store in my town that features this flavor. And when my 7 year old nephews asked what’s in it, Crazy Willie said ‘Placenta.’ Crazy Willie is an ice cream man with a glass eye and an interesting sense of humor). Strawberry. Vanilla With Blueberries inside. I can go on. A good frozen custard on a hot boardwalk night can really hit the spot as well, maybe with some shredded salty almonds or Reese’s Pieces on top.
“My body is a temple.”
- Baron Blubba

Karlok, thanks for your help with the maids. I’m not sure what a pitard is, but did you just intentionally hoist yourself with your own? I’ll find some butlers a little later. Can’t believe I forgot the one from Technobabylon.

DCast: Don’t worry about your pace; I plan on playing really slow. Not that I won’t play often, but I’m going to talk to everyone, look at everything, and not rush through it. I’m still at 15%, and will play for another 30-45 minutes tonight. I got caught up in a KQ VII dinner last night before crashing.

@Karlok: I think we got roped into this one. I don’t know about you, but I’m going to roll with it.

@Baron_Blubba: My body is a temple as well! A desecrated temple to Eilistraee, but a temple nonetheless.

I read the development team dropped three playable characters. The game is pretty awesome as is, but Razor and Chester combined sound like two thirds of my personality.

Anyway, I went in and solved the one “puzzle” I was stuck on the last time I played the game ASAP. Closing a door and finding a key. Actually, that was the second to last time; I played “Maniac Mansion” entirely on Ed’s computer.

Dcast: Glad you’re enjoying the game! It does have that “Maniac Mansion” vibe where you’re looking for how to move forward, but like the good Baron said, there are clues strewn around the game, often in a different time zone than where they’d apply.

Really like your remark about Hoagie, I love characters like him. Don’t judge a book by its cover and all that.

edit: @baron: already included Crazy Willie in “Thrift Store Quest”, in my mind.

[spoiler]At 45%!

Yeah, now that I’ve actually played Maniac Mansion, I realize how this game is as much a sequel in the game design as it is in the story, as far as giving you a big place to play in and piece it all together in your head until it all starts coming together and you start seeing the layers you have to work through in order to solve the small puzzles so you can solve the big puzzles so you can solve the bigger puzzles.
I love how this game does that—so much better than MM did, for sure! The concepts themselves are such cartoon comedy gold. For example (Hoagie spoiler on how to get the blanket): You need Hancock’s blanket. For him to give it up, Jefferson needs to agree to start a fire. Jefferson only listens to Washington, so you need to somehow get Washington to convince Jefferson that they need a fire. Washington has wooden teeth. Somewhere along the way you picked up chattering teeth (different puzzle). This might make Washington think he’s cold, if his teeth chatter. But Washington’s current teeth are just fine. So you have to solve another puzzle to get an exploding cigar, and another to get a lighter. Give these to the cigar puffing Washington (he’s been standing at the window smoking the whole time) to make his currently in use teeth explode out of his mouth. Give him the new chattering teeth. Now he thinks he’s cold and Jefferson starts a fire.

That whole sequence is a masterpiece of layering puzzles upon puzzles upon puzzles, and each one is an organic part of the story that involves other great characters and situations that are just as…or almost as…funny as the one I described. It’s also total nonsense, and yet it’s perfectly logical, and the game gives you plenty of clues if you are paying attention, so it’s challenging but not *too* challenging.

One cool thing that I’m not sure everyone playing this game will know, but a lot of the history in the game that is presented as comedy is actually true! Franklin and Hancock DID want the turkey to be the official US bird, for exactly the reasons stated by Hancock in the game. They did NOT want the eagle, like Jefferson and Washington did, for exactly the same reasons stated by Hancock in the game.

One of my favorite lines so far is when Hoagie looks at Jefferson and says ‘Y’know dude, if I had a nickel for every time I saw your face…’
As Dcast and VP said above, Hoagie is the man. Not as dumb as he looks. Reminds me of the time I pulled into a New Jersey gas station and the two attendants were talking serious astrophysics over the cars while pumping. (In NJ it is ‘illegal’ to pump your own gas, there are attendants at every station that do it for you. I don’t know why.)

Also, the way Laverne lifts her tentacle skirt while running around sets my heart all aflutter. She’s not so stupid either, by the way. All three main characters are so stupid and so smart at the same time.

Lots more to say, but don’t want to spoil anything.

What percentage is everyone at? Any favorite/least favorite lines, locations, characters, puzzles, etc?

Oh! Before I go, another thing I really enjoyed was how (Weird Ed’s room spoiler) Bernard keeps on gently prodding Weird Ed about the past, as if trying to get him to explode. It reminds me of when I sell a kid a toy and say ‘be careful, it’s a little delicate,’ and the kid promptly starts squeezing it…gently…then harder…a little harder…just how delicate is it? Can I squeeze it a little harder? How about if I do thi——oh darn, what’s your return policy?’

57%.

I think the remaster did a pretty good job respecting the original art style. I love a good verb interface, especially when it’s verbose (badum tss), but the coin verb is neat as well.

Quick shout out to Dr. Fred: I like the cut of his jib. I think all of his lines are among the funniest in the entire game.

Vegetable Party - 27 June 2021 11:50 AM

57%.

I think the remaster did a pretty good job respecting the original art style. I love a good verb interface, especially when it’s verbose (badum tss), but the coin verb is neat as well.

Quick shout out to Dr. Fred: I like the cut of his jib. I think all of his lines are amongst the funniest in the entire game.

The way Doctor Fred insults *everyone* like it’s as natural to him as breathing, is one of my favorite parts of the game. He’s so nasty that he doesn’t even realize he’s being nasty—they’re just the most adorable innocuous senile old man insults—as he describes what he sees out loud, throwing insulting adjectives into every third sentence. Wonderful. I want to be like him when I grow up.

I also like how he wasn’t evil in the first game (just being controlled by a meteor, we’ve all been there), but he isn’t all cuddles, either. He doesn’t do pleasantries, he’s dedicated to SCIENCE. The kind that produces tentacle people, mutating ooze and diamond-powered time travel, aka the best kind.

Vegetable Party - 27 June 2021 03:37 PM

I also like how he wasn’t evil in the first game (just being controlled by a meteor, we’ve all been there), but he isn’t all cuddles, either. He doesn’t do pleasantries, he’s dedicated to SCIENCE. The kind that produces tentacle people, mutating ooze and diamond-powered time travel, aka the best kind.

Darn you for raising a serious question! Is he really not evil? He might not intend to do evil, but his priorities (SCIENCE) are screwed up enough that evil (TOXIC SLUDGE) is result, and he makes a point of saying that he doesn’t care—he says something very funny to that effect. He doesn’t want PT to take over the world, but this is a guy who neglects *everything* in life except for science, no matter what the collateral damage is.

PS: I don’t want to turn this into a discussion about where the environmentalism line ought to be drawn. I’m just using that example to point out that the good Doctor is not, in fact, a paragon of conscientious scientific virtue.

Edit: And I love him all the more for it.

Haha absolutely! He’s not out to conquer/destroy the world. He doesn’t take pleasure in suffering. He’s more or less.. impartial.

He just knows he’s brilliant and he needs to do his experiments. In some way, he seems completely separate from the scientific community and.. you know, actual science. But the dude invented a working time machine. Also: sentient tentacles.

I’m at 64% now. Did most of what’s possible with Bernard, almost as much with Hoagie. Saved the best for last: Laverne! I’m enjoying every second of this game, taking pictures and videos with my phone and sending them to friends and family for whom I know they will kindle many belly laughs and fond nostalgic memories. Keep talking to the Human Hunter over and over—it’s worth it!
Speaking of talking (ha), can you imagine how much fun it would be to voice act a character in this game? I would love to be in some sort of audio play or live play reenactment!
Would anyone like to do a community Day of the Tentacle ‘radio drama’?

Baron_Blubba - 25 June 2021 04:42 PM

Karlok, thanks for your help with the maids. I’m not sure what a pitard is, but did you just intentionally hoist yourself with your own? I’ll find some butlers a little later. Can’t believe I forgot the one from Technobabylon.

LOL, I have absolutely no idea what you’re saying. Pitard? Hoist myself with my own? Is this me being dumb or you being mysterious…

Vegetable Party - 26 June 2021 02:29 PM

@Karlok: I think we got roped into this one. I don’t know about you, but I’m going to roll with it.

I’m in, but I don’t have much time for playing games right now, what with the Tour de France (I’m a big fan), the weather, no more lockdown. I’ve completed 5%, so I’ll be lagging behind. 

EDIT: I agree with Doom and Luhr about the remastered graphics. They’re too big, too loud, too much in your face. If that makes sense.

EDIT2: Lagging too far behind, I give up. Sorry, the Tour de France is very interesting this year.