Adventure Gamers - Forums

The Baron’s definitely being mysterious! I think it’s something along the lines of “pulling off a Jan van Speijk”.

Just banter will be fine, in between enjoying the weather, the Tour and life in general.

Karlok - 28 June 2021 05:36 AM

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…

He meant “petard”.

Aha! Thank you. Never heard of that expression. So BB and I were both dumb. And Jan van Speijk suddenly makes sense too.

A bit of context for our non-Dutch/Belgian forum members, Jan van Speijk commanded a Dutch gunboat during the Belgian Revolution. He blew up the boat, so it wouldn’t fall in the hands of the (more liberal) Belgians, who wanted to get rid of the rule of William the first.

I read about it as a kid in this educational comic book (“Van Nul Tot Nu”) and I always thought it was a bit of a tall tale, especially because it was made out to be an act of heroic defiance. I thought: “What if this guy just dropped his cigar? And even if he meant to blow up the ship, should we really be celebrating a move like that?” It seemed too convenient, a noble sacrifice for the cause. From what I can tell, his action was intentional (the hoisting was unironic), though its merit is highly debatable.

Also: long live the Belgians!

So, with that aside out of the way.. Tentacles. I’m at 71%. Doctor Fred is wrapped up at the moment, the IRS is on his case and I’m trying to pull of the old one two switcheroo.

By the way, I think it’s really amusing the exploding cigar salesman looks and talks a lot like Ben Franklin. Those genes took a walk on the wild side.. and ended up in the novelty explosives business. When life gives you tobacco and gunpowder..

Karlok - 28 June 2021 05:36 AM

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. 

A few teams invited me to do that, but I said ‘Love to, chaps, but I’ll be playing DoTT with my friends over at the Adventuregamers forum, so I’m afraid I can’t commit.’
They offered to delay it by a week so that I could join, but I didn’t feel right doing that, knowing how many people plan their vacations just so they can be alongside a certain stretch of road when the peloton rolls through. Maybe next year, if Purple Tentacle hasn’t taken over the world by then and outlawed bi-pedaled devices for being insensitive toward creatures without legs.

And oh yeah, ‘petard’. Thanks Tim! Karlok, what I meant by that was that you challenged me and then conquered the challenge yourself. Probably not exactly what Shakespeare meant, but then again, I never read Shakespeare.

My epitaph:
Though he stayed up late solving puzzles each night,
Baron Blubba was nice but still not very bright.

Finally managed to play DoTT. I was surprised how quickly I had reached the middle of the game (around 55%), almost finishing Bernard’s and Hoagie’s quests. I remember pretty much all puzzles and characters, and the gameworld feels smaller (like Laverne, I felt lost the first time I played the game). I still think the game started stronger and made me laugh more often. And while I admire the way they made fun of historical persons and events, I just feel detached from some of them. Might be a cultural thing, or just the way those characters are written, idk. To me they never reach the brilliance of Stan, Walley or Murray from the Monkey Island series, or many characters from the Grim Fandango universe.

Some of them felt like the devs tried too hard - I mean, what was the point in a talking horse, like evil tenticles and time travelling wasn’t crazy enough? I was also never a fan of the whole sequence with the mummified Dr. Fred and IRS agents. Among my favourite episodes was getting a diamond - from opening the safe to sending the signed contract to LucasArts it was a brilliant multi-step puzzle that combined efforts of both protagonists and made great use of the game concept. Also enjoyed messing with Dr. Fred, I agree that all his lines are among the best and he is just an adorable grumpy mad scientist.

And Bernard and Hoagie are both funny in their own way. Reading the boring book to everyone and getting on their nerves with the invisible ink was as funny as ever. And my favourite Hoagie moment is assisting Ben Franklin in his kite experiment. One thing I didn’t get though: after the experiment is over, Franklin promises to name something after Hoagie. Now I know there’s a sandwich of that name, but from what I’ve read it has no relation to Franklin or Franklin’s times. So he forgot, or am I missing something and there were changes in the gameworld, like with the flag?

There’s still the whole Laverne chapter ahead. And as for the graphics, I gave up finally and switched back to the original pixel art. The remastered art didn’t grow on me, it’s too glossy, too simple and just doesn’t feel right, and the added animations such as dripping toxic waste or flying leafs make it look even cheaper. I also kept getting those black artifacts now and then - nothing like that with the old game.

Doom: I don’t know if it’s cultural or just personal preference as far as liking the characters goes. I know I used to often introduce people to music that resonated with me and elicited blank indifference from them. Heck, I don’t even need to go that far afield for an analogy: Different people like different people more than other people like those people. I thought Grim Fandago had some interesting characters that provided excellent motive power for the excellent story, but I never cared for any of them. Monkey Island, I *love* so many of the lines and ideas and story beats, but I don’t feel much of a connection with any of the characters. They’re really funny and fun to be around, but *to me* hmmmm….hard to explain…I enjoy watching the things they do, but I often feel like they are vehicles for the writers’ comedy, and that their comedy and actions are not organic to their actual character, to any sort of intrinsic natural personality. With DoTT, I just connect with almost every character in the game, playing with them is like hanging out with chums, in a sense.

Yes, that diamond getting sequence is probably the best puzzle in the game, start to finish. Yes, I see your point about the horse, although I never thought twice about it (maybe one and a half times, but not twice). Now that you mention it, I wonder if there is some historical mumbo jumbo precedent for having a horse in the mansion. Either way, I think it’s a good enough puzzle, although it took me a looooong time to figure out the first time I played the game.
In fact, all throughout this play through I’ve been thinking ‘man, how the heck did I ever figure this out as a kid?’ The answer: It took me and my bros months to beat the game back then, not 3-4 days. The squeaky bed puzzle? Oi vey.

I still prefer the remastered version.I think the black artifacts (how ominous sounding! We could make a Myst clone called The Black Artifact, I bet!) are a system compatibility/settings thing. I’ve played the remaster on 2 or 3 different computers now and have had no problems. Only hitch is that the dialogue text often falls behind the spoken lines.

If you are just up to Laverne, the best is yet to come!

DCast:

You’re just about finished the game. Once Bernard and Hoagie get lucky, you’ve just got a few *ahem* small puzzles to go before the credits roll.

Yeah, the Human Contest is a blocker in the game. Even if it’s not that hard (I can’t believe you didn’t try to stab the clown right away), there’s a lot of work that has to be done in order to make the story move on from that point. The fact that you can talk to the judges about all the exact categories that the humans are to be judged in makes it easier to zone in on what needs to be done, just checking off the tasks one at a time. I was a little frustrated figuring out that you have to put the name tag on the mummy in order to get it to start. I was trying to use the barf on Harold before the contest began, and was confused for a minute why it wasn’t working. Anyway, it’s frustrating, but it’s got some of the funniest parts of the game. Laverne eating the meatball…I don’t know why I liked that so much. No wait, I do: It’s because it vindicates my ‘I’ll eat anything if I’m hungry enough’ habit, and in doing so gives me an even stronger affinity with Laverne. If I ever see her in a restaurant, I’ll accidentally knock her meatballs off the table and then we’ll eat them off the floor together and live happily ever after. Romance ain’t dead.

All I have to say about Elvira Duff is: I love cats, I love kitties, squish them into itty-bitties!

By the way, did you all see the look on Doctor Fred’s face when you put the funnel in his mouth before feeding him the recaf coffee? He’s so adorably angry, even in his sleep!

Will say more and post a choice pic or two from the game as soon more people finish.

Planning to move onto The Castle on Saturday. This is a very very Maniac Mansion looking game, inspired by…Maniac Mansion. It’s half price on Steam at the moment. Who is in?

Just had my first day of my new job, which (surprisingly) also takes place in a mansion!

“Day of the Tentacle”, probably the adventure game of my childhood. I played it just before my life tilted in a less than ideal direction for the second time, maybe that’s why my brain soaked it up almost entirely. I played it again in 2020. It had been 20 years, but every puzzle solution was still there in my mind. There was one item that blocked my progress, but that playthrough was a year ago, so I got that stumbling block out of the way and just strolled through the game this time around.

That’s not to say I didn’t discover anything new. For some reason, I really gravitated towards Bernard. Maybe an intense year, with a job that was mainly emotionally and physically demanding, bundled all my inner-geeky hyper-fixation internally. Maybe that’s why I talk like this on the forum. Like Bernard, when you click on a piece of rope.

But Hoagie and Laverne are dear to me too. It was cool to read what Dcast wrote about Hoagie, he’s smarter than you might (initially) give him credit for. And Laverne.. I love how cool she is with being Laverne, even is she’s half on another plane. Those hippie parents did one thing right.

Doom’s comment about the horse got me thinking about the wacky tone of the game. It’s very much in the vein of the stuff I remember from Cartoon Network. Maybe the developers went a bit overboard with the zaniness at some points. It’s hard for me to tell, because as soon as the game begins, I’m in the zone.

Baron_Blubba - 29 June 2021 07:50 PM

Doom: I don’t know if it’s cultural or just personal preference as far as liking the characters goes. I know I used to often introduce people to music that resonated with me and elicited blank indifference from them. Heck, I don’t even need to go that far afield for an analogy: Different people like different people more than other people like those people. I thought Grim Fandago had some interesting characters that provided excellent motive power for the excellent story, but I never cared for any of them. Monkey Island, I *love* so many of the lines and ideas and story beats, but I don’t feel much of a connection with any of the characters. They’re really funny and fun to be around, but *to me* hmmmm….hard to explain…I enjoy watching the things they do, but I often feel like they are vehicles for the writers’ comedy, and that their comedy and actions are not organic to their actual character, to any sort of intrinsic natural personality. With DoTT, I just connect with almost every character in the game, playing with them is like hanging out with chums, in a sense.

I 100% agree it’s a matter of personal taste. I have somewhat opposite feelings towards DoTT characters - most of them just never clicked with me (besides the protagonists and Dr. Fred, I like them a lot), unlike those in Monkey Island games where I feel right at home. Hard to explain why. And by cultural barrier I meant American history. First time I played the game I had no idea what was so special about Ben Franklin, why was Washington chasing cherry trees, etc. But I bet this added a lot to the fun factor for those who grew up studying them and getting all historical references. In fact some other references to them in other time periods would’ve helped, which brings me to…

In fact, all throughout this play through I’ve been thinking ‘man, how the heck did I ever figure this out as a kid?’ The answer: It took me and my bros months to beat the game back then, not 3-4 days. The squeaky bed puzzle? Oi vey.

Yes, the game was much, much harder on my first try. And I agree the beauty contest was damn confusing. And while I enjoy playing as Laverne, this future level felt like the weakest part of the game to me - the Eddisons are mearly presented, there are no future versions of America’s founding fathers, and that mean contentast only got on my nerves. There’s only Laverne, the mummie and many-many tenticles. The final part with the three-headed monster was brief, but funny though, great conclusion in my book.

Also made me wonder how many multi-headed characters LucasArts put in their games starting with the two-headed squirrel in Zak McKraken))

All in all, I enjoyed the game more than I expected, there were enough clever dialogues and great animations. I just wish I had forgotten all those Chron-O-John puzzles - figuring out which item should be sent to which character is pretty much the best part of the game, and I remembered all of those combinations. Which probably means they are good puzzles)

Such an amazing game, with a lot of attention to details, and puzzle design. The only game without a real competition - there’s nothing like it, in terms of design and atmosphere.

Doom - The Laverne part of the game had Laverne. That’s why it’s the best part of the game. ‘Damn that Doctor Fred!’

I actually think I liked Hoagie more. He always sounds so calm, like nothing extraordinary happens, dumb and witty at the same time.

-Are you a marble delivery man… or a model?
-I’m a model. Should I take my clothes off now?

-Son, do you know anything about the blanket?
-Didn’t the dude next to you have one earlier? Catch you later.

-For the last time, you are not going to light anything, you just push it!
-The whole time? How am I going to get up that high?
-Listen, just wait for me to say the word “now”, then push the kite into the air, alright?
-I’m on ya, lasagna.

I’ve already incorporated I’m on ya, lasagna into my regular vernacular.

My other favorite Hoagie line is when he says to TJ, ‘Dude, if I had a nickel for every time I saw your face…’

It’s another bit of humor that might not resonate as sharply with non-Americans, but I loved it.