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chrissie - 20 May 2017 03:21 PM

This could have been included in the game via an inventory item that you can pick up if the developers had included the means to use it which they didn’t, or so far no-one has found!  Thumbs Up
EDIT Yes, maybe having to watch the Kickstarter video to solve a puzzle is totally in context of breaking the fourth wall but it’s not a concept that impresses me at all - sorry!  Thumbs Up

I liked that idea of having to watch the Kickstarter video but I’m worried about what will happen in 10-20 years when people are playing it on an emulator… Kickstarter might not be there anymore, the video either… I kind of wish they had also included a way to view the video by fixing the rental video machine in front of the convenience store

     
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SoccerDude28 - 20 May 2017 03:52 PM

To argue the other side of Chekhov’s law, if an item foreshadows what’s going to happen, it might act like a spoiler in some way. So what if you want to throw the players a surprise, by giving them an item that would let them think the story is going down this route, but then let the story take a different turn. That could be interesting right?

That’s a sophisticated way of looking at it. But honestly, have you ever played a game where an inventory item WASN’T used, and you looked back at the end of the game and said to yourself: “That unused item was a really clever way to keep from spoiling the story?” or “I’m glad I carried that item around and tried it unsuccessfully on 30 different hotspots and it was just a red herring after all?”

Unused inventory items leave me peeved. Especially if they are particularly imaginative and I’ve been looking forward to, well, actually seeing what they unlock or combine with or produce. For instance, I still regret the Muppet I didn’t get to use in Martin Mystere: Operation Dorian Gray.

Chrissie—I seem to remember an adventure game where one of the puzzle solutions broke the fourth wall and had to be found on the inside of the CD/DVD case. I thought it was delightfully cunning because I happened to figure it out. If I hadn’t happened to figure it out, I probably would have thought it was dreadful.

 

     

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Unused inventory items peeve me too. Luckily, in DoTT, the hubcap was at the end of the game or I would have passed that around and tried it on everything too.

     
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Becky - 21 May 2017 12:44 PM

Chrissie—I seem to remember an adventure game where one of the puzzle solutions broke the fourth wall and had to be found on the inside of the CD/DVD case. I thought it was delightfully cunning because I happened to figure it out. If I hadn’t happened to figure it out, I probably would have thought it was dreadful.

That rings a bell Becky! I’m not sure whether I’m thinking of the same game & would have to dig out the boxed copy from my ‘archives’, but I vaguely remember that in one of the Last Half of Darkness games? you have to refer to/use a printed insert included in the box to solve a puzzle? Laughing
Also, more as a form of copy protection I think, was a coded cardboard wheel arrangement included with the boxed copy of Ankh 2 which was needed to solve a puzzle - to make cocktails possibly?

     
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Here’s a scan of my code wheel for Ankh 2 (which I’ll remove if it’s flouting anything!) but as it’s included in the game box & essential for solving a puzzle would you consider it a ‘4th wall’ inventory item?

It’s a physical cardboard thing that includes 3 moveable rings that you can rotate to match up items but very specifically for your individual game experience as it also serves as a form of copy protection.

     
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Yes, in a sense it breaks the fourth wall. I remember playing this particular Ankh game in order to write a First Look and got to the cocktail creation section and spent a couple of hours experimenting, and finally contacted the developer/publisher and they said: “Oh, there’s a code wheel we forgot to send you!”

If the wheel is right there in the box, it’s pretty obvious what it’s for. So that’s pretty fair, IMHO. I agree, it was supposed to hearken back to the olden days when extras like this were a form of copy protection. So it was a bit of colorful nostalgia.

     
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I don’t think this necessarily qualifies as fourth wall, but many Sierra games used the game’s manual as a pseudo fourth wall for copy protection. Amon Ra had you identify sarcophogi, or is that sarcophogusses? Let’s just call them stone crypts in order to start the game. And let’s not forget the pharmaceutical manual that got you started on FPFP. I know there are others, but they just aren’t popping into my mind right now.

     

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chrissie - 21 May 2017 01:13 PM
Becky - 21 May 2017 12:44 PM

Chrissie—I seem to remember an adventure game where one of the puzzle solutions broke the fourth wall and had to be found on the inside of the CD/DVD case. I thought it was delightfully cunning because I happened to figure it out. If I hadn’t happened to figure it out, I probably would have thought it was dreadful.

That rings a bell Becky! I’m not sure whether I’m thinking of the same game & would have to dig out the boxed copy from my ‘archives’, but I vaguely remember that in one of the Last Half of Darkness games? you have to refer to/use a printed insert included in the box to solve a puzzle? Laughing

Found it but I nearly jumped a mile on opening up the game box for Tomb of Zojir: Last Half of Darkness due to the three very prominent plastic spiders contained within it!  Also within the game box is a postcard/photograph with clues to a puzzle on the reverse, a notebook (although I can’t remember whether you need to refer to it to progress) & a mysterious scroll with symbols surrounding a circle on which you have to place & manipulate the actual game disc to match up symbols printed on the disc’s perimeter in order to solve a puzzle.
I was going to post a scan of these items but as, unlike the Ankh wheel,  it could be potentially helpful to anyone that didn’t buy the game legitimately I thought better of it.

Another game that you can get so far through but need a one-page letter included within the game box in order to solve a randomized puzzle to access a secure building is Diamonds in the Rough. I found it to be a nicely integrated form of copy protection & yes, I saw quite a few posts on various forums from players requesting a copy of the letter claiming that they had lost it!

 

     
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chrissie - 22 May 2017 08:21 AM

I was going to post a scan of these items but as, unlike the Ankh wheel,  it could be potentially helpful to anyone that didn’t buy the game legitimately I thought better of it.

Aww… could you post the spiders at least?  Laughing

     
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Just for you Oscar you terrible person making me get those icky things out of the packaging eeeeew! I’ve included the safety instructions too!  Laughing

Hands up all you children over 3 that would like to play with these!  Laughing

     
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Arachnophobe that I am, my gut reaction upon opening that game box would have been to fling it across the room.  Just seeing these plastic spiders on the screen made me jump back in my chair.  Gasp

     

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I had forgotten those spiders! My initial reaction was the same as yours, chrissie.

This might be begging the question (a phrase I hope to understand sometime within the next decade), but do the spiders technically count as inventory items?

     
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Becky - 22 May 2017 02:38 PM


This might be begging the question (a phrase I hope to understand sometime within the next decade), but do the spiders technically count as inventory items?

I can’t remember whether the spiders served any purpose but if they did need to be used in some way to progress the game then yes, I would consider them as inventory items!  Smile

     
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Becky - 22 May 2017 02:38 PM

I had forgotten those spiders! My initial reaction was the same as yours, chrissie.

This might be begging the question (a phrase I hope to understand sometime within the next decade), but do the spiders technically count as inventory items?

That isn’t “begging the question” Becky as you’ve asked a specific question.

Where someone states something and, in attempting to prove it, cycles back to their starting point to the recipient of the statement it will “beg the question”, the question being “where is the proof for that”. The one I remember being used as an example at school (and, I believe, is widely used as an example) is:
God must exist because the bible tells us he does
This “begs the question” where is the proof of the statements in the bible?

If you’d like a more pertinent example, having just thought of it Smile

Adventure Games are the most popular genre of video games.
What makes you say that?
Everyone on the Adventure Gamer’s website loves them.

This “begs the question” where is your independent evidence of this away from Adventure Gamers themselves?

 

     

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Close, Jabod - that is how a lot of people use the phrase. Technically “begging the question” doesn’t just mean having a hole in your reasoning, it specifically means circular reasoning - it’s when you assume the conclusion is true in trying to prove it.

So it’s not just saying ‘God exists because the Bible says so’ and leaving open the question of why you’d believe the Bible. It’s saying “God exists because the Bible says so - and that must be true because God wrote it!”

“We know Guybrush Threepwood is the mightiest pirate ever because Guybrush Threepwood says so - and he should know because he’s the mightiest pirate ever!”

     

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