Tuesday 15 October 2013

Game 36: Hugo's House of Horrors - Won!

Hugo Journal Entry 2: "I saved Penelope! It turned out that there was a huge expanse of caverns beneath the house, with vampire bats, a mummy, and the most fearsome trivia host known to man trying to stop my progress. Thankfully I have the dexterity of a...really dexterous...thing, and an incredible knowledge of genre fiction and early twentieth century cowboy pets! Now my apparently beautiful girl and I can live happily ever after!"


 Apparently the monkey mask has no holes to see through.

My last gameplay post finished with me throwing a big hunk of meat to the dog, distracting it and allowing me to explore the room. There’d been nothing obvious to check out, so I then began looking at everything in the room in great detail. I was faced with all the usual parser annoyances, such as being told that “You’re not close enough!” when trying to look at the dog while standing right next to it. I eventually concluded that the rug had to play a role, yet once again I was told that I wasn’t close enough when I tried to look under it. Thankfully I didn’t give up, as typing “look under rug” while standing in just the right spot caused Hugo to roll part of it up, revealing a trap door (8 points). The trap door was bolted shut, and I didn’t seem to have anything in my inventory that would help me to get it open. I’d been convinced that the oilcan would play a role, but using it on the door hadn’t achieved anything. I was just about to leave and start re-exploring all the other rooms in the house when I thought to try typing “use oil on bolt”. It worked, and I was then able to open the bolt and remove it (17 points)!


 Hey, parser! You only have one purpose and you're crap at it, so shut up!

At this point I received a message telling me: “You casually throw the mask away, since you won’t be needing it any more!” Clearly the mask had only been required to get the chop, and removing it from the game at this point would have made it easier for David to program the areas below. Feeling one step closer to saving Penelope, I made my way down the stairs that had previously been hidden beneath the trap door, reappearing in a basement. There was a door on one wall, and a few large rocks strewn around the place. “You are below the house now. The walls appear to be partly hewn out of rock. To the right of the basement is a large, extremely heavy looking door. You can hear the muffled sounds of someone sobbing!” I looked at the door, and found that I could see Penelope in the room beyond! I was unable to communicate with her though, as her mouth was gagged. There were no bolts holding the door in place and no keyhole, so I had to wonder how on earth I was going to get inside. Perhaps there was another way in? I typed “look at rock” and was told: “You examine every rock in minute detail and come up with: Zilch!” Well, clearly the rocks weren’t going to hold a solution.


Well that rules out doing anything with the rocks...right?

I tried to walk under the stairs but couldn’t, and then wondered whether one of the rocks I could see was in fact two (right near the stairs). I tried to walk between them, and was stunned when I suddenly appeared in another room (12 points)! Now, I stumbled on this solution in less than a minute, but I wouldn’t be surprised if lots of people struggled to find it. There’s not really any reason to try and walk in that spot. It’s not like you would expect to uncover a whole new area by walking between two rocks, even if you did spot that there was something odd visually. Anyway, I was now in a large cavern, with vampire bats flying around and a doorway at the other end. I’d been so stunned when I’d first appeared there, that I simply stood still until the bats came and got me. After restoring, it took me about five or six attempts to get through the room without being hit (they seem to fly around pretty randomly). Sadly, once I finally made it, I was killed moments later by a mummy in the next cavern, which charged straight at me! I’d had no time to save, so had to endure trying to evade the bats all over again. Once I finally reached the cavern with the mummy in it again, I saved my game immediately, then tried to figure out the way to avoid it.


 Vampire bats? In a haunted house?! Oh hang on...that's fair.


Seriously dude, how close do you need to be?!

Avoiding the mummy turned out to be quite simple, as I could cause it to become stuck behind the rocks easily. The real trick was getting it to be stuck in just the right spot so I could not only reach the exit, but also collect the gold that was sitting on the ground on the way through (10 points). The series of caverns continued, with the next one containing an old fisherman (although it really did look like a woman) sitting on a jetty across a small lake. There was a boat on my side of the lake, and that appeared to be the only way across. I looked at the boat and was told that “It looks like a serviceable boat. I wonder whether it would get you to the other side?” I typed “get in boat”, and shortly afterwards had a facepalm moment!!!! “I’m afraid the boat has a hole in the bottom! Unless you can plug it with something, this boat will surely sink before you get to the other shore!” I clearly needed the “useful bung” that I’d seen in the mad scientist’s laboratory! I restored back to the lab, determined to figure out how I was supposed to get the bung and still be able to leave the room. There simply had to be a way to make myself bigger again after the shrinking machine had done its thing.


 Well I guess it's time for a little swim Hugo. What do you mean no?! How about you jump over the small gap at the edge you wuss!

It took me literally thirty seconds to figure it out this time! The thing that had put me off the scent last time was that Igor appeared not to want to converse with me, but the trick was to talk to him once I was standing in the machine. Once there I typed “tell igor to press button”. He pressed the YELLOW button, and the machine increased me to my normal size! Unfortunately, when I tried to leave I found that my directions were all messed up. When I tried to go left, Hugo would go right, and when I went right, Hugo would go left. I thought perhaps I could get used to it, but the thought of trying to avoid bats and mummies with reversed arrow keys was daunting. I hopped back into the machine and asked Igor to press another button. This time he pressed the GREEN button, but this caused me to partially disappear, with only strips of my body visible. I asked Igor to again press another button, and finally he pressed the BLUE button he was supposed to press in the first place. I was now my normal size, with no nasty side effects, meaning I could leave the laboratory with the bung I needed for the boat. I very quickly made my way back to the lake and tried to fix the boat.


 Surprisingly this wasn't merely a graphical glitch

A few things about the game had been mildly irritating by this point, but I have to say this is the part that really frustrated me. I typed “use bung”, yet the game didn’t understand me. I tried “use bung on boat”, but still no luck. I then tried “use bung in hole in boat”, “fill hole with bung”, “fix hole with bung” and plenty of other alternate versions of the same request. None of them got a response until I typed “plug up boat”. Even this didn’t give me success, but the response of “You must be more specific” at least told me I was on the right track. The solution ended up being “plug up boat with bung”, but anything other than those exact words didn’t seem to work. The boat was now fixed though, so I hopped in. “The rope is knotted too tightly and you are, alas, unable to untie it despite your best efforts!” This seemed a perfect opportunity to use my knife, and “cut rope with knife” did the trick. The boat, with me in it, floated across the lake and stopped in front of the fisherman. I wasn’t able to get out though, as the man was blocking my path. My first thought was to “pay the ferryman” with the gold I’d just collected, but he wouldn’t accept my generous gift. All of a sudden he spoke to me...


 Remember not to pay until you get to the other side

“Ah! Welcome to my lake, my fine young friend. I have been waiting for you! I am well aware of your quest and I would hasten you on your way. However, before I let you pass I must satisfy myself that you have the experience to handle the dangers that lurk through yonder passage. To this end, you will permit me to test your mettle with a few questions the answers to which would come readily to the lips of any seasoned adventurer. Be warned, however that I can only accept your first answer!” I certainly hadn’t expected a test, and prepared to solve whatever this crazy old dude could throw at me. His first question was “What was the first name of the hero in The Hobbit?” What?! Of course I knew the answer was “Bilbo”, but what did that have to do with the rest of the game? My answer was correct, but all of a sudden I feared what might be coming next. “Where did Aslan live? (Hint: Not in a wardrobe!)” Well, Aslan was the lion from the Chronicles of Narnia, so the answer had to be “Narnia”. Correct! Haha! You won’t fool me old man! “Who invented Count Dracula?” I’ve read Bram Stoker’s Dracula, so typed “Bram Stoker”. Correct! Is that all you’ve got!? Come on, give me something hard!!! “What should you do with a Pan-galactic gargle blaster? (a) Ride it (b) Fire it (c) Drink it (d) Run away from it”. As a big fan of Douglas Adams, this question was also very easy for me. “c”. Correct!


It's hard work being this good!

By now, my confidence was sky high, and I was looking forward to each question. Clearly David Gray knew his audience, and they would likely be experienced in the history of fantasy, sci fi and horror fiction. “And now a riddle: What’s the name of the only mammal that can’t fly that can fly?” Hmmm...that was a bit trickier, but surely the answer was a “human”. We can fly after all, if not through our own bodily functions. I entered my answer, only to be told that it was incorrect! I’d failed the test, and was now left in the boat for all eternity! Boooo!!!! I had a fair idea what to do though, so I restored and got myself back to the same point. This time I typed “man” instead of “human” and cursed Mr Gray as I was informed that this answer was correct. Surely a bit of parser flexibility would go a long way in such circumstances! I still hadn’t completed the test though, and was informed that there were “just 2 more to go!” I was on the home stretch, but the smile was very rapidly wiped from my face! “What was the name of Roy Rogers’s dog?” WTF!!!??? Who the hell is Roy Rogers? I’d recognised the subject of all the other questions, but I’d never heard of anyone named Roy Rogers, let alone knew what their dog was called!


Oh that's easy! It's um...um...wait a minute...who the hell is Roy Rogers!?

Was I really going to need to submit a Request for Assistance while playing Hugo’s House of Horrors? Surely not! Hang on a second! Laukku had put a bet on a particular puzzle in this game, with the jackpot being 150 CAPs. This was it wasn’t it! I immediately knew that it was, which made me even more determined not to fail. But how do you solve a “puzzle” that requires knowledge you don’t have? It’s not really a puzzle at all! This got me thinking about what I would do if this did indeed turn out to be Laukku’s bet, but I decided to deal with that later. I tried to put myself in the shoes of a player in 1990. They likely wouldn’t have had the internet to quickly Google the answer, as it was still in its infancy. In all likelihood they would have asked one of their parents. I picked up my mobile and rang my dad. Dad: “Hello.” Me: “Hi dad. I have a strange question for you.” Dad: “Right.” Me: “Do you know who Roy Rogers is?” Dad: “Roy Rogers?” Me: “Yeah, Roy Rogers. Do you know who he is?” Dad: “Wasn’t he an actor?” Me: “Well I’m not sure. Do you know anything else?” Dad: “What’s this all about? Why don’t you just look him up?” Me: “I can’t do that.” Dad: “Why not?!” Me: “I just can’t dad. Look, do you know what Roy Rogers’ dog is called?” Dad: “Not a clue. Have you been drinking? It might be time to stop!” Me: “Never mind dad. Thanks.”


 Mr Trickster seemed quite sure that his son had been partaking in something unhealthy

Damn it! This wasn’t fair. Over the next couple of minutes, I convinced myself that looking up Roy Rogers on the internet, and even the name of his dog, was not really breaking the rules of The Adventure Gamer. I didn’t require a walkthrough. I was required to know something unrelated to the game, and I simply didn’t. The question was clearly designed to make players step away from the game and go and find the answer any way that they could, so that’s what I was going to do! I Googled Roy Rogers and found that he was a singer and cowboy actor from the 30s through to the 50s and beyond. I also discovered that his dog’s name was Bullet! I now know that this was exactly the part of the game that Laukku predicted I would require assistance with. At first I felt a bit cheated, and considered compromising in some way (perhaps giving him half the CAPs?). After all, handing over 150 CAPs for an almost impossible puzzle seemed excessive. After some more thought though, and after consulting The Adventure Gamer committee (yes, I formed a committee over this), I have decided to award Laukku all 150 CAPs. My original rule stated “A reader can bet 10 of their current CAPs that The Trickster will require assistance to solve a particular puzzle in the game he is about to commence playing”. It made no mention of where the assistance might come from, so this puzzle was fair game! I may have to change the wording of the rule going forward though. Congrats Laukku! Well played!


 Roy Rogers and his dog Bullet. Don't tell me you knew the answer! I won't listen.

After that bitchy question, I really was concerned about what the last one might be. As it turned out, it was the easiest of all. “Are you sure you want to rescue Penelope?” Clearly the answer was “Yes”, and I was pronounced a “noble and wise adventurer!!” (33 points) Now that I was able to pass the fisherman and enter the next screen, I had to wonder what challenges the test may have been preparing me for. Were things about to get truly nasty!? I found myself confronted by a guard, who appeared to be wearing nothing but underwear. “You have arrived in a passage with a room at the end. There is a large guard at the end who appears to be standing outside a kind of jail. Wait! Behind the guard you can make out a familiar shape! Yes! It’s Penelope, being held prisoner!” Really? This was the end of the game? So much for “the dangers that lurk through yonder passage”! I figured the easiest way past him was to give him the gold, and he accepted it (21 points)! I walked into the jail and found Penelope (well, a silhouette of Penelope anyway). “Congratulations! You are so glad to have rescued Penelope, you dance for joy! After cutting her ropes with your penknife, you open the bolts of the jail door and find yourself back in the basement! From here you trip hand in hand the basement stairs, past the ferocious doggy, through the kitchen and out the front door to freedom!” Game 36 complete! My thoughts on it shall be revealed in the Final Rating post.


I really don't want to think about what this guard might have done to me


Hooray! I've saved the enormous shadow of my girlfriend!


Now we can be shadows together...forever!

Session Time: 1 hour 00 minutes
Total Time: 1 hour 30 minutes

60 comments:

  1. Congratulations on finishing another one (albeit with a teeny tiny bit of assistance there)!
    Three tidbits of commentary on this one:
    - Thank you for getting stuck on the same question as most/the rest of us!
    - I spent far too much time on finding the passage between the rocks, I can't help feeling it was thrown in just to amplify the difficulty of the game. Either the puzzles are ridiculously easy, or unfairly designed (the rock/the questions).
    - You can stop the bats by blowing the whistle in the room, it apparently "confuses their sonar". I think this also covers your missing points.

    Looking forward to your Final Rating, and then onwards to Loom. Congrats to Laukku for finally popping the bet as well.

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    1. *That's* what the whistle was for? Before getting the chop I kept using it to summon the dog to every room, convinced I had to lock him up somewhere so that I could get to the carpet. The dog kept killing me anyway. I guess that feature was included just to provide a few "amusing" deaths...

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    2. Aha! I was wondering what I failed to do. Surprisingly, a high pitched whistle probably would have an effect on bat's echolocation, so that solution isn't as silly as it first appears.

      I had to laugh whenever the dog came after me on other screens. It looked like it was sliding along on its ass, as it's legs didn't move in the slightest. I too thought there must be a correct time and place to attract the dog with the whistle Charles.

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    3. I find puzzles like the 'having to walk between the 2 boulders' puzzle annoying because they're being deliberately unfair to the player. Other adventure games also sometimes take advantage of the fact that the player has a limited view of the world and hide something important that the character would be able to see much more easily.

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    4. Yeah, I tried the chop on the dog before I ever attempted the whistle, so it was an unused item in my inventory when I got to the bats.

      And @TBD, I ranted about unfair puzzles in an earlier comment regarding Manhunter 2. There it was a question of cultural differences (inches/centimeters), which also applies to for instance the Roy Rodgers question in this one. But yes, I totally agree that the rock passage is unfair, as it can't be seen and there's no clue that there is a passage there even when you look at the room, the rocks etc.

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  2. Roy Rogers is currently well known in parts of the United States. Not for his acting, but for his restaurant chain! I know who he was, but not much about him. I knew Trigger was the horse's name. You would have had to be in your 30s or 40s when this game was published to know any details about his career. My father definitely knows who the dog is; it came up a couple months ago at our local pub trivia and he was the only person on our team who knew the answer.

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    1. I actually know Roy Rogers from a few of his old cowboy songs. Popular tunes like Happy Trails, Home of the Range, that kind of thing. Lovely voice. No clue about his dog, though!

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    2. His horse being named Trigger is the only thing I knew about him. However, knowing that, Bullet does make a kind of sense, along with his pet cat Firing Chamber, pet snake Pistol Grip, and pet budgie Petey Boy.

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    3. I actually worked at Roy Rogers (the fast food restaurant chain) as my first job, when I was 16. They were well known for their roast beef sandwiches and their fried chicken. The sanitary conditions, however, convinced me to (a) quick after only four or five months, (b) never, ever work fast food again, and (c) completely shut my mind off to the health ramifications of eating out.

      Roy Rogers, the cowboy, was the idol of most American boys in the 40s and 50s - including my father, who grew up in the American West and Southwest. Therefore I could tell you with eyes shut and hands bound, hanging upside down in the dark, that Roy's wife was Dale, his horse was Trigger, and his dog was Bullet.

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    4. I thought Roy Rogers the TV show was made for a British audience. Mostly because Elton John wrote a song about the show.

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  3. I thought his dog was named Bingo. I knew it started with a 'b', but would not have guessed Bullet.

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  4. I'm sure the reason the mask reacts to the "radioactive" forces and is dropped before you enter the lab is that you cut in half the amount of sprites needed for all the metamorphoses.

    Also, as picky as the parser got in some instances, simply repeating "igor push" while inside the box is enough to have Igor cycle through all the colored buttons.

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  5. There's only one reason you should know who Roy Rogers is (if you're not from the US, anyway), and that is from a certain film. But which one is it?

    "I was always kinda' partial to Roy Rogers actually. I really liked those sequinned shirts."

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    1. Oooh. One of my favourite movies. That explains why I knew he was a cowboy when I read the name. Yippee-Ki-Yay!

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  6. Are there CAPs at stake? :) Qvr Uneq!

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    1. No caps, (I'm saving them to spend in 1992).

      But how about a free adventure game instead? GOG, Steam or Gamersgate, below $10.

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    2. Wow, that's pretty generous. Particularly as the answer is found through a simple Google search. There's a lot of love on this blog! :)

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    3. Well, I'm not planning on giving away free stuff all the time, so it's not that much really. Also I figured people would be able to guess without searching for it, didn't really consider that.

      If anyone hasn't seen Die Hard, I'd highly recommend it. We're almost at the appropriate time of year, since for me and my friends it's "The Christmas Film".

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    4. I most certainly did not look that one up!

      "No sh** lady, do I sound like I'm ordering a pizza?"
      "Welcome to the party, pal!"
      "And the quarterback is TOAST!"
      "Come out to the coast, we'll have a few laughs..."
      "I'm going to count to three. There will not be a four."
      "What's the matter Hans? No bullets?"

      ...I could go on. But yeah, awfully generous. I was just kidding about CAPS. Don't feel obligated, but I'd choose Inherit The Earth from GOG. I had that on 3.5" disks a long time ago and never got far. Wouldn't mind trying again without the hassle of getting it to run.

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    5. I had a marathon two weekends ago, plowed through the first four films. I always feel old when I remember that Die Hard came out 25 years ago. It still works fantastically today though.

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    6. I am firmly convinced that Die Hard is the all-time best Christmas movie ever made.

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    7. Can I get an email address for you Cush1978? Need it to send your prize.

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    8. Sure. Any way I can get it to you without posting it for bots and spammers to try and scrape? My account on GOG is the same name as this one if that helps.

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    9. I have both emails, so let me know if you want me to send your address to Andy_Panthro.

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    10. Sure Trickster, I don't mind. Thanks!

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  7. I knew who Roy Rogers is (Hard not to with a history geek Dad, and two parents with background in TV and radio, and also a fondness for Die Hard.), but I would never have gotten his dogs name.

    The riddle however, I would have guessed Flying Squirrel on. See, they don't actually fly, they glide. So they are the only mammal that can't fly, that flies. I think this answers says something about how my brain works, but I'm not sure what.

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  8. Another new adventure game, something jucie this time, not a survival-horror FPS: The Wolf Among Us. By the same people who did the critically acclaimed The Walking Dead game (The good adventure game, not the bad survival game) made a new game, same engine, slightly cartoonier style. I'd have more information on it, but my brother is in the middle of midterms and thus hasn't played through it yet. http://store.steampowered.com/app/250320/?snr=1_4_4__tab-NewReleasesFilteredDLC_1

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    1. I played the first episode monday evening, so I can fill out a bit. It's a Telltale game, with huge focus on telling a story. There's no inventory management (in the first episode), but plays out with dialogue choices and a bit of fairly good fight scene QTE's.

      As an adventure gamer it's really light on puzzles, but it's good entertainment, and scores really high on my Want-to-know-what-happens-next scale. As one of the new generation Telltale games your choices will matter on how the story plays out, and even my wife was glued to the screen following the storyline while I played. I recommend it.

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    2. That sounds like Walking Dead all right. If they can keep the quality, they should have another winner.

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    3. Not a fan of Telltale's Walking dead (or Telltale in general really), although I've only played the first episode (twice, to see what effect the choices have).

      I think I'll wait on this one until Trickster gets to it, in the far future.

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  9. Clearly your Dad isn't old enough or didn't watch old movies; you should have called us. :-) I could have instantly told you who Roy Rogers was, but I didn't remember his dog's name offhand. I remember that his horse was named Trigger. However, Lori came up with the dog's name instantly.

    Even in 1990, most young adults would not have gotten the reference unless they watched old movies or asked their parents. Our first TV was black-and-white, and I remember the transition in TV Guide. Originally they put a (C) symbol next to shows that were in color because most were B&W. Eventually they switched to putting (BW) next to B&W shows, assuming that everything else was now color. But Roy Rogers was still mostly before my time (but still on the air) even as a kid.

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  10. A new Kickstarter going up (around) 25th of October: http://adventuremob.com/
    Bolt Riley: A Reggae Adventure
    "Become a Reggae legend in a Jamaican adventure game by Adventure Mob and co-designed by Corey and Lori Cole"

    Hey Corey, are you keeping adventure game secrets from us, hmmm?

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  11. Since I'm going to be a bit busy over the next few weeks I thought I'd get a head start on Loom while I had the chance. We're going with the EGA version which came out in 1990, and picking up the CD VGA talkie version when we come to 1992, right?

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    1. I'm going to play the TurboGrafx-CD version. What skill level are we playing on? Looking up online there's an added scene in the EGA version on Expert (present in all difficulties in the VGA one).

      The difficulties differ only when learning a new thread
      Expert - Sound only
      Standard - Bar scale
      Practice - Lettered notes

      I don't really remember what Trickster decided to do, but I believe he's mostly leaning towards playing only one version of a game.

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    2. I was under the impression that Trickster would play the best version available if there were multiple versions, with the exception being for much later remakes.

      As for difficulty, I think I might have to go for "Practice" since my musical ability and knowledge is particularly poor.

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    3. I seem to remember Trickster saying something about not being too good with music either (I think it was a musical puzzle in Last Crusade that got him stuck?) so I'd recommend going with Practice too. It's not that you miss anything essential IMO.

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    4. Since there's quite a bit of difference in the original vs the new releases in Loom, I'd say it would be sensible to do both.

      I was planning on doing original EGA in Standard mode and then later the VGA talkie on Expert, but I didn't know about the extra ending on original Expert mode. I might give Expert mode a shot first then, and see just how difficult it is.

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    5. I'd recommend everyone at least giving Expert a go, since it only requires a good ear and not any actual musical knowledge.

      I agree that it would make sense to also do the CD version when we hit 1992, as it makes tons of other changes beyond simply adding VGA and voice acting. You could even call it a recut version.

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    6. I played in Expert when I played many years ago and I had to do a lot of trial and error to recreate the notes. I had a similar problem with one of the puzzles in Myst. I'll be joining in but sticking to Standard this time.

      I like it how we don't even have the Final Rating post for Hugo up and we're already talking about the next game. :)

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    7. Hum... If I remember it correctly, there was this "trick" in expert so you don't need any good hearing... Rira gubhtu lbh qba'g frr gur yrggref be gur cneg bs gur fgnss yvtugravat hc, lbh fgvyy frr synfu bs pbybhef va gur fperra pbeerfcbaqvat gb gur abgrf lbh fubhyq cynl, gur fnzr juvpu yvtug hc lbhe fgnss jura lbh pnfg gur fcryy. Lbh pna yrnea gur fcryyf whfg ol ybbxvat ng gur pbybhef.

      I didn't know there were extra scenes when playing in Expert though...

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  12. Another new Kickstarter, this time from Cyan Worlds, creators of Myst and Riven! http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/cyaninc/obduction

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    1. Aw I rushed over here to post about this one as soon as I saw. Most exciting adventure game kickstarter so far, for me.

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    2. It's just over a day in and have gotten over $215k in pledges already. Seems like this one is a no-brainer.

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  13. Sale: The Stanley Parable: One of Andy_Panthro's favourite games is 20% off. http://store.steampowered.com/app/221910/
    It claims to have come out on Oct 17th, 2013, but as Andy_Panthro mentioned it on this blog before that, I'm guessing that was when it arrived on Steam.

    Also CONTRAST, an Adventure/Platformer with an odd art style. It won't be out for a month, but there is a prerelease sale: http://store.steampowered.com/app/224460 That said, people much more well spoken then me have pointed out that prerelease buying tends to reward bad games. Jim of Jimquisition has spoken often on the topic, particularly after the Aliens: Colonial Marines debacle.

    Face Noir is also on sale. Claims to have come out today, but as shown above, those dates can be misleading. Has anyone heard of this? I'll admit, I love noir things and that asthetic is always yummy. http://store.steampowered.com/app/244690

    I figured out why all of these are on sale; they all came in from Steam Greenlight, the 'get your indie game on Steam' competition. I'm betting the latest batch just came through.
    This one is Eleusis: http://store.steampowered.com/app/251310 Fire person, mystery, you know the drill. Doesn't seem survival based though.

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    1. Ok, Ars Technica has a review of The Stanley Parable: http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2013/10/the-stanley-parable-review-you-are-in-a-room-there-are-two-doors/

      It seems this is a standalone paid version of what was a free mod. They quite like it as well. Don't worry, the spoiler section is clearly marked.

      As you lot also like Kickstarters, I thought you might like this: It seems that you can predict a KS success with about 87% accuracy within the first 6 days, and 84% in the first day and a half. Now, I'm not a stats guru, so I don't feel qualified to review it (and I'm doing enough science reading for work) but I'd be pretty interested in seeing how well this holds up when you try and do it predicatively-- I've seen a lot of work in the same vein in chemistry where they can get a great correlation among the training data, but it falls apart when you try and apply it predicatively.)

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    2. I played the Stanley Parable last night, until 2am.

      It's awesome, and there's a completely spoiler-free demo if you want to try that first (the main game is better than the demo obviously, but the demo gives you a good idea of what to expect).

      My review of the demo is here: http://playedbypanthro.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/indie-gaming-stanley-parable-demo.html

      Think of it as sort of a surrealist, first-person, narrated, choose-your-own-adventure. (The narration is excellent too).

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  14. You guys who are putting up all of the Steam/GOG sales posts - you missed one. http://store.steampowered.com/app/245390/?snr=1_4_4__103 <= I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream can actually be obtained legally, now! (For anyone looking for it in '95.) It's not awfully expensive to begin with, and it's actually quite fun.

    I predicted this as being one of the least-posted about games. Good to see you had a laugh with it, at least (and it's now time to inform you that the opening screen is seemingly stolen from a collective arts disc etc, explaining why the inside of the mansion is so far different from the out. :) Can't wait for Loom!

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    1. Oh sweet, I had missed that it was available for purchase. Seems it's also on GoG for those that prefer it: http://www.gog.com/game/i_have_no_mouth_and_i_must_scream

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    2. Good catch Aperama! I'm not sure how I missed that one. I glance through the Steam Sales list every so often, some looking for adventure games, mostly something new for me. I just did that today, so I am wondering if I missed that one, or if it is a new sale.

      Also: The debate. GoG = generally cool guys, DRM free. Steam = Big evil corporation, but apparently pay the dev/publisher more.

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    3. The GoG release date was September 5th, Steam says yesterday. I missed both as well.

      I generally prefer GoG to Steam, just because GoG makes it easier to keep offline copies of the installation, and the Steam client is a bit top heavy on memory usage on my laptop. It also helps of course that GoG games most times come with extra freebies such as a soundtrack or "making of"-videos, which are nice to have.

      But if Steam has a good sale on a game I want, I have no qualms about buying it there instead of on GoG. I've never seen Valve as Big Bad, as they've done more to promote ease of access to a broad spectrum of both current, classic and indie games than most. The only other way to get a lot of these older games would be eBay or pirating.

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  15. Huge Point-and-click-a-thon on GoG, 13 adventure games 60% off: http://www.gog.com/promo/adventure_games_weekend_promo_181013

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    1. Hm, it was stated 13, but there's actually more: The Longest Journey, Dreamfall, The 7th Guest, The 11th Hour, To the Moon, Another World, Book of Unwritten Tales (and The Critter Chronicles), Jack Keane, Jack Keane 2, Machinarium, The Dracula Trilogy, Dracula 4, Inherit the Earth, Richard & Alice and Nancy Drew: Curse of Blackmoor Manor.

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  16. WTF is a "rubber bung"? I don't know that I would have made the connection to the hole in the boat (other than that that's about the only item you have in your inventory)

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    1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bung

      "A bung, stopper or cork is a truncated cylindrical or conical closure to seal a container, such as a bottle, tube or barrel. Unlike a lid, which encloses a container from the outside without displacing the inner volume, a bung is partially inserted inside the container to act as a seal."

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  17. I have found the secret passage by a pure luck. I remember from other game (do not reveal the title to avoid potential spoiler whether Trickster did not play the game yet) that hiding behind a rock may trigger an event. I had hit upon an idea that maybe someone will approach the cell and open the door while the Player is out of ones sight. It wasn’t the case but at least I wasn’t stuck anymore.

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