Game 27: Emmanuelle - Final Rating

Emmanuelle was really bad. Still, I’m not convinced it will stoop as low as Psycho did, as that game was broken in so many ways. I’ve looked forward to punishing this game though, so let’s get to it.

Puzzles and Solvability
Oh where to start!? There aren’t really all that many puzzles in Emmanuelle. The majority of what might be considered puzzles have too much of a random element to have any sort of logical solution. Hours of my time were spent trying to seduce women, only to find that what worked with a particular woman one minute didn’t work the next. In a game with no save feature that expects you to play a flawless game if you’re to have any hope of completion, making the seduction process fairly random is pretty unacceptable. Speaking of randomness, many vital pieces of information are collected through luck alone. The manual suggests the first thing you should do on arriving in Brazil is track down Mario (which is also the only way to get the mask) and yet finding Mario is next to impossible. His room number can only be found by seducing Nancy at the Salvador hotel, but then she only tells you about Mario’s location about one in every four successful seductions. Why should the player seduce her again after the first time turned up nothing?

 

How do I compare three pickup lines when none of them sound complimentary?

Before I move on from the seduction sections, I should also mention that I was able to use the same pickup line twice in a row with women and still have success. Imagine how things would go in real life if you walked up to a woman and said “I think you’d look great wrapped in something white and silky” and then followed it up with “I think you’d look great wrapped in something white and silky”. Even ignoring the random elements, there are a few puzzles that I solved without even knowing about it. The game never informed me that I used the toucan to successfully jump from the cliff in Iguacu, nor is there any explanation as to how that worked. I feel like I haven’t even touched on how bad this category is. There are puzzles that are solved when there’s no way you could know there was a puzzle to be solved (giving the pandiero to Old Silvinho). There are puzzles where the solution can only be guesswork (which item from the buffet should you give to Sam at the garden party?). Finding Emmanuelle at the end of the game was painful enough for Emmanuelle to get a really low rating for this category, so 1 it is!
Rating: 1

 

Sure. But if you're not going to tell me what you want, then you probably won't like it.

Interface and Inventory
I’ll start with a positive here, although it could barely be called that. The inventory is presented very clearly at the bottom of the screen, with each item nicely and obviously displayed. That being said, there are certain items that simply don’t appear there (the toucan and the harness), with both of those items being used to “solve” the same puzzle with no explanation. There’s also no way to “use” any of the items and they are simply applied at the right time. As for the interface, well I have to start with the three unacceptably infuriating aspects of the game. Firstly, there’s no save game! This seems to be a devised attempt at making the game longer rather than an oversight or technical challenge, which makes it beyond unacceptable. I had to start again dozens of times when I could have saved my game after collecting each statuette and after each successful seduction. Basically I reckon I would have finished the game in a couple of sessions if I could have saved my game and instead spent over ten hours on it.

 

Well all the inventory items look ok apart from the statuettes. They are just ugly!

Secondly, not being able to use a mouse makes the game stupendously irritating. Moving the cursor around with the keys would be painful enough, but combined with the third major issue, which is the speed the game runs at, and it becomes a reason to reach for the razor blade. I had to slow down and speed up the game constantly for it to be playable, with the dialogue options moving way too fast to make a correct selection and the cursor movement subsequently way too slow to do anything at all. On top of all this, the cursor “collision detection” is atrocious, meaning I had to click just to the left and just above everything I wanted to select for it to work. I can’t tell you how frustrating using the lift buttons in the hotel was!!!  I could go on and on (need I mention the overly simplistic fighting scenes) but I’ve said enough. 1!
Rating: 1

 

Actually, would you mind pressing it too? I find pressing buttons to be unusually difficult!

Story and Setting
There’s a lot that I came across in Emmanuelle that had me shaking my head in disbelief, but probably the thing that stands out is that it was written and designed by a woman. I’ve never played a game that objectifies women more than this one (Leisure Suit Larry’s got nothing on this) and there isn’t anything remotely romantic about anything that goes on. Perhaps it was Muriel’s personal take on the liberation of women’s sexuality, but it comes across as a laughable and very sexist piece of garbage. The aim of the game is to sleep with Emmanuelle (which isn’t exactly moralistic to begin with) and the only way to achieve that is to sleep with numerous other women on the way. That’s the story right there!!!! All the other bits and pieces are just time killers and make very little sense at all (such as the collection of the statuettes).

 

Maybe Muriel just has low standards when it comes to men approaching her and asking for sex.

Even the minor attempts at extending the story elements can be completely avoided. As mentioned earlier, finding Mario is the first instruction in the manual, and yet it appears you can finish the game without ever doing that (albeit without 100 erotic potential). Finding the judo master is also mentioned, and yet not only can that be completely avoided, the fighting scenes themselves are entirely pointless and avoidable. To top it all off, Emmanuelle has next to no closure, simply crashing back to the C prompt without any sort of completion outro. As for the setting, well I guess Brazil is a good place for the game to be set, as it does suggest a certain party life style, sunshine and promiscuousness that suits the story. I have no idea whether any of the locations in the game have any basis in reality so I can’t comment on that, but apart from making me wish I spent some teenage years in Brazil, I can’t say Emmanuelle will be used in any tourism marketing campaigns any time soon.
Rating: 1

 

A most fitting ending to the story indeed!

Sound and Graphics
There really isn’t much to say about sound in Emmanuelle, because basically there isn’t any. As I mentioned in one of my posts, someone is listed as having created the music for the game in the credits, but reviews on the net (even from back in the day) suggest it never made the PC version. The graphics are not disastrous, but they are pretty low quality. Some of the women do look mildly attractive and the surroundings are reasonably enticing, so I guess it has that going for it, but if I compare Emmanuelle to anything made by Sierra or LucasArts, there’s simply no competition. There’s also very little in the way of animation, meaning most of the game is entirely static, and when it does pop up it’s really quite awful (swimming, fighting etc.). I don’t think it deserves a 1, despite having no sound, but I can’t go with more than 2.
Rating: 2

 

No, this is not one of the "mildly attractive" women I was talking about!

Environment and Atmosphere
I really can’t say the game has much atmosphere at all. It’s all so ridiculous that the only emotional responses I could have towards it were irritation and disbelief. It’s one of those instances where any success that you have makes you jump up and down and feel pretty good about yourself, but that’s only because of the contrived difficulty level and nothing to do with clever puzzles. The lack of music certainly doesn’t help things either, and I simply had to fill the silence with my own musical tastes (which aren’t completely conducive to sexual endeavours). I’m a bit perplexed as to what to give this category, since even Psycho received a 2. That game actually had a haunted house and goal that needed to be achieved by daybreak, so I can’t give Emmanuelle more than that.
Rating: 2

 

You can't argue with the setting!

Dialogue and Acting
As with all the French games I’ve played so far, the translation surely plays a role in how terrible the dialogue is here. That being said, I simply can’t see how any of this could possibly be good, even in its native language. In particular, the pickup lines are truly hysterical and would never work in the real world. This is not just a matter of clunky dialogue though, as choosing from three equally terrible pickup lines to seduce a woman is no easy task, so it has an effect on gameplay. Even the three rules, which the game is based entirely around, are bafflingly Engrish, and don’t mean much in any case. To summarise, even when the dialogue makes sense grammatically, it rarely makes much sense anyway!
Rating: 2

 

Huh?

That’s 15 for Emmanuelle, which is 5 points better than the genre bottoming Psycho. However, since Psycho only wasted 2 hours of my time (plus posting time), Emmanuelle wasted a lot more. I’m deducting another point for the lack of a save game, as that really pissed me off. 14 it is!!!

So who is the winner of the the Lars-Erik sponsored game? Pacpix chose 15, so he was the closest! That's the first time someone hasn't guessed the exact number, but given he chose the unaltered final rating, he's a worthy winner. Congratulations Pacpix! Send an email to theadventuregamer@gmail.com and I'll forward you your prize.

Bring on Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade!!!!!!! Surely LucasArts can help wash away the filth and grime. Who's joining me?

60 CAPs for Ilmari
• Legend Award (aka Sucker for Punishment Award) – 20 CAPs - For playing through and completing Emmanuelle
• New Year’s Resolution Award – 10 CAPs – For working towards a better future
• Technical Assistance Award – 10 CAPs – For helping me with the game’s speed issues
• Minor Assistance Award – 5 CAPs – For helping me understand the game’s counters
• Minor Assistance Award – 5 CAPs – For explaining the ridiculous use of the toucan
• Minor Assistance Award – 5 CAPs – For explaining that the judo master is Old Silvhino
• RTFM Award – 5 CAPs – For explaining the obvious which I clearly missed

35 CAPs for TBD
• Women in Games Appreciation Award – 20 CAPs – For cracking the Nancy Drew riddle
• Technical Assistance Award – 10 CAPs – For helping me with the game’s speed issues
• Genre Support Award - 5 CAPs - For commenting about a new adventure game sale on Steam

20 CAPs for Lars-Erik
• Sponsor Award - 20 CAPs - For sponsoring the blog with free games

10 CAPs for Alex
• Newbie Award – 10 CAPs – For commenting on a plethora of posts with insightful knowledge

10 CAPs for Splitting Image
• Lucky Number Award – 10 CAPs – For letting me know about the lucky number option in the casino

10 CAPs for Pacpix
• Clairvoyant Award - 10 CAPs - For predicting the score I would give the game

5 CAPs for Zenic Reverie
• Genre Support Award - 5 CAPs - For commenting about a new adventure game sale on GOG

5 CAPs for Draconius
• Christmas Present Award – 5 CAPs – For giving me the best Xmas present ever. The option to stop playing Emmanuelle!

-45 CAPs for Canageek
• Borderline Addition Award - -50 CAPs – For adding Emmanuelle to the game list
• Genre Support Award - 5 CAPs - For commenting about a new adventure game sale on GOG

Game 27: Emmanuelle - Won!

Marc-Henri Journal Entry 4: “Emmanuelle is mine! A few days ago my dream of seducing her looked like it would always remain a fantasy, but since that time I have educated myself in the ways of eroticism to the point where she could no longer deny me. I have bedded a masked woman from the carnival, twin sisters (at the same time), and a sensual woman named Sam multiple times, all with the intention of increasing my erotic potential. Yet even after these conquests made me the walking pinnacle of seduction, finding Emmanuelle proved a challenging exploit. It is done now, and I don’t plan on letting Emmanuelle out of my sight (or my bed) for a long time to come.”

 

Not having to play this game ever again is cause for celebration. Let's get naked!

I’ve finished Emmanuelle! I can’t begin to tell you how happy I am about that, particularly as the last couple of hours were tremendously tedious. I could easily fill another couple of posts with everything that I went through during the ten hours I played the game (six since I last posted), but I think it’s safe to assume that everyone’s ready to move onto something more enjoyable. For that reason, I will forego my usual session playthrough approach and get straight down to business. Be aware that I must have restarted Emmanuelle over forty times since I first loaded it up, so everything you’re about to read was discovered by pure trial and error. Basically I just kept trying things out in an attempt to understand the game mechanics behind everything, if indeed there were any to discover.

 

100 Erotic Potential! I actually doubted myself for a while there.

Unfortunately, discovering what was required of me to complete the game was only half the battle. The randomness of so many sections made achieving everything in the one playthrough near impossible, as you will soon see. I’ll split the game into three distinct sections to make this description as straight forward as possible. 1. Find the statuettes. 2. Sleep with the women that each statuette relates to. 3. Find Emmanuelle. I’ve already described in my previous posts how to find the three statuettes, but it can be summarised as follows. The first one is with the man in the casino and can be collected by giving him the aphrodisiac received from the guy in the boat. The second one is found in the waterfall at Iguacu, and can only be picked up if I purchased the toucan (yes, the toucan!!!) or received the harness from the helicopter pilot. The third one is found in the opera house, but can only be collected when the opera house is closed (which occurs randomly).

 

Apparently jumping off this cliff is just fine if you have a toucan in your possession

Once I had the three statuettes, I had to figure out how to use them to increase my erotic potential to a level that would satisfy Emmanuelle. There were no instructions found anywhere as to how high my erotic potential needed to be, but I decided early on that I was going to aim for 100 to make sure. My attempts at tracking down Emmanuelle so far had not gone well, so I wanted to make sure I had a high enough potential when we did finally cross paths. Sleeping with women in the game generally made my energy and erotic potential go down rather than up, but by mere accident I came across an encounter where it did actually increase in my second session with the game. As it turned out, it was by far the most difficult of the three encounters to discover! The manual suggested that the first thing I should do in Brazil is seek out Mario. It gave no hints as to where he might be, but it did say that he would dictate the “three laws of eroticism” to me. While investigating random rooms in the Salvador hotel, I randomly came across him.

 

Here's another random encounter that I had. Emmanuelle doing a strip show before my eyes!

Mario was behind the first door on the first floor, and I’d assumed at the time that he would always be found there. Finding him not only resulted in my character being informed of the three laws (which are all in the manual anyway), but it also resulted in me using one of the statuettes. “Ah, my dear Marc-Henri! I was waiting for you! Emmanuelle runs from you and she is right! Erotically, you are so profane!” He continued: “But all is not lost! Eroticism is an art which you can learn through willpower and application... Only these things are really erotic; the extraordinary, the uncensored, the UNUSUAL! Eroticism hates equilibrium. Eroticism prefers ASYMMETRY. Beware of complete satisfaction! Eroticism needs NUMBER. One more point! In this country are 3 statuettes which represent these rules. Finding them will bring you nearer to Emmanuelle! Come on; put on this mask! I’m taking you to taste the real carnival; the one which makes you lose your head!”

 

The translation didn't do the game any favours.

I didn’t realise at the time how damn fortunate I was to have that mask in my possession, as Mario was never in that room again. It would take me quite a few hours of playing before I finally discovered how to find out where he was in each particular playthrough. Once again, finding out Mario’s whereabouts is completely random! I’d already seduced Nancy the hotel slut in Salvador a couple of times without anything interesting happening, but on my third attempt she suddenly told me a very useful piece of information. “I think you might like to meet Mario; he’s a teach of eroticism! He looks like a Florentine marquis; he’s thin, tall, with piercing, deep black eyes...he’s staying in room number 304.” Finally I knew how to find Mario each time I played the game, which meant I could get the mask and visit the carnival.

 

I don't care what he looks like. Just give me the room number!

I could always visit the carnival in Salvador without the mask, but every time I’d tried I’d received a message stating “you can’t stay here! You’re not in fancy dress!” and then was sent packing. With the mask in my possession I was able to seduce the women there. Since the Law of UNUSUAL is “You must never see your partner’s face”, it seemed clear that the woman on the right of screen with the mask on should be a target. Sure enough, when I slept with her, I saw a different screen than usual, with a hand appearing through the blinds to drop some panties before the standard sex scene. One of the statuettes was also flashing, and my erotic potential increased by about 25 points, convincing me that I’d found one of the critical encounters to completing the game.

 

The one time I took off the woman's mask ruined my chances of completing the game, much to my distress

At the end of my last post I’d just figured out that Sam the helicopter pilot appeared in two places in the game, and since the Law of NUMBER is “you must have multiple relations with the same partner”, I’d figured sleeping with her in both locations would be the way to go. That line of thinking turned out to be correct, but it wasn’t particularly easy to make it happen. Since seducing women is a bit hit and miss in general (as it is in the real world), there was no way to guarantee that I was going to successfully sleep with her twice in the same game. In most seduction instances it was a matter of leaving the screen and coming back to have another shot, but since I only knew of one way to get to the garden party where Sam was, and that opportunity only came up once during the game (when the woman appears in the hotel lift), failing to seduce Sam at the party led to an apparent dead end.

 

Bring Sam the wrong thing from the buffet and it's all over.

I eventually found out that on random (there’s that word again) occasions, visiting the opera house in Manaus led to a scene where I could chat with the governor and get an invitation that way. I now realise this is the use of the opera glasses I purchased in the fevolas, and not discovering the statuette as I first thought. Having this option meant I could try that approach if I failed to seduce the woman in the lift or Sam at the party on the first attempt. If I could manage to sleep with Sam in the bar of the Iguacu hotel and at the party in Manaus, then I was rewarded with another panty dropping scene and more erotic potential points. That left only one more potential increasing encounter, and that was the one that avoided me the longest. During one of my very early visits to the beach in Rio, I came across two near naked women (twins?) trying to get my attention. My attempts to seduce them at the time had failed, and I didn’t see them there again in any of my subsequent games.

 

 Yeah, like that doesn't sound dodgy or anything.

However, since the Law of ASYMMETRY is “there must be an odd number of partners”, this scene seemed a likely candidate for the use of the third statuette. I questioned this law in my last post, since having an odd number of partners could be satisfied by having one partner, but as a few of you mentioned, it was safe to assume that the game wanted me to have a threesome. The problem I had was that I couldn’t make the women reappear to have another crack at every man’s dream. Eventually it was one of my screenshots that gave me the info I needed, as it clearly showed me arriving in the yacht from Salvador. The only way to make the two women appear on the beach was to get on the yacht with the very accommodating woman in Salvador and travel to Rio that way, despite the fact that this caused me to lose energy and erotic potential points in the process.

 

Stop the boat. STOP THE DAMN BOAT!!!!

Only then was I able to attempt to seduce the women, and failing pretty much created a dead end (going through the travel process again reduced my erotic potential further and further to the point where I couldn’t recover). This was made worse by the fact that seducing these women appeared impossible! I recorded all of my answers and the results, and it appeared to me that there was simply no way to remove the remaining clothes they were wearing, in spite of how scant they were. It turned out that seducing the girl on the right is much easier as she responds to anything relating to music or art, and once she agreed to sex, her sister would very handily invite herself along. The resulting sex scene didn’t visually include three individuals, but it did increase my potential points, meaning I’d found the final encounter needed to complete the game!

 

Um...I don't know. Don't you think three people in one bed would be a bit crowded? Maybe next time.

So, to finish the game, this is what I was going to have to do, in this order. Purchase the toucan, the pandiero and the opera glasses from the woman in the fevolas. Get the aphrodisiac from the sailor at the beach. Go to the casino and give a cigar and the aphrodisiac to the gambler to get the first statuette. Travel to Iguacu by plane and get the second statuette from the waterfall. Seduce and sleep with Sam at the hotel. Travel to Manaus by plane and visit the opera house to get the third and final statuette. Seduce the woman in the lift to go the governor’s party and then seduce Sam there again to increase erotic potential. Travel to Salvador by plane and then get on the yacht at the beach to sleep with the woman and travel to Rio. Seduce and sleep with the two girls on the beach to increase erotic potential further. Travel back to Salvador by plane and seduce Nancy at the bar to get the room number for Mario (repeat the process until she gives it to me, but don't actually sleep with her). Visit Mario’s room to get the mask and go to the carnival. Seduce the masked woman, leaving her mask on, to increase erotic potential to 100. Find Emmanuelle.

 

Three statuettes + three panties = 100 erotic potential

Easy right!? Even once I’d figured out this whole process, it took me over two hours to actually put it into practice. There are just so many things that can go wrong on the way, with failed seductions due to no correct pickup lines being the main culprit. When I finally did play a perfect game and got 100 erotic potential, I still had to find Emmanuelle to complete the game. I began asking the barmen and the concierges at each of the hotels if they knew where she was or where her next port of call was. I received nothing but “I’m sorry, Sir, I have no idea!” messages for over half an hour, and soon enough was running dangerously low on cash. I was down to about $3500 when finally one of the barmen said “Yes, Miss Emmanuelle did have a drink here. She intended to leave for Iguacu.” Excitedly I hopped on a plane to Iguacu (taking my cash level down to $2500) and spoke to the barman there. “Yes, Miss Emmanuelle did have a drink here. She intended to leave for Salvador.” Aaaaagggghhhh!!!!!!

 

This woman must have racked up some serious frequent flyer points!

I had a terrible feeling that the game was going to lead me on a wild goose chase, and that I was going to run out of money before finding Emmanuelle. I considered heading straight for Rio and trying my hand at gambling in the casino, but feared losing the trail that I’d spent so long trying to pick up. I crossed my fingers and hopped on a plane for Salvador. Apparently Emmanuelle was on the plane, as I was suddenly shown an image of what I assume was my character seducing her. “Emmanuelle...I’m going to make you howl!” was all my character said before my game was abruptly and unsatisfyingly thrown back to a C prompt. I guess it’s a fitting way for such a horribly designed and implemented game to finish. As a final note, I’d like to take this opportunity to thank all those involved in making me play Emmanuelle. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. ;)

 

"I'm going to make you howl...by crashing your game back to the C prompt with no closure!"

Session Time: 6 hours 00 minutes

Total Time: 10 hours 00 minutes

Game 27: Emmanuelle - No Fandom for Random

Marc-Henri Journal Entry 3: “I now have three of the erotic statues in my possession! I have travelled to Manaus and Iguacu, discovering a statuette underneath the waterfall in the former and on the Opera House stage in the latter. Having them makes me feel like I have a much greater chance of capturing the heart (and body) of Emmanuelle, but I’m still not entirely certain how they work or where I’m supposed to use them. I do have a plan though, and it begins with me getting down and dirty with that blonde helicopter pilot at the Iguacu Hotel. I'm not sure why, but that just feels like the right thing to do?!”

Previously on Emmanuelle...A handsome gambler rewards our hero for giving him an aphrodisiac by giving him an erotic statuette. Is there love in the air?

The main problem with blogging through this game is the lack of a save game function. Every time I start the game again I have to play through to where I was last up to, and the random aspects of the game can sometimes make that a fairly different experience. That being said, it took me no more than two minutes to go purchase all the items from the favellas, collect the aphrodisiac from the sailor at the beach, and then retrieve the first statue from the gambler at the casino. The difference in this instance is that when I arrived back at the hotel, the barman was nowhere to be seen and Xica, the local woman, was there instead. I know from previous experience that there are only two bar hanging hussies that are worth seducing, and Xica is one of them.

These erotic statues are really ugly!

When I bribed the barman to tell me about any women that visit the bar, he’d told me that “We have a singer who comes here; Xica. She likes luxury but don’t worry, she’s not greedy!” I used this information to choose the correct (or least incorrect) pickup lines to use, and once I’d impressed her she offered me a special cocktail, as well as her body. “This is a cocktail I invented myself! Try it! It’s full of energy...” I accepted the cocktail, which refreshes my energy level by about 20 percent! I’ve found out since that if I reject her offers of sex, I can go back to her time and time again to keep my energy levels topped up. Since the only ways to lose energy are to have sex, fight with men, or try opening doors on various levels of the hotels, and I’ve not attempted any of those tasks so far in this particular playthrough, the cocktail was of no assistance.

Finally my powers of seduction pay off in a positive way!

After rejecting Xica’s offer of sex, I focussed my attention on the concierge. There are two questions you can ask the concierges in each of the hotels. The first is basically a request for information on the local area, and the second is regarding the whereabouts of Emmanuelle. I imagine the whereabouts of Emmanuelle will only really become valuable once I have all three statuettes, but I asked anyway. The response was “she was staying here, but she checked out and I don’t know where she went.” Well that’s not very helpful! So what else is there to do in Rio de Janeiro? I’ve explored all the levels of the hotel previously without finding anything of interest. Since I don’t want to go back to the favellas, the beach, or the casino at this point, I guess it’s time to check out another area.

Thanks for your help...NOT!

There are three ways to leave Rio de Janeiro; by boat, by helicopter, or by plane. I can only go by helicopter if it appears on the rooftop, but in this instance it wasn’t there. Taking the boat would force me to have sex with the sailing slut, but that would waste valuable energy and erotic potential for no return. Going to the airport would allow me to travel to any of the areas, but that would cost money. Erotic potential is the real currency of the game, so I chose to take a plane. When I clicked on the porter to get a taxi to the airport, he remarked “Oh! You’ve found Old Silvinho’s “pandiero”. His address is secret, but, if your price is high enough, I can find someone who will take you there. He is a wise and learned man. He may be very grateful to you...”

Apparently the fact that he was missing a pandiero was secret as well

After I accepted the offer, I was apparently transported to Old Silvinho’s house, but all I could see was a portrait of the man. Throughout the four or five hours I’ve spent playing the game, I’ve not seen anything that suggests I could know Old Silvinho was missing his pandiero, nor have I seen any mention of his name anywhere. I have discovered that it doesn’t matter which porter I talk to. As long as I have the pandiero in my possession, I have the option of returning it. “Cowboy, your gesture has done me the world of good! In return, drink this potion, which will help you stay the fight...” was all he had to say, and I honestly have no idea what this potion did for me. It doesn’t increase any of my counters and isn’t available for use anywhere else that I can see. At this stage it’s simply a mystery!

I'll give CAPs to anyone that can tell me what this potion does!

The airport gave me yet another opportunity to chat up a willing woman, but I’ve not found any reason to do so. Interestingly, the interface is slightly different when choosing a destination to travel to. Instead of the options flicking by one by one until you press enter, at airports you can press enter with the cursor outside the speech bubble to flick through the options, then press enter with the cursor inside the speech bubble to make a selection. It works a lot better than the normal selection interface, so I have to wonder why they didn’t do that for all parts of the game. The destinations available to me were Paris, Salvador, Manaus and Iguacu. I knew for certain that I didn’t want to go to Paris, as that would end my game, so I selected Iguacu because I knew there was a second statuette there.

I'd love to know why they changed the interface for the airports only

How did I know there was a statuette in Iguacu? Because the helicopter pilot told me so! During one of my earlier attempts at the game when the helicopter pilot was actually on the rooftop (or at least a rooftop in one of the cities), I managed to seduce her. As usual, she offered to bonk my brains out, but she also gave me some very useful information. “Did you know that there is a precious erotic statuette at the foot of the falls? Take this harness, you’ll need it!” Well it turns out that you don’t need a harness at all to get the statuette, meaning there’s absolutely no requirement to track down and seduce the helicopter pilot. The harness doesn’t show up as an item in the inventory either, so for all intents and purposes, there isn’t one. Anyway, I bought a ticket to Iguacu, and arrived shortly afterwards.

From an Earlier Screenshot: The harness that I definitely did not need!

Strangely, I didn’t appear in the hotel lobby after my flight. Instead, I appeared at the waterfall where the statuette is situated. Unsurprisingly, there was a half naked woman at the falls as well, but it didn’t seem to matter what I clicked on, I would then witness my character diving from the cliff into the water, then swimming (if it can be called that with such jerky animation) to the bottom to collect the statuette. Only then did I appear at the hotel, with the two statuettes now very suggestively displayed in my inventory. Speaking of suggestively displayed, the local woman was also there on my arrival. Previous barman bribing had informed me that her name was Sam, and that she was actually a helicopter pilot. He also told me that she was “A real ice-block! You’ll never melt her!” It goes without saying that she slept with me!

One of the only lengthy animated scenes in the game, which is just as well given the quality

I’d received nothing from any of my previous flings with Sam, so I ignored her this time around. There’s nothing else to do in Iguacu, so I caught a cab to the airport and chose another destination. Manaus! There’s not much to do in Manaus either, apart from visiting the opera house, so that’s exactly what I did. Given I had the opera glasses in my possession, I was pretty confident that something was going to happen there. Strangely, when I arrived, I stared at an entirely vacant stage, with no cursor to control at all. I waited, but nothing happened! All I could do was press enter, after which I received a message telling me “The performance is over. You return to your hotel.” Did I have to go there at a precise time? Given there’s no clock in the game, how am I supposed to do that? I decided to spend some time looking through each of the levels of the hotel. On opening the lift, I got a bit of a surprise!

Seriously, this man must be James Bond and Edward Cullen combined to pull every chick he meets!

Out stepped a red haired woman, whom I immediately began flirting with. After I chose the option of “Which button should I press?”, she responded with “Do whatever you want; your destination is mine! Would you mind if I asked you to accompany me to the town governor’s garden party tonight?” What could I possibly do but accept, and I soon found myself at the party. There were two women just waiting for me to pounce on them, so I started testing pickup lines with the older looking one on the left. She wanted me to get something from the buffet for her, so I selected a drink and clicked on her. That seemed to do the trick, and I was then able seduce her into sleeping with me. Just before that happened though, she made a comment that caught my attention. “I’d love to. But wouldn’t our absence set her tongue wagging?” Whose tongue? Emmanuelle’s? The girl next to her? Hang on a second...I suddenly recognised the girl next to her!

Well, there will definitely be tongue wagging!

It was Sam the helicopter pilot that hangs out at the Manaus hotel! It dawned on me that this could be my opportunity to sleep with the same woman twice, which would satisfy The Law of Number: You must have multiple relations with the same partner. However, since I’d slept with the other older woman at the party and then been transferred back to the hotel, I’d missed my opportunity to sleep with Sam. The red haired woman in the lift wouldn’t reappear meaning I was facing a possible dead end. Since I was certain I was on the right track though, I restarted. It’s worth pointing out that I’ve probably restarted the game no less than twenty times so far. Maybe even thirty! Making even the slightest mistake puts an end to my progress, most of which I can't possibly know are mistakes until beforehand, time and time again. Choose the wrong pickup line with the woman in the lift and it’s all over. Sleep with the wrong woman at any point and find your erotic potential dropping dramatically, with no chance of recovery. Select the wrong option using the shitty interface and you're done for! Not having a save game feature takes this game from mildly frustrating to tear your hair out and scream in hateful anger levels of irritation!

From an Earlier Screenshot: Sam only has one pose apparently, which is fortunate for me.

I played all the way through the game right back to the exact stage I was at when I reached Manaus, only this time when I tried to visit the opera house, something different happened! The porter told me that “The opera house is closed, Sir. However, if you are prepared to pay well, I can get permission for you to visit it...” I accepted of course, and once again was transported to the empty stage. This time I had a cursor though, and clicking it anywhere resulted in me discovering the third and final erotic statuette! I can only assume that I used the opera glasses to search the stage and find the statuette, although there was no suggestion that this is what occurred. Why I wasn't able to do this the first time I visited the opera house, I have no idea! Anyway, with all three statuettes in my possession, it was damn time I put them to use!

With these three statuettes, I could be...a superhero!!!

Sam will be the first woman I go after once I've finished this post. Looking over the other two laws, I’ve got a fair idea which part of the game The Law of Unusual (You must never see your partner’s face) might relate to (it's in Salvador, which I haven’t written about yet). As for the other one (The Law of Asymmetry: There must be an odd number of partners), it remains a mystery to me! Don’t I always have an odd number of partners (ie. one)? Is it just a matter of sleeping with an odd number of partners in the game at a particular point for the statuette to kick in? I seriously can’t wait for this game to be done with! A number of games on the list so far have been far from great, but at least I was able to save my progress. I haven’t quite reached my limit of perseverance yet, mostly because I feel like I’m not too far from a serious breakthrough, but I could be well and truly tested in the days to come.

Of course now Sam won't show up...*sigh*

Session Time: 2 hours 00 minutes

Total Time: 4 hours 00 minutes

Note Regarding Spoilers and Companion Assist Points: I've written a set of rules regarding spoilers and companion assist points. Please read it here before making any comments that could be considered a spoiler in any way. The short of it is that no points will be given for hints or spoilers given in advance of me requiring one. Please...try not to spoil any part of the game for me...unless I really obviously need the help...or I specifically request assistance. In this instance, I've not made any requests for assistance. Thanks!

Game 27: Emmanuelle - The Laws of Eroticism

Marc-Henri Journal Entry 2: “I have discovered a strange statuette that I’m certain will help me acquire the erotic skills I need to lure Emmanuelle into my arms (and hopefully my bed). I don’t fully understand its power or purpose yet, but I’m quite sure I’m on the right track. I delivered the aphrodisiac that the man on the boat gave me to a gambler I came across in the casino. It turns out he leads a gang called the Death Squadron, and it was he that gave me the statuette in return for my efforts. I wonder if there are any more of these statuettes around her???”

The last thing I saw before a C prompt

If you read my last post, you’ll be aware that my first five minute session of Emmanuelle was pretty laughable. After it was over, I had a couple of decisions to make. Firstly, I was going to need to try to resolve the technical issues I was facing while playing the game, and secondly, I was going to have to figure out how best to attack the game itself. The main technical issues I was facing were speed (the game runs way too fast, making it next to impossible to choose conversation options) and sound (apart from the occasionally bleep, I wasn’t getting any). I knew that I could start playing around with DOSBox settings to try to get the speed right, but I was hoping someone out there had found a way that wouldn’t involve me adjusting things every time I play.

Here's a review from back in the day that gave the game an NA for sound, so I can only assume it never had any! (Xasthur fits my mood)

After reading the responses I got on the blog and anything I could find out there on the net, I’m now resigned to using Ctrl F11 and Ctrl F12 to slow the game down and then speed it back up as I play. Unfortunately there’s no speed that suits the whole game, as what is perfect for one section could be mind numbingly slow for another. On the sound side of things, I’ve found nothing to suggest that there’s any sound in this game at all (apart from those aforementioned bleeps that pop out occasionally). The credits suggest that Francois Peirano produced the music for Emmanuelle, so I can only assume that it didn’t make it to the DOS version of the game. Either that or it’s just not coming through using DOSBox. Anyone know for sure? Either way, it looks like I can just listen to my own choice of music while I play this game.

I'm going to wear out my F11 and F12 keys by the time this is over.

Before I get into how I’ve decided to approach the game, there are a couple of things that I’ve discovered that I should mention. There are four distinct areas that I can visit, being Rio de Janeiro, Salvador de Bahia, Iguacu and Manaus. Each of these areas contains locations of their own to visit, and all of them have a hotel with barman, reception and porter. While things at first looked pretty random while visiting each location, it turns out it’s merely the people that are present, not the puzzles or solutions that differ. That means, from what I can tell, that each item that I need and each person I need to visit will always be found in the exact same place. With this in mind, I decided to fully investigate each of the four main areas one by one and report my findings. At the end of that process I hope to be able to look over everything I’ve learnt and do the necessary, whatever that might be.

Rio de Janeiro: Seems a logical place to start

Since the game begins in Rio de Janeiro, that seems like a logical place to begin this process. There are three areas that I can click on to get going, which are the “favelas” (the poor area of town), the beach, and the hotel. There only seems to be two things to do at the favelas. Fight the guys at the table or buy stuff from the woman at the market (I’m sure I could have sex with her, but that probably goes without saying). I can buy stuff by simply selecting the item, but then only three of them appear to be for sale (choosing any of the others results in her telling me I’m a bad customer and disappearing!). I purchased the pandiero (a sort of drum apparently), the opera glasses, and the toucan for a total of 4500. Interestingly only the pandiero and the opera glasses appeared in my inventory, so I have no idea what happened with the toucan.

Nice jugs you have there!

The next location is the beachfront, which is where two boats can be found sporadically. The first time I visit the location, there is usually only the one boat there, which is the one where I got into a fight during my first session. This time I was more prepared however, and adjusted the speed of my game so I had a chance to answer the aggressive bastard’s question. When he asked me whether I was looking for trouble, this time I successfully answered “No! I’m looking for adventure...” His response was “Well, that’s just fine! I have a very important mission for you. This is a bottle of synthetic aphrodisiac. It’s worth a fortune! The only thing is that the police are onto me. If I do anything, I’ll be in prison. I need you. Wear it so that everyone can see it; someone will contact you. And you’ll be in trouble if you mess it up!” There’s no doubt that this is a really, really, stupid plan that no-one in their right mind would agree to, but I of course did.

So you don't want to be seen anywhere with it, but you want me to display it at all times?!

This resulted in me having a third item in my visible inventory, and given how little room that left for more, I began wondering just how many items there were to collect in the game. Regardless, there’s something else that can be done, and in fact needs to be done, from the beachfront. The only way to access the casino that is mentioned in the manual is to click on a rather indistinct building in the background on this screen. It’s safe to say that I never would have discovered this if the manual didn’t blatantly state “The entrance to the Casino in Rio de Janeiro is on the beach.” I found the right building through trial and error, and immediately appeared at the roulette table with another couple. Before I even considered making a bet, I took a look around the room, noticing a woman at the bar and another selling cigars and whiskey. This seems a good time to explain the purpose, or indeed lack of purpose, of women in the game, and how I’ve been forced to converse with them.

Some of these pickup lines are more offensive than seductive

There are women spread out (literally) all over Emmanuelle, and all of them appear to be willing to sleep with me if I can just pull the right pickup line out of the bag at the right time. I’ve discovered that each woman appears in the same location (and nowhere else), and for each of them I am given a limited amount of apparently sexy pickup lines. I started keeping a list of all the available lines I could choose from with each woman, as well as their response to each, whether it’s in the positive or the negative. If I ever choose the wrong pickup line, I’m rejected and the woman simply disappears (but can reappear later). If I choose the correct pickup line, then I’m given another three lines to choose from. Get that one right and I get the opportunity to bed the woman, but if I get it wrong, I get one last shot. Choosing the correct pickup lines is pretty much guesswork, since they’re all terrible, but in the case of the women in the hotels, I’ve been able to pay the barmen for hints on the ladies' likes and dislikes.

I imagine there are quite a few men that have learnt your "secret"

I’m not going to give you a rundown of every experience I’ve had with every woman, but I will give you an example of how it works. There’s a woman that hangs out at the bar in Bahia called Nancy. When I bribed the barman, he told me: “There's always Nancy...but she's not nothing like romantic. And apparently she's not at all interested in Brazil...” So, if any of the available pickup lines are either romantic or about Brazil, I should avoid them. When I spoke to Nancy, my first options were “A woman of your class is made for happiness. I’m offering it to you!”, “I want to submit myself to all your whims and vices”, and “Let’s go to it, baby!” If I choose either of the first two options, Nancy rejects me with “You can't stay in this bar for one minute without some over-confident butch coming up and pestering you!”, but choosing “Let’s go to it, baby!” results in “At least you know how to talk to women!”, after which she is willing to continue the conversation and eventually sleep with me.

Nancy isn't interested in niceties. She just wants sex! The rougher the better I imagine!

So that’s how conversing with woman works in the world of Emmanuelle, but it’s not a recipe for success! As I hinted at in my first post, sleeping with women seems to do nothing more than waste valuable energy and erotic potential, raising the question of whether or not it’s worth even attempting. The answer is that there are correct times to sleep with women and at least one instance where the player is rewarded for successful seduction. I won’t give anymore away than that at this stage, but I will say that sleeping with the woman in the casino has by far the worst result that I’ve come across so far. Not only did I get nothing in return for sharing my much desired body with her, when I reappeared in the hotel afterwards, I’d lost both the pandiero and the aphrodisiac! The bitch stole my stuff! An example of how little sense the whole game makes is the fact I was then able to go back and recollect those items as though I never had them in the first place. Right, let’s move on!

Damn bitch stole my pandiero! Hey, where's my toucan!!!???

Ignoring the klepto at the bar, I focussed my attention on the woman selling cigars and whiskey. “I sell cigars and whisky. Take whatever you want!” is all she had to say. I eventually figured out that I could do exactly that, and clicking on exactly the right spot resulted in an image of a cigar appearing on the screen, which I could then drag around. The obvious thing to do, given that I couldn’t move it into my inventory, was to drag and drop it onto the gambling gentleman in front of me. He thanked me for my generosity, and then said “I see you have something for me. Come with me! Let’s go somewhere quieter...” I have no idea at this stage whether the same thing would have happened if I’d given it to the woman, or given the whiskey to the man instead of the cigar. I also haven’t spent any time gambling, as I’m hoping the only purpose to that is monetary. If the rest of the game is anything to go by, the purpose of the casino is to make contact with the man, and that’s all I’ve done.

Powers of observation increase dramatically after the receiving of cigars

The quieter place that the gambler spoke of turned out to be the favelas, and the men that seemed to like a good fight there were his goons. “These are my men. They have a flawless reputation. Do you have the goods? Ah! Here’s the precious bottle! Drink the Cachaca with us, cowboy. The Death Squadron always rewards a favour. Hey, there’s a statuette which should be worth quite a bit in Europe... come on, I’ll take you back to your hotel...” With that, I appeared back in the Rio hotel; although this time I had one of the statuettes mentioned in the manual in my possession. Apparently there are three Laws of Eroticism, and each law is symbolised by a statuette. If I have them in my possession, then they will automatically work when required, and each one relates to a precise character in the game. The laws are as follows:

The Law of Asymmetry: There must be an odd number of partners
The Law of Unusual: You must never see your partner’s face
The Law of Number: You must have multiple relations with the same partner

Death Squadron!!?? Mwahahahahaha

These laws don’t seem to make a lot of sense, but I assume circumstances will arise where each does. The question I had was which of the three statuettes did I have? How do I know whether it’s the one that relates to Asymmetry, Unusual or Number?! I guess the safest thing to do would be to find all three statuettes, then start sleeping with women where the above laws seem to fit. I haven’t yet finished describing my exploration of Rio de Janeiro, but I’m long past my 2000 word post limit. I have to admit that Emmanuelle has some strange allure that makes me want to play it through to completion, despite being an incontrovertibly terrible game. There are so many badly implemented aspects that I can’t possibly fit them all into my posts (I hope I’m at least getting across some of them), and I have a feeling that’s once I know how to complete the game, that it could probably be done in a matter of minutes. I've already spent over four hours playing it though, half of which was uselessly conversing with women, so I'll mark this session down as two.

First Statuette: Asymmetry, Unusual or Number? It's anyone's guess!

Session Time: 1 hours 55 minutes

Total Time: 2 hours 00 minutes

Note Regarding Spoilers and Companion Assist Points: I've written a set of rules regarding spoilers and companion assist points. Please read it here before making any comments that could be considered a spoiler in any way. The short of it is that no points will be given for hints or spoilers given in advance of me requiring one. Please...try not to spoil any part of the game for me...unless I really obviously need the help...or I specifically request assistance. In this instance, I've not made any requests for assistance. Thanks!