Homeworld - Into the Black

By Reiko

Previously, we escaped the Phoenix Sect using an automated Heechee escape pod, which crashed on a remote ice planet populated by strange crystalline creatures. Now we've got to find a way to get out of here. There's nothing to eat, at any rate, and our behavior so far has certainly not conformed to any standards of finding shelter and resources in a survival situation. I briefly thought that we'd be able to escape using another similar pod buried in a glacier, but it also crashed and is unusable. Whether its occupant died before or after the crash is uncertain, but I was able to retrieve (loot?) its special identity pod, which will surely be important later.

Those tentacles could grab me just as easily as a Kord.

Now I need to find a way of dealing with the crystal tentacle creature that guards the rock cleft to the north. It's clearly dangerous, and I can't do very much with it with what I have. Finally, I go back to the village to see if I can do anything else there. I notice there are some more sculptures I haven't used. I pick up a large gem and go show it to the artist, who first seems afraid of it, and then shows me another story [10]:

Two Kords are exploring a cliff face that is riddled with caves. They peer into many of the darkened caves, and eventually enter one that is half-hidden by great spikes of ice. 

They slide through a long cavern. The light from the outside becomes dimmer as they progress. Just as it seems that they are going to turn back because of the darkness, they spot a red glimmer coming from the innermost depths of the cave. They press on and come upon a lit area.

Missed Classic: Urotsukidoji (うろつき童子) - The Wanderer

 By Morpheus Kitami

The diamond patterns on the wall are certainly weird-looking.

To the gynasium, where the movie began and where a basketball game is happening. I should be able to find Nogumu and Ozaki (the basketball player) here. One of which is dunking basketballs and the other is pulling Leisure Suit Larry stuff, I'll leave the question of which one is which to the player. The music track here's weird, something that sounds like a midi adaptation of an anime theme which is an adaptation of an ancient folk song. After looking around a bit, Jaku can play basketball for a bit to be able to talk to Ozaki.

If I'm reading it right, Jaku is not a great basketball player and Ozaki pulls him aside. Actually, talk is a strong word, because the only option I'm given is to smell him. Jaku thinks that this is the Chojin. It's looking at him that starts the conversation, in which Jaku asks what he knows about the new religion. Ozaki's heard it since he transferred schools, and it's quite tedious. There's not actually a lot for our conversation to be about. I move away...

Leisure Suit Larry 6: Shape Up or Slip Out!: Ultimate Wisdom

by Alex

The Preamble

And so, all good things come to an end. All stupid things, too. Things like Leisure Suit Larry 6: Shape Up or Slip Out! I was stuck after my last post, unable to figure out how to fix the hose on the cellulite drainage machine, so I put out a call to the community and commentor arcanetrivia, nee Lisa H., helped me out with a great clue:

“You have missed a takeable item that might have looked like just an amusing detail the first time you saw it.”

She also clued me in that the game’s various women are all named for wines: Burgundy and Charlotte Donnay (Char Donnay 🡪 chardonnay, get it?) were the only ones I got, but others should’ve been obvious: Shamara Payne/Sham Payne 🡪 champagne, Gammie Boysulay 🡪 gamay Beaujolais, Merrily Lowe/Merr Lowe 🡪 merlot, Rose 🡪 rosé, Shablee 🡪 Chablis, and Thunderbird 🡪 a cheap kind of wine. Only Cavaricchi Vuarnet doesn’t follow this theme, being named for a totally rad line of sunglasses that were really big in the 1980s. I remember all of the older, and therefore totally hot, teenage girls back in the day wearing t-shirts and whatnot with the Vuarnet logo plastered all over them. Whether their sunglasses were actually Vuarnet was beyond me, since I was like seven at the time.

It literally doesn’t get any cooler.

But enough about fashion, let’s get back to arcanetrivia. Such wisdom, such insight, such foresight, such . . . such . . . wis-sight? Anyway, much like Shamara Payne in the game itself, arcanetrivia is also on a quest for inner wisdom, the path of ascension, the ability to transcend this material world and do more than just sit and stare at the ocean all day. Or maybe I am Shamara and she is Larry, providing me with wisdom. As another brilliant sage/juvenile pervert once said, through the voice of Mary in his 1979 rock opera Joe’s Garage:

[I]information is not knowledge
knowledge is not wisdom
wisdom is not truth
truth is not beauty
beauty is not love
love is not music
music is the best!
Wisdom is the domain of the Wizz (which is extinct).
Beauty is a French phonetic corruption of a short cloth neck ornament currently in resurgence.

What this means is: beats the hell out of me. I will just use any excuse to toss a Frank Zappa reference into one of my posts. This preamble has gone on long enough. On with the game!

Homeworld - Ice and Fire

By Reiko

Part III - Rescue: the start of the second half of the game.

Last time we escaped the clutches of the Phoenix Sect for a third time by triggering a Heechee escape pod on the Artifact, sending us off to who knows where! We've got a new world to explore. I hope I'm wearing something warm enough, because this world looks very cold. The ground is covered with ice, and the ship has crash-landed, softly enough that I don't seem to be injured, but hard enough to have damaged its systems.

Our first look at the new world.

Leisure Suit Larry 6 - Cracking the Code

by Alex

I’ve done it. After this play session, which had me thinking about ways to inadvertently upset The Adventurers Guild’s moderators and readership how to solve an adventure game’s puzzles long after my sessions ended, I finally understood what Leisure Suit Larry 6 is all about—this: