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!