Game 29: Leisure Suit Larry III - Pediculosis Gargantuous

Larry Laffer Journal Entry 2: “I scored big time today! I came across (so to speak) a really hot blonde on the beach named Tawni. She wasn’t the smartest girl I’ve ever met, but she had no defence against my natural charm and sex appeal. Oh, and my credit card helped too, but I’m sure it was more of the former and less of the latter. If it wasn’t for those damn sand crabs that got in my clothes, I might have made more of the opportunity. Oh well, it took me no time at all to get into her pants, so surely I can have more success around here. Since that experience I’ve checked out the casino and the comedy hut, and pretty much know my way around this whole island. Now that I’ve got my bearings, it's time to go back on the prowl. Perhaps being single again is not as bad as I thought it would be!”

Well...I've had worse!

The previous post finished with me losing my job at Natives Inc. That left me with no home, no job, and no woman! It was time to do something about it, and the screen to the south of the fountain seemed the perfect place to start. Lying on a towel was a fine looking blonde, topless yet lying face down. As soon as I arrived, a native appeared out of nowhere, trying to sell “genuine Nontoonyt souvenirs”. This captured the woman’s attention, and it was revealed that her name was Tawni. When she asked the native what he was selling, he responded with “genuine plastic souvenirs handmade in the city of rsubfqsdf.” Clearly confused by his response, she asked him to repeat the origin of the items, to which he said “Hong Kong” under his breath. I couldn’t help have a chuckle at this, particularly as it reminded me of that awesome scene in Army of Darkness (Google "army of darkness klaatu barada nikto" if you don’t know what I’m referring to).

KLAATU...BARADA...NEGHEEGHHETTOOO

Instead of realising the “native” was a crank, Tawni showed her intelligence level by responding with “As long as they’re genuine, give me several.” She then happily handed over US$300! I asked the seller whether he had a permit to sell souvenirs as he walked away, but he told me to beat it. “Can’t you see I’m just trying to make a quick buck off the Americano here?” I turned my attention to Tawni, introducing myself as “Larry; Larry Laffer.” I was then given a full screen view of her body and while I don’t want to come off as creepy, I wouldn’t be doing my duty if I didn’t report this as the finest representation of a woman in adventure games to this point. It’s a scene that had quite the effect on me as a young boy, and there’s no doubt I spent quite a bit of time trying to get Tawni to do the business with Larry (although now I wonder what took me so long). After a couple of typically suggestive comments from Al, I was shown a different perspective of her, being her face. Just like in Larry 1, all the persuading would be done face to face with my potential lovers.

Come on...you have to admit...Tawni makes EGA look like VGA!

For those of you not aware of the mechanics of these conversations, the idea is simply to “talk” to the women you meet in the hope of getting a clue as to what gift they might like to receive. When I talked to Tawni, Larry began by informing her that he “will soon be coming into a major real-estate holding”, but her response of “is it a shopping mall” made it clear she wasn’t going to be that easily impressed. I didn’t have much in my inventory to offer her, but the credit card stood out as something a greedy bitch might want. I saved my game and gave it to her, and it was quickly apparent that this was the key to getting in her insubstantial pants. “Oh, Larry, it’s the perfect gift; the right size, the right shape, and the right color: gold! And I think I know the perfect way to express my appreciation to you, too. Come here, big boy!” Well that was easier than I remembered! (50 points)

Well she does look a lot hotter than that hooker I slept with in game 1.

The scene that follows is actually more humorous than anything else, as Tawni jumps on Larry and rapidly humps away, with no suggestion that any of his clothes are removed. While this was going on, the damn souvenir guy came back for another shot. “I have some fine ginsu knives” was all it took to distract Tawni from our embrace. “Excuse me for a moment, will you? Something else has popped up.” She then got into a lengthy conversation about the knives while I lay on the ground waiting. Eventually she paid using the credit card I’d just given her, handing me the knife to hold while she finished the necessaries. (40 points) It’s here that Larry paused to consider whether Tawni’s rude behaviour was too offensive for him to continue making love to her, but quickly decided nothing really could be. Unfortunately, the action was quickly halted anyway, as “hundreds of tiny sand crabs” crawled inside Larry’s suit pants. I’m sure you can imagine how the scene unfolded as Larry ran around shouting that he had crabs!

When you're having a bad day...

Interestingly, my attempts to recapture Tawni’s attention hinted that it may be possible given the right circumstances. “Obviously she still remembers you, Larry. If only you had some sort of disguise.” Heading back north to the fountain (with Tawni's knife still in my possession), I figured the next place I’d check out was the casino. Within the strikingly pink building, I was given the option of heading straight up into the casino proper, or walking right to the hotel lobby. I decided to check out the lobby, and found myself face to face with a particularly unhelpful clerk. He continuously told me that this was a “private hotel” and that only those with a reservation are welcome. When I asked to rent a room, he told me he knew who I was, and that my "money is no good here"! I chose to ignore him and hopped in the lift to see what the other floors held, but this didn’t work out very well. While the keyhole on the panel next to the floor buttons suggests I can’t yet go to any other floors, the parser simply didn’t seem to understand any of my attempts to do so anyway. I tried “press button two”, “press the second button”, “press button for floor two” etc., but it was all met with comments like “Congratulations! You have dumbfounded this game!”

Lifts always seem to be a problem in Sierra games. I seem to recall having similar problems in another Quest. Maybe Police Quest? Or was it Larry 2?

Hoping it might become clear later, I left the lobby behind to explore the rest of the casino. There are two locations of interest in the north section, being a showroom to the left and a bar to the right. Both of them are accessed by passing rather neat walkways, where the casino action is shown to the player in mirror reflections. The designers could just have easily used a more obvious perspective, so I think these otherwise unimportant screens hint at the creativity of the artistic individuals involved in making the game. I chose to check out the showroom first, which had a locked door, a phone I couldn’t use, and a maître d’ waiting to accept tickets to the shows. This reminded me of one of the articles I'd read in the Tourist Manual! “Now appearing bi-nightly, the lovely and talented star of stage, screen and backstages everywhere, Cherri Tart, in the Nontoonyt Casino Showroom. Just show your pass to the maître d’ for an evening you’ll never forget! PASS NUMBER 25695”

!flesrouy htiw yppah yrev leef ouy teb I

I typed “show pass”, to which the maître d’ told me he would only accept free passes from page 12 tonight. I opened up the manual and found an image of a ticket at the bottom of page 12, containing the numbers 00993, so I typed that in. It looked like it would work, but then I was told that the maitre d' “must have made a mistake. It appears there are no more seats available for this show. I’m so, so sorry. But, perhaps something will open up later.” Noting that down as another location to revisit later in the game, I set out for the bar. That also turned out to be rather unproductive, as the bar was completely empty! I sat at the bar, but simply couldn’t find anything to do there, eventually deciding to leave the casino and continue my exploration of the island. Walking back outside to the fountain, I realised it might be possible to walk to the north east of the casino itself, and that instinct turned out to be right.

I make sitting alone in an empty bar look cool!

Round the back was a cabana, presumably where hotel residents get changed to go down to the beach. There were three cubicles, yet one of the doors was locked. I entered both of the others and read the graffiti on the wall. In one cubicle was the word “ZAX”, but while I feel like I should recognise what that means, I don’t. The second cubicle contained the words “Two Guys from Clovis”, which is obviously a reference to The Two Guys from Andromeda. I then searched through the garbage can alongside the cabana, but only came up with a postcard that read “The weather is here; wish you were beautiful”, which Larry returned to the can. None of this really helped, but looking at the sink on the wall at the side did. I found an unusually shaped “soap on a rope” hanging there, so I added it to my inventory (12 points). With nothing else to do there, I moved on.

I kind of expected to find George Michael hanging out around here

Since the early parts of the game were spent following the big pink pointer, I started backtracking through all the screens I’d visited, looking for pathways I hadn’t yet taken. Making my way back into the jungle screen where the phone booth had appeared, I took a north east path I’d ignored the first time around, reappearing on a dirt path in front of a club called Chip ‘n’ Dales (apparently a famous striptease joint). Typing look highlighted an entrance in the wall to my left, as well as a patch of indigenous grass on the path. I tried getting some of the grass, but the “tough tropical island grass slices your hands to ribbons and refuses to budge”. I then tried using the knife on the grass. “Good idea! You try and try to cut the grass with your dull knife, but it is just not sharp enough!” Hmmm…I hadn’t expected that! I began to wonder how I might sharpen the knife and decided to check every screen thoroughly for something appropriate as I travelled through them.

Grass is normally easier to get on island resorts. Or so I hear!

Leaving the grass for now, I tried to enter Chip ‘n’ Dales, only to find that “Nontoonyt’s finest Adult Entertainment” was currently closed. I then had a choice of checking out the cave or seeing what was off to the right of screen. I chose the latter, and found myself standing outside the “world-famous Comedy Hut”. I entered and took a seat at the only available table. I was then subjected to mildly humorous stand-up comedy by a dude by the name of Paul Paul. Leisure Suit Larry has never been particularly politically correct, but allowing the player to type in the name of their “three favourite ethnic groups” so that Paul can make jokes about them is off the scale. I can’t even include screenshots of many of the jokes Paul Paul told in my presence, because they make fun of ethnic groups I personally chose. Here’s a non-racist example of the joke quality though: “Why did the chicken cross the basketball court? He heard the referee was blowing fouls.” I watched Paul Paul for about two minutes, but he just didn’t seem to run out of material. Eventually I got up and left the club, ignoring his taunts about me getting a sense of humour.

You have no one to talk to when you're having an orgasm!!! Get it!?

I then explored the area outside the Comedy Hut, but all I found was a path leading off in the top right corner. Following it took me to a cliff, with some bamboo in the distance. Strangely, I was unable to walk very far, and kept being told that “there is nothing before you but limitless jungle. There’s no need for a guy like you to lose himself in that forsaken wilderness. You’d better head back to the bright lights of the city, Larry!” I’m very sceptical that this little area would have been built into the game if it didn’t serve any purpose. In fact, there’s a big hint in the manual that this will be the case. In Jungle Joe’s “Tips on Hiking on Nontoonyt” article, he writes “If you wander into the bamboo, it may be you never come out again. If this happens, I hope you picked lots of juicy Nontoonyt Nectarines to nourish you.” Time will tell whether I’m reading too far into things. I’ll stop here, but this is by no means as far as I’ve gone in the game. In fact, I’ve increased my score to 906 points (they start coming thick and fast from this point onwards). I’m still really enjoying the game too, but have to admit that I’m a little bit stuck right now. I’ll post again in the next couple of days, and hopefully by then I've figured out how to proceed.

Yeah, like you'd go to the effort for no reason. I know you better than that Mr. Lowe!

Session Time: 0 hours 45 minutes

Total Time: 1 hours 30 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!