Game 41: Les Manley 1 - Pulling Teeth

Les Manley Journal Entry 5: "I've made it to Vegas, albeit by non-standard transportation. After getting Fred's cape and Bobbi's scarf (through means I'm not proud of), I was launched from New York to Vegas in a most fortunate manner. It's great to be here, particularly now that I've met that stunner named Susie in the dry cleaning shop. I really hope she can give me more than the typical service!"

Stealing from The World's Strongest Man seemed like a good idea at the time

Just in case there was any doubt after my last assistance-filled post, I will state right here that I hate Les Manley: The Search for the King! It’s beyond belief that any designer would be able to sleep at night having unleashed a game so shamelessly illogical. There have been a few discussions in the comments around whether or not Accolade intended for the game to be stupidly difficult so that people would be forced to buy their hint book. I was willing to give them the benefit of the doubt, putting everything down to bad writing, but I’m not so sure now. I sense mischief!!! I push on nonetheless, and have managed to solve a puzzle that I’m convinced someone would have placed a bet on. I put much more time and energy into this one for two reasons: 1. Aperama’s confidence that he will be pulling in loads of CAPs was clashing with my ego, and 2. I ran into trouble right at the start of my next session, meaning my next post would only have been a couple of paragraphs long. Speaking of paragraphs, I’ve wasted almost an entire one here, so I’ll get on with it. My last post finished with me having finally got my hands on Luigi’s rosin. There was little doubt that the rosin was required to help Frederick von Leepov climb his ladder, so I made my way into the big top to find out what would happen next.

Death-defying hey? That's a bit optimistic!

I gave the rosin to Fred, and thankfully it was the correct thing to do. “Fred accepts the rosin, removes his cape, and prepares for his death-defying leap!” The crazy guy shed his cape, climbed the ladder, and jumped! Unfortunately for him, he missed the shallow pool at the bottom completely, forming a body shaped crater the way I had during my brief visit to Las Vegas. With Fred apparently dead, I picked up his “majestic looking cape”, and after a brief yet unsuccessful questioning of the stupid Alona, left. I couldn’t think of what I might need the cape for, but since the only “puzzle” left was to figure out how to retrieve Bobbi’s scarf, I thought perhaps the cape might play a role. Perhaps she would be willing to trade? I made my way over to her house and tried to give it to her. It achieved nothing. Perhaps I should wear it? I typed “wear cape” and was told to “find a good place to change”. Interesting! I tried putting the cape on while standing behind her couch, since that seemed to be the only place that she wouldn’t be able to see. It didn’t work, and I began to wonder whether I was supposed to get changed prior to entering the house. That would be pretty bitchy, since there is no way to re-enter the house once you’ve left. I restored my game back to prior to entering, and then walked around the game environment looking for places that I thought could be considered “a good place to change”.

At the very least he would need a smaller size now.

It does look like something The King would wear.

I doubt Bobbi would mind me stripping off right here and now

I tried getting changed in the equipment room, in my office, behind the fence near the circus etc. No luck! When I found myself on the eastern most screen, where work signs blocked my path, I got the idea in my head to try climbing the fence. To my astonishment, it worked, and Les scaled the fence into what I figured would be Bobbi’s backyard!!! This felt like a big moment, but once I was there, I had to wonder why. There was a clothes line there, but it had nothing on it. I didn’t appear to be able to interact with anything else, or enter Bobbi’s building through a new entrance. I tried getting changed into the cape, but was unsurprised when it didn’t work. Had I stumbled across a red herring? One thing seemed certain though…there was nowhere suitable to get changed in New York. I had to assume that I would wear the cape once I reach Las Vegas, but this left me with no clue as to how to get the scarf. Did I even need the scarf? There had to be a reason why I could sit and chat with Bobbi in her home. I re-entered the house, desperate to figure this puzzle out without requesting assistance. At this point I turned to my wife and asked her what a man might say to a woman that he was trying to get to know. Her responses were very similar to all the things I’d already tried. “ask about bobbi”, “ask about job”, “ask about interests” etc. etc. No luck!!!

I'm pretty sure Les could have squeezed between some of those pickets.

Thank you Captain Obvious!

It suddenly crossed my mind that most people talk about the weather when they don’t have anything to say. I typed “ask about weather”, and was stunned when Bobbi replied with “Sure is hot lately. Makes me kind of thirsty.” Progress! Was I supposed to offer Bobbi a drink, despite being in her home? I typed “ask about drink” and received the stock parser response “Please. One verb at a time!” I tried several different variations, but using drink in a sentence always ended up with the multiple verb message. Why the hell did she tell me she was thirsty if she didn’t want a drink? Was I supposed to use another word other than drink? Beverage didn’t work. It was then that I typed “ask about cola”, thinking of Coca Cola. Bobbi’s response was “Perfect on a hot summer day.” Surely I was onto something here, but as usual the game was making me work extra hard. I typed “ask for cola”, and finally something significant happened! “Just a sec, hon. Don’t go away… I’ll be right back.” As Bobbi left the room, I felt certain that I was now going to be able to steal the scarf. I couldn’t move or type though, and was frozen to the spot until she returned with my cola. She put it on the table and sat back down. What now!? Should I drink it? I couldn’t think of why, but tried anyway: “Take it easy, Les. You’ve got to watch your caffeine intake. Even the fumes make you nervous and clumsy.” Oh come on!!!!

Was asking about the weather the only way to get the thirsty comment? I really lucked out if it was!

My only motivation seemed to be to get the scarf. What role could a glass of cola play in that task? Bobbi didn’t seem to want to give me the scarf until we got to know each other better. Had asking for a drink somehow made us closer? I typed “ask for scarf” again and found that it had! “Well…I usually show the scarf to only my closest friends. But I guess it’s OK.” Bobbi took the scarf out of its case and laid it out on the table, right next to my cola. I still couldn’t pick it up though. Was I supposed to spill the drink onto the scarf? Why would I do that? Why did I want the scarf anyway? I typed “spill cola” and got “What do you wish to spill the soda on?” Um…what do you think I want to spill it on? I typed “spill cola on scarf” and watched bewildered as Bobbi ran around the house in a panic! “Well, now you’ve done it. She’ll probably have to wash it. But before she figures out that washing it might remove the magical healing powers, I’d suggest leaving!” Leaving? Without the scarf!? I was given three options, but considering they were “Scram”, “Vamoos” and “Sayonara”, I soon realised there was only really one. I found myself standing outside Bobbi’s apartment, wondering whether I’d done something wrong. What was the cola for if not to spill it on the scarf? How does Bobbi washing the scarf make any diff…eureka!!!...the clothes line!!!

Nothing says friendship more than a demand for a coke!

This is the second game in a row where the designers forgot to give me any motivation

It's like Choose Your Own Adventure, except not

I walked east until I could see the clothes line over the fence. On it…was the scarf! So everything I’d just gone through was merely to get Bobbi to hang the scarf on the line so I could finally steal it! I climbed over and picked it up (10 points), wondering whether I now had everything I needed to go to Las Vegas. I raced over to the big top, saved my game, and then stepped onto the Test-O-Strength. As before, I was launched from New York to Las Vegas, crash landing close to the Las Vegas Casino Hotel. This time I wasn’t told that I was missing items, so it looked like I had indeed collected everything I could in New York. However, I was informed that poor little Helmut had burned up "during re-entry"! There’s no way that I could have gone through everything I’d done to get Helmut, only to kill him on the way to Vegas. Either I was supposed to do something with him in the Big Apple, or I needed to find a way to get him to Vegas unharmed. Going through my screenshots, an answer came to me. Could that be the purpose of the mailbox? I became certain that it was when I noticed there was also a mailbox in Vegas, right near where I’d landed. I restored my game and tried putting Helmut in the mailbox outside the bus station. “Helmut has been mailed.” (10 points) I wondered how any mailman would know to deliver him to the mailbox in Vegas, but then scolded myself for questioning the logic found in Les Manley.

I love it when a good plan that no-one would ever consider comes together!

Small AND susceptible to standard atmospheric physics. Helmut was dealt a shitty hand.

You have to love puzzles you can't possibly solve without dying first.

This time when I arrived in Vegas, I walked over to the mailbox and looked in it. “Inside the mailbox is Helmut.” Hell yeah! I picked him up, and made my way to the Casino. I could take either of two overhead walkways to reach it, but my experimentation told me that both arrived at the same point. That point was the hotel lobby, where a man named Bernardo manned the desk. I tried to talk to him, but he didn’t seem to want to communicate. Some further experimentation let me know that there were two separate pathways I could take out of the lobby (ignoring the one I came in on). I decided to go to the right of screen, arriving outside a dry cleaning establishment. I wandered in to find an attractive woman waiting to service me. “Susie the cleaning girl. You wonder if she gives one hour service.” My first thought was that the scarf had significant sweat stains on it when I first saw it, but then I remembered Bobbi had washed it after my intentional spillage. I tried showing it to Susie anyway: “It’s not dirty, Les. Remember? Bobbi washed and hung it out to dry.” How Susie would know this is anyone’s guess, but I knew it to be true regardless. I tried showing her the cape, but that garnered no response at all. What else would I need a dry cleaning business for? Would I come across an item later in the game? Would I find someone else’s laundry ticket, the way I had in Manhunter 2?

I see they rolled out the red carpet for me.

Cool! Just what I don't need!

Apparently Les' parents were aware of this deficiency as soon as he was born!

I decided to see whether I could get some “extra” services out of Susie, but any attempts were met with “You’re not manly enough for me.” Before I left, I thought I would try looking at the suits I could see on the rack. Doing so displayed one particular white suit: “Upon closer examination, you notice that it was sewn with expandable elastic seams.” It seemed to me that I was attempting to dress myself up as The King, with the scarf, the cape and the white suit all doing their part. I was informed that the suit had been there for a long time, but my attempts to grab it resulted in “You can’t just take it.” I had nothing in my inventory that seemed helpful, so I left the shop for now and continued along the corridor to the right of screen. This took me to a hallway which ended with an elevator. Most interesting though was a large portrait of a smiling man on the wall. There was a plaque next to it containing the schedule for Mr. Fabulous’ show. I knew about Mr. Fabulous due to Lyla Libido (The King’s ex-girlfriend) currently having a relationship with him. When I looked at the picture, I got: “He may be fabulous... but there’s only one KING. And according to Lyla Libido, he’s not half the man THE KING was...uh...is...uh...well, you get the idea.”

Hmmm...am I going to end up being The King?

Yep...I hate the guy already!

I hopped in the lift and typed “press button”. I had no idea what button Les actually pressed, but the lift ascended to a random level. There I found a recently made up room, and there was a maid vacuuming the hallway alongside her cart of supplies. Examining the cart revealed that it contained towels, soap, disinfectant and a skeleton key! Obviously I was pretty interested in that key, so I tried to pick it up. “The maid seems upset.” I tried to talk to her, but she didn’t speak English. No matter what I tried, the maid wasn’t going to let me take anything from that cart, so I left it behind and focussed my attention on the room. There was a TV, a small table and a bed, as well as a bathroom leading off the back of the room. When I turned the TV on, a news reporter had the following to say: “This just in. One Lester P. Manley said to be hot on KING’s trail in WILL’s million dollar contest...Col. Bob in uproar over disappearance of Helmut Bean...and now back to the President’s State of the Union Address”. Checking out the bed revealed that it was a “Vibra-Massage 720”. I didn’t seem to be able to get a massage, but sitting down on the bed ruffled up the sheets. “Oops. Now you’ve created extra work for the maid.” I thought perhaps I could get the maid into the room to fix up the bed while I stole the skeleton key from her cart, but the language difference was a real barrier to that plan.

Racial stereotype much?

Yep...it's a bathroom!

I wandered into the bathroom and looked at the toilet, bath and sink, uncovering some dental floss in the sink. (10 points) While I was in the bathroom, I thought I would try putting on the cape and scarf, but still I was told to “Find a good place to change.” While I was convinced I needed to distract the maid and get the key, I couldn’t figure out a way to do it, so made my way back down to the lobby. Mr. Bernardo still wasn’t very interested in talking to me, but I did figure out that he would answer some questions. I found out that the hotel was currently booked out, that Mr. Fabulous was their biggest drawcard, and that Elvis stayed there “once or twice”. Nothing particularly interesting, so I took the other pathway out of the lobby. I re-appeared poolside, where numerous hotel inhabitants lounged around under umbrellas. None of them seemed interested in talking to me, so I walked to the left of screen. There I found Mr. Fabulous, lying near the pool with a woman I assumed was Lyla. “Please kid, no autographs. Get lost, or you’ll answer to Vito.” I tried talking to him anyway, at which point his bodyguard grabbed me by the neck and literally removed my head from my body!!! It was Game Over, and I decided my session had gone on long enough too. I have no idea what I’m going to do when I next play. I guess I’ll try talking to Lyla and hopefully figure out what I’m supposed to do with the maid. It's sure to painful no many what I do!

I'll probably end up using this floss to lower myself ten stories or to capture a pterodactyl!

The humour continues to fall flat, feeling like a poor man's Leisure Suit Larry.

Hey, I was still using that! Actually, on second thoughts...

Session Time: 1 hour 30 minutes
Total Time: 6 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!