Game 41: Les Manley 1 - Seeking Some Alone Time

Les Manley Journal Entry 6: "Don't ask me why, but I've started to build up quite the collection of Elvis style clothing. Given my quest, I guess it could be somehow useful at some point. To be honest I've been a bit distracted by all the hot women that seem to be popping up all over the place at the moment. If it's not Lyla by the pool, it's that sexy Susie in the dry cleaning joint, not to mention Stella calling me out of the blue too! If I could only find somewhere to get changed around here..."

Luckily Les realised there was something important he still needed to do in the direction his head now faced.

All up I’d have to call my last session a very successful one! After all the difficulties I had in New York, the relatively small environment in Las Vegas has allowed me to knuckle down and focus on puzzles long enough to figure out what the creators were expecting me to do (or perhaps hoping I couldn't). That’s not to say it was all smooth sailing though, as once again this post will end with a request for assistance. My last post ended with me feeling the wrath of Mr. Fabulous, with his goon Vito literally ripping my head off and handing it back to me. I started this session by revisiting the pool area, but no matter what I did, the result was the same. Since there were no further locations in the hotel to check out, there had to be something I could achieve at the pool, the lobby, the dry cleaner, or the room with the maid. I decided to revisit each area, asking everyone I found about everything I could think of. I didn’t find out anything important, but did receive points for asking Susie about The King: “While doing my dissertation at Yale, I often used a modified Sicilian defense. I liked to build staggered fortifications around him with pawns. Then I’d get my bishops in a file and sneak my rooks out the back door.” (10 points) Once again the game rewarded me stumbling upon a joke, despite it offering me nothing in the way of progress.

Susie: Sexy and smart!

While asking Bernardo the concierge about Lyla, Mr. Fabulous, Susie, The King etc., I happened to examine the phone sitting on the desk in front of him. “My phone is primarily used for paging hotel guests.” Hmmm...was there anyone I wanted to page? I wanted to remove the maid from the hotel room, but typing “page maid” didn’t give me the result I was after. Then it hit me! I needed to talk to Lyla, since she may just know where The King is located. Perhaps I could page Mr. Fabulous to get him out of the way! I typed “page Mr. Fabulous”: “Bernardo finally gives in to your persistent nagging. He picks up the phone and relays your request to the hotel operator.” (10 points) When I headed back out to the pool area, I could see Mr. Fabulous on the phone in heated discussion with the operator. I wandered over to where Lyla was lounging in the sun, and found her alone as I’d hoped I would! Unfortunately, trying to interact with her in any way resulted in “Get lost, wimp. You’re blocking my sun.” With nothing else to do, I sat down on Mr. Fabulous’ now vacant sun chair. “After taking a seat next to this gorgeous creature, she finally seems ready to acknowledge your existence.” I was shown a close-up of Lyla, skimpy costume, eighties haircut and all! “You’re making me sooo hot. I’ve got to do something to relax. I just have to do something to cool myself off.” I have absolutely no idea why me sitting down next to Lyla caused her to react in such a way, but regardless, she took her sunglasses off, hopped up, and dove into the pool.

Persistence? I only asked the guy once!

I am?! Are you really that easily pleased?

Apparently Lyla is about seven foot tall as well!

This left me alone, and since I’d noticed Lyla had taken her glasses off, I typed “get glasses”. I should point out that it was next to impossible to see the glasses sitting on the table, so I imagine some players may not ever have tried this command. It worked though, and the glasses were described as looking “like they’re fit for a KING.” By now it was becoming very clear that I was collecting a bunch of clothing items that would eventually make me look like Elvis. I had a cape, a scarf, and a pair of sunglasses, and I knew there was a white suit at the dry cleaners too. I still figured I would need to find some sort of ticket to be able to claim the suit, which meant the only thing left to do was try to get the skeleton key from the maid’s cart. I hadn’t seen any locked doors anywhere where it might be useful, but with no other leads, I made my way back to the room. After a few minutes of random failed commands, I stumbled on something interesting. There was a sign on the room door that said “No Disturb-o por favor”. I’d messed up the bed to try to get the maid to enter the room and therefore leave the cart unattended. Perhaps she wasn’t going in because of the Do Not Disturb sign! I picked up the sign, and waited to see if anything would happen. Nope, she still wouldn’t enter the room!

The future looks bright!

...and very big pockets.

I found that I could put the sign back on the door easily enough, but regardless of whether it was there or not, the maid simply wouldn’t leave the vicinity of the supplies cart. I’ve stayed in my fair share of hotels, and I wondered whether there was anything on the back of the sign. I typed “turn over sign”, even though it was in my inventory at the time. It worked, and the sign now read “Maid-o Service-o por favour”!!!! (10 points) I’d figured it out, and putting the sign back on the door resulted in the maid finally entering the room to clean up my mess. I quickly walked over to the cart and tried to pick up the key: “With the stealth of a panther, you snatch the key from the maid’s cart!” (10 points) Yes!!! I was actually getting somewhere! My excitement was only negated by the fact I had no idea what the key might be for. Thankfully I didn’t have to think about it for long, as re-entering the elevator gave me the answer. “Having acquired the hotel’s skeleton key, you’re now able to go to places henceforth unreachable.” I was taken to a room I’d not seen previously, and hoped that somewhere in the room I might discover the dry cleaning ticket I needed. I could find nothing of interest in the first room, but walking to the left of screen brought me to a section with a spa bath and a staircase heading upwards. I quickly discovered that I was unable to ascend the stairs for some reason, so focussed all my attention on the spa bath.

Henceforth unreachable?

I'm sure the designers thought this was extremely modern at the time.

OK, that's funny!

When I looked in the spa I was told “Besides the drain, it’s squeaky clean. Not a hair in sight.” After re-investigating every other item in the room and finding nothing, I figured there had to be something interesting about the spa. I didn’t seem to be able to fill it up or get in it or anything one might normally do with a spa. Eventually I typed “look at drain”, since the spa description had made a point of mentioning it. “There might be something stuck in there. However, the drain is too small for even your wimpy wrist to fit.” Eureka! Helmut would be small enough to get into the drain! I typed “put helmut in drain”, but the message I received back didn’t fill me with confidence. “OK...But he’ll never be able to get back out!” I tried a few things, but it became clear that putting Helmut in the drain had dead ended me. I’d been so certain too! I restored and looked through my inventory in the hope of some inspiration. When I saw the dental floss, I had an idea! I typed “tie floss to helmut”, hoping that I might be able to lower him down into the drain. I wasn’t confident that it would work, since I didn’t believe the game would have such a clever and logical puzzle, but it did! “After you extract the final length of floss from the container, you gently tie one end around the waist of the World’s Smallest Man...being careful not to pull too tight – thus severing him in two.” (10 points)

You mean apart from the stairs right?

It's actually surprising when I solve puzzles in this game using logic.

I was shown a close-up of the spa bath drain, where I witnessed the well-dressed Helmut being lowered into the water. To my delight, the little guy swam across and picked up a dry cleaning ticket that was lodged in there! To my disgust, I found myself grinning, and feeling generally happy about playing Les Manley. Things were starting to come together nicely, with logic actually producing results and some level of satisfaction. I shook this unwanted feeling of joy out of my system, and reapplied the grimace of loathing and repulsion that had previously held a permanent place. I had the ticket, and Helmut was back in my possession too. (10 points) I rushed back to the elevator and into the dry cleaning shop to hand my receipt in to Susie. “The clerk pays little attention to the fact that you’ve just shown her a receipt almost 20 years old. She goes in the back and brings out a gold-laced white jumpsuit worthy of a king.” (10 points) Awesome! Surely now I had the entire outfit needed to dress up as The King! There was one major issue though. I’d tried putting on various bits of the costume throughout the game, but in every instance was told I needed to find a good place to get changed. Since there weren’t very many locations in the hotel, it didn’t take me long to try putting the suit on in every one of them. Even in the most obvious places, such as the bathroom in the hotel room, I simply wasn’t able to do it!

Honestly, why isn't Helmut a superhero? He's awesome!

The poor guy seems to be getting smaller every scene though!

Um...yes. Actually, you know what, I have one here that says you belong to me too.

Was there another location outside of the hotel? I really didn’t think there was, but figured I should rule out the idea before continuing my hunt inside. When I got back to my starting position, I realised I’d never gone to the right of screen. Perhaps there was something else there! “The desert. Some call it dry, lifeless, the devil’s wasteland. Others find beauty in its stark vistas. The truth is: It suck either way.” Oh great! I’ve played enough adventure games to know that deserts rarely end well. Scenes from Deja Vu II, Conquests of Camelot and Larry III came to mind, and I wondered whether this was a good time to open up Excel and start a map. I walked eastwards, and to my great surprise found a telephone box in the middle of nowhere! It was ringing too, so I walked over and answered it. Was I already hallucinating? I was shown an image of the gorgeous Stella, lying on a bed in lingerie, talking to me on the phone! Les: “H-h-hello?” Stella: “Hi, Les. It’s me.” Les: “Stella! Why are you calling me way out here in the desert?” Stella: “Remember I said I’d give you a call later? Besides, Steve wanted an excuse to show another picture of me!” Les: “I can see that.” Stella: “Well...I’ve got to go now. Good luck with your search!” Les: “Bye! Thanks for calling!” Stella: “Sure...any time, Les.” (10 points) As if Accolade hadn’t ripped off Sierra enough, now they’d gone and included self-referencing humour too!

Well who else could it be for? I don't see anyone else around here!

Sorry Steve. This didn't automatically make you a household name among gamers. Nice try though!

Sadly, despite gaining points for finding the phone, it didn’t appear to help me in any way. I began exploring the desert further, but it became apparent that the environment was simply repeating indefinitely. Even worse...walking back from where I came from didn’t take me back to the hotel. I did wonder whether the thermos full of water was needed for the desert in some way though, so tried drinking some. “Phew...I’m glad I brought this water to drink. Not only does drinking it quench my thirst and clear my sense of direction...it gives me more points!” (10 points) This didn’t help me to find any new locations, but it did allow me to find my way back to the hotel. My little excursion out into the desert had resulted in nothing but points, which meant I still had no idea where I was meant to get changed, if indeed this was what I was supposed to do next. After another twenty minutes or so of wandering around, I had to give in. I was stuck! I’m therefore requesting assistance again. I’ll be cranky if I’ve overlooked a specific spot where I’m supposed to get changed, but I think it’s more likely that I’ve missed something else completely. At least I managed to solve a few puzzles unassisted during this session, which gives me hope that I might get through the rest of the game with my reputation relatively intact. Or not!

So not finding the thermos wouldn't have caused a dead end. Not sure about the peanut butter yet though.

Session Time: 1 hour 00 minutes
Total Time: 7 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 have made a request for assistance. Thanks!