Gobliins 2 - Meatballs of Happiness

By Ilmari

Last time I got the impression I would start this section instantly from the throne room. Alas, my journey from the subterranean sea ended somewhere else.

In the kitchen

Still, throne room wasn’t far away, so let’s move there for a while.

Note the pepper pot, it will become handy later

Movementwise, there was an interesting trick in the throne room. Usually the exits of a screen have been pretty much fixed. Not here. Whenever my goblins were at the right side of the screen, the exit list showed the kitchen. Then again, I could move the goblins through the various secret passageways to the left side of the screen (and no, moving in front of the eyes of the demons wasn’t an option), where instead of kitchen the list of exits showed another room (we’ll get back to that later).

On the throne room sat the evil demon Amoniak, and to the left of him was the Prince Buffoon I was here to rescue. But the demon lackey was interestingly called a lover of meatballs. Say, didn’t I just see a big pile of those?

Indeed, in the kitchen, a servant was preparing them. He would put them through the window, one by one, suggesting he was feeding the demon lackey. I had been carrying a bottle of kindness elixir for a while now, and my suspicion was that I could spice the meatballs with it. In fact, when I tried to do it, goblins told me that the idea was good but they were afraid it would spill and the cook would throw the spiced meatballs away.

Checking the kitchen a bit more, I found out that pressing the eye of the swordfish would contort the fish, which would hit the goblin, who would fly to the salt shaker, which would drop to a position where it could be taken (remarkable cause-effect chains). Now, I could spice the meatballs with salt, and the cook would be reprimanded for oversalting.

Like this

For the couple of seconds cook wasn’t sitting, I could interact with the case he was sitting on. What could I do with it? Well, I began by adding some salt in the big pot. Someone was apparently using it as a bath and was glad that we had put some bath salt in it. As a token of gratitude, I received a file, which could be used for releasing bird.

Although not from its cage

With the cage gone, I could move forward on the shelf and take some thumb tacks. Obviously, these were the things I could put on the case, while cook was being disciplined. When the cook sat on them, he lost the grip on the meatball he had been holding.

Poor cook should have stayed in bed today

This was a most frustrating sequence. Clearly I had to use the elixir with the meatball while it was flying. Problem was that time was so short and the spot I had to click was so small. Worst of it was that I had to do the whole salt-the-meatballs-wait-quickly-apply-the-thumb-tacks routine again, every time I failed in spicing the meatball. After dozens of failed attempts (and agony experienced by the cook), I finally managed to pull it off. Next time I entered the throne room, Amoniak’s lackey was having a silly grin on his face

One down, two to go

My next target was Amoniak’s demon dog that was said to eat cockroaches. This wasn’t as intuitive a problem to solve as the one with the meatballs, but involved more of random experimentation. I noticed that if Fingus entered the ear of the demon throne and Winkle at the same time pulled at the tongue of a statue on the left, the left eye of the demon throne would open and Fingus would automatically manipulate the right eye, releasing a cockroach, which would walk toward the dog and be eaten after few seconds (yep, a bit random). The trick was to quickly take the cockroach through one of those magic holes and then to use some elixir on it.

The room at the other side of the throne room

Only one to go! Demon king Amoniak was dealt with a very similar manner as his underlings, that is, by mixing some kindness elixir into his food. I found a painter who told me that Amoniak ate only ladybugs. Since I knew where to get cockroaches, I tried painting one of them with red paint from the painter and adding some black spots from a pepper pot. It apparently was enough to fool Amoniak.

And then we were three

The game wasn’t over yet. I still had to escape the castle, but I had no idea how to do it. After a while, I met the real king of the castle, locked inside his armour, hanging from a rope.

He’s smaller than I expected

Amoniak had turned the king to a small child, and only his crown could turn him back to normal. I had already stolen from Amoniak this crown (one of the goblins could snatch it, while entering the head of the demon throne), which I now gave to the king. The castle scientist noticed this and went to find some help to release the king. With the scientist left, I could tinker with one of his machines.

Honey, I shrank the gobliins!

Finding myself on a desk (what desk actually is this?), I immediately noticed a box with a lock of a shape similar to one one on a seal. Should I use the seal to make an impression from the wax of the nearby candle and use it to open the box? If so, how could I get the wax?

Checking the other items, I noticed a pen knife that one goblin could lift for a couple of minutes. Using the other goblin on the knife during those few minutes moved the knife a few millimetres nearer to a book. Doing that couple of times brought the knife close enough to the book that I could cut from it a piece of the bookmark, which I could use as a wick of the candle.

What next? I picked up a match and used it to pry one glass eye from decorative skull. I tested what each goblin would do with the ball. They all kicked it, but Prince Buffoon particularly managed to break a piece from glasses with it. There was a conspicuous beam of sunlight coming from a window and hitting the candle. Using the piece of glass with that beam, the wick started to burn and a piece of wax dropped from the candle.

Just like I thought, I could shape the wax with the seal and the use this impression to open the box. Inside, I found some beans. Playing around with them for a while, I finally tried to use them on the map. To my surprise, the seed started to sprout a beanstalk - in the map. Without further ado, I entered the map.

I am getting confused. Was it a magic map? Did it teleport
me somewhere? If so, did I just create a huge beanstalk here?

It was definitely a silly ending, but just right what to expect from this game. And it wasn’t the end, but only an end - the game still continues. What more lies ahead of me, now that I rescued the prince? We’ll find that out next week.

But before ending completely, let me advertise a new feature of our blog. Our readers occasionally note that some noteworthy game is missing from our official list. We have been playing such missing games as Missed Classics, but there has been no way for our readers to suggest what to play as a Missed Classic. We admins decided it should be time to change this. Just for this reason, we've set up a simple spreadsheet (you can find the link also on the left column), where you can add your suggestion. We are still not sure how we will add your suggestions to our Missed Classic schedules, but we are working on it.

Inventory: match, file

Session time: 2 h 45 min
Total time: 19 h 15 min