By Ilmari
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| Looks good… |
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| Is it? Is it? |
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| Yes, it’s a strike! |
Last time, I had just been locked out of the house, with no apparent way back in. I started from the backyard, which contained the simple bowling minigame above and a garden with some fun animations.
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| Like these playful carrots |
Also located in the backyard was a treehouse, where I found a measuring spoon.
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| But let’s forget about that and check the telescope |
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| Is it meant to be a stylised Enterprise? |
IntermissionWe stop the regular blog text with a report on the annual Tedolympics! Our first clip comes from figure skateboarding contest, won for a third time in a row by Fatty Bear, with his “Skateboard like Egyptian” performance.
Hula hoop championship was also won by Fatty Bear, with his masterful bouncy belly technique.
Now back to our regular blogging!
Intermission overWith backyard fully covered, I moved to check the front of the house. I spotted the garage, which opened up with my remote controller. Within I found an enormous sack of sugar.
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| Seriously, is sugar really sold in such huge sacks in America? Here in Finland we have only 1 kg packages of sugar, but that seems at least a 10 kg bag. |
Trying the front door of the house, I was told that Fatty could crawl in, using the cat door. Clearly, I hadn’t been dead ended (and Fatty exercises more than Winnie the Pooh).
I found myself in a living room, with stairs going up to the floor where I began the game, and a door to the kitchen. Living room itself was just filler, with things like an answering machine with a message from Kayla’s dad about a puppy he had bought, an aquarium full of fish and a piano.
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| Interface has usually been intuitive to use, but this was too complicated for me |
Entering the kitchen, I met the bunny from Kayla’s room. Fatty proceeded to put the ingredients he had found on the kitchen table, where I also found the recipe for the cake I was supposed to bake.
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| ½ what of milk? A litre, a canister, a kilogram? Units would be helpful |
Checking the cupboards, I acquired vanilla extract, baking powder and chocolate chips. In another cupboard, I found a mixing bowl, a measuring can and a mixer. Within the fridge, I discovered milk, butter, bone and cheese.
With all the necessary ingredients and tools in my possession, I proceeded to bake the cake. Fatty sang “I am baking a birthday cake, for Kayla’s birthday party”, his bunny friend put the product in the oven, and I had a chance to decorate the result. In case I wanted, I could have baked another cake, but I decided not to.
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| Kids, this is NOT how cows make milk |
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| The first time on this blog I got to use my own creativity |
On the kitchen floor I saw a present to Kayla. When I clicked the present, Fatty opened it and out came a puppy. Really, Kayla’s parents were planning to keep a dog locked in a tiny box for who knows how many hours? Aren’t there laws against such cruel behaviour?
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| Run little dog, run! |
As was to be expected, the puppy was quite delighted of its newfound freedom and escaped. Grudgingly, I obeyed the wishes of the game and went looking for the dog. I found it digging in the garden.
While it was easy to lure the dog with a bone, Fatty still didn’t want to put it back in the box, not because he understood how wrong it was, but because the dog was dirty. I took the dog to the bathroom and gave it a bath. Then I could lock the poor thing back in its confinement and decorate this place of torture with a nice ribbon. Good job, Fatty!
Since I now had some cheese, I checked the door that was locked by a mouse. The mouse was happy to switch the key with the cheese, and now I could open the way to attic, where I could try different outfits for Fatty, mixing different headgear with different suit tops and suit bottoms.
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| Pick your favourite in comments! Is it Super Fatty… |
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| ...Royal Chef Fatty… |
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| ...Leisure Suit Fatty… |
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| ...or Corona protected Fatty? |
Checking out Kayla’s room, I was tasked to blow five balloons and to find out missing letters from a birthday sign that the puppy had messed. Neither of these tasks was really difficult, although the latter was quite boring, requiring me to check almost every room to see whether it contained a letter.
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| A as an aquarium |
With all the letters back in place, sun went up and Fatty Bear turned magically back into a mere toy. Kayla’s dad woke up and gave her the puppy as a gift. The end!
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| Kayla: “Yea, a dog!”; her dad: “Who on earth decorated here?” |
Cute game! We should sic it on an actual kid.
ReplyDeleteIndeed, that would be perfect! Unfortunately my younger one does not understand enough English to play this and my older one thought it was a bit too childish (at least when compared with Among Us, I guess).
DeleteCurious, the only thing I remember from the telescope is an ad for Putt-Putt Goes to the Moon.
ReplyDeleteYeah, those huge sugar sacks are a thing in some stores. Regular grocery stores sometimes, but big box stores tend to have them. Not as common as huge bags of rice though, huge bags of that are in every store that sells food basically.
The piano, I recall, is really, really bad from basically any perspective. Curiously, Humongous seemed intent on putting them in, I remember one of the Big Thinkers games had a piano mini-game too and that was...worse, because it was somewhat necessary.
The cake's units of measurements are in the normal unit of measure over here...probably...although I'm not sure if the baking powder and vanilla extract are in teaspoons or tablespoons. That's not something that should be a question, since baking is a science and you screw that up the cake is going to be...interesting at best. Its also not a chocolate cake, despite what the game is trying to say it is, just a chocolate chip cake. For a chocolate cake, you need to melt the chips or use cocoa.
That's the nicest cake I've seen in this game. Most of the time reviewers seem to have the cake be decorated in a way that isn't ideal for a children's birthday party. Probably because they're very, very mature.
There probably is a law against keeping a dog in a box for hours, but again, children's media. Its a trope for there to be a dog as a present in a box. Which is bad for a number of reasons. Here its actually pointless if I'm not mistaken, because the father doesn't give Kayla the dog in the box, he's just a dick to the animal.
Pets are terrible gifts anyway, because ones recieved by children are usually neglected after a few weeks, leaving it the parents job to take care of it. Considering this and how great Kayla's father is at these things, its probably best we never got the next entry, "Fatty Bear and the Dog's Funeral". I hear they were planning on putting the fun in funeral though. :D
I wonder if Fatty Bear takes place in Kayla's imagination, like how the Pajama Sam games took place in Sam's. Probably overthinking it.
Yeah, any sane parent knows that if you are buying a pet for a small child, it's you who is actually going to take care of it. Children love to play with puppies, but main responsibility for feeding, walking and training have to be left to an older person.
DeleteFirst time I made rice in my life I added 2 tablespoons of salt (hey it only said tsp!), and I can attest it is not optimal. Unless you don't want rice bit a reminder what the sea smells like.
DeleteThe most usual size of sugar in a grocery store is 5 lbs (~2.25 kg). Despite the "big canvas sack" design, though, I'm not sure the sack shown here actually is all that large. How big is Fatty himself supposed to be, for instance? And it looks rather smaller in the closeup next to the milk carton.
ReplyDeleteThe units for the ingredients that show a glass measuring vessel are US cups: 1/2 cup milk = about 120 ml, 3/4 cup sugar, 1 1/2 cup flour (although these dry ingredients are not usually measured in the type of liquid measuring cup shown). 1 stick of butter also is 1/2 cup, or 1/4 lb (butter is normally sold in pounds that are divided into four individually-wrapped sticks). The ones with measuring spoons are in culinary teaspoons, about 5 ml.
Sorry, make that 4 lb packages of sugar. (I happened to be going to the store today, so I looked.)
DeleteThanks for the info on measurements! And you are right, I was probably picturing Fatty as a child size, but he's most likely a bit smaller.
DeleteHappy New Year everyone!
ReplyDeleteAn interesting note I discovered on replaying the game:
ReplyDelete1) It is random if you need to find the measuring cup or measuring spoons, and they aren't hidden in the same place (There might be other things that could be missing)
2) If you don't do it yourself, the game lets the dog out for you.
3) If you don't go to the garden the dog won't get dirty, letting you skip giving it a bath
4) Forgot: Which letters are missing and their location is randomized. This effects speedruns a lot, and is how we know the current ~3 m 30s run can be beaten, as they visit one location without a letter in it.
DeleteDuring the height of the pandemic, I bought sugar from the membership warehouse store and it came in a 25 lb sack, though it was a paper sack, not burlap as that appears to be. The only thing I've seen in a sack like that for the home market in the modern age is rice.
ReplyDelete