Leisure Suit Larry 6: Marking My Territory

by Alex

I just can’t get away from Jim Walls, no matter how I try.

For some reason, while playing through Leisure Suit Larry 6, I decided to read up on Trickster’s old entries on Sierra’s Jim Walls-designed 1989 classic, Codename: ICEMAN.

Ha ha, “classic.” Calling a frustrating, hateful mess of a game “classic” is just my special brand of sarcastic humor designed to make you laugh by calling something the clear opposite of what it is. Classic me!

Ha ha! Dropping in a new game mechanic that punishes the player for using the game’s save and restore function without any sort of warning, thereby preventing them from getting a key item that will help later on. Classic Jim Walls!

Jokes aside, Trickster’s entries are entertaining and worth a read, as always, and they’re important because they hit upon some differing philosophies in game design. For example, Jim Walls games feature a few commonalities that differentiate them from games that are, you know, good. These are all present in Codename: ICEMAN, and present in spades:

• Walking dead scenarios, whereby a player misses some key item or bit of information and is allowed to leave the current game area, an area that they are unable to return to, and move on, getting stuck later on with absolutely no indication as to why they lose, where they went wrong, and what they can do about it. See, e.g.: failing to meet and sleep with the secret agent in Tahiti (no, Codename: ICEMAN isn’t a crypto-Larry game); failing to check your ID when it is returned to you so your player can realize that they were given the wrong ID card, etc.
• Parser nonsense, whereby the player is stymied by knowing what they need to do, but being unable to tell the game what they want to do. See, e.g., having to type the correct phrasing so the game knows you want to get the &%$#ing roll of tape that you can clearly see off of the refrigerator. To be fair, Al Lowe’s Leisure Suit Larry 2 had a few notorious examples of this.
• Changing game mechanics, whereby a player is punished for doing something they had previously been able to do with impunity. See, e.g., a character in the game telling you that they don’t play with cheaters when you save scum during a game of chance, supra.
• Reliance on the manual, whereby a player has to read what essentially amounts to dense technical documentation/a lengthy history lesson in what is supposed to be a game. See, e.g., Codename: ICEMAN requiring the player to actually learn the basics of submarining through trial and error (lengthy and tedious trial by error) with the extra kick in the junk of throwing in elements of randomness. At least in Jim Walls’s Police Quest games, particularly the first, following the manual actually made you feel like a cop since the required steps were pithy, clear, and obvious, such as how to deal with drunk drivers or the protocol for calling backup.
• Punishing the player for not examining every little thing, whereby a player must know to assume that every %&$#ing thing on the submarine is broken and needs to be fixed. See, e.g., the player needing to fix torpedoes and stuff like that, which in a logical game wouldn’t be up to the player’s character—who is not a mechanic—to fix. This leads us into the next classic design choice . . .
• Puzzles you will not know you had to solve until you die and get the death message. See, e.g., setting sail with the dive machine without checking it to realize a washer is loose. This is but one of many such puzzles in Codename: ICEMAN which take that obnoxious bit in Police Quest where you die if you don’t walk around your police cruiser to check it the first time you drive and slide the frustration dial to eleven. Leisure Suit Larry 2 had a few of these that sucked, but Codename: ICEMAN seems built on the premise that “gotcha!” puzzles—and I use this word loosely—are fun.

Yes, I’ve played Codename: ICEMAN before, but never to completion. I got frustrated during the submarine part. It is a spiteful game that hates the player. And with this admission, and my recently finishing Blue Force for this blog, I have played every . . . single . . . Jim Walls game ever made.

But enough about Jim Walls! You’re here to read about Larry!

Ah, Larry. That strange little anachronistic hornball who likes to pee everywhere (we’ll get to that). Al Lowe designs much better games than Jim Walls. Even Leisure Suit Larry 5, with its optional puzzles, was still well-made even if nothing the player did mattered. Here, Al Lowe has truly captured the spirit of the first Larry game, as discussed in my first post, where the player is presented with a game world and told to explore. Even better, Al’s puzzles tend to make a modicum of sense, at least within the game world, aren’t hyper obscure, and don’t rely on the player dying to figure out the existence of a puzzle in the first place. No, here in Larry 6, much like in Larry 1, you wander around, observing things, talking to people, figuring out what they need, and using the items that you find to get it for them.

Further, Leisure Suit Larry 6, and most Larry games, actually, give a very unique insight into female psychology: it turns out that all you have to do is give a woman something she wants, and she’ll have sex with you! No, really, it’s that easy! Larry speaks to a woman and finds out that she wants something—say, a dress—and if he can get it for her, she agrees to pleasure him sexually. Just like real life. I’ll never forget the time I was working in a bike shop, and this lady said she needed a new helmet, and that if I could find it for her she’d “pump my tires” if you know what I mean—

No, wait, she said she’d “pump my brakes.” I don’t even know where I’m going with this.

Moving on, I spent this session exploring La Costa Lotta, taking notes and screenshots, picking up what I could, and not trying to solve anything yet. This is how I tend to play more open-ended game, and while it can feel slightly overwhelming as adventure games got bigger, the worlds richer, and the puzzles more numerous, it’s also exhilarating to put together the pieces bit by bit and figure out just what the heck my little onscreen avatar is supposed to be doing.

Although being a Larry game, that last part is not a mystery. He’s trying to get laid. He’s also trying to leave La Costa Lotta. We’ll get to that later.

I’ll divide this post up room-by-room in the order I visited them, describing what I picked up and who I interacted with along the way. It’s going to be a long one, but after we get this exploration out of the way, the next few posts will focus on trying to solve puzzles instead of just cataloguing them. On with the game, and I promise that this should be the last time I ever talk about Jim Walls again.

Front Lobby

We begin at the lobby of La Costa Lotta. Notice the top of the receptionist desk area resembles an upper lip, the chandeliers above the receptionist are eyes, and the high-heel shoe statues to the right and left. Subtle.

I poke around with Larry’s icons and in addition to the standard Walk, Look, and Speak, there’s also a Hand and a Take. The Hand lets Larry interact with things, and the Take lets him actually pick stuff up. There’s also a Zipper icon, which has a variety of uses, some beneficial and some stupid (mostly stupid). For example, I click the Zipper on the key return box to the left of the counter and Larry pees in it. “Whew, what a relief!” the Narrator intones. “But now all the keys are damp.”

And I didn’t even get any points for this.

Yes, you read that right. Pissing in, on, and around random objects is a bit of a running theme in this game, and the Larry series generally. Why? I don’t know. Is Larry marking his territory, asserting his dominance? Because pee is funny? It really isn’t, though. It’s actually quite unhygienic to whizz all over the place like an incontinent dog. In prior Larry games, he could pee in a toilet and get peed on (the first), pee behind a dumpster and then write his name in the ice (the second), and pee in another toilet and, I think, the shower (the third). I don’t recall pee jokes in the fifth game. Meanwhile, this sixth installment is like a yellow sea (as opposed to the Yellow Sea).

It’s really stupid. And yet I keep looking for things to pee in, on, and around. Why? I don’t know. Maybe I’m using this video game as an outlet to do things I’d never do in real life (you have to trust me that I don’t pee everywhere, guys. For real . . .). Maybe I’m not as mature as I think I am. Maybe because I just like clicking the Zipper icon on stuff and people because Al Lowe is a funny writer who seems to have come up with a response for every contingency. Unlike, say, Jim Walls.

Darn it, there I go again!

Blue Force really sucked in that department, though, and I can’t stop thinking about it. A good 90 percent of the screen gave you no unique messages when you clicked on it. That’s lame and lazy. Al Lowe, on the other hand, crams jokes everywhere, even in your inventory—which in this game is ever-present along with the icon bar, much like in a LucasArts game. You even get a return to old-school drop-down menus when you hit the Escape key, just like in the pre-point-and-click-era Sierra games. Fun stuff! Not as fun as urinating on everything, but almost.

While I’m farting around in the lobby, some weird guy riding a toilet on a surfboard with wheels pops in from the side. It’s Art, and he’ll take Larry from one side of the resort to the other. To the left and right are long hallways with many doors, several screens worth, some having stairs that lead upstairs or downstairs. Larry can also leave from the east and the west. I ride the cart (2 points) until Art drops me off by the left entrance, but instead of exploring everything now, I just walk back to the lobby. Good to know that a relatively quick mode of travel exists, but I’m doing just fine cranking the speed slider up to max.

One thing to note is that there are so many jokes in this game. It would be insane to try sharing them all with you, as my screenshot count ballooned to obscene numbers and they’d be no fun to read about. If I find one particularly funny and/or immature, I’ll share it with you.

So back to the lobby. I look at the girl behind the counter and get the game’s first full-screen image of a pixelated babe. Wow, so titillating!

This is Gammie Boysulay, and get used to names like that. She’s basically the point of contact for customer relations. In the interface with her, Larry can of course totally perv out, clicking various icons on various parts of her body for various funny messages, some demeaning to Gammie but most making fun of Larry’s ineptitude, small penis, etc., i.e., your typical Leisure Suit Larry fare. I don’t know why it works but it does.

Through the course of the conversation, I quickly learn that this is one of those games where you’ll have to click Talk on characters multiple times until you’re sure you’ve had every conversation with them—once it starts repeating, you’re safe. It takes several rounds of chatting for Gammie to give Larry his room key (2 points) and direct him to Room 201 on the second floor. I also learn that Gammie is oddly defensive about the size of her waist and that she decided to work at La Costa Lotta to fulfill her dream of using the facility’s famous Cellulite Drainage Salon. This salon was run by one Dr. Swinebutt, who had a fabulous machine that is now broken. The bad news is that the good doctor was sued for malpractice, left La Costa Lotta, and the machine fell into disrepair where it still remains. Larry, sensing an opportunity for gallantry/sex, offers to fix it (3 points) in exchange for, well, you know. Gammie is naturally excited, and the conversation just starts to repeat from there.

Back on the main screen, I root around the key return box Larry just pissed in and fish out another random set of keys (2 points). The game makes no mention of them being damp, but still: gross! And unethical! The only other things in here are a locked door to the manager’s office, and an ashtray with no disco pass in it. After thinking about wandering the resort, I decide to go upstairs instead.

Second Floor and Larry’s Room

Up here is a loud ice machine I can’t get any ice from because I don’t have a bucket, a locked door to the north leading to the “Costa Club,” an elevator I can’t access because I don’t have the key for, and the door to Larry’s room. I can’t pee anywhere, so into the room I go (5 points)!

The décor is very Pee-Wee’s Playhouse. I swear, I get a migraine looking at these clashing colors, weird patterns, and odd angles. It’s like a Nagel painting mixed with a Dali, but without the taste and subtlety. There’s a lot going on here. Let’s look at the table first:

• There’s a spa card (2 points), which tells you about the resort’s Electroshock Exercise Center, Euro-Mud Baths, High Colonic Thrill, and Swedish Sauna. However, Dr. Swinebutt’s World-Famous Cellulite Drainage Salon is temporarily closed.
• There’s also a telephone services card (2 points), providing the numbers for calling Long Distance, Local Calls, Front Desk, Room Service, Bell Desk, Concierge, Excursion Desk, Housekeeping, and Building Maintenance.
• Lastly, there’s a housekeeping card (2 points), explaining that La Costa Lotta provides exclusive and complimentary “Turn Down Service” for “our more sophisticated customers.”

Unfortunately, Larry can’t get the flowers on the table. He also can turn on the massager on the bed, but other than getting all shook up, it doesn’t do anything. Lastly, the closet contains a bunch of complimentary leisure suits that Larry can’t take or do anything with.

Into the bathroom next! It has an interesting perspective, as if you’re standing in front of the toilet looking into the mirror. Leisure Suit Larry 6 truly puts YOU into the action. It’s like an interactive movie! There YOU are . . . peeing!

Yeah, I peed (2 points). Unfortunately, there’s nothing else to do here. The sink has brown water Larry doesn’t want to touch, there’s no soap, no towels, I can’t shower, and I can’t sit and do a number 2 because the toilet seat cover holder is empty. What kind of junky resort is this, anyway? Alas, no bathroom shenanigans . . . at least, not yet. However, maybe that’s for the best, because while the bathroom affords a great view of the pool, it also affords everyone at the pool a great view of Larry. The narrator even comments that it might make doing anything a little personal kind of awkward.

Ah, whatever. Time to make some phone calls. First, I have Larry call housekeeping (9 points) to ask for turndown service. The maid promises to leave Larry a “little gift” on his pillow in the evening. I call the front desk next and bother Gammie, but this doesn’t get me anywhere. Room service is next (1 point), but aside from a bunch of menus where you can order myriad food options via the resort’s automated services, it doesn’t actually get any food delivered because Larry has no credit. Foiled again!

I call the bell desk, who can’t bring Larry’s luggage up because Larry has no luggage. Before hanging up, the bell boy calls Larry a jerk under his breath, but the voice actor actually says “asshole.” Okay then!

Next up is Carlos the Concierge, where the voice actor, in an overdone Mexican accent, proceeds to level a never-ending string of Rodney Dangerfield-tier insults at Larry. These went on and on and weren’t really funny. Turns out you aren’t stuck in a never-ending insult loop—you just have to click something to hang up.

Yeah, this one’s pretty gross.

Okay then . . .

The excursion desk is useless, but not housekeeping (9 points)! Larry relays that his bathroom is unstocked so they’ll send someone up with tons of goodies like soap, toilet paper, etc. Wow, isn’t this game fun? It’s just like YOU are on a crappy vacation! Talk about escapism!

Anyway, finally I call building maintenance (8 points), who agrees to do something about the brown water. They just don’t specify when.

That’s enough here. I leave the room and, what’s this? The maid’s cart is already parked outside of Larry’s room! Wowie zowie, tons of inventory items! This is catnip to adventure game players, so I snag everything I possibly can: hand crème (2 points), toilet paper (2 points), a washcloth (4 points), and soap (2 points). What am I going to do with this stuff? Who cares? It’s an adventure game, I can pick it up, and it gives me points. These all likely have a very stupid purpose unrelated to their obvious function, which I’m excited to figure out.

For whatever reason, I try to take a dump now that I have toiled paper, but Larry won’t . . . however, when I clicked the roll of toilet paper on the toilet, Larry decides (against the narrator’s advice) to clog the toilet with it. I do, and the water rises to a dangerous level. Yikes! Building maintenance is no help (Larry doesn’t even mention this), and housekeeping tells Larry to call building maintenance, so whatever. This is probably part of the solution to a puzzle I don’t know about yet. I leave to explore the resort further. At least I can snag another roll of toilet paper on the way out.

Salad Bar and Kitchen

One of the doors leads to La Costa Lotta’s salad bar. Now this is a sad place. There’s nothing to do but watch the cooks in the window in the back and look at the ice in the empty buffet table. Larry notices a faint trace of color under some ice, and is able to fish out a fresh orange left over from breakfast (8 points). With nothing else to do, I head in the back, into the kitchen.

And what’s this? There’s a food truck here? And a projector showing the chefs cooking and not any actual chefs? What kind of place is this, anyway? And as an aside, food trucks are the most overrated thing ever. Maybe I wasn’t in the right place to get the true food truck experience, but when I was living in Washington, D.C., everyone made such a big deal about the massive convoy of food trucks that would park outside of my office every day, and all I ever found was that they offered worse food for more money than if I just went to an actual deli or coffee shop or taco joint. I don’t get the appeal except for, “Hey, it’s food . . . but in a truck!” Whoopee.

So there’s other stuff in here, like tons of trash. Even the game says digging through trash is a good idea in an Al Lowe game, and here I find a 5-gallon can of lard (6 points).

And before I go, I pee behind the truck. Why? Because the game let me. The programmers bothered to program this for when some weirdo (e.g., me) clicks Larry’s Zipper icon on the truck. Instead of merely giving a generic “You can’t do that” message or some humorous quip, it actually allows for some more highly unsanitary public urination, complete with puddle. It’s this sort of attention to detail and catering to the players’ incontinence—I mean needs—that set Sierra apart from its contemporaries. Could you pee everywhere in a LucasArts game? Did Indiana Jones just unzip and pee all over Atlantis? Did Guybrush Threepwood ever empty his bladder all over LeChuck’s ship? Did the kids in Maniac Mansion whizz all over the Purple Tentacle? No. Why? Because they’re losers. Losers with bladder control. Not like Larry.

Pure art.

I mess around with other stuff, opening the freezer and accomplishing nothing. The lard is the only thing I can pick up, but Larry can squeeze himself into the dumbwaiter in the back of the room (9 points) which is kind of weird. However, he can’t yet figure out how to push the button while in said dumbwaiter, to carry himself hither to parts unknown, so I get out and carry on.

It is in this room I encounter the game’s first death: the taco truck’s driver’s side front tire is leaking air, and clicking on it makes Larry *sigh* take a big ol’ hit, blowing up like a balloon.

This is also kind of weird, but the Larry series, like all Sierra games, is known for weird deaths so it’s all good. Interestingly, this game presents us with one of those “quality of life” improvements you wimpy gamers keep going ga-ga over: in addition to the “restore” option, you weenies can try again from the place right before you died, so you don’t lose any of that precious progress.

Why, back in my day, we used to blah blah blah. Whatever. It’s a nice feature.

I leave this area and go down the right hallway until I find an open door that leads to the . . .

Swimming Pool

There’s quite a lot going on here: a super high-dive, the “Diving and Bungee Tower,” I can’t get to because the door (that barrel-shaped thing) is locked, lots of girls I can hit on and get turned down by, the lifeguard, Billy Dee, Larry can chat with, and a floating bar.

Notice that brown smudge to the right of the ladder? That’s a deflated beaver-shaped float (3 points). Because . . .

I know what you’re thinking: “What a bad joke!” Also: “Hey, blow it up using the taco truck tire!” I did not do that this session because I want to explore the whole resort without backtracking, but keep that in mind.

I check out the floating bar next, and see a sunglasses case someone carelessly left behind. And if there’s one thing Larry, and adventure game players, are good at, it’s stealing picking up what isn’t nailed down.

Hey, if they didn’t want it stolen (7 points), they’d of, you know, nailed it down. There’s nothing else to do on this bar yet—Larry can’t reach anything—but I open the case (4 points), take the sunglasses (4 points) and the snazzy sunglasses washing cloth thingy (8 points). I love items-within-items. Adventure gaming gold!

I can’t swim because, as Billy Dee tells me, I need a swimsuit (note the window inside the pool). You can also have some witty repartee with him, but he’s basically just interested in babes, who are clearly interested in him, and wants Larry to leave him alone.

Ah, the first we hear of Gary the towel attendant.

Time to move on.

Aerobics Studio

The door to the right of the pool leads to Cavaricchi Vuarnet’s aerobics studio . . and class is in session! Dig the cool overhead perspective; I’m getting shades of the club in Leisure Suit Larry 3. Cav won’t talk to Larry, the music is too loud, and she threatens Larry with bodily harm if he tries to shut her record player, but you can click on the empty aerobics platform on the upper left side and work out so poorly that Cav shuts the music in frustration and ends the class (7 points). The rest of the aerobicizes vacate the premises, leaving Larry alone with Cav.

No, her shirt doesn’t say “Homo”; it says “USMC” but the bottom is cut off. She’s French, or German or something—definitely European—and absolutely a lesbian.

Or maybe she swings both ways, I dunno. This is a stupid game. She’s kind of interested in Larry, and after clicking on the badge near her bosom enough times, she gives it to Larry (15 points). She also tells Larry that if he can bring a date to the sauna, they’ll have a little fun together . . . just the three of them. This game is so real-life I thought it was the Sims or some other super-realistic life simulator for a reason. Who doesn’t have random threesomes with gay women they just met? I for one haven’t met the man who hasn’t. Al Lowe: finger on the pulse of the nation.

Weight Room

South of the aerobics studio is the weightroom. There are a bunch of people doing exercises, but it’s the woman in the abductor (or is the adductor?) machine that catches Larry’s attention.

Christina Priscilla Diana van Dyuke, also known as Thunderbird!

She’s very bossy, and into yelling at Larry. No way that’s a sex joke, nosiree. In an incredibly unpredictable turn of events, Thunderbird says she’ll “have fun” with Larry if he agrees to bring her a new pair of handcuffs (2 points) to replace her old worn-out pair. Where’s Sonny Bonds when you need him?

Oh, right.

You can also try to lift some weights, but Larry, in a callback to the game’s title screen, drops the dumbbell on his toe and dies of gangrene.

You thought I was making that up, didn’t you.

The message of Leisure Suit Larry 6 is clear: working out is bad for you.

Mud Bath

Next, we find La Costa Lotta’s mud bath, complete with another beautiful woman . . . and another way to die:

Huh . . . polyester traps heat so well you freaking die if you wear it in a mud bath. I mean, Larry up and melted. And I thought Space Quest games had sadistic and twisted deaths!

Anyway, the girl. Char. She tells Larry she needs batteries (2 points).

It was only a matter of time before Al Lowe threw in a vibrator joke.

There are four doors in this room. The far right one is locked with an electronic keypad I can’t open. Cav’s badge doesn’t work, and neither does the other room key, so I move on to the second from the right, the Swedish Sauna.

Hmmm . . .saunas are hot, and we already know that Larry’s leisure suit is lethal at high temperatures . . .

. . . so of course going into the room is an instant melting. Damn, man! The leisure suit melts onto Larry’s RAW FLESH? This game is sick!

The next two doors are the men’s shower and the women’s shower. Larry can’t go into the latter, but the former is fair game.

Men’s Shower

There’s nothing to do here. You know, I tried peeing but it didn’t work; the game told me to wait until I’m taking a shower, like a normal person. I’ll admit, this perspective is better than the underneath the ballsack view from Leisure Suit Larry 3’s shower room, which was pretty funny, but kind of, you know, nothing I really want to see. Nope, pixelated junk just doesn’t get this adventure game reviewer’s engine going. Now, pixelated boobs, ah now you’re talking.

There’s nothing else to do here, so out I go. This time at the pool there are two ladies on floats by the bar, which has changed position. I can’t reach them though. I anticipate that I’ll need to find a bathing suit in the near future.

Outside

I walk around some more, leaving the resort until I find this path. See the chain link fence to the right? That’s where Cav’s badge is used (12 points). This leads to La Costa Lotta’s employee recreation area.

Employee Recreation Area

I like the little graphical trick here. See those shadows in the tent? Those are employees dancing and having a drinking contest. You have to go into the tent, where Larry becomes a shadow.

Larry might as well be a shadow, because nobody notices or seems to care when Larry snags a six pack of beers from the bucket (6 points). I decide to see if Larry can drink them . . . which he can (-5 points). All of them. The weird thing is that I lose 5 points for drinking them, but I can get them again and gain another 6 points, putting Larry 1 point ahead. Glitch, or intentional? You decide! Anyway, that’s all for this place.

Gatehouse

Outside of the resort, you can’t leave because this tool Daryl in the gatehouse stops you. He spends his days using the security camera to perv on girls, but what’s this? Handcuffs? Great, a solution to a puzzle! But if you try to take them, Daryl pushes a button and has a missile launch you into the ocean after an excruciatingly long animation.

Uh . . .

Daryl won’t let Larry leave unless Larry pays and shows him a receipt, but Larry is here for free, so this is a catch-22. Larry is stuck. Daryl says he knows Shalo, the producer of the Stallions TV show, and I’d have to talk to her about this conundrum. I try giving Daryl the beer, but he declines, saying he can’t drink on duty. Ah well.

Beach

Another part of the resort grounds leads me down a staircase to the beach.

All you can do here is dig in the sand and find an old whale oil lamp (14 points). No, this isn’t a King’s Quest game, and there’s no genie. It’s just a lamp. There’s nothing else going on down here, so back to the resort, where I try opening every door in the hallways until I find . . .

Makeup School

La Costa Lotta has a make-up classroom where women can look at computers to learn makeup techniques. The only woman Larry can interact with is the lady sitting in the front right, Shablee. Looking at her (2 points) brings up a full-screen portrait of her, so you just know she’s an important character.

Shablee has a problem: wants a new dress (4 points) to wear to the Weight Loss Spring Formal. Great. Another fetch quest with the promise of getting into the bone zone afterwards. The only other thing to do here is pick up a stray electrical cord (6 points) and be on my way.

Bar

One of the doors leads to La Costa Lotta’s Blues Bar. You can see the window behind the bartender looks into the pool, where bikini-clad swimmers swim by from time to time. The mic on the stage belongs to somebody named Burgundy I haven’t met yet.

Been there, done that, game!

There’s not much going on down here. Larry can’t drink, but he can get a book of matches from the counter (4 points).

You can open the door to the swimming pool. And die.

What a strange resort!

Well, there’s stuff to do; I just don’t know the purpose yet. You can go on stage and speak into the mic . . . but it’s dead. Walking near the mic makes Larry trip over it, knocking out the plug, but the game won’t let me plug it back in, or use the extension cord I found in the make-up room. You can also go into the backstage area, but there’s nothing to do once in there.

I make a note of this area. I’ll bet I have to do something to trigger Burgundy’s appearance.

On the way to the next place, I knock on one of the doors in the hallways and pick up a point.

Another vibrator joke!

Every time you knock, you get a random joke, which I approve of.

Health Spa

Yes indeed, here we are: the infamous gay Gary, the lispy, flamboyant towel attendant. Yet far from being offensive, he’s funny and, maybe after 30 years, representative of a stereotype that’s so played out—and so mainstream—it’s almost tiresome.

You can get a brochure for La Costa Lotta (2 points), which makes the resort look much nicer than it actually is, and also sign the registry to get a towel (3 points), and while you can’t pee on the towel, you can pee in the fountain:

Because of course you can.

You also get a death by clicking the Zipper icon on Gary.

“Let’s pick out curtains . . .” Okay, I laughed.

They should totally make Leisure Suit Gary where you play as Gary trying to pick up men. I guarantee it’d be a hoot.

There are four doors here. First, the one on the left.

Cellulite Drainage Salon

Ah, Dr. Swinebutt’s infamous contraption, the one Gammie wants Larry to get up and running! You can turn on the “SUCK/OFF” switch (get it? Get it?) but nothing happens. There are some bolts on the red thing Larry can’t unscrew with his hands, so I imagine I have to come back here with some tools. I vow to return later because this is an adventure game, dammit, and every room has a purpose!

In good adventure games, at least. This is one thing Al Lowe excelled at: filling his games chock full of stuff to do. At times, it’s almost overwhelming.

High Colonic Treatment Suite

Behind door number 2 is La Costa Lotta’s colonic suite, full of flowers and managed by the lovely Spanish lass Rose Eleeta.

Do you know what a colonic is? It’s basically a medical-grade enema, whereby a highly skilled medical professional called a Butt Doctor—okay, a proctologist—flushes out your colon using a whole butt-load of water. Or is that a butt-gallon? I’m not good at the Buttric System. Do you know how they get the water up there? Yeah, it has something to do with the big vat of lubricant on the wall here. Gross! What’s this doing at a health spa? Anyway, Rose says she’ll give Larry a “freebie” if he finds her a gift. She tells Larry to look around and figure out what she wants. Lubricant? No—flowers! Too bad I couldn’t pick up those flowers in Larry’s room, or could I? Did I click on the wrong pixel? Stay tuned to find out!

They make it sound like a children’s book or something.

Men’s Shower Room

The last two doors near Gary’s counter lead to the two locker rooms accessible from the mud bath room. Of course, I can only in the men’s side. Here, Larry can open the one locker not in use, the one on the lower right (4 points), change into his towel (6 points), and take a shower. And no, there’s nothing in the trash can (I looked).

GROSS!

This room connects to the men’s shower room, which I didn’t realize when I entered here from the pool.

I shower up, but, darn it, I didn’t even try to pee in here! What is wrong with me?

This is a good stopping point: I’ve explored the resort, and I think this post has gone on long enough. Stay tuned to find out how I solve the puzzles in this rather open-ended game, and find more places to mark my territory!

OUTSTANDING PUZZLES:

• Fixing the brown water
• Fixing the cellulite drainage machine for Gammie
• Finding a girl to go to the sauna with for Cav
• Finding batteries for Char
• Finding a dress for Shablee
• Finding handcuffs for Thunderbird
• Finding flowers for Rose
• Getting the handcuffs from Daryl
• Get a receipt marked PAID IN FULL to get past Daryl
• Find a bathing suit
• Use the high dive at the pool
• Blow up the beaver float
• Get ice from the ice machine
• Use the elevator
• Use the dumbwaiter

Session Time: 2 hours, 55 minutes
Total Time: 2 hours, 55 minutes

Total Points: 190

Inventory: Cav’s badge, deflated float, hand crème, Larry’s room key, random room key, can of lard, orange, sunglasses, sunglass cleaning cloth, bar of soap, roll of toilet paper, hand towel, six pack of beer, lamp, electrical cord, matches, brochure, towel

Things Urinated On, In, or Around: 4 (In the room key return box, behind the taco truck, in the fountain in the towel room, in the toilet in Larry’s room)