Sam & Max Hit the Road — Lluvia de Peces

Written by Michael

But wait, we just got here!

When we last met up, Sam had just finished grilling the couch potato, and amazingly, Max hasn’t yet threatened to turn him into home fries. You see, Doug has offered us a trade. If we bring him some pecan candies, he’ll give us the key to Trixie’s trailer. It’s the only place we haven’t been able to explore at the carnival so far.

Going back out to the disfigured swan car, it seems we need to turn the ride back on. Good thing there’s a big giant switch in Doug’s apartment to reset the power, so I can leave.

If I go back in, I now go directly to and from Doug’s apartment, without seeing the ride, so I think it’s safe to say there’s nothing else I needed in there. The broom on the wall, being held by the skeleton of probably a past custodial worker was just another artistic red herring.So, let’s head back to the BluesMobile and get those candies! I select the closest location of Snuckey’s, and we drive off.

Artist’s rendition

Real life location

That animal out front? Probably inspired by another gas station chain.

One summer, I borrowed a car that had a gas tank like that. Wood panel sides and all, it was from about 1980, so one of the last cars made that way. But remembering this had me thinking a little. Police Quest 1, in all of its realism, had you inspect cars from tire to tire, but never had you fill the gas tank. Even as they added realism to the later Grand Theft Auto games, where you can (and sometimes need to) get a haircut, work out, and eat, but the only time to fill a car with gas is if you install mods for the game.

Hands down, my favorite arcade game. One of my high school jobs had this in their game room and made back half my paycheck from me.

The only game I can think of that ever made you do this? A.P.B. (All Points Bulletin), an arcade game released the same year as the debut from friend of the blog Jim Walls. Normally, I’d reach out to him for comment, but in my first post, I sent him over to Alex’s house for the holidays, and we haven’t heard from either of them since. Must have been one hell of a New Year’s party.

About the time this came out, there were so many “I love US/NY/etc” things for sale manufactured overseas

As soon as we walk in, Max is a little child. “I have to go to the bathroom.” “I have to go to the bathroom.”

Ignoring Max, I browse the shelves, and find not only some pecan candies, but also a rack of Sam & Max Car Bomb games. I don’t know what I’ll need them for, but hey, I’m loaded, so I grab that too.

So, then I go outside to help Max look for a bathroom, and it turns out that, oops, I didn’t pay for the merchandise in my box.

Her nickname was Boomer?

Wait, wrong game. Bernard the cashier calls me back, and I complete the transaction.

Bernard? Yeah, now I know how he’s paying his way through college. He’s wearing contacts instead of his glasses, but he looks and sounds identical. I spend some time talking with him, but other than getting the bathroom key for Max, he’s not very useful for our investigation. Except for something he made a point of mentioning -- his Snuckey U pickle training taught him how to open any jar in the country. I suspect that might be a puzzle solution down the road.

Also, and this is a picky callback to my last post, but Sam pronounces it “pee-can” and Not-Bernard pronounces it “pee-kahn”. Was this an accident, or is the inconsistency on purpose? We may never know.

Sorry, Folks. The jackalope outside of the convenience store doesn’t talk.

On the way out of the store, I notice a discarded Big Gulp cup.

So, I think we’ve handled everything we need to here, at least for now. So, let’s get back to the Mole Man and bring him some pecan treats.

Back in Doug’s cave, I act like a DoorDash driver and bring him some treats, expecting a tip in return. And he delivers.

“Hey, you’re alright. Take this key as a token of my appreciation."

I’m not usually one to CROW about successes, but this will help with the trailer I’ve been BARred entry from.

Doug hands me the key, and suddenly, I’m getting flashbacks. This key looks so familiar, no matter how many adventure games I have played, this one stands out in my memories.

Here’s both our key AND our convenience store clerk in the same place. I smell conspiracy.

And with that, Doug offers us another story. And, by offers, I mean, forcibly provides us. Sam’s request:

“Keep it short, kid. My partner’s got a low tolerance for long stories.”

“Well, it all started the day before today. I remember it like it was yesterday.”

I close my eyes and the flashback starts

We learn that Trixie was not-so-secretly in love with the frozen hairy dude, and enlisted the help of the otherwise very unhelpful fire breather to make their escape. No word on if that was to allow Trixie to engage in necking with Bruno.

Well, obviously, we’re going to need to speak to Flambé, because the fireman is going to be toast for lying to us before. He said he knew nothing. But first, let’s check out that trailer.

Open sesame

I head over to Trixie’s private residence, and Sam gently opens the door with the spare key. Inside, the music changes to something that feels like a love ballad, and it’s bothering me, because it feels like it’s based on a real song. It’s going to eat away at me for a while, so I’ll dish out some bonus CAPs to the first person to identify what the tune is based on, or why it’s doing this to me. (Don’t worry, I’ll just use Trixie’s key to get them from the TAG vault.)

As soon as we walk in, Max starts jumping up and down on the bed. No sound of the springs creaking -- this ain’t an Al Lowe game, after all. I start investigating.

Up on the shelf are some genuine Scrantonese potions of fertility, some lotions that remind Sam of traumatic childhood trips to the groomers.

On the floor, at the foot of the bed is a hope chest. Max, as well as myself, hopes it is filled with more gold than our eyes can stand. But, alas, all it contains is a stiltwalker’s costume. Prediction: I’ll be combining Sam and Max together in that outfit at some point.

I then open the closet, which contains a scorecard for the Gator Golf Emporium in Rheumy Eyes, Florida. A new destination appears on the map. I really, REALLY hope we don’t encounter any real-life Florida men.

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice...

Given my history with the last game I played for the blog, I looked again in the hope chest, expecting more, but no tricks today. Same for the closet.

So, I make my way back to Flambé, and I choose to go through the oddities tent as one of the fastest routes. And I get inspired.

I can’t keep my excitement bottled up

As I walk through the room, I see something I commented on before: Jesse James’ severed hand. And look, it’s in a jar. And it’s not nailed down, so I can pick it up. I suspect I’ll need the help of a soda jerk with this.

Grabbing that, I’ll continue out the front door to where the fire-breather is stationed.

Confrontations like this online are often called “flame wars”

“Hey, flame boy! You can drop the act!”

“AND we know that you sometimes go for days on the same pair of socks!”

So how did Trixie get him to help? Flirting with him... and also $20. Other than that, he doesn’t really give us much more to go on, but it does at least confirm a part of Doug’s story, that she rescued him from the ice.

So, it looks like I’ve gotten all I can from the carnival, at least for now. So, time for a road trip...

... to Exotic Hook Island...

... Oh wait, my bad. We’re going to check out a giant ball of twine.

Looking around, there’s two destinations: a museum booth at the base of the ball, and a tram car that takes you to the peak. Let’s visit the museum.

My 8th grade Social Studies teacher resembles that remark

Browsing the museum, we see a scale model of the ball of twine, at 1/200,000th scale. Max think’s it is only about 1/200,000th as stupid as the original, but who are we to judge. There’s a length shaved off of the first foot of twine used inside the ball (that’s approximately 30.48 centimeters for those overseas, or for those living in the past, perhaps about 1.3-1.5 palms).

I try to take the shaving, but Sam tells me that, “If I’m gonna need any string in this game, it’d better be a longer piece.” I think that’s a hint that I’ll need some twine.

There’s a sign with some fun facts about the ball, including “If laid out from end to end, the Ball would stretch from here to the far side of Jupiter!” But, since a new location doesn’t appear on our map, we won’t be needing to call Melissa or Leslie to help us.

If the ball keeps growing, in about 60 years game time, it will knock the Earth out of its orbit. Max isn’t concerned, as his life expectancy is about 6 years.

Then, they look out the back window, and notice a curious weather phenomenon.

“Now there’s something you don’t see every day.”

“What the hell are you talking about, Sam? We dump our fish heads out the window all the time.”

“Yeah, but these are halibut.”

On this week’s episode of VH1 Storytellers...

So talking to the curator, we ask if he’s seen our missing bigfoot. Turns out, Bruno and a bunch of his friends helped build the ball back in ‘56. (Doing some quick math to 1993, and that means Bruno is way, way too old for Trixie. Age might be just a number, but this might be a hairy situation.)

As for the fish guts flying past the window? “Those are our leftovers from our last fish delivery. Our famous rotating restaurant has fresh fish flown in every day from the World of Fish in Mosquitoville, Missouri.” Well, that’s the second time this place has been mentioned to me, so I strongly suspect it’s important.

The ball of twine, we learn, is made from a continuous piece of twine, and is 92 yards longer than the competition.

He doesn’t know anything about the other persons of interest, so we take our leave.

I would fly you to the moon and back, If you'll be, if you'll be my baby...

So, we haven’t checked out the top of the ball yet. Let’s take a ride there, and see what’s up.

 “I’m on top of the world!”

Fish heads, fish heads, roly poly fish heads...

So, arriving at the main landing from the sky car shows us two very important things. First, there’s a dangly loose end to the ball of twine. I suspect we will need, say, at least 91 yards of it? Concurrently, we catch a chef chopping cod, carelessly casting off carcasses without caution. Of course, we can’t reach either of them, either by using our inventory, by using Max, or anything else.

I think I know the solution to this one already. I think I’ll have to go to the World of Fist, find an empty crate near the water, climb inside, and wait to be airlifted to the kitchen of the restaurant.

Or it could just be a red herring

I’m kidding a little bit, but I wouldn’t be too shocked if they recycled this puzzle.

So, there was mention of a restaurant. If you walk into a door that can’t be seen, by lucky clicking, you’ll get there.

“You asked for it? You got it. Toyota.”

So, inside the restaurant, there’s no cashier, no customers, no servers, and no food. We find some exposed live wires that probably control the rotation, a set of binoculars, and a maintenance worker. Oh, and again, signs that can be read with nothing learned. “Seafood”. “Fresh Fish”.

Talking to the maintenance worker, I’m resisting the urge to call him Peggy. My, god, does he have a fowl mouth. We catch him in the act of using mind control to bend his tools in order to fix the rotating restaurant. Uh huh. He doesn’t have any information for us about Bruno, Trixie, or Bumpus, but we get a bent wrench from him.

Looking at it in our inventory, curiously, it is referred to as a bent, left-handed spanner. So, for all the Americanisms in this game, using the British term for this tool is either an odd mistake or a hint as to a future use.

Also, as he does his mumbo-jumbo on the tools, the sound effects were flat out stolen from Day of the Tentacle. Sorry, not stolen. Recycled. Very distinctive, these sounds.

And then, there’s the pair of binoculars.

Wait, I only WISH that’s what we were looking at.

But seriously, these seem to be useless right now. The binoculars spin, and although the manual tells me to use the switch at the bottom of the screen to adjust the view, the game isn’t letting me have control yet. Either this is a nasty bug, or I have to fix the electrical problem in the restaurant first. Sam basically says the same thing, that they look useful, but can’t work them right.

And with that, I think I’ll take a break. It looks like I’ve done all I can here, for now. We’re not done -- for one, we haven’t found Doug’s uncle Shuv-Oohl. Next time, we’ll head off to the World of Fish. And maybe stop at Snuckey’s, if only to open that jar I have. I don’t know why, but it feels like something I should do.

Session Time: 1 hour 5 minutes
Total Time: 2 hour 15 minutes

Inventory: Lots of money, World of Fish magnet, tuft of Bruno’s hair, black light flashlight, carnival pass, Sam & Max™ Car Bomb, stilt walker’s outfit, Gator Golf score card, Jesse James’ severed hand in a jar, bent left-handed wrench

Note Regarding Spoilers and Companion Assist Points: There’s 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!