by Will Moczarski
Shortly before the ending of act 2 the game switches back to Lockjaw who's still serving time as a playdoll for the spoiled daughter of the Pugh family. There's a brief cutscene showcasing Lockjaw's torments at Ima's hands (and voice, particularly) before we get to take control of the dog once more.
The music is suitably obnoxious.
While Ima leaves the room to prepare a bath for her "snooky-wookums", Lockjaw is left to his own devices. I immediately investigate everything in the room which entails looking at but also sniffing all of the objects. There is a very soft time limit here but I had ample time to check out everything in peace, meaning it's not a King's Quest III kind of situation. There's also some nice psychodogical detail:
I walked the avenue till my paws felt like stone
I try my best to wreck the room as an act of revenge and empowerment but sadly most of the fabrics are silk and Lockjaw's paws slide right off. At least the doggie bed is susceptible to Lockjaw's bite, and it makes both of us feel better right away. I pick up a bone via the bite icon - when trying to use the paw icon instead the game comments on the dog's lack of thumbs.
Very satisfying after looking at this room's horrible interior design for a while.
After a while the butler enters the room with Lockjaw's food. The dog just growls at him and I finally have the option to bite someone. "Lockjaw decides to give the butler an attitude adjustment," snarks the game, but the man manages to flee before the dog gets to sink his teeth into him. However, he stumbles into Ima's bookcase and it briefly spins around before snapping back into place, revealing a secret passage. Now to find the trigger...
Look behind you! It's a two-headed dog!
This is a bit of a pixel hunt and the first painful situation in the game (about two hours in, not too bad for a Sierra adventure). Touching most items returns a boring standard riposte, and I don't make progress with the intended way forward at first. Instead I find out that I can drink from the water bowl and afterwards Lockjaw will rip the dresser open with his teeth because nothing will stop him now. That seems like a rather random trigger. Maybe the secret door works the same way and I have yet to figure something out here?
You know things I don't, Lockjaw.
Opening the dresser reveals some goodies and a heart-shaped key. I pick up both and Lockjaw eats the goodies but at first I don't know what to do with the key. After quite a while I find out that I can hide it in the cushions of the damaged doggie bed. Was there a clue I missed? The in-game explanation is not very good, either: It tells me that Lockjaw buries the key in the cushions because he knows nobody will fight the fleas to get it back.
Finally Lockjaw will bite one of the brass cones of the cuckoo clock he was previously unable to reach. Or did I click the wrong pixel? The whole sequence entails a lot of (unclued) trial and (unprovoked) error. Consider me not amused.
At least I can follow up on my great escape now. I enter a room with a mouse hole and a large shroud. Tearing it down reveals a creepy memorial for Ima's past dogs. I don't want to linger here too long and enter the mouse hole. The game switches to an...unusual perspective.
I emerge behind the fireplace and Lockjaw can spot some people beyond the fire. Namely, it's General Pugh who takes down a painting to reveal a wall safe. He opens it to fetch a small sack of, I guess, valuables and proceeds to talk to Percy about the fake Stamp Tax. The two of them have quite the violent employer-employee relationship with Pugh telling Percy to remember him to beat him for letting Ima have "that mutt" (aka me). Also, he instructs Percy to keep an eye on Benjamin Franklin, so if Pepper ever gets the old slacker out of his oversized bathtub she will probably have to handle Percy next.
Percy proceeds to point Pugh's attention toward Poor Richard who has been riling up the colonists in Ben Franklin's absence. I have a suspicion about Poor Richard's identity at this point but I'll leave you guessing in case it turns out to be correct. The game then switches back to Pepper who's still standing in front of the Franklins' house. It's time to finish up this act for good.
I was there when the bear ate his head...
I knock on the door but the result is anticlimactic. Mrs. Franklin opens the door and tells me to go away lest Ben be a bad influence on me, too. She'll only let me in if I get him interested in his experiments again. Back at the blockade there's a cutscene that is almost too typical for a 1990's graphic adventure game. Pepper talks the two guards into grabbing some of the loot and buying a costume for the big party at General Pugh's. After some back and forth (and the usual comic misunderstandings) they oblige and leave their post. When they're gone, Pepper can go back into town and pick up a piece of tin they left behind.
It's a tin-tin situation.
Before returning to town I remember that I've got another ace up my sleeve. Maybe it's a puzzle I solved ahead of time but shouldn't the package for Benjamin Franklin I picked up at the post office (and promised to deliver) grant me access? Yes, indeed! When I ring their doorbell again, Deborah Franklin muses that it's probably just a delivery of smelly incense and lets me keep it but concedes that if it's something useful perhaps she'll let me see him. Once again she closes the door in front of Pepper but I can now open the package and find a book on electricity inside. I ring the doorbell for the third time and hand the book to Deborah Franklin.
You mean your marriage has lost its spark?
Well, that was a tad more tedious than it had to be, wasn't it? Be that as it may: I'm now allowed to enter the building and come and go as I please. I also get to meet the Franklins' daughter Sally who is exceedingly helpful and thoroughly obedient when it comes to household chores. And then, behold, it's Ken, eh..Ben Franklin, straight out of Leisure Suit Larry 6. He and his wife engage in quite the humorous back-and-forth. To give you an impression:
Thus ends act 2, and I need to pass another obligatory quiz. Thankfully, it's even easier than the first one. I must be learning something!
Moving on...my objectives for the third act are to get the ingredients for the kite/key experiment (as listed in the manual), distribute poor Richard's proverbs (this will become clear later on), and get Ben Franklin to do the Kite/Key experiment. There will be no sequence featuring Lockjaw and the third act almost made me request your assistance. That's right, in a game targeted at children. Is that "Sierra hard" for ya? Or do you have to think like a child to be successful? Or (cue sad music) am I not half the adventure gamer I thought I was?
Got it, Ben. No need to rub it in.
Anyway, let's see how all of that came to pass. As expected, any attempts at conversation with Benjamin Franklin quickly turn into a farce. He doesn't take any of my problems seriously and variously tells me to mellow out or chill. Also, I can give any items from my inventory to him but he's only mildly interested in the piece of tin because it's shiny and tells me to have fun with it. Looking at the screen again, I find that Ben is surrounded by tomato patches. Most of them are ripe and one is a lot bigger than the others. I pick it up and leave Ben alone for now.
One of the game's most beautiful screens so far.
In the living room I find a magnet, a schematic for the Kite/Key experiment, and a rubber stopper. One of the items I need for the experiment is a Leyden jar. The manual lists the things needed to build your own Leyden jar so I suspect this will actually be a fetch quest within a fetch quest, meaning I will probably need the rubber stopper and the piece of tin.
Let's take inventory: I'll need a fine silk kite, a silken string (already got it), a brass key, an iron rod, a rubber stopper (already got it), water, tin (already got it), and a jar. But first things first: When Pepper picked up the schematic she mused that it might snap Benjamin Franklin out of his state of indifference. He reacts nicely but tells me he's not interested in science anymore. Still, here's the catch: His water is turning cold and we saw earlier in the cutscene how Deborah instructed Sally not to bring her father any more hot water. He'll help us if we make his tub hot again. Sounds like we have a deal!
You know what? I'll even make sure the water is extra hot, Ben!
I snoop around the house some more, talk to Sally which is not really all that interesting, and try to pick up some matches but she won't let me because she suspects (correctly) that Ben sent me to prepare some more hot water for him. This will require some work, I guess. I try to find ways to distract her but no dice. Also, the game tells me the stove is made of iron so I go pixel hunting for that iron rod...to no avail. After a while I choose to investigate that suspicious looking cupboard on the left...
...and find a recipe card. Huh? Well, it seems like it's time to head back into town to see if anything has changed. And indeed, it has. Poor Richard has set up shop at the main crossroads, and a big brass key is dangling from the front of his wagon. When I tell him that he looks better than the last time I saw him he's a bit suspicious but then I "remember" that it was my sister who met him, and he does remember her. This confirms my suspicions about Poor Richard's identity but I will say no more than that.
Did you hear the news about Richard? On the back of his head he had another face.
When I ask Richard if I can have his brass key he asks me to distribute his proverbs first. This task appears in my quest log anyway so there's really no reason to say no. Each proverb applies to a personal weakness of one of the colonists. Seeing that they were really living caricatures anyway it's no big deal to figure them out. To make things a little easier, Richard first hands me three proverbs, telling me to come back for more after having distributed them. The first one says: "Quarrels never could last long, if on one side only lay the wrong." There is also an easier version, a sort-of translation for children, in this case: "Stop quarreling over silly things that don't matter. You're probably BOTH wrong!"
This is a no-brainer. The quarreling couple is even on the same screen as poor Richard. It takes me 2.3 seconds to solve this first proverb puzzle. Next up: gluttony! "Eat few Suppers, and you'll need few Medicines." This must be for the glutton in the pub. Let's go there, shall we?
No more pea soup, gravy, and mashed potatoes
Figured as much. Now for the third one: "All things are easy to Industry, all things difficult to Sloth." This is a bit tougher. I try the frisbee-tossing brothers first, then the gambling beatnik. There will probably be a proverb about gambling later, though. And then I remember the post office. That's what it must be referring to!
I may have to try this at my local post office.
The next batch of three starts with "Early to Bed and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise." Do I know of somebody who likes to sleep a lot? Not really but this applies to the two guys with the frisbees who get back to studying the second I hand them the proverb. Well, almost. Does this mean that reading is better than sports?
That's right, estimated TAG readers! Comment, don't exercise!
Next up there's this: "Beware the Gossip who speaks ill of thy neighbors. With thy neighbors she likely speaks ill of thee." Okay, this one is really easy. The character's family name is Taleteller. It takes a little while longer for the other shoe to drop this time but eventually she, too, sees the error of her ways.
And finally: "Wealth is not his who has it, but his who enjoys it." Another easy one. She's called Penny Pyncher and she really lives up to her name. Not for long, though. She might want to apply for a name change soon.
What a coincidence. I'm selling these fine leather jackets.
Before I fetch the final batch I drop in at Goody Gumdrops's to give her the recipe I found in the Franklins' cupboard. But beware, something creepy this way comes. When I enter the shop there are two characters who look regular from the neck down but their heads are scanned photographs of some kids. They're actually James and Nathan Grayson and they won a fan contest ahead of the game's publishing date which is why their actual names (and faces) appear in Pepper's Adventures. The scene is what millennials would call an "easter egg" but it's really not because it's not hidden at all.
Winners of the Uncanny Valley Magazine Contest
Just as James and Nathan (where are they now, do you wonder? I do!) try one of Goody's "delicious" cabbage cookies, General Pugh enters the scene and commands them to hand over all of their money. It is a bit out of character for the general to walk about town on his own doing the tax-collecting himself but it certainly makes the cameo scene more outrageous which is probably the intention. It also paints him as the bad guy even more as he robs those loyal Sierra fans blind and leaves them in tears. (On the other hand, you could say it was a dry run for King's Quest VIII.)
Or a wet run, rather.
Enter Pepper who asks Goody if those boys weren't a little unusual looking which is a neat wrap for this enjoyable scene. Goody even explains in-game that the kids were not from Philadelphia but rather won a contest in the far off land of Sierra and that's why they were here. Handing over the recipe for chocolate cookies to Goody nets me a jar of pickled cabbage and while I don't know what to do with the cabbage I do know what to do with the jar.
They said to remove it would kill him / So poor Richard was doomed
Then it's back to Richard who gives me the last two proverbs. Number seven goes like this: "Tart words make no Friends: A spoonful of honey will catch more flies than a Gallon of Vinegar." At last this makes me realise that poor Richard's proverbs are actually Benjamin Franklin's proverbs as printed in the game manual. I think they are even from his own "Poor Richard's Almanack". Quite the nice tie-in, game! I have to think about the first one some more but the second one is once again very easy: "Avoid dishonest gain: No price can recompense the pangs of Vice." That's the one about gambling I had been expecting.
For the final proverb I have to go over my screenshots and confirm that it must be about the cranky old woman holed up in "Ye Olde Sew n Sew". Unfortunately, I neglected to pick up the pebbles from the alley in this playthrough (I started over at some point) and completely forgot how I first got her to talk to me. Fortunately, I didn't delete the video of my first playthrough just yet, and after some scrolling and watching I found that I had to go back to the alley where I first got my new clothes in order to pick up the pebbles still lying there. In an earlier game this might have been a dead kid walking scenario. It's a good thing that it's still possible to pick up the pebbles at a later point in the game.
Pebbles and marbles like words to a friend...
When I try to return to poor Richard now he's gone and I only find the remains of his wagon. Fortunately, I can still find the brass key in the rubble but naturally I'm worried about my companion. Things slowed down a lot after this because I got stuck for the better part of an hour until ... Pepper died her first death of the game, and a bloody one at that.
But that's a story for another time. Stick around, folks, there's more time-traveling coming up next entry!
Session time: 1 hour
Total time: 2 hours 50 minutes
Does this mean that reading is better than sports?
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