Gabriel Knight - Lions, Tigers, and Bears... Oh My!

Written by Michael

Or, like a bad penny, I always turn up.

Good morning!  Like Gabriel, I’m writing this while I drink some coffee, but unlike Gabriel, I’m not reading the newspaper, because those have not travelled through time with us to the future.

Actually, that’s the only item so far that would be anachronistic in our world today.  No pay phones yet in this game, a staple in the 1980s-90s graphic adventure game world.

And we were able to receive a call at the payphone without everyone assuming we were a drug dealer.  My, how times have changed.

Anyways, back to the matter at hand.  We just started day 6 of the game when I finished the last post.  An anonymous commenter gave their review of the day: “Day 6 is when you get to use just about every previously unused item in your inventory, and I think you can solve the entire day simply by trying to find something to do with those items.”  This isn’t necessarily true (spoiler: I still haven’t used the photo of Mosely for anything) but this was a tedious, frustrating day at times, and while it doesn’t negate the game experience overall, it is certainly the low point so far of the game.

...but nowadays, it’s basically a tourist & shopping holiday.  (I’m writing this on America’s Memorial Day, which sadly has become one of those also.) 

We read the paper and find out about how St. John’s Eve (that’s tonight) is observed, in the past and also today as a day for deals in the retail stores.  Then he reads his horoscope.

Both are true.

At the end of the last post, we had just received a key to Mosely’s office.  So, I suppose that’s a good place to start.  I head over to the police station.

I try to walk behind the counter, as I always have, but this time I’m stopped by the desk sergeant.  “You got no business back there now.  Move along.”

Huh?

So I try talking to him.  When I tell him I’m there to see Mosely, I’m told, “Um... We... we don’t have a Detective Mosely here.”  Hmm.  Further pressing yields similar responses, where he’s implying through his delivery that we shouldn’t be bringing this topic up.

Well, we can’t get behind the counter right now, so until I figure that out, let’s go elsewhere.  The newspaper said that churches were traditional spots for celebrations of the day, so I check out the cathedral.  

Nothing doing.

Then I head over to the Dixieland Drug Store, because the newspaper also said it was a retail holiday.

Again, nothing.

I did talk with Willy some more at the store about any new topics, but he either won’t give me the time of day or says not to talk about certain things out loud.  More of my time wasted.

In my comments on the last post, I mentioned I found this day tedious, and I accomplished very little in a large amount of time.  Well, this isn’t the tedious part.  Not even close.  But, so far, either the newspaper “hints” were red herrings, or I’m missing something.

Gabriel: “Funny, I say the same thing to women.”

I head over to the museum.  Dr. John greets me warmly, but gives me nothing in conversation.  I try all the new topics, but he still claims ignorance of modern Voodoo, focusing only on the clean, sanitized practices of the past.  And now we know he’s flat out lying to us.  Asked about the Rada drum codes, he simply says, “I do not believe there is such a thing, Mr. Knight,”

As an American, I find the most annoying part of writing these posts is inserting the non-standard characters into the writing, such as the decorated letter é.

Looking around the room for any new items, I notice that the ritual coffin is now labeled with the proper Voudoun name.  I suspect this means that it is important, but as of now, I’m not sure why.  Of course, it’s still empty at this point, the game taking the time to tell me that. 

But I also have the book of Rada drum codes, so I click it on the drummer outside the window, thinking that will translate the messages he is sending.  But “Gabriel can’t hear the street drummer very clearly in this location.”

Let’s go somewhere he can hear well.

A park not overrun with garbage, graffiti, or grifters?  Definitely a made-up video game location.

Off to the park, and I try the same thing with the drummer there.  When you do that, a split screen display shows, with the book on one side (there’s three pages you can flip through), a window showing the drummer’s output, and another section where we will record our translation.

There’s a 𝝅 symbol starting the message.  That means the puzzle is irrational.

I’d rather plot the map points in PQ3’s pentagram map. 

This was very tedious, in part because the drummer adds extra notes into the phrases.  After a bunch of false starts, and restarting the process because I missed the symbols as the screen cleared, I finally come up with the message (mostly by lucky guess): “Call conclave, tonight, swamp”

Looking around the rest of the park, the only other person who will give me the time of day is the beignet vendor, but only if I click the lesser used “!” icon on them rather than the mostly used “?”.

The navigation screen actually does display some of the street names if you mouse over them.

We find out that he took over the spot from his cousin, the hot dog vendor, and he used to be on the street over by the police station.  He thought there’d be more money over here but, alas, it seems there isn’t.

Through conversation choices, I am able to convince him to go back to his old spot.  I think that means he will be going to the police station.

No, he doesn’t need it. Yes, I'm fat-shaming a video game character.

So, this was another tedious part of the gameplay session, largely in part to a design flaw for high-speed computers.  Remember, back in 1993, no one could foresee how future computers would handle the games. Some later Google searching confirmed my suspicions, and I was not spoiled to future puzzles.

Basically, you need to dial back the speed a little further than DOSBox thinks is right for the game.  Had I played this in ScummVM, I would have been fine, but I didn’t, because of problems taking screenshots in the game for the blog. 

So, I’m not going to detail my turn-by-turn experience, but I’ll try to sum it up.  This really did take me a while.  My first instinct was wrong no matter what -- when the sergeant goes outside, I tried to sneak behind the counter, but he always comes back too fast.  Even if I slowed down the game settings.

No, what you needed to do was wait for him to come back in, and after a while, he gets drowsy from eating all those donuts.  He nods his head a few times, the third time lower than the other two.  On that nod, you need to make your move and go behind the counter.

If you miss the cue, you can leave the station and come back in and try again.

The timing is incredibly picky and unforgiving.  This is not a puzzle for someone with slow reflex movements.

Jane Jensen did write a lot of PQ3, remember?  This must be one of her tropes, a tracking device in a desk drawer at a police station.

Eventually, I make my way inside his office.  Looking around, there’s only one thing I can do, which is open up his bottom desk drawer and take a tracking device.  

Later, I notice that there’s two tracking beacons.  In this post, I’ll only use one later on.  I wonder where I’ll use the other.

That’s why I review games for this blog.

Since I’ve struck out everywhere else, I check out some stuff at the cemetery.  Nothing new there, but I try something which I will end up needing later this post.  I try using the brick on the message on Marie’s tomb.  Gabriel responds by wiping off the previous message before preparing to write his own.

We then see a split-screen interface again, this time with the messages we transcribed previously to use as our alphabet.  But I have nothing to write at the moment, so I’ll just let this be.

Where’s Indy and his whip?  There’s probably a snake here somewhere.

Back to the map, I decide to head off to a new location:  Bayou St. John.  We can explore (it’s basically indistinct jungle screens that is likely a maze) but we get nowhere fast.  As Gabe says, “everything looks the same.”

Here comes a hint from the game, when I figure out how to get back to the starting point: “Something in the Bayou air is confusing Gabriel’s sense of direction.  He could use some less-susceptible assistance.”

Like a tracking device, perhaps?

This means I’m going to need to plant a tracking device on someone or something that will be coming to the conclave tonight.

It wasn’t my first guess.

The answer should have been a little more obvious to me, but I struggled with it for a while.  You needed to slip the tracking device into the ritual coffin at the museum.  Two things happen when you do that.

First, the game gives an excellent hint: “Now if only they take the coffin to the ritual!”

Next, Dr. John decides it’s time to shut down the museum early for the day (it’s a holiday, after all).

Acting on the hint, let’s go back to the cemetery.

Unlike the Rada drums, at least these have the translations directly underneath.  Easy.

I try writing a message on the tomb, in the style of the previous messages.  There’s no direct hint to this, so I wonder how flexible the game is in message choices.

I first try “DJ bring coffin to conclave”, but when I leave the screen, it tells me Gabriel wasn’t satisfied with the message and rubs it out.

Did I word it too much?  How about “DJ bring coffin”?  Nah.

We needed to use formal wording: “DJ bring sekey madoule”.  And no, it’s okay that the letter é isn’t accentuated.

Success, I hope.

I putz around a little bit, and end up back at my store.  I try to activate the tracker, but it seems that I’m not in the right location to do that.  So, off to the bayou.

I grew up in a small town, and I’m definitely going to die in this small town.

Guess that means we’re close.

I use the tracking device, which isn’t the world’s greatest, and eventually find my way to a screen outside the conclave.

Checking out the busty topless chick, what do you THINK I’m doing here?

I save, and then walk in.  Good instinct.  Dr. John doesn’t like me intruding and strangles me to death.

To be fair, I didn’t look the part.  I was there wearing a trench coat, while everyone else there was wearing costumes and being topless.  So, I restore and try it again, this time putting on the alligator mask.

(Side thought:  had I said NO to selling the painting, would the game have forced me anyways?  Otherwise, without the mask, I’d be at a dead-end now, right?)

Gabe goes topless, dons the mask, and enters the conclave.  This time, Brother Crocodile is more warmly greeted...

...until Dr. John notices I don’t have a snake tattoo.  He rips off my mask.  “You!  I knew it!” and proceeds to strangle me.

Wow.  This is getting to be an annoying habit.

I restore again and try clicking the picture of Crash’s tattoo on me before entering, “Gabriel can’t draw that tattoo on himself.  He’ll have to find someone to lend him an artistic hand.”

I can’t figure out how to get back to the entrance of the bayou, so I restore back a couple of games.  I go back to Grace, who, I had forgotten, has a box of art supplies at her side.

I wonder if she’s a decent tattoo artist. I'm kind of squeamish around needles.

I ask her to paint it on me, and she resists.  I use the dialog trees to convince her, and I suspect that multiple choices would have worked.  It basically dissolves into hard-core verbal foreplay between the two of them, but she still pretends to have no feelings for him, so it goes nowhere.

Grace: “Well, it was about what I expected from you.”

Back to the bayou.  This time, Brother Crocodile passes visual authentication, but needs to answer a couple of security questions to gain access.

Well, I’m hoping Gabriel’s first pet was named “Fido” and his childhood street was Main St, but those aren’t the questions he asks.  But if we paid attention to the lecture and conversations from the professor, we’re fine.  The snake’s name is Damballah, and the evil being is Ogoun Badagris.  Brother Eagle is satisfied that Brother Crocodile knows his stuff, and lets us in.

There’s a lot of chanting and dancing, and then...

An animal sacrifice...

...some smoke in Gabriel’s face disorienting him...

...flashback images to his dreams...

...Gabriel removing his mask to face the leopard...

...from his dreams...

...who ends up being my possessed, would-be girlfriend Malia...

...and the lines between the present and the past get really blurred right now.

Speaking through present-day vessels, the spirits of Tetelo and Gunther, among many others, come back into play.

And then we pass out... and the day ends during our lack of consciousness.

This new day, after the usual events of the paperboy arriving and Grace opening the shop, we start our day in the bedroom rather than the shop floor.

Grace manages to wake us up after many hours of trying.  It seems she followed us to the ritual last night and knows everything now.  

Like, say, about Malia: “She’s the head priestess of the Voodoo cartel.  They’re responsible for the murders--they’ve been doing it for years.”

But she was the Leopard last night!  Like in my dreams!  “I know.  Those dreams were a warning.  Now come on, get dressed.”

Grace gives us the proper kick-in-the-rear to get going, and I’m really underselling this scene.  As usual, it was well written and lots of engaging dialog.

Which brings us to Gabriel’s future, I suppose.  Again, I’m going to go the lazy route and show the screenshots, but to be fair, these pictures tell more than a thousand words. 

This is a different Grace than we started the day with.  The morning of Day 6, she told me, “I’d be peachy if you’d give up all this Voodoo crap, Gabriel.”

Well, if she can change in a day, perhaps we all can.  And with that, I’ll pause and return next time.  

Wait, all the important stuff I did today, and I’m only walking away with 29 additional points?  I feel cheated.

Score: 225/342

Session Time: 2 hours

Total Time: 11 hours 0 minutes