Written by Michael
It’s time for another visit to Donkey Island! Last time, I had just met a talking orchid flower that I’m trying to convince to give me some of her scent, as an ingredient for a spell for a magician I met under false pretenses. She offered to transfer some of her perfume to a leaf, if I brought her one.
No, I haven’t been ingesting any wild poppies before writing that sentence.
One or two things come to mind.
So, I start a mad dash around the island looking for a leaf. I try to manipulate any tree I find, big or small. I try the hand icon, the pick up icon, even try using my knife on the trees.
In doing that, I accidentally solved another puzzle.
The tree next to the orchids, when I used the knife on it, the bark split and revealed a flow of liquid rubber seeping out. This time, the game allows me to add the liquid to my bottle. The ordinary green bottle is now “full of disgusting, sticky rubber.”
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| Some four-leaf ones might help me solve this faster. |
Well, that’s some rubber that I’m sure Dunlop will demand for a boat, but he also wanted something to eat. I search all the screens, and finally, by the lava, I find a stash of clover. Donkeys are vegetarians, right? Of course, after I spot it with a pixel hunt, it’s another pixel hunt to pick it up.
Dunlop accepts it, basically calling it the iceberg lettuce of the donkey feed world: “Well, it’s not a treat, but still, better than a horsewhip to the head.” He tells me that he has adjusted the settings on the machine, so we need to just pour some rubber into the machine and out comes the requested product. Also, I ask him to fix the air pump, that is apparently broken, and he does that at no charge.
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| ...a brand new car? |
Over to the rubber machine, I pour in the bottle and accidentally drop it in, leaving me with no more bottle. Out comes a rolled-up thing that looks like a bag, but is really just the uninflated boat. I use the pump on it, and Gajbraš has some trouble inflating it, but soon fills it out.
Combining the paddle with the boat creates, well, a usable boat. Trying to launch from the beach is no good, but the coast is close to the island we want to go to. However, it’s a bit of another pixel hunt finding the exact spot the game will let you drop the boat. And then, the USE icon doesn’t work. Turns out you need to WALK into the boat. Uh huh.
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| I think I could swim that. |
The island turns out to be just two screens, but they DID say it was small. In the first screen is a coconut tree, which you can shake to produce a coconut. Shaking again produces none.
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| Rest your weary bones here. |
In the next screen is a tombstone, grave, and a skeleton on top. The tomb is for Captain Kid, but since we do not have a shovel (yet), we don’t have to dig up this grave. In front of the skeleton is a ship’s anchor, which, after finding the right pixel, I pick up.
There’s nothing else for me to do on the island, so I sail back. I’m not able to remove the boat from the ocean, so I hope it stays there in case I need it again.
A thought occurs to me, is coconut milk “mother’s milk” to this game? I head to the magician’s hut, and I hack open the coconut with a knife to serve him the milk,
Big mistake.
Gajbraš instead just drinks the milk himself when I do that. So, I restore and try again, just bringing the coconut whole to the mage. He rewards me with a magic scroll tied closed with a red ribbon, apparently a spell to create an opening.
You can say that again.
I take the scroll outside, save the game, and read it. Some nonsense words, backwards, and I briefly shapeshift into a donkey. Then, Gajbraš comments that he destroyed the scroll beyond repair. “I’ll bet my neck that I absolutely needed it.”
That’s definitely true.
Switching it up.
I try it in many places after saving, because if there’s a hint where, I didn’t get it. The big tree has a lot of room and ends up being the spot. I read the spell (this time reading it backwards) and a lever appears on the side of the tree. I pull the lever, and a large mouse-style hole appears at the base of the tree.
A strange opening? Of course I go in.
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| “I’m on top of the world!” |
The hole brings me to the top of the tree, where, upon one of the branches, is perched a bird's nest. I try to pick it up, but Gajbraš claims to be an ornithologist that doesn’t harm birds. Birds? Guess that means there’s an occupant. I try talking to it, and a red bird appears. After I introduce myself as a mighty pirate, he tells me that the island is overflowing with them, all under the command of the pirate LeGek. They like to plunder and sink the ships that come near the island, and Gajbraš figures that’s how his ship was sunk.”I have to take revenge... for all my friends, for the ship... for the gold!” Can the bird help? His contribution to the cause was an ordinary leaf. He hopes we find it useful.
Oddly enough, I think we will.
I take it straight away to the orchid, use the same path through the dialog tree, and then ask her to perfume the leaf, which she does.
I look at it in my inventory, and Gajbraš says that it stinks. Huh, guess we lied to the flower about how beautiful she smells.
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| It’s a perfume sample I tore from a magazine. |
I bring it to the magician, and this time he gives me a scroll tied with a blue ribbon.
Much like this magic scroll, I’ll be tied up for a while, so I’ll return next time with more adventures of our mighty pirate.
Session Time: 45 minutes
Total Time: 1 hour 30 minutes
Sounds like a bit much pixel-hunting and lack of hints leading to trying everything on anything all over the place.
ReplyDeleteThen again, quite a few commercial games of this time we've seen here still had the same issues as well.
Seems a bit more Alice In Wonderland than Monkey Island at times!
ReplyDeleteIf you say the wrong thing to the orchid and it doesn't want to talk to you, its not a dead end, you could pet the flower and it will start talking to you again.
ReplyDeleteI think I just had to apologize -- but my memory is shaky now, and I couldn't keep enough saves to go back.
DeleteYou apologize to the flower by using it (ie. clicking it with the hand icon) which is what will make it respond to you again.
DeleteI head to the magician’s hut, and I hack open the coconut with a knife to serve him the milk,
ReplyDeleteBig mistake.
Gajbraš instead just drinks the milk himself when I do that.
Um actually 🤓☝🏻 The stuff inside a coconut when you just crack it open is coconut water. To make coconut milk, you mash up the flesh with water so the fats and proteins get into an emulsion and then press out the liquid. Various adventure games make this mistake; Trinity comes to mind.
Was there a recent game where we just stuck a straw into a coconut as a puzzle solution? Or am I mis-remembering it?
DeleteGoogling coconut site:advgamer.blogspotcom... Maybe you're thinking of Lost in Time, about two years ago, where you drilled a hole into a coconut with a corkscrew and used something you referred to as a "small little pipe" to remove some of the contents and feed them to a rodent? You referred to it as "milk" there but I don't know if the game explicitly called it that or if it was just your assumption.
DeleteAlso there's Eric the Unready where the player cuts the top off a coconut and sticks an umbrella in it, or The Last Half of Darkness II which doesn't seem to be quite clear on what the player is doing with rum and a coconut other than "combining" them.
Ok, I didn't mis-remember! :)
DeleteI just checked a playthrough video. The game first calls it water when you use the corkscrew, but then calls it milk when you add the straw.
Is Guybruerrrrr....whatever his name peeing in the picture with the donkey?
ReplyDeleteHaha! That's the rubber item vending machine.
DeletePerhaps he's installing something bought in a Lost Wages convenience store?
And I had to copy & paste that name constantly in these posts.
Also, did you try if after you drink the coconut milk you can get another coconut from the tree or is that a dead end? It would be nice to check that out so we know if the designers are cool or not
ReplyDeleteAnother coconut falls down if you drink it.... But if you miss to pick up the pump it is a dead end
DeleteThere are many, many dead ends. It appears they are all inventory based (using items in wrong ways). If you get stumped by a dialog puzzle, there's usually another chance. Not that the dialog puzzles are that hard.
DeleteThere seems to be inconsistencies in dead ends, why make a few things repeatable and others not. There is an animation for drinking the coconut an item you could get again then there is a special animation but no repeat when using the spell. These are just as examples.
Deleteif you turn in a coconut and use the spell in the wrong place, there is no more coconut or dialog to get a new one. so only when you drink it its possible to shake down a new. this is such a random not dead end in a game full of them
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