Written by The TAG Team
Halloween is nearly upon us, for those of us who celebrate it. In many places, including the United States, it’s a holiday that celebrates people dressing up in disguises, and begging strangers for candy.
Because really, what could be better than free candy?
But the costume part isn’t just for children in autumn. It’s also a puzzle source for adventure games!
So, in honor of the holiday, let’s talk about your favorite costumes donned by our game protagonists in order to solve a puzzle, trick a foe, and win the game.
For example, an early Sierra example might be Police Quest 1, where Detective Sonny Bonds goes undercover as a pimp named Whitey to infiltrate a drug ring.
Another early example, Zak McKracken, needed glasses to look like the aliens making us all dumber. This is, of course, before the internet. We now do it to ourselves.
And there are many others. So, which ones are your favorites?
Who can forget the pretty little pink dress in Monkey Island 2?
ReplyDeleteI liked his tofu disguise in MI 3
DeleteDoes being inside a giant monkey mech suit count?
DeleteIn Return he uses that magic eyepatch to become a zombie.
I was going to said Guybrush pink dress, but since Laukku beat me, let's go with Laverne's tentacle one from DOTT
ReplyDeleteThe bikini/blond/waxed/stuffed top thing in Larry 2 sure is... detailed... if also pretty whacked out and very frustrating.
ReplyDeleteAlmost like when Rex Nebular disguises himself as a woman?
DeleteLarry does like the costumes. In the third game, a grass skirt followed by a show girl's outfit.
DeleteIt's not just Larry who gets to wear costumes in his games; in the fifth one Patti has to put on a very memorable outfit, which was pretty stupid even when the game was released, and *really* unfortunate from today's perspective.
DeleteI liked the big "CENSORED" box when Indiana Jones changed costumes (e.g., to the uniform in Castle Brunewald) in Last Crusade.
ReplyDeleteAnd of course, this is the season to play some of Double Fine's Costume Quest!
I'm not sure Edward Carnby dressing as Santa quite counts, not exactly in the spirit of halloween!
ReplyDeleteLaukku has gone for the great fancy dress (literally) from MI2, and you could also have Roger Wilco from Space Quest 4, but how about a slight subversion of that, when the main character in Quest For Glory 2 having to give up his outfit to allow Zayishah to escape Raseir.
Who can forget the Gabriel Knight 3 disguise that old man murray so memorably walked us through?
ReplyDeletehttps://www.oldmanmurray.com/features/78.html
I've been chasing a black cat with masking tape all week so I can complete my halloween costume
Can I please forget it?
Deletenot really a costume, but a spanish obscure Halloween game from that era, called Trick or Treat. Which is infamous in the community because it's either incomplete, or has a crash in the second part. Even the copy protection was missing or just badly cracked. It even has a weird feature with a diploma that is given to you at the end of the game, that needs an old and obsolete picture format to include your picture in it.
ReplyDeleteIn case anyone is interested, I worked last year in preserving a correct and complete version of the english version of the game. It even has the diploma feature working as expected. It's in exoDOS, and as far as I can tell, nowhere else.
Regarding the disguises, there's the infamous mustached cat from GK3, Laverne as a tentacle in DOTT (super funny), Gabriel Knight in the first game as a priest, Simon the sorcerer with him impersonating a dward with a beard stolen from another dwarf, Guybrush in MI2 with the pink dress (in a rare case of needing a disguise for a party instead of fooling someone), Sam and Max at the end of Hit the road when they have to craft a yeti disguise, the best adventure game ever made Fate of atlantis has Indy disguising as a nazi captain to enter the submarine, Carnby in AITD2 as Santa Carnby, Freddy Pharkas had the wear a silver ear as a brilliant disguise gag, etc etc etc