Goblins Quest 3 – From heaven to hell

By Ilmari

I began the game in an empty flying ship, bombarded with stones, starting to slowly sink to the ground. The obvious goal was to get out of there alive.

Even if there’s a parachute lying around?

Oh well, it’s the Looney Tunes logic we are following here, so barrel it is then. It was not as easy as just sitting in the barrel, so I proceeded to check my surroundings. My starting inventory consisted only of a single coin, but I soon added a golf club to my possessions (yes, you can use it to hit the golf ball, but it appears to be of no consequence).

There were also other things to interact with:

• A screw that I could open with the coin, retrieving a hook held by it
• A weight attached to a rope with a loop. I could attach the hook to the loop, and then lift the rope with the weight, but this achieved nothing
• A knot I could open, which lowered a rope, holding Chump, a parrot (?) that the sailors had locked up.

I have no idea what that thing is holding Chump. A clay pot?

I could use my golf club to break Chump out, but this just threw the parrot to a hole on the deck of the ship. Chump was stuck there, and so was I. After too long a time, I noticed that the screen scrolled – there were more things to investigate!

I wonder if the hands are just decorative

I found a chest containing some pepper and a plumber. Using the plumber, I could pull Chump from their predicament. Now, although the game began in a single-hero mode, I could now choose Chump as the active character. Being a parrot, Chump could fly and thus lift the weight, lowering the rope with the hook in a hole.

Like this

This was a classic Goblins multicharacter puzzle – while Chump was doing his trick, Blunt could – during the short period of time Chump managed to hold the weight up – pick up an umbrella stuck to the hook on the other end of the rope.

The umbrella alone was not enough to get me down, although I tried to do a Mary Poppins imitation at various points of the ship. I had noticed a tooth stuck on the figurehead, which Blount said was useful, but could not reach. This was another two-person act: one of the flagstones activated one of the hands, throwing the person standing on it on top of the figurehead.

The tooth was apparently meant to be used for cutting the rope holding the barrel on the ship. When I tried to do this, Blount noted that I should first hold the umbrella on the barrel. I spent some time trying to do this, before noticing that in addition to the barrel itself, there was a specific hotspot for a hole on the barrel, where the umbrella was supposed to fit.

I think there’s a flaw in this plan

Well, it’s Looney Tunes logic again, and despite the fall from the sky, Blount was unharmed.

This has to be Early Edition, since it tells of future events

Indeed, falling in love with Wynnona is still something I have to do

The falling in love part was relatively simple. Applying the umbrella on a hole full of hot air, Blount could fly to the big statue, using a crevice in it to spy on Wynnona.

Is Blount Mr. Fantastic?

First mission of the screen done

The next task was to get rid of the row of guards separating Blount from Wynnona. I won’t go through all of them in detail, since that would be rather repetitive, as there was a clear pattern to these puzzles. The first few guards I could simply hit with my golf club, while the rest all required also some distraction (like pepper), so that they would not hit me instead.

Another one bites the dust

The last guard threw the key to the labyrinth he was holding away, so that Fourbalus, the guy crouching in the pit, could steal it.

Just when the next interstitial animation began, my younger child interrupted my gaming session, so I have a very hazy idea what happened next. Apparently while Wynnona ran to catch Fourbalus, Blount was caught by king Bodd, who threw Blount in a cell, where a wolf ate him.

I kid you not

Cutely, the game itself suggests what the save games are to be called. So death it is

Or maybe I am hanging between life and death?

Yeah, probably, or otherwise I should try to resurrect and not resuscitate myself

Wherever I were, hell, purgatory or some kind of limbo, the room was completely dark. Thus, before doing anything else, I had to get some light. I quickly found some matches, and then I just had to apply them to a spot where I could light the whole room.

My gravestone was not that spot

This looks better. Amoniak was the evil demon in the previous game

The same room, a bit to the left

While the first two levels were rather simple to solve, this screen had a more intricate set of puzzles. Firstly, with a piece of a scythe, held by the skeleton at the top, I was supposed to open three dens of will-o-wisps: one of the wisps was red, one blue and the last one yellow. Since none of the will-o-wisps wanted anything to do with me, I had to find a way to catch them:

• The blue will-o-wisp had flown into the safety of a skull on the wall. I could open the skull, but the will-o-wisp could escape through its eyes, unless I covered them with a pair of spectacles I had found in the possession of a clown hanging at the left side of the room.
• The yellow will-o-wisp could be attracted by fire I lit up by using matches on a wooden leg of a skeleton. To take the wisp, I still had to douse the fire. The clown I just mentioned just happened to have a water bottle, which I could take if I just had first used my scythe to sever it from a flower it was attached to (classic joke!).
• The red will-o-wisp could be lured in a red bottle held by the peglegged skeleton. To get the bottle, I had to scoop some blood with a ladle hanging on the big light bowl and pour that blood to the bottle. Skeleton didn’t like the taste of it and threw the bottle away. The task was still not complete, since whenever I grabbed the bottle with the red will-o-wisp, the wisp escaped the bottle.

The final phase of the level was an interesting physical puzzle. Firstly, putting different coloured will-o-wisps in the big bowl changed the lighting of the room. Interestingly, different lighting conditions made different things visible. For instance, green lighting revealed a skeleton hand holding a mushroom that I could use as a cork to lock the red will-o-wisp in the red bottle. I could also use the ladle to scoop out will-o-wisps, to create the lighting conditions I wanted.

When I placed all the three wisps in the bowl, it emitted a ray of light. My task was obvious (and if it wasn’t, Blount spelled it out for me). I had to find reflective objects (mirror, glasses etc.) and place them so that the ray would bounce back to the bowl itself. What’s more, seeing and getting the reflective objects and placing them on their proper positions required finding the proper settings of lighting where the different actions were possible. Again, the details are not that interesting, but when all the conditions were right, Blount woke up. So, have I been tinkering in his brain?

Blount in Wonderland?

Before finishing off this time, I’ll say that despite the plot being at points hard to follow, the game itself has been a pleasant surprise. The levels have gradually become more and more complex, easing me slowly to the puzzle system. I am eager to see what happens next!

Session time: 2 h

Total time: 2h