By Will Moczarski
400 points in my pocket, and one more act to go. This time around we need to find out how meat was cooked in colonial households, learn about colonial cures for fleas, compositions for the glass armonica, blue dye, and taxation without representation. Sounds like a wicked school day to me.
Actual objectives are as follows:
- Get into Penn Mansion,
- Rescue Lockjaw,
- Prove General Pugh's a Fraud!
Time to tie up all these loose ends, it seems. If you think back to act 5 you may remember that it involved a bit of time-travelling to the year 1787. Instead of witnessing the Constitutional Convention firsthand we learned about Ben Franklin's troublesome gout. Then we went back in time to 1764 again, which is why middle-aged Ben now looks quite young to Pepper. The jolly founding father, not knowing about our time travel shenanigans, takes that as a compliment, of course, and then the chitchat makes way for some serious plotting. Ben hands Pepper a custom-made kite and wants her to go windsurf across the river with it. After that, she is to distract the sentries at the front bridge with food. While Pepper proceeds to sneak into Penn Mansion, Ben will rally the colonists in order to put pressure on the General. (He does not acknowledge that it was us who did all the legwork for the rallying in the previous act by performing some mind-numbing...well, what's the opposite of a fetch quest? A spread quest?)
These guys look as if they've never heard of the Beach Boys!
As with every good plan, the first flaw comes to light almost immediately. When I try to teach the two oafs by the bridge a good old surfin' lesson, they tell me to stay away from the river. Is there something I missed? Well, let's check out the inventory. Hmm, I never gave that chocolate bar to Goody the baker. Maybe that will trigger something? Unfortunately, it doesn't. Goody just tells me that she is very thankful and she would bake something nice for me if it weren't so damn hot. Now this is actually a clue but it throws me off for a minute, and for the most interesting reasons. Although we are clearly dealing with a graphic adventure game here, the clue relies solely on text. However, I misinterpret the text, as I likely would in a text adventure game, and assume that Goody means that the weather conditions prevent her from running the bakery for some reason (too hot for the ingredients, stuff spoils, that sort of thing). The problem is: dear ol' Goody refers to herself. When I check out my inventory again (after some trial and error and going other places and all that, mind you) and hand her the fan, she is delighted and tells me to attach it to her rocking chair.
You want me to blow on your toes?
After a bit of rocking back and forth Goody suddenly feels "SO much better" and proceeds to enjoy some badly animated baking.
If you thought that this part was hilariously over the top, the next puzzle is even wilder. I return to the two redcoats guarding the way to Penn Mansion and hand them Goody's homemade bonbons which...drives them absolutely bonkers. Their eyes pop out of their heads in a cartoonish way, and at first I think that Goody must have poisoned them (which would mean she'd have intended to poison me). One of them turns his head an unhealthy 360 degrees, and they bounce off each other as if they were members of the rubber band. Pepper drily chalks it up to a sugar rush and we're on our merry way, leaving the guards to recover from their high.
They might be impersonating Laurel and Hardy, too.
Pepper proceeds to unpack her kite and windsurfs (without a board or anything, mind you) into the metaphorical sunset. The guards do notice her beautiful kite but are even higher on sugar and fail to react. Surprisingly, Pepper surfs to the left of the mansion while the whole picture seems to imply that the other side would be the way to go. The water is not animated but it looks like she's going upstream, at least to my eyes. What does it look like to you?
We arrive at the back of the mansion. The two guard sprites we were able to see from the distance are now here as well but don't notice how Pepper surfs her way through their very line of sight. A bit of a stealth sequence follows but thankfully I only need to click on the strangely egg-shaped bushes in the right order to sneak past unnoticed.
Not the most perceptive bunch.
Most conveniently, one of the windows is open, and I find myself in the huge living room from earlier when I-as-Lockjaw overheard Governor Pugh's dastardly plans for his colony. Some superficial pointing and clicking leads me to another stereotypical "puzzle": there's a safe behind one of the paintings which I observed earlier when I played as a dog. Moving on to the next cliche, I put some fresh paper on Pugh's notebook and shade it in order to reveal the indentations left by the original. At least the General can't have known any Sherlock Holmes novels just yet but he's still a putz for writing down the number combination for his safe in the first place.
Looks more like People's Fries to me.
I find a big bag of "People's Money" in the safe that must be way too heavy for a young girl to lug around. When I examine the bag it says "Colonists' money" instead, directly contradicting the earlier picture. No playtester thought to check out the object again, I guess. There are some other objects to examine but I have long since gotten fed up with clicking the "Truth" button on everything. It's a neat idea but the novelty value doesn't outlast the game so then again maybe it's not.
I walk out into the entrance hall and am apprehended by one of the butlers, I assume. Pepper pretends that she's the cable guy (which is quite funny) to get out of the situation but of course that results in a game over. There must be some other way out of here, said the joker to the thief. I find myself clicking the "Truth" button on everything after all and find out that Ben Franklin actually invented the Glass Armonica which is quite the odd bit of small talk for the next social happening. If you decide to use it, do leave out the not-so-funny notion that follows: "It was the favorite instrument of Marie Antoinette. She really lost her head over it." Ha bloody ha.
And what do you know? The unlikely solution to my conundrum is to play the Glass Armonica. That's right, here I am, a so far unnoticed trespasser in a heavily guarded mansion, so it's probably a good idea to keep quiet but NO, quite the opposite. Let's make some noise!
The sound of the Glass Armonica prompts Lockjaw to join the music by howling loudly in response. And...the butler enters the room and wants to know what the hell I'm doing. He doesn't buy that I'm "just the meter reader" either, so eh, maybe it wasn't the solution after all.
Coming up: Pepper's Adventures in the Salt Mines
Well, time to try again. And I do mean that because there's a tiny little clue if you read the butler's scolding dialogue closely, namely that he turns hostile the moment he notices (while looking in the opposite direction, that ol' son-of-a-fly) that I have opened General Pugh's safe. It's odd enough to stand out (at least to me) so I decided to cover my tracks this time (that is, hang the picture back up) and play the Armonica again. The butler catches me once more but this time my punishment is much softer. He's only putting me to work in the kitchen instead of sending me of to the General's salt mines.
Salt mines don't seem too bad now.
Ima informs me that I have to iron her dresses now, and that she'll have me thrown in the river if I scorch her favourite one. Not too bad if she'll let me bring my kite, right? Fortunately, irony-ing is one of Pepper's stronger suits but her snide remarks go right over Ima's head. When the situation escalates, Pepper threatens Ima with violence which seems a bit out of character, however Ima retains the upper hand by threatening to call in her father and all of his servants.
When she finally leaves me to my own devices I can explore the kitchen and find a fan. Also, a broom. While she's picking things up Pepper drops some hints about using them to assemble some sort of makeshift costume, namely to resemble Ima. She won't touch Ima's favourite dress, though, remarking that it's the ugliest dress on the planet. Pepper also entertains fantasies of smacking Ima in the head with a ladle but refrains from taking it with her because she's not the violent type. That seems more in character but maybe her threat against Ima was only meant to be verbal all along.
As I try to use the mop as a wig and cover Pepper's face with the fan she tells me that her clothes still aren't right. It must have something to do with that hideous dress but I can't put my finger on it (literally). After some more aimless pixel-hunting I find an oven mitt which allows me to pick up the hot iron. And while Pepper won't touch Ima's favourite dress she's perfectly fine with ironing it. Does that make a whole lot of sense? Are the clues any good? Stay tuned for the final rating…
I AM IMA.
So now we look like Ima which should make walking around the mansion much easier with the added benefit of bossing around some of the servants. Pepper can only bear to wear the outfit for one brief conversation with the butler right outside and once she's upstairs she changes right back. When I enter the adjacent corridor the game sort of switches perspective. At least it's no longer difficult to find the exits now. I still could do without that little maze.
Pepper's Adventures in 3D
One of the points of interests is Ima's room but Pepper thankfully refuses to knock or even enter. Another door leads to a different part of the maze, and somehow I feel like it's the temples in Zak McKracken all over again which is not a very good example for an enjoyable maze. Are there enjoyable mazes in adventure games? That depends, I guess. I like mapping but if there's literally nothing to see but lamps and wallpaper...it feels as if Sierra was merely trying to stretch out the endgame here.
After a while I return to my point of origin and have to dive into the maze yet again. Was there something I missed? There must have been. I try to come up with a little map this time around but lose interest quickly. The rooms are so unattractive, and this is coming from someone who mapped the entirety of both Asylum and Asylum II. So, more trial and error. More aimless wandering. More thinking about my life and what the hell am I even doing here. As a kid I would have given up now, I'm sure. How did they expect their target audience to carry on regardless of this slog?
But finally I am reunited with Lockjaw, that is, I find the room he's in. Unfortunately, it's locked, so we trade places one last time and I control the dog again.
At least he's housebroken.
And we're off to one more adventure game cliche, albeit one we've already come across in this game. Lockjaw drops the room key in front of the door and I resume control of Pepper who needs nothing but her trusty magnet to solve this puzzle. With Lockjaw as my companion it's much easier to navigate the maze. He can act as my severed navigator's head and sniff the ground, then point me in the right direction. It's about as much fun as in the first Monkey Island game (yes, I think that the second one was not only better in general but also had the more enjoyable maze) but it gets the job done. Also, the animation of Lockjaw pointing in the right direction is kinda cute.
Isn't it adorable? And this is coming from a cat person!
It still takes us a loooong time to get back to the entrance hall but at last the end(game) is near. Lockjaw whines to suggest we hide inside a closet while Rigormort (one of the butlers) carries the dye upstairs for Ima. What does she need the dye for, you ask? The spoiled brat wants to turn Lockjaw blue, of course. Rigormort is on his way but once he's arrived upstairs Ima changes her mind. She tells him to go get Lockjaw because she wants to dye him in the kitchen lest he get the blue stuff all over her pillows. We know where Lockjaw really is, of course, and Rigormort returns emptyhanded. Ima throws a hissy fit and tells Rigormort to go look for him while Pepper and Lockjaw stick their heads together and hatch a plan. Lockjaw darts out onto the stairs and starts to whine in order to attract Ima's attention. It works, and she goes upstairs to pick him up. That's when Pepper jumps out and throws the blue dye at Ima.
Ima gets the blues.
While Ima is screaming and Pepper is celebrating, the Governor comes running, calling out for Percy (Pugh's right hand but really just another servant) to get there immediately. But our timing is, of course, impeccable, and just as we've got all the baddies rounded up in the entrance hall, out booms Ben Franklin's voice from outside the mansion: "Open this door, General Pugh! Let the people be heard!"
Pugh is of no mind to open the door, so we have to solve one last puzzle. Pugh orders Percy to go fetch the dog, and Pepper strolls down the stairs from the other end, commanding Lockjaw to sic 'em. I resume control of Lockjaw once more and use the bite icon on Percy's noble behind.
Lock-JAWS
Wild animations ensue, and Pugh heads up to grab Lockjaw himself, completely oblivious of Pepper's presence. But now it's her turn. She uses the lightning-in-a-bottle we constructed way earlier to zap the old wighead.
Revenge is a dish best served charged.
More wild animations ensue, resulting in the loss of the General's wig. Pepper can now open the front door in peace and see that Ben has brought quite the crowd along. Pugh tries to squirm his way out of the allegations, even as Ben Franklin presents him with proof of his wrongdoing.
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