Innocent Until Caught - Lost?

Written by Morpheus Kitami

Not a popular destination, then.

We return to where we left off on Innocent Until Caught, freshly arrived on planet Tayte, looking for the nearest bar. First we have to get through airport security, and you can tell this is pre-9/11, because it goes over smoothly. With how aggressive the IRDS is, you'd expect space TSA to perform exploratory surgery, but it goes by so quickly that you might not notice it. Even talking to the guy is optional.

Nothing but class from our man Jack.

Dialog is simple, two portraits, and then dialog happens. The usual dialog tree, albeit one that seems to only happen once. Hopefully you don't miss any information! The guard asks Ladd how he's so clean, because nobody's that good. One of my options is to tell him about the IRDS audit, at which point, the guard proves his own point by pointing us towards a pawnbroker in the Badside. Which sounds like a good lead...assuming I'm not about to send Ladd right back to the same person he just escaped from.

Imagine the immaturity you could get up to here...

So, the interface. We have six buttons, a status screen, a free-floating inventory screen, and a map of the area in front of me. Which sounds unnecessary, but how many times have you played a game that hides an exit at the front of the screen? The six buttons correspond to six commands. Walk, talk, pick up, use, look and scan. The latter two require a bit more explanation. The scan functions as a simpler look command, allowing you to get a closer look at the area at the cursor and giving the usual quick description. Look does a deeper dive of the item for whatever reason. All actions can be cycled through with right click, but because Ladd is a hotspot himself, this requires you to have him get out of the way if he's in front of something.

There's also the status screen. Not quite sure what there is here beyond the usual options. Well, no volume control. That full-screen image of our hero is something I can look all over, which feels like it should be used for something, but so far hasn't, except for performing various rude and amusing things with the cursors.

Back to the game screen, there's just a passport, belonging to someone else. I'll just hold onto this for the erstwhile owner. There's also someone else walking around, but he's waiting for someone. He'll occasionally go to another screen. As in, he has an actual path I can trace. Which I think is cool, but I guarantee I'll be complaining when I have an actual puzzle involving him. Time to go outside.

Outside doesn't really have anything but paths to other rooms. Though a taxi cab occasionally goes by, which I'll probably be able to use when I have money. The two paths are down an alley and down to a subway. Maybe there's something in the subway?

To trip up tourists who expect to actually get somewhere?

I do wish these informatic kiosks didn't look like trash cans, because I keep expecting to be able to pick something valuable out of one. That's how it works in video games, there's always something useful in a trash can as opposed to rotting food and...uh...trash. The ticket window is closed, but Ladd knows a trick to getting into the subway with a coin and a bit of silver foil.

The last time I played a character who needed a drink that badly, she started hallucinating horrors we don't want to see depicted here.

The other path leads to a bar with some artistic French woman in a red dress. This place is classy. She doesn't have any business to offer me, alas, and there's not much to do here. I can examine the pipes...for some reason. Not a lot of environmental usage going on here, clearly the writers were only interested in actual dialog.

The pool player is going to spend the next five hours setting up that shot.

Welcome to the bar...Sam's. (Play it again Sam? Sam Malone?) We got Loopy Juice, must be some futuristic White Claw, and Newt Bru. Wait, "Newt" Bru? Is that what people like to call one of those beer company metaphors? Like how Champagne Velvet does not actually taste like champagne or how Brut isn't actually brutish? Anyway, this is a perfect opportunity to engage in some item hunting. After all, I'm a thief, I can steal something. Like this fine fellow at the bar who has a green object in his back pocket.

This requires a bit of finessing to take. I can't just take him, the game won't let me. Instead, I have to click precisely on it. I get the point, but unless trying to pick up the barfly causes me to grab his butt or something, this is just mildly annoying. And it's a pawn ticket, so that seems to be the theme of the exercise. Most of the other people here seem to be generic NPCs I can't steal anything from, so I go to the other side of the bar.

"Should we take our jar?" "Nah, just leave it in the bar, dear."

On the other side are a few items. Note, this is a scrolling screen, like Monkey Island. On a table, a jar and the lid, nothing in them. I think the lid might be for the subway, but I couldn't tell you how yet. There's also a newspaper, which Ladd complains has no nude babes in it. Before our British readers chime in. Yes, I know about The Sun, one of your newspapers, which infamously had topless ladies on page 3, leading to the term "page 3 stunner". A few of which are connected to retro computing in odd ways, for instance, Maria Whittaker was in the ads for a few games. She and some other stunners were apparently as young as sixteen at the time, which turns an old, sleazy practice into something a lot worse. Something I should point out is not universally appreciated, as I suspect most Americans will have first heard of this from this comedy bit.

Now that we've cleaned out what we can, we'll try talking to some of the people in here. The suspicious gentlemen near the jukebox either growl at me or tell me to buzz off. I'm surprised Ladd mustered up the courage to do so. I can also talk to the robot waiter, who stops...which implies there's a purpose for that which I don't yet know. The poolshark is similarly unimportant, and the two guys at the bar I can talk to, but can't do anything real with. That leaves the bartender...who I can only ask for a drink from, and I have no money. Well, now what?

Why, go further down the street. My mistake, I didn't realize there was more to the road. There's what appears to be a strip club, with a statue of the president in front of it, so I can't show it to you, guarded by a bouncer, an alleyway, another subway entrance and an unmarked room with a massive light. Let's check that one out first, since the bouncer wants some ID and the last game I went down a suspicious alley in, there was a guy waiting for me with a knife.

That seems ominous...

It's the pawn shop, full of rare and valuable treasures, instruments, display firearms, and old electronics. On one end is a vase which has something in it. The proprietor is even nice enough to let Jack keep it...because it's an old gum wrapper. I try to combine it with the bottle lid to do the subway token trick he previously mentioned, but nothing happens. Not sure if I'm doing it wrong or the system is awkward to work. The curse of free floating items. Anyway, this is the guy I'm supposed to get work from, but he just says to try to offer him something. That just leaves the ticket I got, which is for a camera with no film.

Note the shifting coloration of Jack as he goes under light to darkness.

My only path forward is the alley, which has some stuff in it. Right at Jack's feet are a bag, a length of hose and a can of beer. To the left is a bum with a hat...containing something. Aha, this must be the coin I'm supposed to find, but trying to grab the hat results in the hobo yelling at me. Obviously, I can't argue with him, but maybe I can use the can of beer and he won't object to me taking the hat. All this results in is me losing the beer, so I reload. That hole in the back does nothing, so I head to the left.

Do you eat Eats or do Eats eat you?

Here's a food stand that Jack thinks is of very low quality, and a bunch of bikers he somehow has an even lower opinion of. I get they can be loud and obnoxious sometimes, but damn, this guy's going at them hardcore. Oddly, this place has a lot of things around to look and interact with, even if it doesn't make much sense. I find an oil can on the ground and a giant egg in the trash.

Jack also shifts in size depending on where he's in on the screen. It's not that good an effect, because he looks smushed rather than small.

This is the end of the line, a boat. There's a crate in the background, but I can't do anything to that. If you squint at those screenshots, you can see a few points of interest, a hatch, a hat and the mooring ropes. I can't pick up the mooring ropes, but I can pick up the hat. As Jack approaches, a voice calls out that there's an intruder and a robot comes out, threatening to call the police. I do the old standard of try everything on it, but no dice. Time to figure out what I missed earlier.

Looks like business is booming, if there are only two rooms and five people are waiting around...

A rather easy get on my way back to the street. I have a form of ID for the bouncer at the club, the passport. It works and I'm in...hang on, this isn't a strip club, this is a brothel. Full of nice and shiny...objects to steal. Aha...now the problem is, I'm in a brothel and I have no money. We already know this game isn't merciful, so I have to be careful here and not get thrown out and then locked out. So I decide to talk to the madam.

Operating a brothel in a place that seems to have about 20 people who are mostly low income does seem like it's not the wisest financial decision...

I'll spare you Jack's classy and elegant way of conversing to the madam, but this proves to be very rewarding. She has work for me! All I need to do is get the vase back from the pawn shop, since Ebeneezer there is charging too much, and she'll handsomely reward me. It's probably not that good a deal, but I have a reasonable objective right now. On my way out I take a cane off the ground and a perfume bottle off the table. Hey, it's not stealing if I take it in full view of everyone and they do nothing.

Unfortunately, I have nothing I can do with the vase. I can take it perfectly well, but if I try to use it on the guy or talk to him, he either says he doesn't want to buy it or does his normal dialog. If I try to go out with it, he stops me and takes it back. I can't sell anything to him, so that's out of the question. I'll need to figure something out later.

Wandering back to the bikers, I notice that I can actually speak to one of them, and I can ask him to "borrow" one of the jackets that one of his fellows is wearing. Because it's made of half credit coins. Examining the bikers does not reveal this little tidbit, by the way. Only, in order to do so, I need to do him a favor. The ornament on his bike, the "Silver Streak" was taken by the madam for "services", and he'd like it back. Which means I need to do a chain of deals type situation, once I figure out what to do to get the vase.

Something to note at this point, the mechanics of using items is strange. Some, like the perfume and the oil, are used with the pointer finger, at which point I get a special cursor. Others I have to pick up, and because the point of these cursors isn't obvious, I don't hit the right thing. Which in this game, means I drop the item somewhere. Hopefully that'll be useful and not just a measure to save inventory space. So, time to wander around and try to find something.

I spend some time in the bar hoping that Jack constantly saying how much he'd like a drink is a clue rather than him whining. If it is, I couldn't find anything. He won't drink the Newt Bru I picked up, because it's that bad. Probably the future version of poor quality malt liquor. I wander back to the pawn shop, trying some more things futilely. I mess around, until I start trying to combine the vase with other objects, and successfully combine it with the bag. Okay, this isn't going to work...and it does. What?

This allows me to continue the chain along. The madam is eager to get rid of the hood ornament, and I can "borrow" the waist coat from the biker now. I have a bag of money. Now the world is my oyster, but I should be careful not to spend it on anything wasteful. So I go to the bar to get a beer for Jack. It's too small a denomination for his till for him to give me a drink. How much does a beer cost? The robot server, nothing. Everyone else I try and fail to use it on. Even the vagrants.

By now, I'm eager to just call this session over and make a request for assistance, but then I finally make some progress. The camera, in addition to having no film, has no charge. There's a charging port on the meal truck, because it gets power from a nearby lamp. With that, what can I think of that I can use the flash from a camera on? 

Next time, watch as Jack steals an old lady's IRA account and engages in phone scams!

Why, the hobo with the hat! Just use the flash part of the camera and he's blinded! I can then take his hat like the hero I am. What's my reward for this? Loose change, which Jack at least acknowledges that I could, in theory, use the gum wrapper on if they were the right size. Well, whatever, I can at least get a drink. It's not going to do me any good, but it'll shut him up at least. I go back, sit down and give the bartender the money. Jack needs to sit down for the drink he'll get.

If this were a Superman adventure game, I'd still doubt that was a wise thing to say.

Conveniently, at this point an entirely unrelated event happens. Two gentlemen in suits, called the Garibaldi Twins, threaten the men by the jukebox. They're bounty hunters, good thing Jack doesn't have one on his head. But the guy they're after has a deflector ring, and any shots he fires deflect off. Including one to a sign. The guy in the trenchcoat tells his guard to take them out, and he takes one out before the other finishes him off. He keeps firing at the guy in the trench. For a moment, it seems the two are in a stalemate, until the man in the trench trips and gets shot, dropping his ring. The remaining Garibaldi informs us that he's available for all sorts of events, and goes for the ring. Only, someone tells the bartender he shot the sign, so the bartender finishes off the other Garibaldi, then gives Jack his change.

This new coin? It allows me to enter the subway. Trains come by, but I'm more interested in some of the items around here. There's a screwdriver stuck in an empty vending machine. Good thing I have a can of oil and can loosen it. There's also a radio cassette player off to the side, I can grab that. Hope the owner won't come after me for that. I understand people tend to be reasonably touchy about such things. Let's just get on the subway.

...and Jack won't get on the subway. It'll open, I'll click a bunch of places, and nothing happens. Except the train eventually leaves, and I wait around for the next one. It happens again, and again. So I go back to the opening entry, glad that wasn't as long ago as I thought it was. (Even if it was longer than I should have left it) Ilmari gave a link to a fix and offered his own, fiddling around with the cycles. I try that first, and nothing happens. Okay, what's the link?

It's a set of instructions in which I mess around with a serious file on my Windows folder in order to run the game in Windows without sound to get past the section as needed, without sound, then return to DOS once I'm past that. There are two issues with that. First, and I want you to imagine this in the most stereotypical nerd voice possible, I'm on Ubuntu, not Windows. I cannot edit the same files because for Windows programs, I use WINE. Also, when I use WINE on DOS programs, WINE notices this and initiates some form of DOSbox, I don't know which, I've always quit it when it starts.

I'm not entirely out of options, I'll just go to the other subway station. Where the same thing happens. Okay, that's not going to happen, well, before we fiddle around with other versions of DOSbox, let's check that Amiga version.

It's ten floppies. I'm not opposed to swapping disks, but the most recent comment on Lemon Amiga at the time of this writing is telling me there are a million disk swaps before you get to the game, and I'm not dealing with that. WHDload requires more knowledge on the system than I have, so that's also out, leaving fiddling as my only option.

Fiddling, unfortunately, seems to do nothing. It's not the sound system, because that changes nothing except that there's no sound. (An error with the game that is hardly important) It's not the crak I've been using, though I discovered that it did break the option to start with a save. My current DOSbox install is 0.74-3, and that does nothing. The official DOSbox website is more concerned with getting sound to work and the only thing I found on the subway glitch was a link to a fork of DOSbox which was last updated 11 years ago. A specific page on said fork's website which I could try to find out what it was with the Wayback Machine, but at this point I feel like I'm wasting my time with DOS.

At this point, it seems to me that there might just not be an option for me to finish the game. DOSbox doesn't seem to want to work, and the Amiga version would be incredibly frustrating. I can do the Amiga version, of course, but only if nobody has any suggestions for making it through the DOS version and people want to see more. Theoretically I could finish this now and rate it, even if I'm missing a good chunk of the game.

Inventory: Camera (no film), Giant Egg, Passport (someone else's), Cane, Tax Recipe, Oil Can, Newt Bru, Newspaper, Perfume, Gum Wrapper, Jar, Bag of Money (Half Credits), Lid, Length of Hosepipe, Ring, Hat, Radio Cassette Player, Fake Subway Token, Screwdriver

This Session: 2 hours 40 minutes

Total Time: 2 hours 45 minutes