Malcolm’s Revenge - She's Got a Pad on Thirty-Fourth and Vine

In the olden days, just like now, too much trash filling our landfills.

Written by Michael

This post will be a little shorter; I only did some preliminary exploration and got the lay of the land, but see a couple of puzzles I'll need to solve.

So, we start off the game with our friend Malcolm crawling out from under a pile of junk; the statue of him was discarded with several other useless things long ago.

Clicking around the screen, we can pick up several broken and seemingly useless items; since this is a Kyrandia game, I expect there are extras and they respawn, but time will tell.  Broken flasks (possibly just a callback to the last game, where we needed them to mix potions), a used shoe of Brandon’s (maybe we will make a voodoo doll), an orange peel, a broken saw (from the first game?), and a rusty nail.

Maybe they put it in a storage unit for us?

Exploring around, we come across some scenes familiar, some new.  The entry gate to the castle looks familiar to the first game...

Take me away.

...but I don’t remember teleportation pods in the previous game.  Malcolm hints at their existence, though, when he notices that “they’ve renovated the old transporters.”  Let’s check it out!

Break on through to the other side.

We come across a bunch of buildings, apparent businesses and the like, and the one in the foreground is closed up tight with a padlock.  I whip out my rusty nail and expertly pick the lock.  The game awards me some “Common thug Points” which are added to my total on the inventory pop-up.  More importantly, I can enter.  Also, my nail is now bent.  Wonder what that will be needed for.

Santa bought one and immediately laid off half the elves.

In this room is a toy machine, and a book of blueprints.  Clicking on the book, we can’t read it, but it shows the ghost image of a toy.  Nothing really useful right now unless I have some raw ingredients.  I wonder what I’ll need.

I follow that door into the back, and we find Malcolm’s apartment.  From the manual (that little bit of reading I did back in the introduction post) I know that I’ll find Malcom’s staff here.  It ends up being hidden out of sight, found by just clicking in the right place at the right time.  It goes into the spot on my inventory screen, not taking up one of the 10 inventory spaces.

Oh, yeah, we’re back to ten spaces instead of the upgrade to twenty in the second game.

Look at this photograph; Every time I do, it makes me laugh

Other items in the room?  There’s a photo album, we can leaf through, with pictures of many of the people we read about in the manual.

He’s got something to say about everyone in there, and he likes very few of them.

I don’t think we’ll need to memorize the family tree from this, but it’s back here for reference if we do.

Around the room, some fun: if I click on the bed, he undresses and goes to sleep.  The dartboard?  “Where’s Kallak’s picture?”  The table the book is on is his old trick table from jester school, but I can’t seem to do anything with it.  Am I missing something, or is it just a description?  We shall see, I suppose.

A picture taken at the last TAG reunion.

Leaving the factory, checking out some of the other spots in this cul-de-sac, there’s a “Fish Cream Parlour” that is loaded with people.  Malcolm, much like me, is disgusted with the overabundance of people, and suggests he needs to come up with a distraction to get rid of them.

This isn’t a LucasArts game, so I don’t think I can climb in the back window to pick up my grail diary, so I’ll file this in the back of my head as a puzzle to solve.  I don’t know why I need to clear the room yet, though.

Yet another game I’m playing where I need to pick up a log laying around.

Exploring to the east of the factory, I trip over a log near a pile of some more (and earn some “Travel agent Points”).  My bad conscience thinks I should do it to someone else.  So, I decide to grab some wood for myself.  

I'm going down to Yasgur's Farm, gonna join in a rock 'n' roll band

On another nearby screen, I come across a dairy farm, specifically the feeding area.  I don’t have anything appropriate to put in the hopper, and I don’t see any livestock.  But I grab some grain.

It’s all French to me.  Or something like that.

On random screens, I sometimes come across a gentleman, I’m presuming he’s meant to be something like Dutch, but that’s just my American ignorance (and pop culture experience) coming to me.  His words are not any language Google Translate recognizes, so for now, I’ll assume it’s just made up, and we’ll have to find a way to translate and communicate with him.

Fun for the whole family.

On another screen, I find the town arena.  There’s a spiral walking path, with some footprints in the cement, but I can’t seem to interact with that.  There’s a large frog in the background with which I can, but it just opens its mouth and bounces a little.

I have no words for this.  I’m speechless.

Next screen over?  A mime, and a box for entry to something that costs a cent.  Sadly, I’m penniless.

Back to the first game again.

Exploring some more, I watch our friend Zanthia from the last game fly in as a pegasus and land at the landing pad.  She’s not too happy to see us.  She tells us to leave town.

A kiss from a rose on a grave.

Another familiar sight to the first game, the queen’s grave.  A ghost tells us the toll to talk to the queen is two flowers.

In many of the screens, you may have seen flowers on bushes, but all of them run away when you click on them.  So, another puzzle, figuring out how to freeze or stun the flowers perhaps, or if they are red herrings. find some others?

I put a spell on you.

Another one of the buildings in the cul-de-sac can now be visited, because Zanthia is there.  Of course, she immediately asks us (tells us) to leave.  Not just the lodge, but town itself.

So, this is where I will pause for now.  I’ve made almost no progress, but got some exploration in.  Next time, hopefully I’ll get something done.

Session time: 30 minutes

Total time: 30 minutes