tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3387495443226852794.post5266844305799416728..comments2024-03-29T05:52:53.051+11:00Comments on The Adventurers Guild: Missed Classic: Nord and Bert - The One Where I Flipped My LidThe Tricksterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01419316208187255801noreply@blogger.comBlogger16125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3387495443226852794.post-51561430989730908232022-12-02T11:34:28.362+11:002022-12-02T11:34:28.362+11:00Woo! Score one for pedantry!Woo! Score one for pedantry!arcanetriviahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02033767865654085177noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3387495443226852794.post-63667743122407178152022-12-02T08:29:44.213+11:002022-12-02T08:29:44.213+11:00Lisa H. I have lived my whole life without realizi...Lisa H. I have lived my whole life without realizing that the accurate phrase was 'just deserts". I had always assumed it was "desserts" as that's how it's pronounced. You enticed me to check the dictionary and I was happily surprised to discover that yes, "desert" is not only an arid land with sparse vegetation, but it can in fact also be a noun meaning "deserved reward or punishment—usually used in plural as in just deserts." Thank you for making me a tiny bit smarter.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3387495443226852794.post-51945119276385384042022-11-17T09:50:49.023+11:002022-11-17T09:50:49.023+11:00Fooblitzky sold 7,512 copies.
Nord and Bert sold...Fooblitzky sold 7,512 copies. <br /><br />Nord and Bert sold 17,043 copies.<br /><br />The Infocomics sold 12-16K copies each, except for ZQ2 which only sold 4K. <br /><br />However all of those numbers should be taken with a grain of salt because they are only up to Infocom handing over sales reporting to Activision in March 1989. Games releases closer to that cutoff don't have their long tail of sales reported. Zork Zero, for example, only has 5K sales in the leaked sales data, but most likely did much better.Joe Pranevichhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12997014242774219758noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3387495443226852794.post-6696163894491970692022-11-17T04:40:42.922+11:002022-11-17T04:40:42.922+11:00Yes! "Take Umbrage" was in my notes, but...Yes! "Take Umbrage" was in my notes, but I seem to have dropped it from the final write-up. Sorry about that. There were so many...Joe Pranevichhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12997014242774219758noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3387495443226852794.post-91524766581939042942022-11-17T02:12:00.228+11:002022-11-17T02:12:00.228+11:00I thought I remembered having to 'take umbrage...I thought I remembered having to 'take umbrage' but maybe I'm wrong.<br />I remember getting stuck on the meat being "collective of lions", I simply failed to understand what she was describing.Harwinnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3387495443226852794.post-51144381596819931212022-11-16T21:41:35.056+11:002022-11-16T21:41:35.056+11:00I think you have the number of copies of every In...I think you have the number of copies of every Infocom game released Joe (or I saw it somewhere else?) I wonder which of those two games sold moreLeo Vellésnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3387495443226852794.post-4511180401316201492022-11-16T14:35:54.959+11:002022-11-16T14:35:54.959+11:00It's pronounced the same way as "dessert&...It's pronounced the same way as "dessert", stress on the second syllable, which surely contributes to the confusion along with being a much less common word.arcanetriviahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02033767865654085177noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3387495443226852794.post-4390067508034389202022-11-16T14:34:31.533+11:002022-11-16T14:34:31.533+11:00The desert is the punishment or reward, i.e., a th...The <em>desert</em> is the punishment or reward, i.e., a thing <em>deserved.</em>arcanetriviahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02033767865654085177noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3387495443226852794.post-58020364117634414292022-11-16T14:34:21.792+11:002022-11-16T14:34:21.792+11:00Strangely, I think "Act the Part" could ...Strangely, I think "Act the Part" could have worked if it wasn't surrounded with wordplay episodes. It is doing something very different and could have been a fun "Garry Shandling Show"-like take on sitcoms with puzzles that fit the genre. As is, it sticks out from the rest of the episodes like a sore thumb. Joe Pranevichhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12997014242774219758noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3387495443226852794.post-61300682050609108722022-11-16T14:32:45.286+11:002022-11-16T14:32:45.286+11:00I have never heard the term "chef's surpr...I have never heard the term "chef's surprise" used that way although it makes sense. Google seems to think it has an altogether more vulgar meaning but I think that is their system being a little too dumb. <br /><br />In Japanese, the term is "omakase" (I believe) for asking the sushi chef to surprise you. Strange how I knew the term in Japanese without speaking Japanese but did not consider an English equivalent...Joe Pranevichhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12997014242774219758noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3387495443226852794.post-49216815279832066012022-11-16T14:29:49.497+11:002022-11-16T14:29:49.497+11:00Fooblitzky? :) I'm just looking forward to the...Fooblitzky? :) I'm just looking forward to the Infocomics...Joe Pranevichhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12997014242774219758noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3387495443226852794.post-56931560233163562022-11-16T14:29:06.768+11:002022-11-16T14:29:06.768+11:00The game used "desserts", but I thought ...The game used "desserts", but I thought it was correctly spelled with two 's'-es. The word 'dessert' had an implied finality that 'just deserts' seemed to have. I don't even know what the 'desert' in 'just deserts' means now...Joe Pranevichhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12997014242774219758noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3387495443226852794.post-38571230942036974762022-11-15T22:11:00.128+11:002022-11-15T22:11:00.128+11:00I thought "Chef's Surprise" was when...I thought "Chef's Surprise" was when you don't know in advance exactly what meal you will get, i.e. you let the chef surprise you. Except in this case the chef is the one who gets a nasty surprise.<br /><br />I don't think it ever occurred to me to try and connect the comics in the manual to anything particular in the game. Perhaps I should have, but as a non-native English speaker this was one game where I had no qualms whatsoever about looking at the hints whenever I got stuck.Torbjörn Anderssonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3387495443226852794.post-34997912035725762932022-11-15T22:06:38.095+11:002022-11-15T22:06:38.095+11:00The fact that Infocom released this game when it w...The fact that Infocom released this game when it was in serious financial troubles is really baffling. Of all their catalog, this game seems the least market appealingLeo Vellésnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3387495443226852794.post-6984476262149999052022-11-15T13:38:50.518+11:002022-11-15T13:38:50.518+11:00The chef's surprise image confuses me the more...The chef's surprise image confuses me the more I look at it. I guess that's supposed to be humble pie the chef is holding in his hands, but it looks weird. The pie dish seems to have a rounded bottom and is on a plate? Who bakes things on either of those things? I'm assuming that neither the oven or the pie is hot is just a bit of artistic license...<br /><br />That said, it feels like the game is kind of losing some steam here, since its starting to reach pretty far with its wordplay and Act the Part seems like they were running out of ideas. There's a real, what the hell, energy to it. This may be why wordplay IF are a tough niche to work in, though I understand that some manage something interesting with it.MorpheusKitamihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16591271981112642781noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3387495443226852794.post-32717457109583030902022-11-15T06:49:27.276+11:002022-11-15T06:49:27.276+11:00Sitting uneaten on a nearby (and not-yet-bussed) t...<em>Sitting uneaten on a nearby (and not-yet-bussed) table are “just desserts”. That’s an idiom! I give the waitress her “just desserts” (an appropriate reward or punishment for an action)</em><br /><br />They possibly used "desserts" on purpose for the pun (vs. it being an error), but properly it should be just <em>deserts</em>, one S.<br /><br />"Humble pie" comes from "umble pie", a meat pie made from offal.<br /><br /><em> I am being pedantic, but none of my dictionaries have “shrift” as a synonym for tablecloth and I am not sure where O’Neill got this pun from.</em><br /><br />It is a strange one. "Short shrift" was originally (late 16th century) a short period of time before a criminal's execution during which they would confess to a priest (related to the verb <em>shrive</em>, i.e. make confession and/or receive penance); the extended sense "little or no consideration" is early 19th century. Maybe O'Neill had something like short-<em>sheeting</em> in mind to relate to a (table)cloth...?<br /><br /><em>I’m not sure how obscure this is, but I know the phrase from a 1980 novelty song that was popularized by Dr. Demento, “I’d Rather Have a Bottle in Front of Me (Than a Frontal Lobotomy)”.</em><br /><br />I know the song, but it's also sometimes attributed to Dorothy Parker, which if true would put it at 1967 at the latest (her date of death) but more probably somewhere in the 1920s-1950s. Sometimes it's phrased as "I'd rather have a free bottle in front of me than a pre-frontal lobotomy".arcanetriviahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02033767865654085177noreply@blogger.com