Missed Classic: The Hound of Shadow - Won (Plus Alternate Characters and Final Rating)

Written by Vetinari

After the poppycocks of the game wiping out the file for my character just because he had been devoured by an abomination from outside of space and time, I proceeded to create another character and play all through the game again until the end.

Not really. I just edited Sven's character file with Notepad by copying the values from one of the pre-generated characters.

So, back to Blythburgh church. This time I choose to meditate, emptying myself of all conscious thoughts. And then...

Missed Classic: The Hound of Shadow – Appointment with Death

Written by Vetinari

Last time we were asked by Father Paul Mason to find out the nature of the beast that killed Matthew Talbot. A good place to search for that would be the Reading Room at the British Museum, but obviously without knowing the name of a book to retrieve, the library is almost useless. I do not know of any other source of knowledge (except for Marcus, who is characteristically close-mouthed about any topic of which I ask), so I am a little bit lost here.

The list of verbs does not give any particular hint (I already tried searching almost everywhere I thought there could possibly be something hidden), so I resort to checking back my screenshots and notes. And I find out that when Marcus gave me the Gascoigne Journal to read, he took it back but said that I could read it as long as it would not leave the shop.

Marcus drops a hint.

So I immediately ask him to show me the Gascoigne Journal, and he reluctantly does so. Apparently, Gascoigne talks about the Plateau of Leng and some of the terrible creatures that reside there, saying that Von Juntz's book has more details. But... I already read Von Juntz's book...

Missed Classic: The Hound of Shadow - By the Pricking of My Thumbs

Written by Vetinari

Next morning, I wake up to a surprise. The landlady, Mrs Bastable, announces that a visitor, a young lady, is waiting for me in the lounge.

Now, I haven't mentioned anything about a landlady up to now, and I can hear what you're saying: of course there's a landlady, all sleuths (especially ones who live in London, and in Marylebone, no less) have a landlady. No! You are thinking of Victorian sleuths! Golden Age sleuths have no landladies, only secretaries!

She's no Miss Lemon, but Nikki Porter comes a close second.

Anyway, going to the lounge I find that this mysterious visitor is none other than Yasmin the maid/assistant from the séance. She says that her real name is Vivienne Powers and that Harry Pelham, a.k.a. the Adept Karmi, has not been right since the other night. Nightmares, headaches, depression, the whole package that you can expect after having had a close encounter with occult and malevolent forces.

Missed Classic: Hound of Shadow - A Murder is Announced

Written by Vetinari

Whoever may have had an however fleeting or passing acquaintance with other famous Lovecraft-adjacent games (or even just stood downwind of someone who had), when faced with a title like The Hound of Shadow knows exactly what to expect: one of the most iconic creatures in the Cthulhu Mythos, the Hound of Tindalos.

The main characteristic of these creatures is that once a human becomes known to them as a prey, they will pursue the victim through anything to reach their quarry.

Say hello to my little friend.

So, starting the game proper I had quite a good idea of what I would be facing, at least in terms of the main antagonist. Something relentless, that would hunt down the investigator without mercy wherever and whenever he would be.

Missed Classic 128: The Hound of Shadow - Introduction (1989)

Written by Vetinari

The Hound of Shadow is the first of two games created by British developer Eldritch Games and based on the Cthulhu Mythos by Lovecraft.

This game is a bit of a precursor to the other Lovecraftian games which were all the rage in the first half of the 1990s, such as Alone in the Dark, Shadow of the Comet or Prisoner of Ice, but still it was published two years later than Infocom's The Lurking Horror.

Eldritch Games was the child of software designers Chris Elliott and Richard Edwards, who created the company specifically to develop the Timeline computer games series, of which unfortunately only this game and its later sequel (Daughter of Serpents) were ever created.

Elliot and Edwards. I doubt that this was taken during a normal day at the office.

The other credits for this game are Mike Lewis, who is credited with the lion's share of the programming, and Carl Cropley as the graphic artist.

Missed Classic - Gram Cats (グラムキャッツ) - Won and Summary

Written by Morpheus Kitami

Despite this joke, I did not get plastered during the playing or writing of this review, though I probably should have.

Right, let's get this over with. Apologies for the delays, half of that is down to an awful Japanese game I played on my own blog, which, funnily enough uses more complex language than this adult game, and half is...well, you'll see.

Missed Classic: Gram Cats - Go Mad Yourself!

 Written by Morpheus Kitami

Apparently this agency isn't as secret as I thought if they have the logo outside their HQ...

Last time, our heroine with ESP, Sayaka had just been sent to a school full of aliens by Eagle, Earth's defense organization of questionable morality. Why? Because the aliens eat people, males, mostly, so we're sending a woman in, alone, because, well, she probably isn't going to be brutally murdered. Granted, with this kind of game it's less probable that she's going to be murdered. First anyway.

Anyway, new commands I've gotten since I've arrived are take, give, strike and enter. What Sayaka is going to hit, well, I doubt the usefulness of that command. Sayaka can change clothes here, to some kind of...very '80s shirt, and not back to her uniform. Apparently that's one of the selling points, clothing changes. Frankly, it looks worse than Sierra and Lucasarts, but what do I know?

What adventure games have been missing is the ability to explore a dungeon.

And much like Eagle HQ, the school is a dungeon, only less chance to wander around. Advance, return, those are the first two commands. As I'm on the third floor of the dormatory, there's not much point in wandering around. Nobody's going to answer Sayaka if she tries walking into random rooms.

Missed Classic 120: Gram Cats - Introduction (1989)

 Written by Morpheus Kitami

That title is unreadable, but don't worry, that's just this game's text

It's been a while, and I don't really bring tidings of a great new game for you all to sink your teeth into. I bring you today the first in what will be a large number of Japanese adult anime games. Can I call it that? I get the feeling if I mention what this actually is there would be consequences. Now, of course, the first question you have is, Morpheus, why?

Missed Classic 113 - Last Half of Darkness (1989)

 Written by Morpheus Kitami

You ever get a sign that you should do something? Its not something I frequently see or even think of, but sometimes it feels like these things just...happen. Sometimes it works out, sometimes it doesn't. In the lead-up to this month's Halloween a game name kept cropping up. The Last Half of Darkness, well, there's no the, is there? I was randomly seeing the game crop up. Sometimes even, that image. If you don't know what I mean you will soon enough. Considering that 3 out of the last 4 professional adventure games I've tried were crap, we might as well see what the more amateur side of adventure gaming.

Back when I was a small, impressive child with access to a shareware CD I played a lot of shareware adventure games, with mixed results. The Hugo series was...the Hugo series. Elves '87 I wasn't terribly interested in actually playing and instead tried to play it as a beat 'em up. Uh, Dare to Dream and Weird Island were later. Come to think of it this disc didn't even have Hugo 2. Not really sure why in retrospect. Standards didn't apply because there was crap worse than Hugo 2. Then there was this.

Oh, certainly, there were other adventure games on the disc I had, and indeed more still on other discs, but this was the one I played the most at the time. I'm not really sure why in retrospect. It's not very special. Though I guess that really just describes shareware adventure games outside of Dare to Dream and maybe Plague of the Moon. Well, in Plague's case I haven't played it, but I hope to be able to blog about it some day. I guess there was Isle of the Dead there too, but I never mustered up the courage to play it. It wouldn't have been much fun anyway.

Missed Classic: Personal Nightmare - Won! (and Final Rating)

By Morpheus Kitami

Ah, metahumor is always great in a serious horror game...

You know, this all turned out a lot easier than I thought it would be. In the sense that this was some unfathomable tanglement of impossibility.

I can talk to Peter in his house, fat lot of good that'll do, and no, he isn't pointing a gun at me

Guess it's time to stake out people's houses. Susan stays at home until about 11:00, then heads over to the right. At midnight she enters/walks past Peter's house. Walking past is a glitch, because she won't appear on the next screen. Well, better go back to the Inn. I keep forgetting it's name of The Dog & the Duck, so much so that I'm not even sure that's right.

This is a pretty cool effect, though the death isn't terribly impressive

As I walk towards the inn, suddenly the scene changes and I can see two headlights. Clearly, whoever ran over Jimmy is now after me. The first time I just get run over, but pretty quickly it's clear that I can move around, with north and south dodging, west and east just resulting in him chasing me. For what purpose? I try to think about how I could possibly solve this.

Missed Classic: Personal Nightmare - Mail Quest

Written by Morpheus Kitami

Once again I apologize for the delay between entries. There is a lot of tedium in this game. One might say this is the flaw in playing old games, but often whenever I end up playing modern games I'm not working past tedium to get to the good parts, the game itself is just tedious. So I often put a bit of breaks between...well, you can figure out why pretty quickly.

There was nothing special about the month, I just happened to accidentally start it the same month that it mentions.

So I decided to stake out some places, figure out when and where people arrive and leave their locations. With one house with an unknown occupant, I decided that would be where I began. As I walked out onto the street, I noticed a car driving by and had a better thought. Stake out the mechanic!

You can't really interact with people moving around,

Missed Classic: Personal Nightmare - Shadow Thief

 Written by Morpheus Kitami

I just want to let those of you with a nervous disposition know that this is probably not the entry for you.

Now that I've seen the big opening event of Jimmy Rutherford getting run down, we can take a look at the whole village. Its a small place, really, just a confusing street that's about 10 screens wide with 2 sides of it. Navigation is confusing, since directions don't properly work the way the image is given, which is unfortunate since this is supposed to be a graphic adventure. Actually, this is quite crap as a graphic adventure, and you'll see why pretty quickly.

The most obvious destination is the church, the game really brings your attention to it. Since we need to come here anyway, we'll start here. I say this, but there's not really anything here that I can find yet. There's the pews, the office and a statue. I should note that modern storefronts all spoil what you're supposed to do here, which is say a prayer in here. If there's something else, I don't know. The game makes a point that my father doesn't have any religious books in his office. Curious. The desk in here is locked, of course.

Apparently the house is a ghost

Behind the church is the graveyard. Lots of gravestones, but outside of a large cross, seemingly nothing of note. There's a door to some house here, but the door is locked. So much for people in the countryside leaving their door open. And to complete the area, there's a mausoleum. I wonder what's in there?

Missed Classic 110: ...A Personal Nightmare (1989) - Introduction

By Morpheus Kitami 

As an aside before I get to the main event, I would like to engage in a little self-promotion. For a while now I've had my own blog, about FPS and other shooters. Stuff like Doom, Wing Commander, Jazz Jackrabbit and the ilk. Currently, I divide games by FPS and everything else, and I'm near the end of 1989 and 1982 respectively. It is interesting, if you can stand most games from 1982 not being good.

https://almostafamine.blogspot.com/

 Box Office was apparently K-Mart's bargain software label, box art taken from Mobygames

Adventure International, as I'm sure you are aware, was Scott Adams's company, responsible for some of the first major home computer text adventures. Known for simple prose and later, simple graphics, these games were sold entirely on the merit of their puzzles, and for a time this went well. So well that eventually people in other lands started importing them, making the dreams of one very American company come true. In the UK, another company also calling itself Adventure International, imported Adams's titles and put them on such platforms as the BBC Micro and ZX Spectrum.

And for a time this too went well, even after the death of their "parent" company they went along, first with games from other American companies, then with originals. Previously, Alex played Robin of Sherwood: The Touchstones of Rhiannon, which was based on a TV series. This was done with a modified version of the SAGA engine, or Scott Adams Graphical Adventure engine. Quite a few obscure licenses, which I'm sure appear on some clickbait Youtube video about 23 obscure licensed video games (Number 16 will cause you to lose control of your legs for the next six years).

Missed Classic: The Kristal - Lost and Final Rating

 Written by Morpheus Kitami

How I'm feeling right about now

Before I talk about the last parts of The Kristal, I'm going to talk about the part I glossed over, the stage play. At least, what allegedly exists of the stage play. All I know for certain is what Mike Sutin has said about it. I cannot confirm that what he has said is true or not, because as far as I know, no one named Mike Sutin has ever done anything in the world of theater. Nor has his co-author, Rodney Wyatt, ever done anything either. I do know that Wyatt is American though. I know nothing of theater or searching for topics relating to the theater and Sutin claims to be a stage manager, which isn't something that seems to be mentioned in American productions, let alone the kind Sutin was working on.

The play, under the title The Kristal of Konos was originally a comedy musical, which I jokingly guessed correctly. Sutin thought up this play while touring with the original productions of Hair and Jesus Christ Superstar in Spain, 1975/76. Sutin, who was a stage manager and did backdrops for Pink Floyd. It was never produced, nor did any of the soundtrack ever get released. Which, according to Sutin in two different articles, either was the full soundtrack containing Elaine Page [sic] and the entire cast of Hair, or some with Elaine Page [sic] and the cast and musicians of Jesus Christ Superstar.

Two members of the team are famous in their work outside of game design, namely, the astronomer Patrick Moore who narrated the opening movie; And artist David A. Hardy, credited without his initial doing the backgrounds.

I do not lean towards it being true, but it's weird enough to lie about that at least some parts are based in truth. TV or movies it would make sense to lie about, but theatre? Nobody in video games cares about theatre. Sutin was probably a stage manager and the play probably exists. There is no recording, and if it is, it's in Spanish, with the Spanish cast of Jesus Christ Superstar and it sounds like this. I'm pretty sure musicals don't really tour like musicians do, especially in 1976. And there is no chance Elaine Paige is on it, because she was nobody in 1976 and she was also doing some play called The Boyfriend.

Missed Classic 105 - The Kristal (1989) - Introduction

Written by Morpheus Kitami 

Some time ago, I think after Legacy's reign of terror, I noticed that there were a couple of mainline games that had yet to be claimed, Cosmic Spacehead and Innocent Until Caught, so I asked Ilmari if I could claim those, and he said sure. I thought I'd just get all those titles these companies did beforehand now, rather than when they come up on the games list. They are admittedly still a few games away. 

Cosmic Spacehead was published by Codemasters, known at this point for Micro Machines, the Dizzy games and trash. None of the games they published were really adventure games. Dizzy sort of approaches that, but its comfortably far enough away to not be a concern. I feel like the games from the next company have far more validity to the adventure label and I'm not really about to play those now either. Or at least that's what I thought. I must have missed one title on my first passthrough, Necris Dome. However, Necris Dome is a case I don't really think fits too well with Codemasters, since the author, one Charles A. Sharp, did about 13 text adventures in the 1986-88 period, of which only one was published by Codemasters. I might dip into his titles, but not anytime soon. 

On the other hand Innocent Until Caught was published by Psygnosis, who were kind of a big deal. While the company responsible for Innocent did nothing of importance here beforehand, Psygnosis...kind of did? Psygnosis, if you don't know, back during the days of the Amiga and Atari ST, was a game publisher with high production values. A combination of having staff artists who knew their way around the systems, having Roger Dean, best known for his album covers, do the cover art. From their founding up until around 1993 they were the company to beat if you wanted to have an impressive audio-visual experience with your game. Now, the part they sometimes missed was that they didn't always have the best gameplay to go along with that. 

Ultimately, its not really a secret as to why Psygnosis hasn't been covered before, since they primarily dealt in action games. Some of these I understand have adventure elements, but they're not straight adventure games, its not that important. They did translate the French adventure game series Explora into English as Chrono Quest, but they missed the last game in the series and it kind of doesn't feel like Psygnosis in that regard. 

Our hero doesn't look like he's winning here, he's also missing a mustache

Missed Classic: Legend of Djel - Won! (With Final Rating)

By Ilmari

Happened so far: Djel the Magician has to prove himself to people of the Kingdom of Ashes by solving three plights caused by three magicians from the neighboring countries. He has already dealt with an infertility problem by finding his beloved who happens to be also a daughter of Azeulisse, a ruler of a nearby kingdom. Now his has to just cure the magician Theros, thus ending a plague that has destroyed almost everyone in the Kingdom of Ashes, and to find gold for pauper Kal, who is using the hunger-induced raids of his subjects as a way to blackmail Djel.

Last time I had just received a statue from magician Theros (and Kal had taken back the one he gave me), so I begun by visiting Theros.

I really wonder where all these wizards sleep.

Missed Classic 31: Legend of Djel (1989) - Introduction

By Ilmari

While Joe is busy completing Zork 1, let's get a step further in our history of early Coktel Vision games - what did they do before games like Bargon Attack? Doing a quick summary of games that have been covered so far, Mewilo was an unknown classic, Freedom was barely an adventure game, Operation Getafix was too small and simple, and Emmanuelle… well, I guess we all remember what Emmanuelle was like. With a track record like this, it is hard to know what to expect from the next game designed by Muriel Tramis.

There’s magic! And dragons! And obligatory eye candy with ridiculous clothing!

Missed Classic: Antheads: It Came From the Desert II - WON! and Final Rating

Written by TBD

Brick Nash Journal Entry: With the information I found in the hospital basement the antheads are no longer a problem. The giant ants themselves however are being destructive enough without their half-human brethren, and now I've been put in charge of the defenses of Lizard Breath. Being a man of action, I give a cursory look at our defense strategy but decide to commandeer myself a plane and deal with the ant queen in her own environment. To the nest!

Now that the town's put me in charge I can go to the police station to assign the army, police, construction workers and townspeople to whatever locations I choose to fight off the ants. I didn't bother much with this screen, I just sent all my troops to defend two locations – the airport and the M3 mine. I figured I'd need a plane and the M3 mine seemed to be where the action was in this game.

I then went straight to the airport to get a plane. I had to convince Louie I should be able to fly without a license.

I won't tell you which option I chose in order to convince him

After a few screens of non-interactive dialogue where I explained my Korean flight experience and we exchanged national stereotype insults, I got to the plane screen. The ants had beaten me to the airport, however, so I had to do a combination of fighting them off and avoiding them before I could take off. Eventually I got the plane safely off the ground.

Without a liberal use of save states I'd probably still be stuck at the airport

Missed Classic 4: The Scoop - Final Rating

Written by Kenny McCormick

 Finally, I can take off my rose-tinted glasses and start getting really critical on this game. I had fun while it lasted but that sudden ending really sucks. Do they have cellphones in the 1920s? Now, the gloves are off. Get ready for my punching, Telarium!

Puzzles and Solvability

As an adventure game, The Scoop lacks the “use this on that” convention so widely and prevalently used by its contemporary peers. Instead, you use it to show it to people whom are most likely to have certain knowledge of these items to unlock more people you could ask about or even new locations. It is rather refreshing but lacks a certain action-y part that may endear it even further to adventure buffs. Since there is only one big puzzle to solve, I will have to be pretty harsh on this and give it a 2; 1 point for the murder and another 1 point for creativity.

Rating: 2

Interface and Inventory
Its no-nonsense Interface is very clean and user-friendly. Inventory, however, is not sorted out in a more bird’s-eye-view manner and relies on the player to scroll through each of them one-by-one with the arrow keys. Serviceable but not astounding. What is great, though, is that there are no pixel-hunting nightmares. You only need to click the Search command followed by a Take command (if there is something to be taken) to grab your shit.

Rating: 6

Story and Setting

It’s written by Agatha Christie and 5 other accomplished mystery writers. That’s 6 writers. Repeat after me, S-I-X. Very good! Joking aside, this game is chock full of content. Each NPC have loads to say about one another and so many locations to visit that one could get lost in it. This is no easy feat for a game that has no stupid mazes to entrap players. 1 point for each writer!

Rating: 6

Sound and Graphics

The monochrome backgrounds do a good job in lulling you into thinking of an old-timey black-&-white noir thriller. Juxtaposing that with brightly-clothed characters that burst out of the screen that demand your full attention whenever they appear and you have a never-before-seen application of this pop-art style in this medium. It will not be until 1998 when we see a similar attempt in the Movies, Games & Videos sector. That said, the character portraits look horrible. Also, there is no music other than the little introduction ditty. Sounds are limited to the little steps your character make while walking and the screeching of tires made by taxis.

Rating: 4

Environment and Atmosphere

I’m a little torn here. On one hand, we have a huge gaming arena filled with many real-life locations. On the other, probably because of aforementioned pop-art style, the game gives a more Andy Warhol vibe rather than a Film Noir vibe. The locations fail to give me an “I was there!” feeling as I felt more alienated to the black-&-white background because of the characters’ colors.

Rating: 2

Dialogue and Acting

This is where The Scoop truly shines. Each character has his/her own agenda. All of them are colorful, not only because of the graphics used, but because of their pronounced differences from each other. You only need see Fisher once to remember him as that Rich Fat Boy.

Rating: 7

Total

We have a nice round number of 45. Closest guess was Andy Panthro's. Congratulations! I’m off for a second run. This time, as a hot chick!

Cap Distribution

50 CAPs for Kenny McCormick

• Classic Blogger Award – 50 CAPs – For blogging his way through The Scoop for our enjoyment

231 CAPs for Canageek

• Biched Bicipitous Bicorn Bibbing Bibulously? Bibble-babble! - 25 CAPs - For finding new innuendos for Kenny
• Mega Genre Support Award - 201 CAPs - For announcing plenty of sales
• Meticulour Linker Award - 5 CAPs - For linking each played game to a library of DOS games

50 CAPs for Joe Pranevich

• Classic Blogger Award – 50 CAPs – For blogging his way through Merry Christmas for our enjoyment

20 CAPs for El Zoof

• Cartographer Award - 20 CAPs - For finding out what's missing in Joe's map on Adventure

 20 CAPs for Kenjab

• What's Your Story -Award - 20 CAPS - For sending in answers for What's Your Story -questions

20 CAPs for Laertes

• What's Your Story -Award - 20 CAPS - For sending in answers for What's Your Story -questions

20 CAPs for Aperama

• Barber Award - 5 CAPs - For recognizing Sonny Bonds' hair
• Black or White Award - 5 CAPs - For revealing the ultimate fate of Michael Jackson
• Biscuit Award – 5 CAPs – For finding new innuendos for Kenny
• Crow Award - 5 CAPs - For guessing Kenny's movie quote

15 CAPs for Rowan Lipkovits

• Christmas Spirit Award – 15 CAPs – For finding three Christmas themed games for Joe Pranevich

15 CAPs for Andy Panthro

• Psychic Prediction Award - 10 CAPs - For getting the closest prediction for the final rating
• Christmas Spirit Award – 5 CAPs – For finding a game involving Santa Claus for Joe Pranevich

 15 CAPs for TBD

• Birrotch Award – 5 CAPs – For finding new innuendos for Kenny
• Genre Support Award - 5 CAPs - For announcing a sale on Steam
• Genre Support Award - 5 CAPs - For announcing a sale on GOG

5 CAPs for Deimar

• Genre Appreciation Award – 5 CAPs – For linking to a library of DOS games

5 CAPs for Laukku

• Genre Appreciation Award – 5 CAPs – For announcing a preorder of Grim Fandango Remastered

Missed Classic 4: The Scoop - LOST!

by Kenny McCormick

Kenny’s filthy notebook (with a frustrated looking smiley pulling out his own hair) legible page #10: Scotland Yard? I’m seriously disappointed with you guys. Don’t you solve crimes, serve the community & protect the people? Do I pay you taxes just so that I can say “Officers, arrest that man!” (even though that statement is totally badass and worth every penny to do it)?

Following up with my misadventures earlier, I have finished the game. There are things that I would do differently on my next play-through to win the game but I won’t be blogging about it. It was definitely longer than what I had expected and what you desired. I should have blogged about The Sex Olympics or one of those Japanese Adult Adventure Visual Novels or Hentai Eroge.

Since Scotland Yard could not do anything to help, I went to Fisher’s house to find something that could get him off the hook that Hemingway had so brilliantly set him up for. I may not be able to incriminate the killer but I could still try to vindicate the innocent.

Hey! This wasn’t here before!

Dammit. This game is so time-sensitive; it worries me to no end that I may have missed out some time-specific events, clues and/or items. I’m sure that my waiting-around for things to happen in the last couple of days will come back to bite me in the arse and probably stick its long spiky tongue into my tender rectum.

Whoa! How does a housekeeper staying in a run-down hovel manage to pay off 500 big ones back in the 1920s (about US$3,700 today) in full without selling her own body parts is anybody’s guess.

I took a trip to Brighton and boarded the bus to Jumbles where Gladys lived to ask her about it but she remained tight-lipped about it. Beeyotch. Wasted 2 hours of my life. So, I just went back to sleep.

The powers of my clairvoyance know no bounds.

After a good night’s rest, I took a cab down to The Morning Star to meet up with Inspector Smart to see if my clues up till now are enough to warrant an arrest of Hemingway.

Dammit! I missed a key event last night!

I guess I’m too early since Smart’s still not here. Might as well pick up the papers for the day while I’m at it.

Tracey, Oh Tracey! Wherefore art thou?

Arthur Potts is linked with drug smuggling, eh? Explains the amount of money he earns. Just as well that he’s promised to grant me an interview today. I’ll talk to him later. But, what’s this?

Yoink!

Hmm… Who’s G?

With time to spare, I made my way to Beryl’s home to check out if I could find any clues.

Nope.

Maybe her neighbor?

What the?!

Oh Fisher, you sure act fast for someone so fat. Girl-on-top-like-bouncing-on-trampoline as usual? What does the girl have to say for herself?

An all-nighter, eh? Guess the Beryl-Beater ain’t here.

Seeing that I could get nothing done here, I left for Southampton to meet up with Potts for the interview. Finally, I caught him at home around 9am and began questioning him.

Who and where the hell is he?! Why doesn’t even the brother know?!

And yet, I am hypnotized by his oddly soothing movements…

So would I, that beeyotch.

Yeah. Now she’s Amethyst Fatmanwaring.

That’s not the kind of expression I was expecting when talking about a recent dearly departed. Fishy…

That, I did. You certainly didn’t kill Geraldine but Johnson?

Oh, really! Does business include Johnson-stabbing? Wait, that came out wrong.

And I’m sure you won’t need glue to stick it up there, eh? Eh? Eh?

Having exhausted all I could ask of Potts, I went to the pub in the vicinity and found a new NPC. Dammit.

It’s Leisure Suit Larry in a hat! And facial hair!

He certainly looks like an undercover Sonny Bonds-type.

See the following picture to prove that I ain’t bullshitting about that, mate.

Is it a nod to Police Quest? I don’t know but I’m gonna talk to this guy anyway.

Teehee! Smallpiece

Oh, so he’s the cop who has been hunting Potts. Don’t worry. I may be a Master Thief but I ain’t no drug peddler. I may hail from part of the UK but I ain’t no colonial drug pusher

Whoa! You followed Potts’ trail all the way from Egypt? Commendable!

So, what’s this then? A side quest?

A drug trafficking sister-lover! Do his sins know no end?

Yes, that’s what reporters do: solve crimes. Games like Police Quest got it totally wrong.

Yeah, I got that. But Johnson?

Sounds like a total perv.

Odd. Potts didn’t have much to say about her though.

Ah… a World Heritage Site.

Yeah, yeah. Potts didn’t kill Geraldine, I know.

Damn, what?! So, this letter is just a coded message for dirt merchants and not some hot sibling incest thingy?

After finally unravelling my longtime suspicion of Potts and Geraldine, I made my way to Pyecraft to find out more about that crumpled note that Hemingway wrote

Not covering for your friend, are you?

Once again, dead-ended, I went back to the Morning Star to meet up with Smart at the entrance.

For f*ck’s sake, do your job already!

Not sure if I could achieve anything, I showed him the Promissory Note I found in Fisher’s Office.

Yup.

That definitely did not achieve anything. Perhaps if I confronted Hemingway directly in his own office?

It’s a deal! Remember that, Hemingway!

Whoa! Easy does it!

Yeah, typical Agatha Christie style.

Mayhaps I should talk to Redman?

Still nothing. I’m at my wit’s end. I made my way down to The Cheshire Cheese pub beside The Morning Star to drown my virtual sorrows. Redman was in there too, also drowning his sorrows.

Why aren’t you called Greenman? Y’know, since London Bobby is a London Bobby and Flower Boy is a Flower Boy…

What? This isn’t even at Victoria’s Secret level of flesh exposure!

Johnson’s a nasty bugger with a naughty name, ain’t he?

Baubles? I’m a goddamn Master Thief! You? You’re just a Baiter! A Master Bai- uh… next item!

Oh, I’d like to see you try, old man in green.

And immediately after leaving that conversation, I suddenly received a telepathic message directly from my useless boss with a pathetic newspaper running with a financially unsound business model:

Oh, don’t worry about that. I’ll be at The Morning Star. Harhar! Loser.

And that concludes my play-through. I might not have caught the killer, but I got a better job at The Morning Star with Hemingway as my boss and a pouch filled with gemstones. All in all, I’m set for life. Until I get stabbed in a phone booth in the (hopefully, far far) future.