What’s Your Story - The Mara

Answers: The Mara
Introduction and captions:  Ilmari

If there has been one commenter of this blog that everyone knows, it must be Canageek - that eager critic of silly adventure game plots, voracious hunter of CAPs and lover of all things geek. Of course, he hasn’t always kept up with the progress of the blog, but like a Phoenix, he has always risen from the ashes renewed. But just around the time when Trickster gifted this blog to his followers, Canageek was getting more and more behind the blog schedule. This time it was serious, this time something had got him. And that something had a name - Mara.

Just as we thought we had lost our fine Canadian fellow for good, a voice appeared in the posts of old. We had gained a new reader, for Canageek had convinced Mara to take up the challenge of reading the whole history of our blog. In the months to come, she moved gradually, post by post, nearer to this day. And now the time has come to introduce you to Mara properly.

Fascinating, she would appear to be from Vulcan

Leisure Suit Larry 5 – Hot Plate Heaven at the Green Hotel

Written by Alex

As Patti leaves Baltimore behind and settles in for her long limo ride up to Philadelphia, the scene returns to Larry, dreaming about riding a gondola with Patti through the streets of Venice. Of course, we know that his reverie doesn’t end well. This time, the gondola springs a leak, and Larry makes a rather uncomfortable discovery upon awakening . . .

C’mon Larry!

Spellcasting 201 - A Tourguide's Work Is Never Done

By Aperama

A Tourguide to Spellcasting U!
Welcome! You've made it, finally. All of those years of neglect from your parents are behind you now! You're at the premiere college of Sorcery, Wizardry and Other Magical Type Things: Sorcerer's University. To give you a full and proper idea of the sort of fun, education and quite possibly, hijinks you might be in for, we're going to follow one of our most famous students. Only in his sophomore year, Ernie Eaglebeak has had far more excitement than the average student, having both left University grounds to search up **REDACTED** and **REDACTED** Ernie even won a trophy for it! So, given this is an average lazy Sunday for Ernie, he starts in the Simulation Lab – a solid three hour treatment carefully studying his use of magic. Naturally, for the experienced Ernie, the simulation is just a matter of carefully crafted sorcery. He succeeds, leaving some animated bananas to do all of his work for him – after all, why wouldn't a future Sorcery Superstar? This is Pledge Week for Ernie, and he has fallen into the venerable halls of the Hu Delta Phart fraternity. He starts his day with a delicious plate of casserole from the Cafeteria, spending a short amount of time at the on-campus Pub. Naturally, he's a tee-totaller, but it still gives him a chance to look around the Student Union, taking his time to walk through Meltingwolf Hall, his old freshman haunts in Frogkisser House – and then heads through Yakbladder Quad to his own room back at the hallowed halls of HDP, just one of the many fraternities here at SU. Lucky Ernie has an envelope waiting for him on his bed from his former Professor and the new Dean of SU, Otto Tickingclock himself! He rushes down to meet up with the Professor at his requests, and **REDACTED** That's just one day in the life of an SU student! Join up today!

The University has grown big-time!
(I skipped several rooms that I guessed had nothing of note in them,
 e.g. all of the upstairs of the fraternities)

Timequest - Final Rating

Written by Reiko

Before I get to the rating, I should point out that there are a lot of optional activities in the game. Ilmari mentioned some of them early on, most of which I forgot to try. I found a few of them as I went along, like trying to get the sludge in Rome, or giving the loose board to the innkeeper, or triggering the failed futures. If you want to know more of these, you can always read the hintbook online (http://www.mocagh.org/legend/tq-hintbook.pdf).

To be quite honest, I found Timequest to be a mixed bag overall. I had a lot of nostalgia for the game since I'd played it a long time ago, but I hadn't gotten very far then and certainly hadn't gotten to the ending. I did have a lot of fun playing it, and I'm glad I had the opportunity to go through it carefully with you all and finish it (as I am usually terrible about actually finishing games I start). At the same time, the graphics were sometimes beautiful and sometimes cringe-worthy, and the parser responsiveness was quite uneven. The story went from a tense chase through time to a leisurely stroll through time, culminating in an implausibly convoluted reason for it happening in the first place. Let's unpack these concerns in their individual categories.

Leisure Suit Larry 5 – What’s New in Baltimore?

Written by Alex

Avoiding the groping from her limo driver, Patti alights in Baltimore, outside of the majestic Shaft building, home of des Rever Records and the FBI’s next target, record producer Reverse Biaz.

Inside the funky lobby, there’s a sleeping guard, an elevator Patti can’t open, and a directory. Before I continue, I’d like to give an example of a problem I have with the puzzle design of this game. Here are three ways to get into the elevator:

1. Look at the directory to find out that des Rever Records is in room 900 (3 points), and then talk to the guard to wake him up so he can call the elevator;
2. Talk to the guard to wake him up and then show him the DataMan with the Reverse Biaz cartridge inserted (6 points), so he will call the elevator; or
3. Just keep talking to the guard until he calls the elevator for room 900; no mucking around with the directory or the DataMan necessary.

Sure, option 3 results in no points, but you get to where you need to go regardless. Conversely, you can look at the directory AND show the DataMan to the guard for the maximum amount of points, but the point remains the same: Alternate solutions to puzzles are pretty pointless when they are all redundant and there are no stakes attached to any of the solutions. Just click, click, and click, and get to where you need to go.