Zeusthecat

I managed to make a decent amount of progress last night and ended up having a great play session. First, I was very happy to see that the solvent actually worked on the tape (I love that the solution to the sticky tape was actually logical). As soon as I got the key out of the tape I went back to my dad's house and got the old book out of the locked chest. I flew back to Venice and pondered what the hell I was going to do with the old book and after trying it in a few areas within the maze I realized it wasn't going to do me any good. So I went back to the surface and started messing around in the restaurant area. After 'looking' at some of the people I went back to the couple with the bottle of wine and eventually ended up 'looking' at the bottle. This prompted Indy to say something about it being shitty wine which apparently made the dude feel embarrassed. After that I was able to take the wine and went back into the maze. From here I had an awesome series of puzzle solving moments. I quickly found that I could use the bottle of wine on the torch to start loosening the mud that made it stick to the wall. It apparently wasn't enough so I immediately tried to refill the bottle from the pool of water which also worked and was enough to finish the job. After doing that I was able to pull the torch and fall to the floor below. I went around the maze area some more and ended up in a room under the pool with the plug. I went into the next room and read the inscriptions on the wall and then came back out to try to figure out how to get the plug out. I couldn't reach it but I was able to stick the hook into it which gave me just the fixture I needed to use my whip (finally!). Once the pool was drained I continued on until I reached the room with the three statues. After a minute or two I pulled out the Grail Diary and sure enough, Indy opened to a page that showed the correct pattern. That got me to the next area where I soon came to a room with a bunch of skulls I could push. Out came the diary again and bam, door opened. That finally got me into the room with the casket where I was able to 'look' at the dead dude and determine where I was supposed to travel to next. I stopped playing right at the start of the next area (something that starts with an "I" outside of a Nazi building). This whole series of events happened within a span of about and hour and a half and it was fucking awesome. It was one of the best 1 1/2 hour spans of adventure gaming that I've had and has me feeling really good about this game. I'm sure I'm in for some less fun times soon but last night was just fucking awesome. And no hints used yet! Edit: Oh yeah, I forgot about the red cordon on the machine. That was cool too.

I like to think I can still do all of this stuff but then I realize I don't remember much beyond Calc 1. I might still be able to do integration by parts but that would be a stretch. I have had a few of these nightmares too but it is always for bullshit gen-ed classes because those are the ones I would always put off studying for and forget about. I remember a dream a while back where I was about to graduate and suddenly realized I had completely forgotten to go to all of my psychology of law classes. I ran back to the classroom but it was too late and I was going to have to do one more semester just for that class.

I played for exactly 30 seconds last night (went to bed early with the wife). The tape is too sticky to open. Hmmm, I remember there was some solvent in Indy's office. I wonder if I can use that to make the tape less sticky. I'll toil a little bit longer but seeing that Dewar has also been stuck at this point I'll use a hint before long.

A very rare thing happened to me last night. I actually had a crazy dream that I remember most of. I was at work in our old office building on a Friday afternoon. We have half days on Friday so there were only a few other people in the office and the whole place was lit up with soft yellow light from some lamps instead of the harsh light from the fluorescent lights. I was working on some stuff and there were a few people there but they were being really loud and annoying. It seemed like a normal Friday working late in the office (except for the lighting). After working for awhile and being annoyed at the other obnoxious people things started to get weird. I slowly started to realize that I wasn't at work at all, but I was at an orphanage. I also realized that I was a little orphan girl in the orphanage. After talking to some of the other kids I came to understand that this orphanage was run by a mean old lady and all of the kids were terrified of her. I think she yelled at me for some reason or another but then decided to reward me for the good work I had done. So she walked over to the water machine and filled up a paper cup with water and gave it to me to drink. All of the other kids were really impressed that I got this reward and I was elated. I gulped down the water and ended up with a mouthfull of pills that were mixed with the water. I tried to spit them out but I ended up swallowing some of them and couldn't get that crappy pill taste out of my mouth. I walked into another room and found myself in the big cylindrical chamber with the elevator from Resident Evil 5 (I think I was still the little girl). The elevator started to go up and a bunch of enemies started dropping all around me. I knew I shouldn't kill them because there was a certain achievement I needed that involved them dropping some kind of orb. So I started kiting them around the room and onto some adjacent walkways. I did this through many waves of enemies but the achievement never popped. I looked up at the wall and there was a giant scoreboard that indicated I had messed up on the first wave. I knew that was impossible because I had done everything perfectly and I was really pissed. Then I woke up.

This is one of those games that I am 100% sure I am going to love. And that multiplayer looks like it might be pretty fucking cool. I can't wait to dump hundreds of hours of my life into this game.

I haven't tried since I flew back to the US to search for more stuff. Before I flew back though I had tried to go back in the library and Indy said that I couldn't go back in there. I assume I'll be able to fly back to Venice so I can finish getting whatever else is in that maze that I can't reach right now.

I got a little further last night. After picking up the post and red cordon I spent some time trying to open random tiles and eventually found out that I could read the grail diary in the library. The diary indicated that I would need to go to the room that had the same stained glass picture as what was in the book and follow "the first on the left" or something like that. I figured that meant the first number shown on the left statue and that turned out to be correct. It was a pretty simple puzzle but I still enjoyed it and it gave me a small sense of accomplishment that I don't think I ever really got in Zak Mckracken. Once I broke through the tile I found myself in a maze. I explored every area in the maze and eventually came across a hook but nothing else. There is a torch that I can't do anything with, a grate locked with a rusty lock that I can't open, a pool of water with a plug on the bottom that I can't reach, and a square slab that I can't do anything with. I went between all these areas and tried everything to no avail. After exhausting all options I went back to the surface to see if I had missed anything else. First I went around the outdoor eating area and tried to grab a bottle of wine with no success. It looked like there was nothing else there that I could interact with so I flew back to the US and scoured the college and my dad's house. I found nothing at the college but after some searching at my dad's house I saw that I could pull that bookshelf down and there was a piece of tape on the back. I picked up the tape, tried it on a few things, and then quit playing for the night. After going to bed I thought about the tape some more and remembered that he said it was lumpy when I looked at it. So first thing I am going to try when I play again is to open it or pull it to see if there is a key to my dad's chest stuck to the tape or something like that. If there isn't then I'm not sure what to do. I've been pretty thorough so far and have searched through all of the areas so all I can think is that I possibly missed something in the library which would suck because I can't go back there now.

Thanks for the tip toblix. I keep about 5 saves going at once in these earlier games to avoid the whole fail state thing. I'll definitely approach any fights with caution and avoid them whenever possible.

I've been on Steam more lately. http://steamcommunity.com/id/zeusthecat Feel free to add me.

I started Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade So far I have obtained the Grail Diary from the stack of letters on my desk and I got a painting from my dad's house. I also did a round of boxing practice at the school so I have an idea of what I'll be in for when I have to fight some dudes. After grabbing those couple items I flew to Venice and got the pylon thingy and the rope near the roman numeral tiles in the library. I saw that I could use the pylon to pry open the tiles but I did the wrong one so I reloaded a save and need to figure out which is the right one. So far I like the game. It feels like it will be less stressful than Zak Mckracken.

Thanks for the reminder. Yeah, when I found that gas can in Zak Mckracken and he said it was for another game I immediately got the reference. That was pretty fucking awesome and I can see how my mentions of the chainsaw during Maniac Mansion were funny. The references they make to other LucasArts games is another thing I love about playing through each of these games.

Zak Mckracken And The Alien Mindbenders I used a guide. It was a cool story but the puzzles were crazy.

Zak Mckracken completed. I used a guide for the rest of it and jesus christ that would have been tough to do otherwise. Unlike the other games I felt zero guilt for using hints because the puzzles seemed to either require omniscience or a shitload of patience. I liked the story but there were just way too many places you could go at once and it would have taken forever to figure out the right order of places to travel to. Some of the puzzles seemed to make sense but there were quite a few that were obscure and I think would have frustrated me to no end. Still glad I played it though and it was worth the couple hours I put in.

I hooked my Super Nintendo back up a couple weeks ago and have been playing spurts of Donkey Kong Country, Mario All Stars, and Legend of Zelda A Link To The Past. None of these are games I haven't completed before but it's been long enough now that they feel pretty fresh again and I might want to complete them again after the LucasArts games. In the past I had resolved to play through all of my NES games and made the mistake of starting with Ninja Gaiden. Needless to say I never completed a single game.

Yes, that's the next game followed by Loom. I bought the LucasArts Adventure Pack which included Last Crusade, Loom, Fate of Atlantis, and The Dig so I was planning on playing those versions instead of the originals on Scummvm. So... do I have the FM Towns version with the one I bought or is that a whole separate thing?

That was just the nudge I needed. Fuck it, I'm using a guide for the rest. I'll post back here when I'm finished, probably tonight or tomorrow sometime.

Nah, you made some good points. I am definitely an optimist and I feel that the world is generally moving in the right direction despite the fact that we sometimes take a step backward instead of forward. To clarify on one of your responses, I don't think religion is on track to disappear as atheism becomes more common but I do think it will continue to lose popularity as it has been in recent years if their message doesn't change to fit with the progress being made by the rest of society. The simple fact that atheism is growing automatically means that religion is declining so there is a trend there, it's just a matter of how it all levels off in the end and it will probably be somewhere between our two points of view (or is it point of views?). Regarding the internet thing, I didn't mean to imply that it is this thing that will bring knowledge to the masses. I really just think it is a tool that is capable of heightening people's awareness of what happens outside of their ecosystem while providing some information that they might not get in other media. In some cases I do think it can facilitate positive change, for instance, the fight to legalize marijuana wouldn't have progressed nearly as quickly if the internet wasn't around to present enough non-biased, factual information to make people realize that what they learned growing up wasn't necessarily true. The same goes for the topic of this thread. The internet is at least providing a voice for people and heightening awareness of what people in the LGBT community have had to go through and I think has been a factor in the positive change we've seen lately.

I recalled a sliver of a dream that I had recently. I was in a restaurant eating food and I asked for a side of ranch dressing (which is strange because I'm vegan). The waitress responded that it was going to cost $4.50 for a side of ranch to which I replied "That is ridiculous! I want to speak with your manager!". So the manager came over to the table, I explained the situation, and he replied "I'm so sorry, she's new and mistakenly told you the wrong amount. A side of ranch is only $3.50."

Oh yeah? Well I will start my alternate account called SecretAsianKid... Then one day we will log on under all of our accounts simultaneously and have some weird fucked up family reunion where we are both ourselves and imaginary bastard children. Edit: That sounds like a good title for an indie game: "Imaginary Bastard Children".

I think it is actually already starting to happen. Considering atheism is growing faster than any religion and the internet is becoming widely available for people around the world (heightening people's awareness of what goes on outside of their own little communities) it is getting increasingly unpopular to share the views that a lot of religious organizations have. I think taking a look at how women's rights have evolved over the last couple centuries provides a good window into how the church will have to react to current events if they want to continue to exist in the mainstream. A big part of why women were treated so unfairly in the past had to do with religious teachings. The Bible is riddled with shit that clearly states that women are worth less than men and that they should be subservient to men and society reflected that for a long time. However, technology advanced, people became more aware, and shit changed because that way of thinking just didn't make any sense. In this case the church was forced to change despite the fact that the Bible still says all that horrible stuff. There may still be some fringe religions that hold on to that but most of society at this point probably looks at those religions as pretty loony. (And I literally just saw Argobot's post come in backing this up. YESSS!!!) I think we are going through the same thing now with gay rights. From a legal standpoint it is clear we are headed in the right direction with the repeal of DADT and the more recent events but there is also positive progress already being made on the religious front especially with the decision by the Boy Scouts to drop their discriminatory practices. Religion will change or it will become a fringe hate group. And ironically in the process I think it will eventually lead to the decline of religion (a very good thing in my book) as people begin to realize that the book they have been following is not at all consistent with a society full of compassionate people.

Fair point. I'm sure a lot of it comes down to the pedigree of the developer and whether or not the publisher feels they will get a return on their investment. It is kind of hard to draw an analog here since there isn't really a precedent for this type of thing, but I do empathize with the problems they are facing. Software development can still be pretty unpredictable and even with the tightest, most well defined scope, unexpected things can happen.

I say no harm no foul. It is fairly common for us to go over budget when we develop new features for our software despite the fact that our group has been continuously developing new features for over 15 years now. In those cases we make up for it through licensing fees, maintenance contracts, and other features that have surplus budget. It all usually works out in the end because our clients are happy with the quality of product they are getting and we are able to recoup the costs through other means. Not too unlike what is happening here. Also, is this not all that different than a AAA game being delayed multiple times until the developer feels that it is of a high enough quality to be released to the masses? Maybe a company like Blizzard has the money to fund the additional development themselves but I imagine a lot of companies that go through a publisher end up asking for more money than they originally anticipated so that they can afford to keep polishing the game until it is ready for release.

In all seriousness though, who is Twiglet? At first I thought maybe it was Twig but then I saw them both on at the same time and my head exploded. Is it really possible that someone joined and entered that name not knowing papa Twig was already here?

There was a church not too long ago that refused to marry an inter-racial couple because the congregation threw a fit. So maybe not as bad of an analogy as you thought.

I played a little more Zak Mckracken last night. Picking up where I left off in Cairo, I went inside the pyramid where I found it was another dark area. I made it into a second room where I was able to light a torch but after looking around for awhile I couldn't find anything to interact with. I messed around in there for a little while longer and eventually had a cutscene pop up showing me some girl (I can't remember her name even though she's in my party now) back in San Francisco opening the door with the dropbox and talking about expecting something. So I immediately reloaded a save I had back in Miami and flew back to San Francisco. After dropping the crystal in the dropbox I was treated to another cutscene that explained a few more things and once I had control of Zak again I found that I could switch to the two girls on Mars and the other girl in San Francisco. I quickly got the CashCard for the main girl and then switched back to Zak to go back to the airport where I took a flight to Lima, Peru. As soon as I left the airport in Lima I found myself in a jungle maze. I started taking random paths until I came to a clearing with a bird feeder and a sign telling me to put bread crumbs down. Unfortunately I still had the full loaf of stale bread and couldn't figure out how to turn it into crumbs so I resorted again to the Universal Hint System and saw that I needed to use my garbage disposal to grind up the bread (I was kind of bummed I didn't figure that out because I had even taken out the pipe earlier and tested the garbage disposal, it just never occurred to me to try the bread there). Once I reloaded an earlier save (again) and got the bread crumbs I went back to Lima and put them on the feeder so the bird would come down. And that is where I stopped. At this point I am seriously considering just going through the rest of the game with a guide. I do really like the story and characters and I think it is a big step up from the Maniac Mansion story but I am getting kind of frustrated with the way the areas are so separate from each other and just how unclear the path forward can be. I have a number of destinations I can go to at any time but I have no idea which one I should go to first or if that even matters. Now that I have multiple characters it's even more complicated because I don't know yet how the different characters work and where I will need to use specific ones to make progress. Unlike the other LucasArts games I've played so far I feel that this one can't be solved purely through being smart and doing smart things. Instead it feels like there is a fair amount of luck and trial and error.