Zeusthecat

I 100% agree. While the slightly more bombastic main story quests were usually the most interesting from a mechanical perspective, the quests you are talking about were what kept me so engaged in the world after all the good multiplayer stuff started to decline. I was always amazed at how interconnected every npc in the world was. I would often do a little series of obscure quests and then come to find out that the characters involved in that questline were at one point very significant within the lore and had had major interactions with main characters in the past. I can't put my finger on it but it just made the game feel special. It gave it a sense of history in a way and made the game feel less static than it really was. I loved the process of going to a generic abandoned stronghold for a fetch quest and then finding out through the quest or through a wiki that that seemingly generic stronghold was the site of some major event that had happened in the past. Then whenever I would go back and see the crumbling architecture and broken crates knowing the history of that location, it just felt special. Man, this is some serious nostalgia.

Yes, I am completely enraptured by the tones of sarcasm and ambiguity mixed with actual talk about video games. Or maybe I'm just really confused and desperate to figure out what the hell is going on.

I gotta chime in and show some love for WoW as well. I played for about 2 years during WotLK and Cataclysm but ended up eventually getting bored with the direction they were taking things (smaller raids, too much of a focus on single player content). There was awhile there where I was completely enthralled by the world (of warcraft) and spent countless hours reading up on all the lore. After the raiding scene died down in Cataclysm I kept myself occupied by just trying to explore everything in the world and do random quests that I had missed. I was one of those weird people that actually liked reading mountains of in-game text and found that it enriched the world for me. Few games have been able to top the experience WoW provided of living in and exploring such a huge and detailed world. I miss it but I also know that I will probably never go back.

I grabbed Cart Life from elmuerte.

Trength (noun) - the four dimensional analog of length, width, and height. Something with great trength is trong, and something... Wow, Nintendo is deep.

Since I just purchased the two special editions I might go full hypocrite and play them again with the updated graphics at some point (and maybe even with the voice work). I didn't have any interest before but now that I see them right there in my Steam library I am super tempted. Plus my daughter has been saying she wants to play through the first game again.

Ah, gotcha. Thanks for clarifying, it was really bothering me that I couldn't microwave that little bastard.

I played a little more last night and got the small key from the nurse Edison lady's room. I also got the hamster from the other guy by using Bernard as bait to get him to leave the room to lock Bernard up and then quickly sneaking in with Dave. I thought I remembered someone saying something about putting a hamster in a microwave in this game so that was the first thing I tried and that didn't seem to work. And as far as the paint remover goes, I found the paint spot and used the remover to uncover that hidden door where I found a room with some exposed wire. Not sure what to do from there. So I think I've officially got all of the obvious stuff out of every room I can reach right now and need to do some thinking/pixel hunting to progress further. I'll toil for a little while and probably click the spoilers Tanukitsune provided before too long. Overall my impressions of this game so far are pretty good. It is definitely lacking the polish of the Monkey Island games but it is pretty respectable, especially for a game coming out of the 80's where difficulty levels were notoriously high.

I have to admit I'm jealous of all this talk of floods. It's dry as hell here and we're supposed to hit 115 degrees by the end of the week. This place is miserable in the summer.

I played some more today and made a little more progress. I finally found the loose brick in the dungeon and was able to get Wendy out of there. From what I can tell, Bernard will have to stay in there until I find some keys for those two padlocks or something because it doesn't look like the door stays open long enough for him to push the brick and run out. Once Wendy was freed I got another key which opened the door to the pool and garage. I'm thinking I might be able to use the chainsaw I found on the tree out there once I find some gas for it. Other than that I'm not sure how to open the garage or get the stuff in the pool (unless there is a way to drain the pool and use the ladder to climb into it). I also discovered that I could put the old batteries in the flashlight so I assume at some point I will need to use that in a dark room. Or maybe there is some mechanic behind me flipping the circuit breakers and killing the power in the house where the flashlight comes into play. From there, I started going back through the rooms to try to figure out what to do next. I saw a key in a chandelier which I can't reach yet, a depressed tentacle (maybe I should give him that tentacle food), and a television that gives me an address to mail stories to (maybe I can find a stamp and mail the manuscript to that location using the mailbox out front). I also noticed you can pull one of the gargoyle heads to open the door to the dungeon. Now that I know I can escape the dungeon I'll also try running into those other rooms that have Edison family members in them to see if I can get any items. I also need to figure out what I am supposed to do with that record player and recorder. I've already recorded a tape with the old record and regular record but it didn't seem to do anything special when I brought it back to the tape player to play it. Then there's always more pixel hunting I guess, which I'm not too fond of as a puzzle mechanic unless it is an actual distinct item that can be seen in the environment. As I was writing this I saw your post syntheticgerbil. I'm pretty sure I'm SOL if I use the paint remover in the wrong place. Dave made a comment when I used it about how I wasted it on something useless so I'm pretty sure that that's the game telling me that I'm screwed. I also managed to blow up the house already and kill everyone but it was no big deal with my constant saving. It's also worth mentioning that I'm keeping a list of all the items I've obtained and I'm taking notes whenever I figure out the use of an item or if there is some possible clue in a line of dialog (such as the address from the news on the tv). My notes so far are "key stuck in chandelier", "I used the weight machine", "pulling gargoyle head opens dungeon area", and "222 skyscraper way, I need a stamp though". Edit: I am a chronic re-writer of sentences so these posts take much longer to write than (or is it 'then'?) they should.

That is a fair point that I find hard to argue against. I guess for me it comes down to a preference towards physical media. Pros and cons either way I suppose.

Thanks for the tips. Because I am aware of this game having fail states, I am probably being a little more paranoid than I need to. In the interest of not getting overly frustrated I wouldn't mind knowing ahead of time about what kind of fail states this game has so I can recognize when it happens instead of continuing on and possibly wasting a decent chunk of time. So I pose this question: do you only end up in a fail state when you use an item in the wrong place or is it possible to die or be permanently locked up and reach a fail state that way? Also, is there some kind of time limit that I have to beat? I noticed that the Edisons had a package delivered at one random point and I wonder if there is some kind of timer in the background that pushes the story along whether or not I am making progress. I might check out that Universal Hint System but so far I've enjoyed just getting hints from people here. We'll see where the game takes me and how frustrated I get. Edit: Oh, and I'm playing the enhanced PC version FYI.

I started my game last night and managed to get into the mansion and through all the rooms that I could access without a key (I think I picked Bernard and Wendy). I also fed the wax fruit to the tentacle guy so I could get to the rooms past him. The only rooms I haven't entered yet are the two with Edison family members. Unfortunately Bernard and Wendy were both captured right at the start so I'm not sure how or if I can free them, hopefully that doesn't leave me fucked. I also at one point used my paint remover on the wrong thing and got the main character captured (which I assume puts me in a fail state) and reverted to an earlier save. Since making those mistakes I have been saving often and have several save files just in case. I guess from where I am now I need to figure out how to use something in my inventory to progress further. That yellow key also apparently can't be used anywhere yet. Any non-spoilery words of wisdom? I haven't started using a guide yet either and will hold off on that until I have been stuck for a bit.

I'm not sure how to get this thing started but I am officially starting Maniac Mansion right fucking now. Edit: (I got it)

Just purchased Monkey Island Special Edition Bundle and LucasArts Adventure Pack. Hopefully now my pirate days are behind me. Now, how to obtain Maniac Mansion...

Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge Fucking awesome! I wrote a lot more about it on the Monkey Island 2: SE thread so I won't bother here.

Finished! Last night I managed to get through the rest of the Dinky Island segment and most of the way through the final LeChuck voodoo torture puzzle. I finished off the puzzle today and finally saw the credits roll. In case Rodi has forgotten some of this, I'll put the rest in a spoiler.

Holy crap! Glad to hear it's not having too much of a negative impact on you and yours. And people still treating each other so nicely despite everything going on is pretty fucking cool.

Until today I had never known a single other person that was even aware of that game. I played it so much as a kid and even had nightmares about certain ASCII characters.

Never played ZZT but yes I believe they are similar.

Most of my gaming when I was a kid was on consoles. However, my dad did at one point have a computer in the early to mid 90's and a few games on floppy disk that I played quite a bit. I have very fond memories of playing Paratroopers, Bouncing Babies, Dig Dug, and Kingdom of Kroz. That was pretty much it though. I don't think he was even aware of graphic adventures and never really got into games that much.

All I know is, I need a fucking eye patch and a parrot right now.

Well I feel terrible now for downloading MI:1 and 2 the way I did. At least I'll make up for it by purchasing the Adventure pack on Steam. That's a damn good deal for so many classic games.

Thanks for the tips. I'll definitely purchase whatever I can purchase. I was reading more on this and am just getting more confused on how abandonware is supposed to work. It seems that the ESA at least does not have a problem with a site putting up free downloads of games that are not supported any more (> 15 years old I think) but I guess it could still technically be considered copyright infringement if the owner chose to take action. Fucking weird.

Okay, so I guess it is a grey area and falls under the rules of abandonware. I'm such a fucking idiot. I feel like Macaulay Culkin when he accidentally stole the toothbrush in Home Alone.