Zeusthecat

The Big LucasArts Playthrough

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Look for another door in the main party area, to the right of the stage.

 

Dude, thank you so much. These are the kinds of hints that I totally don't mind being given since they involve things that are visually obscured or hard to interact with. I was pretty damn thorough with that room and clicked all over the place but I clearly didn't use the right interaction in the right spot.

 

On another similar note, when I first arrived at the hotel it took me a solid 10 minutes to figure out where to go. I first tried to immediately go to the left since it looked like there was a path to the left of the volcano and wasn't sure why the game wouldn't let me. It was only after walking all over the outside that I accidentally clicked on the hotel door and went inside. I never realized it was there because it was directly adjacent to Sam's car and I thought his car was still the object I was hovering over. I think this is one weakness of the interaction system used in this game versus the verb system used in the previous games.

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Sam and Max Hit the Road completed! My total play time was about 11 hours. The only hint used was Udvarnoky's hint that there was another door right in front of my dumb face in the bigfoot party area.

 

So thanks to Udvarnoky, when I started up again I was able to immediately progress by going through the door to the right of the stage area (I feel so stupid for never noticing that was there before). After going through the door I found myself in a kitchen where I was able to pick up an ice pick and saw that there was a freezer door that I could open and close. There didn't seem to be anything else of interest so I headed to the door at the back of the room but before I had a chance to open it, Conroy Bumpus and his security guard burst through the door. Thinking I was a bigfoot, Conroy ordered his security guard to grab a net from their car while he held me hostage with some kind of crazy taser. I found that I wasn't able to move during this sequence but I was able to use items so I went through a few different items before eventually trying to 'use' my bigfoot costume that I was wearing. Once I did that, Sam and Max took off the costume to reveal their true identity. Conroy then had the bright idea to use the bigfoot costume himself to try to blend in with the bigfoots and learn their ways. Then, when Conroy and his security guard went into the freezer to change into the costume, I locked their sorry asses in and turned down the temperature, freezing them into a solid ice block.

 

Once Conroy was taken care of, the elder bigfoot approached me and expressed his gratitude by making me some kind of honorary chieftain. This finally gave me access to the pool area (and I felt pretty dumb for thinking I would need to dye my fur white or something like that to get back there; sometimes my brain jumps to really weird conclusions). At the pool area I found 4 totem poles with etchings on them. I investigated each one and figured that they all represented some kind of item that I would need to provide. I tried using a few obvious items on the totem poles with no success and after toiling for a bit I discovered that there was a jacuzzi area in the back where the elder bigfoot was hanging out. So I made my way over to him and asked him about each totem pole to get more information on what they all represented. The dinosaur tooth and hair tonic (picture of person with long hair + chieftain referencing the words 'rapid growth' = hair tonic) were super obvious so I gave those to him right away. The one with the picture of an old dude seemed to match the picture I had but the chieftain wouldn't take it so I figured there was something else I was missing or something I needed to do with the picture first. Finally, the totem pole with the vortex etching was also pretty obvious but I still needed to figure out how to open my bottle of wine so I could use the cork with the vortex globe.

 

With the two totem poles remaining, I decided to tackle the old dude one first. Luckily during my last stretch of toiling before finding out about the door to the right of the stage, I had at one point considered bringing the picture to the vegetable lady to see if she would do anything with it but never got around to trying it since I was able to continue on after all. Additionally, I think either Sam or the bigfoot elder made a brief comment about vegetables when referencing that totem pole. So after seeing that he wouldn't take the picture itself, I went straight to the vegetable lady and found that I was able to give her the picture so she could make a vegetable out of that old dude's face. Then I drove around the map for a bit to give her time to finish, went back to pick it up, and successfully gave it to the bigfoot elder which cleared the third totem pole.

 

This left me with one final puzzle to solve. I knew I needed to use the globe with the vortex machine and I was pretty certain I needed to use the cork from the wine bottle as a stopper, but I still had no idea how to open it. The only thing that stood out was that Sam said something different when I tried to use the ice pick to open the bottle versus when I used other items with it. So once again I started combing back through some of the areas to see if there was a corkscrew that I was missing. As I was exploring one of the areas and going through my items, I had a sudden realization while I was looking at my bent wrench. I realized that if that dude at the top of the ball of twine could bend a wrench he could also probably bend my ice pick to make it more suitable for opening a bottle. Sure enough, he was able to turn my ice pick into a corkscrew and I quickly opened the wine bottle, retrieved the cork, and then went back to the vortex place to capture that mystical fucking energy. Then I brought it to the elder and finished the game. This puzzle was definitely one of my favorite ones in the game and it was really fucking cool to have a great puzzle solving moment during that final puzzle.

 

As I mentioned before, I wasn't too blown away (IGN.com) by this game at first but now that the game is finished I would say it is easily up there with MI 1 and 2, FOA, and DOTT. The characters were great, the story and settings were awesome, and it had some of my favorite puzzles so far (I also appreciate that this game had a healthy dose of 'cartoon logic' puzzles similar to DOTT). Earlier, I had mentioned that I wasn't too impressed overall by the music but after finishing the game, I have to agree with Udvarnoky that this game does have one of the better soundtracks. A number of areas had somewhat forgettable music but there were several places where the music was truly exceptional. My favorites were probably Trixie's trailer, Conroy's mansion, the vegetable fields, and the bigfoot party. So all in all, I think this was a great game.

 

Also, now that I'm finished, I'm curious what other people thought of the overall puzzle design in this game. I get the sense that this game has a reputation for having some bullshit puzzles but I would contend that they were generally well designed. I was able to derive hints for a good portion of the puzzles in this game by going through each interaction with all of the objects and people in the environment and just paying close attention to whatever Sam said (e.g. him saying that the stopper was missing in the globe, him saying that we needed something to glue the bigfoot hair to the pants, elder bigfoot referencing "rapid growth" for the hair tonic, etc.). And for puzzles where there weren't many hints, there was usually some level of logic to follow. For instance, I thought most of the Tunnel of Love puzzle was pretty logical after finding the broken flashlight (excluding the fact that winning the flashlight from that game was totally not obvious). I already had a bulb so I knew the bulb needed to go in the flashlight. Then the only dark area where it would make sense to use the flashlight was the tunnel of love. Then when the flashlight uncovered the dark areas it was obvious that I needed to use something with the electrical panel and since I had a limited number of items it only took a couple attempts before finding that I needed to use Max to short circuit the panel. The only puzzles that I think were kind of bullshit in the end were the magnet/door puzzle in the vortex, the gator golf segment (which I feel I only solved so quickly because I got lucky thinking that lining up the gators would make a path; I kind of thought it was a stupid idea at first), and the VR segment in Conroy's mansion (even though it was fairly straightforward it was kind of a stupid puzzle). If anyone cares to respond, I'm curious what others think.

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I've played the game too many times for the puzzles to be "moon logic-y" to me, but yeah the magnet puzzle was the most challenging one as far as I remember.

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Yeah, that's partly why I said you were really good at the game, as you had two of the final totems ready to go before you even arrived.


I personally feel like the game has major puzzle issues because of weird stuff like smearing hair on a rock, knowing when you need to place a hand on a retracting accordian thingy with a fish magnet, and just all of the totem puzzles at the end. It didn't feel as much a case of cartoon logic as more of the designers taking a bunch of random objects and making them interact in someway. Even if there are hints in the dialogue to what you must do, it seems a bit obscure that you would have to find random junk for the big foot elder to throw in a hot tub in the first place. There's also added steps of difficulty like the ice pick. For all intents and purposes you should be able to get a cork out of a bottle without the ice pick becoming a screw. You really shouldn't need Jesse James' hand to hold a magnet. There's no reason for a broken flashlight to come out of a Wak-a-Rat game.

 

There's probably more, but I feel like most LucasArts games keep the game objectives and the reality of the game world you are interacting with pretty clear cut. Possibly Grim Fandango starts to fall in the "do random things hoping for progress" category, but if only because the sheer amount of puzzles and length of the game.

 

Full Throttle is going to be such a different experience!

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I personally feel like the game has major puzzle issues because of weird stuff like smearing hair on a rock, knowing when you need to place a hand on a retracting accordian thingy with a fish magnet, and just all of the totem puzzles at the end. It didn't feel as much a case of cartoon logic as more of the designers taking a bunch of random objects and making them interact in someway. Even if there are hints in the dialogue to what you must do, it seems a bit obscure that you would have to find random junk for the big foot elder to throw in a hot tub in the first place. There's also added steps of difficulty like the ice pick. For all intents and purposes you should be able to get a cork out of a bottle without the ice pick becoming a screw. You really shouldn't need Jesse James' hand to hold a magnet. There's no reason for a broken flashlight to come out of a Wak-a-Rat game.

 

I see. These are all pretty good points and I won't dispute how ridiculous the premise is behind a lot of these interactions. And I definitely overlooked how obscure that golf ball grabber + hand + magnet combination was. For me though (with a few exceptions) the random object interactions worked well in this game because the game and story itself was fucking insane and random as hell. As long as I could derive some obscure hint from one of my interactions I felt that the game was pretty consistent and fair in it's craziness.

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Actually I shouldn't have written "major" puzzle issues. More like "a few." I just realized I was comparing Sam and Max Hit the Road to other LucasArts adventure games instead of comparing it to all adventure games. Considering most adventure games tend to be a pisspoor mess of logic and guessing, Sam and Max Hit the Road doesn't ever touch the dark territory of some of the adventure games I've played.

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Inventory item combination seems to inspire the worst in designers.  Of the games ahead of you, only the remaining Monkey Islands reprise it I believe.

 

I never could figure out if Full Throttle's puzzles were significantly easier than the others games', or if it was simply that there were way fewer of them.  There's a much more conservative inventory in that game, too.

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I don't know, I played Escape from Monkey Island last year, and while there are some more obscure puzzles, I feel it's pretty solid in design. There's actually some very clever ones there, like the parrots and the rocks or the Mysts of Time sequence. The prosthetic organs from the shop in EMI, while fun, cause major red herring design issues. Kind of forgot what Curse of Monkey Island is like on puzzles as I haven't played it for maybe a decade or so, but I don't remember it being difficult enough to use a strategy guide more than once (it came with the big one with the concept art, interviews, and storyboards).

 

Don't know if Zeus is going to branch out in to Telltale after this, but ToMI is pretty solid outside from some annoying maze parts.

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Inventory item combination seems to inspire the worst in designers.  Of the games ahead of you, only the remaining Monkey Islands reprise it I believe.

 

One of my favorite stupid jokes in Curse of Monkey Island is the result of combining two inventory items.

 

When you're eaten by the snake, you pick up a pitcher of syrup inside him.  Before getting to the snake, you're forced to pick up an ipecac flower.  To escape the snake, you combine the two to logically create Syrup of ipecac.  Guybrush even comments on it when you do it.

 

It cracks me up every time and I can't explain why.

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I don't know, I played Escape from Monkey Island last year, and while there are some more obscure puzzles, I feel it's pretty solid in design. There's actually some very clever ones there, like the parrots and the rocks or the Mysts of Time sequence. The prosthetic organs from the shop in EMI, while fun, cause major red herring design issues.

 

There are definitely classic puzzles in EMI, and I would include the diving contest in your list, but I find the game surprisingly difficult for the company's final (albeit not by intention) adventure game.  And I'm particularly directing my wrath at the obscure stuff.  The "File-O-Matic" retrieval system was a tumor on my happiness, even with the guy who voiced Spongebob guiding my efforts.  Overall, I am a big EMI defender.

 

Actually EMI's design reminds me quite a bit of Hit the Road's, which shouldn't be surprising.

 

 

Don't know if Zeus is going to branch out in to Telltale after this, but ToMI is pretty solid outside from some annoying maze parts.

 

Indeed, and even though the mazes come off as cheap as mazes always do (though EMI's is damn inspired, as you pointed out), they are admittedly a Monkey Island staple.

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Oh yeah, that File-o-matic was pretty bad too! Man, everything from that prothetics shop was just a big headache. I like to think Mike Stemmle and Sean Clark learned a lot from Sam and Max. The Telltale episodes I've noticed directed by Mike Stemmle have been great as well.

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All of the veteran adventure designers seem to have mellowed incredibly with age when it comes to the harshness of their puzzles.  It'll be interesting to see what Tim and friends came up with for Broken Age, although I think Psychonauts' puzzles are a good reference point.

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Don't know if Zeus is going to branch out in to Telltale after this, but ToMI is pretty solid outside from some annoying maze parts.

 

I'm thinking I probably will go through the Telltale games after I finish these. Do they stick pretty close to the spirit of the LucasArts games and have similar puzzle design?

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So I'm a little over an hour in and am stuck already. I went through the intro, got my keys from the bartender and took off to try to warn the Polecats of the impending ambush. Unfortunately the front tire came off and I crashed. Luckily someone came and rescued me and brought me to a lady named Mo who said she could repair my bike if I brought her the stuff she needed. I managed to get her welding torch back by kicking some asshole's door down after he wouldn't let me in but that's about the extent of my progress. I still need to get the forks and the gas. There is one area with a big door that is opened by pulling a nearby chain but I have no apparent way to get the door to stay open long enough for me to get through. Then there is an area with a ladder that sets off an alarm every time I touch it which causes some douches in a helicopter to come rain bullets on me. My inventory is pretty limited so far and the items I have don't seem to be helping so I am either missing a crucial item or there is some interaction I missed somewhere.

 

I am really liking this game so far. The tone is much more serious then I expected but it seems to have a pretty good story and some cool characters and the music is pretty awesome too. I especially like the music in Mo's garage.

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Yay Full Throttle!

 

I'm thinking I probably will go through the Telltale games after I finish these. Do they stick pretty close to the spirit of the LucasArts games and have similar puzzle design?

 

They're fun and worth playing, and you can certainly feel the Lucasarts pedigree that Dave and other ex-lucas people bring to the company design culture (if that's even a good way of putting it).

 

Telltale adventures never quite reach the level of most of their Lucasarts predecessors, though. I think partly because they're so deathly afraid of letting the player get stuck. It's a natural result of the episodic model: a player won't buy the next episode if they can't finish the one they're on, after all.

 

Admittedly, getting stuck is the opposite of fun. But it is almost always a part of the best adventure game puzzle experiences: 1) encountering a problem, 2) trying one or two obvious solutions that don't work but *almost* do, or feel close, 3) feeling lost for a while and maybe even giving up... 4) and then later having a revelation. The payoff in stage 4 is well worth it usually, but there's always a risk that the player won't get past stage 3 (even if the puzzle is designed well, but especially if it isn't). Telltale games basically never take that risk, and so their puzzles are can only ever be so satisfying.

 

Since adventure game puzzles can only be so interesting without a willingness to let the player get stuck, Telltale games needed to emphasize the interesting aspects of their games that weren't puzzles... which is why the direction they took with The Walking Dead and The Wolf Among Us seems so natural to me.

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There is one area with a big door that is opened by pulling a nearby chain but I have no apparent way to get the door to stay open long enough for me to get through.

This one is my least favourite puzzle in any LucasArts. And yet it makes perfect sense once you know the solution. But still... haaaate.

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I'm surprised. I'd say that's a great puzzle because it's very logical and fair and yet it requires a bit of thought.

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I'm surprised. I'd say that's a great puzzle because it's very logical and fair and yet it requires a bit of thought.

 

Oh, it's totally logical and fair. But it's the one puzzle that I would never, ever have thought of myself without checking a walkthrough.

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I think that puzzle's solution does make logical sense, but the game itself kind of throws you off

when Ben throws the lock aside after you pick it.  It doesn't automatically go into your inventory and you have to manually pick it up off the ground.  It's easy to miss in this sense.

 

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Incidentally (because this discussion reminded me of it), backers of DFA might have seen the video of Tim Schafer playing Full Throttle. He took so long to find the lock picks that I was literally shouting at the screen

LOOK IN THE CABINET!

 

It's such a strange thing that I'd remember the game better than the guy who designed it.

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