The Big LucasArts Playthrough

[Ben X]

Zeus, I think I posted about that bug previously. For me, I only had to hit the period/full stop key to move onto the next line of dialogue.

 

EDIT: yeah, here we go:

 

I just played Grim all the way through with Residual and it ran fine, except once or twice it froze up and I needed to press '.' (ie the period or full stop key) to get it going again. Best to save often and in different slots, though, just in case.

 

I had fullscreen ticked in Residual and didn't need to do any extra tinkering.

[Zeusthecat]

Zeus, I think I posted about that bug previously. For me, I only had to hit the period/full stop key to move onto the next line of dialogue.

 

Oh, that must have slipped my mind then. I'll give that a shot if I see it happen again.

[Zeusthecat]

Big update incoming.

 

When I resumed playing a few nights ago, I had just solved the cat race betting stub puzzle and had obtained the incriminating picture of Nick and Olivia. From here, I figured the best thing to do would be to go back into Maximino's restaurant to see if Maximino and Nick had finished with their meeting. As I made my way into the main restaurant area, I was happy to see Nick once again sitting at his table with the tax documents. After a brief conversation, I was able to use the photo to convince him to represent Terry. Shortly afterwards, Nick was able to free the bee and I finally had the tools that Glottis would need since all the bees were now on strike.

 

This finally left me with the forklift puzzle as the last puzzle I needed to solve. Maybe it was because I had spent so much time thinking about it or maybe it was because I was backed into a corner with this being the only puzzle left, but upon getting in the forklift and driving it back into the elevator, I figured out what I needed to do very quickly. The first thought that popped into my head once I was back in the elevator was that maybe I somehow needed to use the forklift to pry open the screen gate that shuts when the elevator starts moving. As soon as I hit the button to start up the elevator and close the gate, I noticed there were two notches at the bottom of the gate that were just wide enough for the forklift forks to get through. So I quickly got into the forklift, drove it forward, and got out to lift the forklift fork but wasn't fast enough to do it before the elevator reached the target floor. I attempted this a few more times and noticed that one of the times, the forklift bounced as if the forks had gotten caught on something while I was driving it forward into the gate. It was at that point that I realized that there must be some kind of hidden room or something like that in between the two floors and that I would somehow need to use the forklift to get the elevator to stop, allowing me to enter the area. So I started up the elevator one final time, jumped in the forklift, and drove forward as far as I could until the forklift forks got caught on the ceiling of the secret room, causing the elevator to come to a grinding halt. From here, I simply raised the forklift forks to force the elevator down enough to leave an opening for me to walk through, and then continued down the secret hallway to grab Chowchilla Charlie's money. Upon leaving the place I was confronted by Chowchilla Charlie who forced me to hand over the money or face certain sprouting. So, in the interest of self preservation, I handed over the case and luckily he was still nice enough to give me the union card he had promised which meant I finally had everything I needed to get on the boat and continue with my journey. And for the record, that forklift puzzle turned out to be brilliant in my opinion. I was almost sure it was going to be a load of bullshit but I am pretty damn impressed with how clever that puzzle turned out to be.

 

Now that I seemingly had everything I needed, I ran over to the docks to tell the dockmaster I was ready to go. Everything seemed to be in order at this point except for the fact that Glottis was still glued to the cat races. We couldn't just sit around and wait for him so I had no choice but to head back over to Maximino's place to try to convince Glottis that it was time to leave. Unfortunately, he didn't show any signs of budging any time soon so I decided to make a final run through each area to see if there was anything new I could do that might lead to him getting the fuck out of there. Luckily, one of the first areas I went to was my casino/restaurant and I found that police chief Bogen was back at the roulette table downstairs after his failed attempt to lock up Terry. I had a brief and pointless dialog exchange with him and then decided to go up to my desk upstairs to see if I could activate the roulette magnet array again to mess with his game in the hopes that it would somehow lead to Glottis leaving Maximino's place. Surprisingly, it turned out to be exactly that simple and as soon as I screwed up his game, he called in some dudes to shut my place down which ultimately resulted in Glottis being kicked out of Maximino's place since he no longer had any credit. With Glottis finally by my side, we got on the boat and set sail as another year went by.

 

When the game picked back up, another year had gone by and it appeared that I was now the captain of the ship which, unsurprisingly, was now a crazy hot rod ship. After witnessing the opening scene, I was greeted by one of Sal's messenger pigeons who warned me of a bunch of assassins who were about to board my ship to take me out. With no time to lose, I headed into the ship to find all of my crew members freshly sprouted. Before I could do anything, the assassins caught up to me and right as they were about to sprout me, Glottis reached out and yanked me into the engine room (or is it cabin? I suck with nautical/boat terminology), slamming the door shut before anyone could get through. After I regained control, I took a minute to observe the area and found some controls for the ship, two portholes with an anchor chain hanging just out of reach, and a button near each porthole for raising/lowering the anchors. After some investigating, I found that regardless of whether the anchors were raised or lowered, I could still only shift the boat slightly to the left or right. I also found that I could reach out of the porthole with my scythe to try to grab the anchor but was still just shy of reaching it. Since my options were very limited at this point, it didn't take too long for me to notice that I could raise and drop each anchor in two separate locations on the sea floor..........

 

....And I am going to stop here for now because I need to go home and don't want to risk losing this post. I'll try to finish the post on my latest progress later today or tomorrow.

[bkbroiler]

Yay, more updates!

 

Just an FYI (and I don't think I read you did this, but maybe you did), you can have a conversation with Maximino in year two. His office is off of the area where Nick sits. It's strangely hard to find. I don't think I realized that you could talk to him for at least my first couple playthroughs of the game.

[Zeusthecat]

Yay, more updates!

 

Just an FYI (and I don't think I read you did this, but maybe you did), you can have a conversation with Maximino in year two. His office is off of the area where Nick sits. It's strangely hard to find. I don't think I realized that you could talk to him for at least my first couple playthroughs of the game.

Yeah, I did actually talk to him before and after Nick went in there. He sure loves those kitties.

[mikemariano]

Zeus has officially passed me in my current Grim Fandango playthrough; I am at the Year Three opening cinematic.  Since I haven't played this game since 1998 I've got to start playing again so this doesn't become a spoiler thread!

[bkbroiler]

Yeah, I did actually talk to him before and after Nick went in there. He sure loves those kitties.

Maybe I'm just the only dummy that never found him. He's optional to talk to, which is interesting.

[SecretAsianMan]

The forklift puzzle is one of those love it or hate it puzzles depending on how you solved it.  Grim has a bunch of those (like the earlier sign post one and the kitty hat one) that either make you feel like the smartest person ever or the dumbest baby ever.  That puzzle for me was way back in the beginning with the door lock to get into the mail room.  Took me forever to get and I felt like such an idiot after.

[Thrik]

Yay, more updates!

 

Just an FYI (and I don't think I read you did this, but maybe you did), you can have a conversation with Maximino in year two. His office is off of the area where Nick sits. It's strangely hard to find. I don't think I realized that you could talk to him for at least my first couple playthroughs of the game.

 

You can also try to tell him about Olivia and Nick, which to my surprise Manny actually goes ahead and does, and try to show him the photo. Quite a good exchange.

[Zeusthecat]

You can also try to tell him about Olivia and Nick, which to my surprise Manny actually goes ahead and does, and try to show him the photo. Quite a good exchange.

That was definitely a cool exchange. I love that the game actually lets you try to rat Nick out.

[syntheticgerbil]

The forklift puzzle is one of those love it or hate it puzzles depending on how you solved it.  Grim has a bunch of those (like the earlier sign post one and the kitty hat one) that either make you feel like the smartest person ever or the dumbest baby ever.  That puzzle for me was way back in the beginning with the door lock to get into the mail room.  Took me forever to get and I felt like such an idiot after.

That's the thing, I never had an issue with the forklift puzzle. The shape of the door seemed like it was begging for the forks to be shoved into its holes.

 

But if there was some kind of PC speed issue, that's a whole different thing.

[Udvarnoky]

Has anyone tried installing and running Grim and EMI with Benny's (quick.mixnmojo.com) installers/launchers on modern versions of Windows?  I've had good experiences with them in the past, and if you can get the games to run natively without resorting to emulators you only have to deal with the bugs the game shipped with. 

 

I used his CMI launcher to load up that game recently and it worked like a charm.  I always avoided SCUMMVM for that game because (at the time, at least), they never got the iMUSE flowing music tracks stuff working, so the themes would just stop and start.  A huge blow to the effect of the Barbery Cost and Goodsoup Hotel environments especially.

[Zeusthecat]

Part 2 of my recent progress.

 

After experimenting some with dropping the anchors in each possible location, I eventually discovered that I could drop an anchor in one spot, move the boat, and then drop the other anchor so that it landed right on top of the first one. Once I did this, I tried pulling one of the anchors up and, since they were hooked together, the second anchor was pulled up with the first one so that it's chain was wrapped around the underside of the boat. Next, I went to the porthole and was able to finally use my scythe to pull the anchors in and hook them on the edge of the porthole. I wasn't quite sure what I was supposed to do next so I first tried to move the boat and when that didn't work, I went over to the other porthole and tried pressing the button to pull the other anchor back up. Luckily, that was just what I needed to do and as the anchor was pulled up, it tore through the boat and basically cut a line across the entire back portion. From here, I was able to throw the controls into reverse, detach the back half of the boat, and escape from the assassins. Unfortunately, I didn't get far before the boat sank and we descended into the murky depths.

 

When I regained control, I found Manny and Glottis standing in a small lit up area on the bottom of the sea floor. We couldn't venture out thanks to some damn vicious sea demons and there didn't seem to be anything I could do except talk to Glottis. After a short bit, though, a weird dude with barnacles stuck to his forehead walked up to us and I was able to chat with him for a bit to learn about what he was doing down there. It turned out that he had fashioned a lantern out of some coral and was trying to walk across the bottom of the sea to get to his destination using what he thought was the moon as his guide. I tried to explain to him that the "moon" was really a giant pearl but he refused to believe me. After a little bit more conversation I was able to convince him to let us tag along and we all ventured out singing "This little light of mine". We walked with him for a little while and thanks to the false moon he was following, we ended up just going in a big circle and landed right back where we started. At that point he continued on, completely oblivious to the fact that he had been walking in circles the entire time he'd been down there, and we decided to stay back where we first started. From here, we continued watching the barnacle guy as he continued walking in a circle and when he came back by us, I discovered that I could try to grab his lantern. I couldn't seem to grab it but after a few more attempts I found that I could walk backwards as I was trying to grab the lamp and when I did so, Glottis picked him up and we were able to use him and his lamp to light our way as we ventured out towards the pearl.

 

When we arrived at the pearl, barnacle man finally realized what it was he had been following and vowed to continue following us. There was only one way to go so we started walking and as I walked by a rock with some anemones stuck to it, they reached out and grabbed onto the barnacles on barnacle man. This caught the attention of a giant octopus who swooped down and dragged the barnacle guy into some kind of submarine. Luckily, that provided enough of a distraction that we were able to sneak over to the submarine and hang on as the octopus settled back down and drove it away towards the edge of the world.

 

We eventually reached some kind of mining colony and finally let go of the submarine. I briefly explored some of this area and then finally stopped playing. 

[Thrik]

I can confidently say that Grim Fandango is largely bug-free in Residual now, having just played through it for the first time using that tool. The fact that there's an occasional animation bug is massively outweighed by the fact that you can use anti-aliasing (seriously, cannot emphasise enough how awesome this is). Plus, Residual fixes bugs that were present in the original game and never patched by LucasArts (notably the Domino conversation). At this point there's no downside to using it unless a few animation glitches throughout the entire game really bother you.

[Ben X]

Has anyone tried installing and running Grim and EMI with Benny's (quick.mixnmojo.com) installers/launchers on modern versions of Windows?  I've had good experiences with them in the past, and if you can get the games to run natively without resorting to emulators you only have to deal with the bugs the game shipped with. 

 

I used his CMI launcher to load up that game recently and it worked like a charm.  I always avoided SCUMMVM for that game because (at the time, at least), they never got the iMUSE flowing music tracks stuff working, so the themes would just stop and start.  A huge blow to the effect of the Barbery Cost and Goodsoup Hotel environments especially.

 

Is that the same launcher I linked to on the previous page? It's definitely worth trying something different to Residual for EFMI, as it's very buggy running through that.

 

I'd be interested to know if ScummVM has got iMUSE working for COMI by now...

[Zeusthecat]

I have a lot more progress that I hope to find time to post about within the next day or two. In the meantime, I just wanted to pop in here real quick to say that I am stuck in the vault with Meche, a giant fucking axe, and a shitty sprinkler system. It is such a small area with a very limited number of possible interactions and yet I am completely and utterly clueless at what else there is to try. I only have my scythe and that drill thing which I have attempted to use with every possible item in the area and I have dragged that stupid axe around more than I care to admit.

[miffy495]

Mild hint because I remember this puzzle being really hard:

Is there anything that you can't put in your inventory that's around?

[bkbroiler]

I can't believe you solved the puzzle before that one. I still have trouble with it even on replays of the game. 

[thorn]

I can't believe you solved the puzzle before that one. I still have trouble with it even on replays of the game. 

 

Which one do you mean?

Giving Meche the gun?

[bkbroiler]

Which one do you mean?

Giving Meche the gun?

No, the tumbler lock one. I can never figure out which way to line those stupid things up.

[Zeusthecat]

Update on my latest progress.

 

As I explored the mining colony, I found that most of the areas didn't have a whole lot of things to interact with. There was an underwater area with some miners, a mostly empty beach area on one side of the island with some grinding wheels on the ramp leading to the beach, an underwater conveyor belt on the other side of the island that led to an old ship dangling off the edge of the world, and a big crane device that I could use to get to either side of the island. After exploring these areas, I went inside the main building where I finally caught up with Meche and Domino. Upon meeting them, Glottis was ejected off the edge of the world through a trap door and I was told that I would be the new boss. Unfortunately, there wasn't much I could do to resist since there didn't seem to be any way off of the island.

 

After all of this I was punched in the face by Domino and I regained control in my new office where there was a big cage holding two Angelitos. I talked with them for a bit to learn about their situation and ended up getting one of their mini pickaxes. From there, I went back and talked to Meche and Domino a bit more and was able to glean some more information on what had happened over the last two years. Unfortunately, Meche was convinced that I was in cahoots with Domino and refused to talk to me any more unless I showed her the gun that she was convinced I was carrying. There didn't seem to be anything else I could do inside at the moment so I exited the building and continued on to see if I could figure out some way to obtain a gun since that seemed to be my only clear objective.

 

Upon entering the underwater area again, I noticed that Chepito had joined the miners and was chipping away with a Bust All. After chatting with him for a bit, I was able to convince him to part ways with it in exchange for my mini pickaxe (It's worth mentioning that I have found Chepito's character to be consistently hilarious. I just love how enthusiastic he was about that mini pickaxe). From here, I stalled for a bit and wandered back through each area trying to figure out what to do next. To my surprise, as I was re-exploring each area, I found that Glottis had survived the fall and had landed on that old ship that was dangling over the edge of the world. I was relieved to see that he was okay and after talking to him for a bit, Manny echoed that exact sentiment which I found kind of touching for some reason (I am very impressed with how the game has conveyed the companionship between Manny and Glottis considering you are really only playing brief segments of time where their interactions are fairly limited and mostly goofy). Eventually I started to gain some momentum again when I started messing around with the crane and discovered that I could raise and lower the giant chain with grabber on the beach area.

 

After I had lowered the grabber onto the beach, I exited the crane to go down and investigate. I quickly found that I was able to detach the grabber from the chain using my Bust All and after doing so, I jumped back in the crane and happened to try lowering the chain again after lifting it back up, causing it to get stuck in the grinding wheels which were then ripped out when I lifted the chain back out a second time. There wasn't anything I could do with the grinding wheels or the grabber at this point so I got back in the crane again and moved over to the other side where I found that I could now lower the chain onto the conveyor belt that went into the water and towards where the old ship was hanging. After a little bit of experimenting I was able to ultimately lift the boat back up to the surface by lowering the chain, then changing the direction of the conveyor belt to cause the chain to get caught on the other chain that was holding the boat, then raising the chain again to pull the boat up. I then found myself back on the beach with Glottis and after he saw that he had the necessary components (i.e. the grinding wheels and the grabber) to get through the reef that was apparently blocking the way, he decided that he needed some time to "figure" and I moved on again.

 

At this point I was stuck again for a little while. There were no new conversation options and no objects that I could use with my scythe or Bust All. After some time, however, I got lucky when I tried using the ashtray in Meche's office. I had used it a few times before to no effect but this time I either must have had lucky timing and used it right at the point where she was going to flick the ash from her cigarette or maybe this interaction only became available after I had pulled the ship up and done all of the steps with the crane. Either way, the ash from her cigarette burned a hole in her silk stocking which she threw in the garbage. I then picked it up and went straight back to Chepito where I was able to exchange it for a gun. Then I went back to Meche to show her the gun, which she then yanked out of my hand and dragged me into Domino's office as a hostage in an attempt to gain the upper hand on him. Based on Domino's reaction, she finally realized that I wasn't working with him and he quickly disarmed her and locked her in a vault.

 

After this, I left Domino's office and went to work trying to unlock the vault. I tried turning the wheel to various locations but was unable to figure out how to open it. So I just kept at it and re-examined the door a few times until I found that I could pry the casing off of the lock mechanism using the Bust All. Once I did this, I was finally able to turn the wheel to properly line up the locks so there was a gap between the edge of the lock and the door jamb but every time I tried to open it they spun shut again. I attempted a few more times and eventually realized that I could use wedge my scythe into the gap to keep the locks from spinning open and after doing so, I was finally in.

 

After getting inside, I was surprised to see that Meche was nowhere to be found. I poked around a little bit and examined a big statue guy and giant axe but there didn't seem to be anything I could do besides drag the axe around and touch my scythe to the door contact. I eventually happened to try closing the door and was then able to use my scythe with the door contact to open a secret room where Meche was waiting. Unfortunately we were now both locked in the vault with nothing but the statue guy, the giant axe, a sprinkler valve, a rickety sprinkler system, a stack of cases full of counterfeit golden tickets, and a vent which seemed to be the only possible point of escape. After some poking around, I found that I could use my scythe to flip on the sprinkler system at which point I was able to use the sprinkler valve to turn it on or off. I spent another hour or two after this trying to use my Bust All and scythe with every possible item and dragging the axe everywhere and have yet to make any further progress. I noticed that Manny is able to attempt to lift the axe so I've also spent a good chunk of time positioning it in various places and trying to lift it to prop it up on something but still no luck. I've been pondering it for awhile now and still can't think of what else I can possibly try that I haven't already.

 

On a side note, there are a few things I want to mention that I really like about this segment of the game. First, Chepito is awesome and hilarious and I love that dude. Second, I really got a kick out of all the funny stuff you can say to the Angelitos to make them cry. Third, Domino is a pretty slick bad guy. I don't know why but I really like the way he talks and the attitude he has and he makes for an interesting dude. And finally, there's something about the emotional detachment that all of the characters seem to have with the world and each other that I find really interesting. I can't quite put my finger on what it is exactly but the way Manny's and other's reactions to significant events are so emotionally subdued compared to how a real living human being might react really goes a long way to communicate what kind of mentality an already dead person has in the land of the dead.

[bkbroiler]

First a roundabount hint to where you're stuck, and the in game hint you're missing regarding the puzzle:

 

Check out the sprinkler some more. Does that clue you in on anything?

 

Glad you're liking Year Three. That's interesting, because it's actually my least favorite year (though I obviously love the whole game). I can't argue with the parts you like about it, though. Chepito, Domino, the Angelitos ("check out my bone saw!"). Specifically, the way Chepito says "it's a BUST ALL!" has stuck in my head for the last 15ish years. I don't know why.

[Bjorn]

That conveyer belt was one of the previously broken puzzles years ago, where the speed of the conveyer was tied to your CPU speed. 

[Zeusthecat]

Still no luck after another 30 minutes last night. Methinks it's spoiler time on this one.

[Thrik]

One a bit more specific than bkbroiler's hint:

The axe's weight could be useful for something.