The Big LucasArts Playthrough

[Ben X]

Are we talking about Ozzie Mandrill? The place's never been the same with him around.

 

Yarr, that's right, he bought all the property and etc etc

[syntheticgerbil]

Just skip to Grim Fandango HD so that we can do the new social features together.

 

I have virtual items to send!

[Udvarnoky]

Plus every single NPC tells you about this one plot point - about all the pirates leaving or the tourists taking over or something - so you end up hearing it twenty times, it's infuriating.

 

"Say, why's your shop so empty?"

"Oh, it's because Ozzie Mandrill bought all the property and etc etc"

 

"How's the perfume business?"

"Pretty bad since Ozzie Mandrill etc etc"

 

over and fucking over.

 

Isn't it the same concept as everyone on Woodtick complaining about Largo screwing their businesses over?

[Ben X]

Maybe, but I guess the execution was different for it to be so much more noticeable in Escape.

[Thrik]

I guess it kind of goes with the general comments I've heard going back 13 years now about how EMI is a bit dialogue-heavy. Clearly, 90% of it is people eloquently voicing their opinion that Ozzie Mandrill is a tosser.

[Zeusthecat]

I played some more last night and made a tiny bit of progress.

 

First, as I went about re-examining each area, I happened to talk to a lady standing near a fountain and saw that I had a new option to tell her that one of the guys playing chess had a crush on her which she seemed flattered by. Then, I went back down to the two guys playing chess and was able to heckle the one guy about the girl near the fountain liking him. That caused him to mess up one of his moves and set off a big tantrum between the two chess players where they just went back and forth throwing their chess pieces off the dock and into the water. After watching this for a bit, I discovered that I could finally steal their clock and once I did I continued on my way.

 

After some more poking around, I wound up back in the prosthetic body part shop and talked to the dude again. I went through some dialog options and discovered that I could get different free prosthetic body parts based on how I answered the three questions he asked me. And then I spent the rest of the night working through various permutations to get a whole bunch of different parts which I tried to put together but failed every time I tried to put the skin on the finished result. So I assume I am either wasting my time doing something that has no bearing on whatever puzzle it is I'm trying to solve or I just have to continue going through each combination of responses until I get all the parts I need to make whatever monstrosity the game is encouraging me to make.

[syntheticgerbil]

You're never going to finish this game.

[Zeusthecat]

You're never going to finish this game.

 

I'm considering just using a walkthrough for the rest of it. I'm finding it really hard to get any momentum going and this Lucre Island stuff just isn't doing it for me.

[Ucantalas]

While I don't remember the exact solution, I remember the prosthetic shop puzzle was really weird. It was one of the few times I had to look up what to do.

[Udvarnoky]

Trivia: The two chess players are loosely modeled on the likenesses of project leaders Sean Clark and Mike Stemmle.

 

Sorry about all the grief you're experiencing with anything related to the House of Prostheses.  I feel ya.

[Roderick]

Actually I really enjoyed the lazy morning feel on Lucre island. Great music, but yeah, those puzzles.

[Udvarnoky]

I think it speaks volumes that the North American printing of the game came packaged with a quick-path walkthrough.

 

The game.  Came with.  A walkthrough.

[Zeusthecat]

I resorted to using a walkthrough and as a result, made another decent chunk of progress the other night.

 

First, I learned that I needed to add some swamp water to my homemade perfume (I had already added the other necessary ingredients). Once I had done that, I used the homemade perfume on the prosthetics guy and he gave the name of a person that had the same scent. Then, thanks to the walkthrough, I was able to map the initials of the name that was given to me to various items on the monkey's code wheel thingy which netted me some "directions" to Pegnose Pete's place. While reading the walkthrough for this section, I also learned that I was supposed to have remembered the names that were listed on the manhole cover near the bank to get the prosthetic skin from the prosthetic dude. Luckily, I had previously gone through so many combinations of answers that I had already gotten the prosthetic skin on accident so that piece ended up being irrelevant. Finally, I learned that I needed to use the melody box with the prosthetics guy to make it so he couldn't hear me stealing a wooden prosthetic hand which I needed so I could obtain the termites from the bait shop.

 

After leaving the prosthetics shop, I stopped by the bait shop to grab the termites before finally heading into the swamp. Continuing on with the walkthrough, I learned how to navigate through the swamp using the chess clock and the directions from the prosthetics shop and eventually reached a gate with a future version of Guybrush. Once that interaction was finished and he had given me a bunch of stuff and told me what number I was thinking of, I continued on until I wound up back at the gate (or maybe it was a different gate?) where the past version of Guybrush was waiting for me. I repeated the sequence of events as it had happened for me when I was my past self and once I was done, I was finally able to move on to Pegnose Pete's place. As I approached, I heard a conversation going on inside Pete's shack between him and Ozzie Mandrill. Once Ozzie finally took off, I threw some chicken grease on the welcome mat and then threw a duck into Pete's window, causing him to bolt out of his house and slip on the grease before falling into a crawdad trap.

 

Once I had caught Pete, I found myself back at the jailhouse. Unfortunately, I couldn't produce any real evidence that I had been framed so I was forced to move on. From here, I checked the walkthrough again and learned that I needed to use the prosthetic skin on the open manhole so that I could launch myself back into the bank. Once inside, I grabbed some Scupperware that I had missed earlier and then picked up a nose after looking at a weird shadow. And this is about where I stopped.

 

I have to say, this whole sequence of events was pretty much a load of bullshit. First, the riddle to get the prosthetic skin was kind of lame. With so much random stupid stuff being said all the time that has no bearing on any puzzles, I think it is ridiculous that I would have been expected to remember those few random names on the manhole cover. Second, why would I have been expected to know that mixing a bunch of random ingredients together would make a perfume that smells like Pegnose Pete. I have to assume I'm missing something here because I don't recall anything in the game indicating that he smelled like a combination of those items. Third, how the fuck is any human being supposed to solve that monkey wheel puzzle in the prosthetics shop without a guide? I really don't get how I would have been expected to logically deduce that the three initials given to me each mapped to a specific image on the monkey wheel. Fuck that puzzle, it sucked and I hated it so much. Fourth, why does playing a quiet ass music box make a blind man deaf? Fifth, why does a random chess clock magically change time in each area of the swamp. Did I miss the part where it was supposed to be a stupid voodoo swamp? And finally, WHY THE FUCK WAS THERE THAT STUPID SEGMENT WITH FUTURE AND PAST GUYBRUSH WITH THE SUPER LAME BILL AND TED REFERENCE? That was random and stupid in the worst way possible and I would really like to know what kind of illicit substance was consumed that would have caused a person to think that that was a funny reference or a good idea in any way. They could at least attempt to give some lame explanation for why that happened besides just throwing it in there to have an extra puzzle.

 

This game is getting really lame really fast and if this continues, it might be one of those rare games that I just don't like.

[Ucantalas]

Unless I'm mistaken I believe that swamp was called the Swamp of Time at some point. I feel like some random person mentions it being a very weird and mysterious place, but I may be remembering wrong as it's been years and years since I last played Escape.

I kind of liked the future/past Guybrush puzzle, though it would have worked much better in a game explicitly about time travel and not just in a weird swamp where time is WACKY!

 

[Trip Hazard]

I gave up on Escape after just a couple of hours, because it was boring and not funny, and the puzzles were illogical, and Guybrush made so many stupid, lame quips. Oh, and it's ugly.

[thorn]

Unless I'm mistaken I believe that swamp was called the Swamp of Time at some point. I feel like some random person mentions it being a very weird and mysterious place, but I may be remembering wrong as it's been years and years since I last played Escape.

I kind of liked the future/past Guybrush puzzle, though it would have worked much better in a game explicitly about time travel and not just in a weird swamp where time is WACKY!

 

This, pretty much. The swamp puzzle is pretty much the only part of the game that I remember fondly.

[Thrik]

Interesting albeit unsurprising to see your reaction to the game Zeus. It's completely reminded me why I found Escape pretty crappy back when it came out, which I guess over the years I kind of forgot and my mind just remembered the few (but existent) positive aspects.

[Ucantalas]

This, pretty much. The swamp puzzle is pretty much the only part of the game that I remember fondly.

MONKEY KOMBAT!

...I kind of didn't like the actual Monkey Kombat, I just loved the way one of the monkeys shouted that out before the combat.

[Zeusthecat]

Unless I'm mistaken I believe that swamp was called the Swamp of Time at some point. I feel like some random person mentions it being a very weird and mysterious place, but I may be remembering wrong as it's been years and years since I last played Escape.

I kind of liked the future/past Guybrush puzzle, though it would have worked much better in a game explicitly about time travel and not just in a weird swamp where time is WACKY!

 

Ah, someone probably did say something about the swamp being weird and mysterious and I just glossed over it. There is just so much dialog and it's hard to remember little details like that in a sea of random stuff being said.

Maybe I'm being a bit unfair with my disdain for the swamp segment. My main complaint with that part was how random and out of the blue it felt. Maybe if I would have paid closer attention to what was said I would have known it was a time warp swamp and appreciated the puzzle more. Plus it didn't help that it came right after the super irritating prosthetics shop part which I really feel has been the worst offender in this game.

I'm on the fence at this point regarding whether or not I should just continue using a walkthrough for the rest of the game. If the next segment is a little less open and more focused I might resume trying to get through things on my own.

[syntheticgerbil]

Strange, I always loved the swamp. It's weird, hearing you play it, it seems really bad, but I generally had fun with it the last time I played. I mean it had many bad jokes and some puzzles were needlessy obtuse, plus the graphics are terrible, but I found some parts charming and some puzzles inventive, including the bizarre Swamp of Time puzzle.

[Ben X]

The swamp puzzle isn't actually that clever mechanically - you just remember the correct order of a few actions, right? - but conceptually it's interesting because it creates time-loops and it makes you feel like you've done something more complicated than you did. I think the game has a few nice ideas for big puzzles - getting framed and clearing your name, negotiating time-travel - but it often doesn't execute them very well.

 

Then it has some awful ideas, like the one Ucantalas just spoiled, and the Phantom Menace-level backstory-cannibalising.

 

Re. the perfume puzzle, I think you have a handkerchief from Pegnose Pete and you have to examine it multiple times to get a list of smells, which is a bit cheap as there's no hint that you're able to get new dialogue from re-examining on this one item (perhaps there's dialogue elsewhere that hints at this, though).

 

EDIT: OMG NEW PAGE HOW UNUSUAL AND EXCITING AND YET EMBARRASSING TO HAVE THE SPOTLIGHT SHONE ON ME IN THIS WAY! /satire

[Merus]

 the Phantom Menace-level backstory-cannibalising.

 

Where is this?

[mikemariano]

Where is this?

 

Herman Toothrot?

[Ben X]

Yes, exactly.

[Udvarnoky]

Hee, the skin on the manhole.  It is kind of amazing how regressive EMI can be at times with the puzzle design inanity.  And yes, the File-O-Matic retrieval system is legendary in its WTF-ness.