The pepper puzzle was fine.
Most adventure gamers would have already tried to get Guybrush to take the pepper asked the barkeep, grabbed it on it's own and then used the hook - just to see the reactions.
Once you realise you have to use the machine at De Singe's the puzzle is pretty much solved. IF you are unlucky enough to have clicked something else - the game automatically saved after De Singe's house so you just load game!
The pepper puzzle was fine.
Most adventure gamers would have already tried to get Guybrush to take the pepper asked the barkeep, grabbed it on it's own and then used the hook - just to see the reactions.
Once you realise you have to use the machine at De Singe's the puzzle is pretty much solved. IF you are unlucky enough to have clicked something else - the game automatically saved after De Singe's house so you just load game!
Carpet puzzle was a great one.
I guess it depends on the order in which you discover things.
I had played with the machine at DeSinge's lab first and saw the toungue thing, so when I heard the story about the pepper, I knew what I had to do, and went back to get tounged before ever picking it up.
I guess it depends on the order in which you discover things.
I had played with the machine at DeSinge's lab first and saw the toungue thing, so when I heard the story about the pepper, I knew what I had to do, and went back to get tounged before ever picking it up.
It was irritating to say the least.
...
Okay, some Telltale fans are getting spoiled by overly simplistic, one-step puzzles.
People want harder puzzles, but as soon as they come over one they have trouble solving, they call it illogical and stupid and cry like babies. It can't POSSIBLY be their own fault they can't solve the puzzle.
Okay, some Telltale fans are getting spoiled by overly simplistic, one-step puzzles.
My complaint is not over the difficulty of the puzzle, but the tediousness of it.
If DeSinge's lab was closer to the club I would have had no problem with it at all, it was just how long it took from knowing the solution to actually solving the puzzle.
Maybe I'm elitist or something, but back when Infocom and Sierra made games, I built an instinct of testing out this sort of thing first. I wasn't going to leave that club until I knew every facet of that pepper's behavior.
I had a few problems solving the puzzles
1) I didnt know how to get the glass eye to turn red.
2) I didnt know that i needed to use the leg bag (for the alter) because i didnt know how to unlock the door to find them
Am I complaining? Hell No! Bring on chapter 5
Adventure games are meant to have puzzles that make you think. If you are complaining about these puzzles, then maybe adventure games arent for you. Ive been an adventure game fan since my amiga days and loved it. You think that was difficult, try the old style scumm games.
The only one I truly think can be annoying is the tongue puzzle. I myself got it at the first try, but the part where you get to the door it IS true that the lamp oil gets in the way. I often clicked on the lamp oil instead of the door, even during this puzzle, but mostly I'm fast enough to correct it. Still, it doesn't take away that it can be rather annoying.
However, the rest is just whining.
First, it's common knowledge that in fictional worlds rubbing one against a high-polar carpet will cause massive shocks. Just look at one episode of Family Guy, or one Dexter's Laboratory episode. It's becoming one of the many ways to torture your victims. Also, I stumbled upon this feature when I was walking in and out and around Club 41 searching for something else.
The various locks were rather easy after the first one in chapter three. After remembering that chapter, I just knew I had to use the hook to pick locks.
The jungle puzzle was just simple. I didn't even break a sweat. Now if you're talking about the jungle beast puzzle itself, okay, I can understand just a little bit, but the various items you need already have big clues on them, and there were two other clues about the jungle beast.
First, we know the jungle beast likes meat, so we need something made out of meat. Fortunately for us, human feet are made of meat, so finding that was pretty sweet. Also, we need some sort of trail, so we somehow need to tag the feet with a trail of sorts. Luckily we found a pack of sugar during the fight, which, if you remembered earlier when clicking on the pack of sugar before it fell off, W.P. comments on the fact that the sack attracts the ants, and when picking up the sack, Guybrush himself comments on that fact as well.
Now, it might not be all that logical, but you also have to remember this. Sugar dissolves in water, and there's a wishing well somewhere. Guybrush himself comments on the fact that the wishing well isn't that deep anymore. Now, even if you didn't get these hints, there's one big thing we learned from the previous encounter of the wishing well. Always try to hold something above the well. So, when using the sugar on the well, it makes butterflies appear. And from there it's rather simple.
if you remembered earlier when clicking on the pack of sugar before it fell off, W.P. comments on the fact that the sack attracts the ants, and when picking up the sack, Guybrush himself comments on that fact as well.
Now, it might not be all that logical, but you also have to remember this. Sugar dissolves in water, and there's a wishing well somewhere.
There is also a jar in DeSinge's lab that talks about
attracting fireflies with sugar water.
I actually needed that hint as I was getting all confused with the moths! I don't know where my brain was with that puzzle...
You also have to remember that the bailiff is a moron. I already had the feeling I just needed to tell him that he lied until he fessed up. I mean, he practically implies that he's that stupid and easy.
You think that was difficult, try the old style scumm games.
You think Scumm games were hard?! They were practically built to be easy. "We believe our gamers are stupider and less patient than Sierra gamers" is their mission statement.
You think Scumm games were hard?! They were practically built to be easy. "We believe our gamers are stupider and less patient than Sierra gamers" is their mission statement.
Maniac Mansion comes to mind. But i was only 7 at the time
My complaint is not over the difficulty of the puzzle, but the tediousness of it.
If DeSinge's lab was closer to the club I would have had no problem with it at all, it was just how long it took from knowing the solution to actually solving the puzzle.
I remember when people used to think that the long walking times were a perk in adventure games.
Maniac Mansion was, I'm pretty sure, the only game made BEFORE the "No dying" policy.
Perhaps, but its still a SCUMM game so it counts
But yea, i agree that Sierra made harder games. I was more Lucasarts than Sierra growing up so Ive more gametime with them. Should have said Sierra instead of SCUMM in that respect.
I did find it odd that Monkey2 and Curse had mega monkey modes though. The only time the difference stumped me was the doors in Lechucks fortress. I didnt realise that the spit paper had the lyrics (duh!)
My complaint is not over the difficulty of the puzzle, but the tediousness of it.
If DeSinge's lab was closer to the club I would have had no problem with it at all, it was just how long it took from knowing the solution to actually solving the puzzle.
You can hold shift to run you know. If that's still too far for you then I completely disagree, because it takes about 20 seconds from door to door which doesn't seem excessive.
Maniac Mansion was, I'm pretty sure, the only game made BEFORE the "No dying" policy.
No, you could die in Zak McKraken and Last Crusade as well. Loom and SMI were the first Lucasarts adventures where dying was (nearly) impossible.
You could die in Fate of Atlantis, of course, but never unfairly.
You think Scumm games were hard?! They were practically built to be easy. "We believe our gamers are stupider and less patient than Sierra gamers" is their mission statement.
They were built to be easy in the sense that you were not punished for making mistakes, and you would never unknowingly reach a dead end. The puzzles in Lucasfilm/arts games were generally cleverer than Sierra riddles, without being either unfair (trading the hovercraft in Space Quest) or assuming the player has specific knowledge about the role you are playing (Police Quest).
No, you could die in Zak McKraken and Last Crusade as well. Loom and SMI were the first Lucasarts adventures where dying was (nearly) impossible.
You could die in Fate of Atlantis, of course, but never unfairly.
Ah, you're completely right. I had an incomplete LucasArts timeline in my head.
They were built to be easy in the sense that you were not punished for making mistakes, and you would never unknowingly reach a dead end. The puzzles in Lucasfilm/arts games were generally cleverer than Sierra riddles, without being either unfair (trading the hovercraft in Space Quest) or assuming the player has specific knowledge about the role you are playing (Police Quest).
Yeah, they were built to be easy. Granted, Sierra and Infocom took some really stupid cheap shots at times, and you just named one of them, but when you played their games you were always on edge because you knew that if you didn't know everything about the world, you would die. It required maybe not being "smarter", but just..."keener". It's hard to explain the difference, other than to use the words "on edge" far too many times.
Yeah, they were built to be easy. Granted, Sierra and Infocom took some really stupid cheap shots at times, and you just named one of them, but when you played their games you were always on edge because you knew that if you didn't know everything about the world, you would die. It required maybe not being "smarter", but just..."keener". It's hard to explain the difference, other than to use the words "on edge" far too many times.
The Sierra games were definately more tense affairs, where you had to thread lightly and be very methodical about your puzzle solving, and I can absolutely see the appeal of that. However, as much as I like (most of) the Sierra adventures, I always felt like the dead ends and frequent deaths were artificial ways of making the games more difficult than the puzzles themselves. I believe Lucasarts did the right thing when they removed those aspects from their games.
The Lucasarts adventures weren't "made for a stupider audience" than Sierra adventures, they were just more forgiving and generally less frustrating.
Just my short opinion on the worst puzzle yet:
Putting the fish on the bongo-drums in chapter 3. It was not difficult or so, in fact it was as obvious as it could be....but I think it was just a pretty lame, kinda stupid idea.
Sierra's approach to puzzles in many if not most of their games: "How many ways can we kill the hero". Well, at least they seemed that way. The puzzles seemed to be based around the hero getting killed or actions leading to a game over. You can die just about every step you make, or even worse, you can forget or easily miss something early on in the game that prevents you from getting further later on. Also, in those days, especially on the Amiga, a game over meant restoring a game, which again often meant swapping disks - so it became tedious. LucasArts built their puzzles to be challenging and have a logical meaning. It's not that the Sierra games were any harder because they had challenging puzzles, but they were harder because you could die trying. Put the same puzzles in a game where you can't die, they'd be even easier than most LucasArts games.
Gah, Maniac Mansion. I never did finish that game. The shame... I think I kept getting stuck too short to do anything.
Ha- which reminds me of the moment of horror I felt at one of the self-trepanation device settings. I briefly thought that I'd be stuck that size for ever and not able to reach the helmet to reverse it.
I solved the carpet/static puzzle completely by accident. I spilled coffee all over my keyboard a couple of days ago; as a result, some keys get stuck for a few seconds when I push them down. Now as it so happens, the arrow keys are the ones worse off. I don't like the mouse control in ToMI, so I play with the arrows which was a pain this time around, but they got stuck when I was heading towards the exit, and lo' behold, Guybrush kept walking around the carpet which generated the little cutscene of him having gathered static electricity.
I had to reload and do it again because at first I couldn't believe it, but that turned out to be the solution indeed.
Thinking of keeping the faulty keyboard for another month till Ch5 comes out
Anyway, kudos to whoever came up with this puzzle. It was incredibly clever!
I think the puzzles were great and I like that some were more challenging than others.
I couldn't figure out how to fold the map and where to go so I went on-line for that, the repeated use of the hook gave me the impression it was going to be a bit more important and I immediately guessed at the shock when I saw the calendar, which you have to walk around a previous episode.
The hardest thing for me was the eye because I didn't think the judge's tantrum was very important and for some reason I thought I could do everything in one recess and didn't bother to go back into court(i found that online).
The only puzzle I had to look online was the shock puzzle. I know that to some of you it seemed rather obvious, but it just hadn't really occurred to me. I think it would have helped if the hints were a little less subtle, because I spent at least an hour on that puzzle with hints on maximum before I finally went to the forum.
The hardest thing for me was the eye because I didn't think the judge's tantrum was very important and for some reason I thought I could do everything in one recess and didn't bother to go back into court(i found that online).
Hm, personally I thought that one was hinted at a little too strongly,
since even before I learnt about the glass eye, I noticed that the Judge kept rubbing his eyes when breaking out of his tantrum.
And it's a shock because of the static of the carpet.
It makes perfect sense.
I had noticed Guybrush got a shock every time he walked out the door, realized it was from the carpet after a while, and was sure that was what I needed for the sponge. But I was baffled for a while about how to make the shock intense enough to work.
I may have solved that part by accident, if another poster is correct that you have to walk back and forth on the carpet for a while before going up the stairs. I got it to work after touching the carpet with the hook first instead of just looking at it -- which to me was completely illogical, because in real life, touching a carpet with a metal object before you walk across it would not make the shock you got at the end more intense. If anything it might lessen the shock a little by draining off any charge you had before you touched the carpet with the metal object.
Most of the recipe bits certainly took some thinking on my part, and I did end up having to consult the forum here for help with the beast after wasting a half hour working on it, but oddly enough, the shock puzzle came to me immediately after trying the sponge on the carpet and door. I told my wife, "I wonder if I need to just walk back and forth on the carpet to build up more static electricity?" She gave me a look of doubt, but sure enough we knew it worked right away when I did it.
Apparently some of you here are not directly familiar with that phenomena, but it tends to happen in the winter when you have the furnace running and especially if you don't have a humidifier built into your furnace (or have it set too 'dry').
Overall, I didn't find this chapter too difficult, but as said, the whole recipe thing took the most time --- primarily that beast part.
de Singe's lab to Club 41 was a little tedious for me when I went all the way there and back knowing exactly what i'd need to do straight away, and yet having to use the hook on the pepper before licking it (which just seemed like padding for me, it was so easy for me)
That's not to say that the puzzle was necessarily too easy, I just found it logical this time around. However, we could have had a portable thing instead of having to go back and forth until we got everything exactly right.
It'd be really cool if Elaine could just zap Guybrush's tongue everytime he whines at her!
I was surprised by the firefly thing. It felt a little repetitive, considering how prominent their part in one of the CoMI puzzles was. To be honest, I kept looking everywhere for a jar so I could use it with the ocean and then use the sugar bag with the jar of brine to capture them.
And now that I'm replaying the game, I'm really surprised by this thread. I mean just going out of the bar gives you a forced static shock, every single time! Even though it's not big enough to cause the sponge to be charged, it's a really, really obvious hint...
PS. I'm not at the point where I have already shocked the sponge so no, it doesn't shock you only after you solve the puzzle.
Comments
Most adventure gamers would have already tried to get Guybrush to take the pepper asked the barkeep, grabbed it on it's own and then used the hook - just to see the reactions.
Once you realise you have to use the machine at De Singe's the puzzle is pretty much solved. IF you are unlucky enough to have clicked something else - the game automatically saved after De Singe's house so you just load game!
Carpet puzzle was a great one.
I guess it depends on the order in which you discover things.
I had played with the machine at DeSinge's lab first and saw the toungue thing, so when I heard the story about the pepper, I knew what I had to do, and went back to get tounged before ever picking it up.
It was irritating to say the least.
Okay, some Telltale fans are getting spoiled by overly simplistic, one-step puzzles.
This post isn't aimed at anyone particular, mind.
My complaint is not over the difficulty of the puzzle, but the tediousness of it.
If DeSinge's lab was closer to the club I would have had no problem with it at all, it was just how long it took from knowing the solution to actually solving the puzzle.
Maybe I'm elitist or something, but back when Infocom and Sierra made games, I built an instinct of testing out this sort of thing first. I wasn't going to leave that club until I knew every facet of that pepper's behavior.
If its too easy, people complain
I had a few problems solving the puzzles
1) I didnt know how to get the glass eye to turn red.
2) I didnt know that i needed to use the leg bag (for the alter) because i didnt know how to unlock the door to find them
Am I complaining? Hell No! Bring on chapter 5
Adventure games are meant to have puzzles that make you think. If you are complaining about these puzzles, then maybe adventure games arent for you. Ive been an adventure game fan since my amiga days and loved it. You think that was difficult, try the old style scumm games.
The only one I truly think can be annoying is the tongue puzzle. I myself got it at the first try, but the part where you get to the door it IS true that the lamp oil gets in the way. I often clicked on the lamp oil instead of the door, even during this puzzle, but mostly I'm fast enough to correct it. Still, it doesn't take away that it can be rather annoying.
However, the rest is just whining.
First, it's common knowledge that in fictional worlds rubbing one against a high-polar carpet will cause massive shocks. Just look at one episode of Family Guy, or one Dexter's Laboratory episode. It's becoming one of the many ways to torture your victims. Also, I stumbled upon this feature when I was walking in and out and around Club 41 searching for something else.
The various locks were rather easy after the first one in chapter three. After remembering that chapter, I just knew I had to use the hook to pick locks.
The jungle puzzle was just simple. I didn't even break a sweat. Now if you're talking about the jungle beast puzzle itself, okay, I can understand just a little bit, but the various items you need already have big clues on them, and there were two other clues about the jungle beast.
First, we know the jungle beast likes meat, so we need something made out of meat. Fortunately for us, human feet are made of meat, so finding that was pretty sweet. Also, we need some sort of trail, so we somehow need to tag the feet with a trail of sorts. Luckily we found a pack of sugar during the fight, which, if you remembered earlier when clicking on the pack of sugar before it fell off, W.P. comments on the fact that the sack attracts the ants, and when picking up the sack, Guybrush himself comments on that fact as well.
Now, it might not be all that logical, but you also have to remember this. Sugar dissolves in water, and there's a wishing well somewhere. Guybrush himself comments on the fact that the wishing well isn't that deep anymore. Now, even if you didn't get these hints, there's one big thing we learned from the previous encounter of the wishing well. Always try to hold something above the well. So, when using the sugar on the well, it makes butterflies appear. And from there it's rather simple.
There is also a jar in DeSinge's lab that talks about
whatever, badgering someone as a solution to a puzzle is classic monkey island
I say most becuase theres bound to be one.
Maniac Mansion comes to mind. But i was only 7 at the time
I remember when people used to think that the long walking times were a perk in adventure games.
Perhaps, but its still a SCUMM game so it counts
But yea, i agree that Sierra made harder games. I was more Lucasarts than Sierra growing up so Ive more gametime with them. Should have said Sierra instead of SCUMM in that respect.
I did find it odd that Monkey2 and Curse had mega monkey modes though. The only time the difference stumped me was the doors in Lechucks fortress. I didnt realise that the spit paper had the lyrics (duh!)
You can hold shift to run you know. If that's still too far for you then I completely disagree, because it takes about 20 seconds from door to door which doesn't seem excessive.
The pepper one was also quite difficult, the rest of the chapter otherwise has very thoughtful puzzles though.
No, you could die in Zak McKraken and Last Crusade as well. Loom and SMI were the first Lucasarts adventures where dying was (nearly) impossible.
You could die in Fate of Atlantis, of course, but never unfairly.
They were built to be easy in the sense that you were not punished for making mistakes, and you would never unknowingly reach a dead end. The puzzles in Lucasfilm/arts games were generally cleverer than Sierra riddles, without being either unfair (trading the hovercraft in Space Quest) or assuming the player has specific knowledge about the role you are playing (Police Quest).
Yeah, they were built to be easy. Granted, Sierra and Infocom took some really stupid cheap shots at times, and you just named one of them, but when you played their games you were always on edge because you knew that if you didn't know everything about the world, you would die. It required maybe not being "smarter", but just..."keener". It's hard to explain the difference, other than to use the words "on edge" far too many times.
The Sierra games were definately more tense affairs, where you had to thread lightly and be very methodical about your puzzle solving, and I can absolutely see the appeal of that. However, as much as I like (most of) the Sierra adventures, I always felt like the dead ends and frequent deaths were artificial ways of making the games more difficult than the puzzles themselves. I believe Lucasarts did the right thing when they removed those aspects from their games.
The Lucasarts adventures weren't "made for a stupider audience" than Sierra adventures, they were just more forgiving and generally less frustrating.
Putting the fish on the bongo-drums in chapter 3. It was not difficult or so, in fact it was as obvious as it could be....but I think it was just a pretty lame, kinda stupid idea.
Ha- which reminds me of the moment of horror I felt at one of the self-trepanation device settings. I briefly thought that I'd be stuck that size for ever and not able to reach the helmet to reverse it.
I had to reload and do it again because at first I couldn't believe it, but that turned out to be the solution indeed.
Thinking of keeping the faulty keyboard for another month till Ch5 comes out
Anyway, kudos to whoever came up with this puzzle. It was incredibly clever!
I couldn't figure out how to fold the map and where to go so I went on-line for that, the repeated use of the hook gave me the impression it was going to be a bit more important and I immediately guessed at the shock when I saw the calendar, which you have to walk around a previous episode.
The hardest thing for me was the eye because I didn't think the judge's tantrum was very important and for some reason I thought I could do everything in one recess and didn't bother to go back into court(i found that online).
Fixed!
I had noticed Guybrush got a shock every time he walked out the door, realized it was from the carpet after a while, and was sure that was what I needed for the sponge. But I was baffled for a while about how to make the shock intense enough to work.
I may have solved that part by accident, if another poster is correct that you have to walk back and forth on the carpet for a while before going up the stairs. I got it to work after touching the carpet with the hook first instead of just looking at it -- which to me was completely illogical, because in real life, touching a carpet with a metal object before you walk across it would not make the shock you got at the end more intense. If anything it might lessen the shock a little by draining off any charge you had before you touched the carpet with the metal object.
Oh, well.
Loved the game otherwise!
Apparently some of you here are not directly familiar with that phenomena, but it tends to happen in the winter when you have the furnace running and especially if you don't have a humidifier built into your furnace (or have it set too 'dry').
Overall, I didn't find this chapter too difficult, but as said, the whole recipe thing took the most time --- primarily that beast part.
I demand that you go back and play Curse of Monkey Island right now.
Anyway... am I to assume that I'm the only person who examined the carpet after it was put back inside?
Likewise, the locked door in De Singe's Lab changes names when you look at it. I don't remember the exact name, but it was something like
Ha, it has been many many years...
If I recall correctly, it only does that after you've solved the puzzle.
And anyway, the fact you get staticly charged if you walk on carpet in real life is completely new to me. Ergo, hard puzzle.
That's not to say that the puzzle was necessarily too easy, I just found it logical this time around. However, we could have had a portable thing instead of having to go back and forth until we got everything exactly right.
And now that I'm replaying the game, I'm really surprised by this thread. I mean just going out of the bar gives you a forced static shock, every single time! Even though it's not big enough to cause the sponge to be charged, it's a really, really obvious hint...
PS. I'm not at the point where I have already shocked the sponge so no, it doesn't shock you only after you solve the puzzle.