Setup Wizard in Ice Station Santa

edited November 2007 in Sam & Max
Hey, just a quick question:

How do I launch the game and "play" the setup wizard again?

Not that I need to change any settings....I just thought it was funny.:D

Comments

  • EmilyEmily Telltale Alumni
    edited November 2007
    The easiest way is to completely uninstall and then reinstall the game. When it asks if you want to keep your saves and user preferences, say no. (You can first copy your saved games (all files ending with .save) into another folder, if you want to keep them.)

    There's also a way to do it by deleting something in the registry, but I don't know exactly what to delete and don't want to advocate messing around in there...
  • edited November 2007
    Try deleting prefs.prop
  • JakeJake Telltale Alumni
    edited November 2007
    Nope it's related to the registry and save games. It's a fun thing but really is designed to just appear once :)
  • edited November 2007
    Will we be seeing that every episode, or will there be something new for the next one?
  • edited November 2007
    Since it now installs into a single directory and start menu folder, I suspect it'll just remember your choices. That would be another pretty nifty feature.
  • edited November 2007
    Jake wrote: »
    Nope it's related to the registry and save games. It's a fun thing but really is designed to just appear once :)

    Awww, I was hoping to hear them cheer me and my crappy computer again. Seriously, I liked that "we are among friends" comment when I set it to the lowest running settting possible.:D
  • edited November 2007
    This setup wizard is pure genius!

    --Erwin
  • edited November 2007
    Zeek wrote: »
    Awww, I was hoping to hear them cheer me and my crappy computer again. Seriously, I liked that "we are among friends" comment when I set it to the lowest running settting possible.:D

    You can. Apparently it's a registry setting, so you just need to clean out the keys in the registry.

    Of course, I don't recommend doing this unless you know what you're doing, because messing around in the registry can completely break your computer.
  • JakeJake Telltale Alumni
    edited November 2007
    Yeah the wizard was designed as a special treat to see once ever, actually. All your settings are saved between episodes, so if you set episode one to run at full screen on your widescreen monitor, with subtitles off and hints set to level 2, when you boot up episode 202 for the first time, it'll come right up into the game with those exact settings.

    The only real way to see the wizard again is to uninstall the game - maybe even including save games. So, the safest way to see it again would be to back up your save games and uninstall completely, then reinstall. But really, the wizard was put in mostly to make people actually spend a little time setting up their PC properly for the rest of the season. I'm glad people are enjoying it as much as they are!
  • edited November 2007
    Did you make it, Jake?
  • JakeJake Telltale Alumni
    edited November 2007
    I set up the scenes and wrote the dialog, yeah :) Randy Tudor did all the scripting to make it actually work.
  • edited November 2007
    Uninstalling works, I tried that first (before I posted, even). I was just hoping for an easier way to make it play again. Already tried deleting prefs too, no luck. Where's it kept in the registry?
  • edited November 2007
    Jake wrote: »
    I set up the scenes and wrote the dialog, yeah :) Randy Tudor did all the scripting to make it actually work.

    *high fives*
    Great work you two. :)
  • OMAOMA
    edited November 2007
    Here's a quicker way to see the setup screen again, instead of reinstalling everything:

    1. Open the Registry Editor by going to Start/Run, typing "regedit" (no quotes) and pressing Enter
    2. Navigate through the tree until you get to:
    HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Software/Telltale Games/Sam & Max Season 2
    3. Right click on "Sam & Max Season 2" and select "Change name"
    4. Change that name to whatever you want (for example "Sam & Max Season 2 copy")
    5. Run the game

    After changing the name, the game won't find that entry in the registry, so it will run the "C.O.P.S." setup again and it will create a new "Sam & Max Season 2" entry in the registry.

    Doing this you will not only lose the settings but also any car upgrades (decals), but you can get everything back by deleting the newly created "Sam & Max Season 2" entry and renaming the previously renamed "Sam & Max Season 2 copy" to the original name ("Sam & Max Season 2").

    I hope that makes sense :D

    BTW, great work, guys! I had a good laugh when I saw that setup screen for the first time :)
  • edited November 2007
    I was surprised when that came up when I booted up teh game! My first thought when I saw that was "Yay! I no longer have to put up with the crappy 800x480 resolution for the opening scene like I had to with season one!" :D

    And it was quite funny too!
  • edited November 2007
    A couple questions about the info porting over to the next episodes:
    1. This works on Gametap too, right?
    2. As for decals and the mystery prize, do you have to beat the game with them to have them carry over, or only have a save with them? I went back and got them after I beat it.
  • edited November 2007
    I'd like to know the answer to question 2 as well, seeing how I have two different saved games outside of the Auto Save.
  • edited November 2007
    2. As for decals and the mystery prize, do you have to beat the game with them to have them carry over, or only have a save with them? I went back and got them after I beat it.

    I don't think anyone said anything about the decals being carried over, just the settings - or am I missing something?
  • edited November 2007
    There has been speculation about it, some of it from me, but nothing official so far.
  • edited November 2007
    OMA wrote: »
    1. Open the Registry Editor by going to Start/Run, typing "regedit" (no quotes) and pressing Enter
    2. Navigate through the tree until you get to:
    HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Software/Telltale Games/Sam & Max Season 2
    3. Right click on "Sam & Max Season 2" and select "Change name"
    4. Change that name to whatever you want (for example "Sam & Max Season 2 copy")
    5. Run the game

    I tryed changing the name but it didn't work. What if I deleated the stuff inside the folder?
  • edited November 2007
    Since the decals are stored in the registry, not just the save game, i suspect it may be a carry over
  • SegSeg
    edited November 2007
    I don't think anyone said anything about the decals being carried over, just the settings - or am I missing something?
    Decals will be carrying over, provided you still have that registry key installed.

    Guess I should get into some details on how I set up the uninstallers this season...


    When you uninstall any episode, you get the "Do you want to keep your save games?" selection box. Your selection to that question will do the following:
    • YES
      • SAVED: Season-wide registry settings
      • SAVED: Episode Specific prefs and save games.
    • NO
      • IF: No other Season 2 episodes are installed
        • REMOVED: Season-wide registry settings
        • REMOVED: Episode Specific prefs and save games.
      • ELSE [At least one other episode is installed]
        • SAVED: Season-wide registry settings
        • REMOVED: Episode Specific prefs and save games.
    In short, don't worry about loosing your decal settings if you have other season 2 episodes installed. But if you're removing your the only episode installed and hit to remove your saved games, you loose your decal settings as well.

    Hope that clears up things!
  • edited November 2007
    What about starting a new game? Will that nuke the decals even if we have a saved game?
  • SegSeg
    edited November 2007
    Zeek wrote: »
    What about starting a new game? Will that nuke the decals even if we have a saved game?

    Talked to Randy on this one. The save to the registry will only add decals to the global list. It will never remove a decal that's earned.

    This means that if you start a new game, that episode's decals will reset to none for 201. But when you start up 202, it will always have the 201 decals you have earned at any point.

    Start another new game in 202 and no 202 decals will be on the car, but the earned 201 decals will show up. And so on.
  • edited November 2007
    By the way, it was nice to hear the C.O.P.S.-song without lyrics...
  • edited November 2007
    Seg wrote: »
    Talked to Randy on this one. The save to the registry will only add decals to the global list. It will never remove a decal that's earned.

    This means that if you start a new game, that episode's decals will reset to none for 201. But when you start up 202, it will always have the 201 decals you have earned at any point.

    Start another new game in 202 and no 202 decals will be on the car, but the earned 201 decals will show up. And so on.

    Oh, good. For a moment there, I thought I would end up loosing them.
  • OMAOMA
    edited November 2007
    I tryed changing the name but it didn't work. What if I deleated the stuff inside the folder?

    No need to delete anything (you can do it, but you'll lose your settings + decals).

    I just forgot to mention a little detail (sorry for the confusion). Apart from doing the registry stuff I told in my previous post in this thread, you must also rename the "prefs.prop" file found in the game folder to something else (don't delete it, so you can restore it when you want to)

    Make sure you do both things: if you only rename or delete the "Sam & Max Season 2" entry in the registry, or you only rename or delete the "prefs.prop" file in the game folder, you won't get to see the C.O.P.S. setup screen. It seems the game relies on either of them if each other is missing. So you have to do both things to get there.

    Anyway, I think it would be a good idea if Telltale just added a "Configure" shortcut in Windows "Start" menu so you can go to the C.O.P.S. configuration screen whenever you want to, be it just for fun or to re-configure the display settings, which might be needed in case an unsupported resolution was previously configured (if you select an unsupported resolution you get a black screen and can't go back, and what's worse: if you get out of that black screen with ALT+F4, exiting the program, the next time you run the game, it starts playing the game directly with a black screen and no means of changing resolutions!).

    BTW, is it just me, or the "Wait!" "Before we begin..." message in big letters that appears before the C.O.P.S. setup sequence was "inspired" in the original floppy disk version of Monkey Island 1? :D (it's the same sentence that appears before the "Dial-A-Pirate" codewheel protection, is it?). Could just be a coincidence, but I thought it was funny... :)
  • edited November 2007
    There isn't a file called "prefs.prop" in the game folder.
  • OMAOMA
    edited November 2007
    There isn't a file called "prefs.prop" in the game folder.
    There should be, after you've run the game for the first time (look in the episode subfolder: "Sam and Max - Season Two\Episode 201 - Ice Station Santa")
  • edited November 2007
    I deleated all the files in that folder but its still not coming up.
  • edited November 2007
    Yeah.

    How about we stop trying to tell techno-illiterates how to hack. It's not gonna end well. I can tell.
  • edited November 2007
    Yeah, they might end up taking down the Internet! Again!
  • edited November 2007
    Well no, I was saying it's not gonna end well for them...

    We've already got cases of people deleting files when they weren't told to...

    Either they just deleted some random files in the game directory, or else they deleted an entire key in the registry.

    Which is worse?
  • SegSeg
    edited November 2007
    Zachspyfox033: Are you using Vista? If so, there's a 'shadow' location of files in a different location.

    C:\Users\--User_Name--\AppData\Local\VirtualStore\Program Files\Sam and Max Season 2\Episode 201 - Ice Station Santa\

    Replace --User_Name-- with your Windows local user account name. Windows will write files in this location after an install. Yes it's annoying. :(
  • edited November 2007
    I'm using XP
  • SegSeg
    edited November 2007
    Really don't know why the prefs.prop wouldn't be showing up then. Really strange.
  • WillWill Telltale Alumni
    edited November 2007
    Are you sure you are in the right folder? Do I windows search for prefs.prop and see what turns up.
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