The backwards puzzle occurs when the solution is found before the problem. Ideally, the crevice should be found before the rope that allows the player to descend. What this does in the player’s mind is set up a challenge. He knows he need to get down the crevice, but there is no route. Now the player has a task in mind as he continues to search. When a rope is spotted, a light goes on in his head and the puzzle falls into place. For a player, when the design works, there is nothing like that experience.
Ron would never have permitted something like that
Well, that’s not quite all true. I did manage to scare the hotel guest and bring in the Pigeon Bros. Sisters into the hotel waaaaay before I even got to the factory grounds, so I had absolutely no motivation (or indication) that I needed their wrench.
As a consequence, when I finally encountered the factory door puzzle that needed the wrench, even though I imagined it could be the Pigeon’s tool, I had no idea where they were then nor how to get it.
This situation lead me astray for several days, while I tried to “solve” other puzzles like getting the will read, or getting Franklin out of the hotel, which could not be done at that point in the game at all.
Of course, I could have played defensively, in the typical “bad adventure game” way, and start picking up and using random objects at every turn or trying every verb with everything randomly, and that probably would have gotten me the wrench; but Mr. Gilbert’s designs do not require nor encourage that.
It also would have been an example of “finding the rope before the crevice.”
All that said, in spite of that minor issue, (almost) all other puzzles stuck very well to Mr. Gilbert’s principles of good design. This is quite an achievement in such a complex and non-linear game.
I have remembered that there was a point in which I completely followed the wrong track and I’m sure that other players have done the same: at the end, when Ransome gets his I’m-sorry-for-being-a-dick card, I was sure that I had to give it to Madame Morena, because she was the one who got insulted in Ransome’s flashback.
Understanding that Ransome was mean also towards Sandy is not so straightforward.
Some fingerprint readers basically remember the latent print and become “blind” to it, so that the fingerprint has to be presented at a different position/angle in order for detection to work. The idea is to avoid a false positive by pushing down on the latent print while using something smooth like a latex glove, for instance.
The I’m-sorry-for-being-a-dick card WAS confusing, especially if you didn’t remember that Sandy was the one who sent you into Ransome’s flashback earlier.
As Ransome I did an interview with the reporter and gave the most humble answers possible, expecting it to be like the tiff with Elaine in Monkey Island 2 in that I’d be rewarded something for putting on a nice act.
I agree. However, since there were actually very few things that you could do at that point in the game (and very few interactions at all), it wasn’t really a big deal.
It was confusing to hand it to Sandy since the game seems to suggest that one of Ransome’s motivations is to remove his curse. I saw little connection between Sandy and Ransome, so it really made little sense to me.
I did that too, but I took it as learning about Ransome’s motivations to become a better person. Without that interview, he is just an opportunistic *beep*hole trying to get others to fix his problems.
One thing that irritated me was why cant you charge the battery on the oprn wires at the sewer entrance. That should actually work better than on a fence, shdnt it (unless they are AC of course)
Same here. When I first played (not sure if it’s that way now) Leonard mentions the surveillance camera has only one tape, and it’s Betamax. So I thought I had to swap out the one in the camera with the one from the rental machine, ala DOTT-style. (Day of the Tentacle had a lot of swap-this-thing-for-that-thing puzzles)
Really wanted to sell that E.T. cartridge I found on the side of the road, at the convention. (Why I would think it would be worth anything in 1987 seems silly now lol)
The openable clock at the bank drove me bonkers, along with the bank flyer that said I could get a free toaster.
The plethora of mail slots
The mic controls in the contest room
I thought the bear repellent was actual bear repellent, and that not carrying it would somehow result in a character getting eaten by a bear. So I briefly tried to get Ransome eaten by a bear. I can’t remember what purpose I thought that would serve. (I spent a lot of time playing MM way back in the day, so even though that assumption doesn’t make much sense by modern standards, I wasn’t ruling it completely out lol)
(I spent a lot of time playing MM way back in the day, so even though that assumption doesn’t make much sense by modern standards, I wasn’t ruling it completely out lol)