#Conroy Bumpus

[dynamoe]

I always heard that Conroy Bumpus (of Sam & Max Hit the Road) was modeled on Conway Twitty... then I saw a photo of Wayne Cochran.

It's beyond pompadour. It's a male beehive... a "he-hive," if you will.

[designidraws]

Sam and Max characters’ hygiene ranked from best to worst:

Sybil Pandemik: She is a career-woman and knows what she is doing. Sybil cares about her appearance and how she is perceived, she is the most likely to give a shit about her hygiene.

Myra Stump: She is a talk-show host on TV and has a large audience. She definitely cares a lot about her hygiene since she acts like a bossy mom.

Santa Claus or the elves: Smells like holiday cheer, one of the best scents.

Momma Bosco: Self-explanatory, she probably smells of 60’s perfume and definitely takes good care of her hygiene.

Agent Superball: He probably smells like a really good cologne and he takes himself extremely seriously.

Grandma Ruth: Ruth probably has that grandma perfume smell that is just extremely nostalgic. She definitely cares about her BO.

The Narrator: He is British and very sophisticated, he takes good care of “himself”.

Jurgen: He is very attention-seeking and cares how other people perceive him. He definitely collects the latest and most popular perfume.

Conroy Bumpus: Sure, he may be involved in animal cruelty, but he seems to care a lot about his appearance. He has a toupee on display with high-security soooooo…. he cares a lot.

The Director: She is a director known for being prestigious about acting and probably takes good care of her hygiene.

Darla "The Geek" Gugenheek: She definitely showers regularly.

Sam/Sameth: Sam definitely cares about his hygiene for the most part. He acts like a dad and probably smells like one and cares about how he is perceived.

Lee-Harvey: He is a henchman for Conroy Bumpus and looks well-kept.

Anyone in the toy mafia: These guys probably smell ok.

Satan: Weirdly I think Satan in this series probably smells alright. He always cares about whether his bald-spot is showing on camera during the interview in *The City That Dares Not Sleep*.

T.H.E.M.: They smell average.

Abraham Lincoln: Smells like stone? (Whatever that means)

The C.O.P.S.: The smell of machinery.

Roscoe Bosco: He probably smells average, maybe a little sweaty some days.

Sal: He is a cockroach but seems relatively well-kept.

Flint Paper: He probably showers, but cares more about cases rather than personal hygiene.

Lorne (the friend for life): He doesn’t shower as much as he should.

Mr. Featherly: He is a chicken, but he does seem to care about how he is seen and is very much an attention-seeker.

Sammun-Mak: He smells like dirt but like in a good way, like the nostalgic kind of way.

Trixie: Ehhh she smells well… like a giraffe with a layer of perfume overtop

Max/Maximus: We all know he is covered in so many germs, but Sam definitely tries to get him showered every once in a while.

Hubert Q. Tourist: He is a strange, strange fellow. I don’t know what it is about him, but he makes me uncomfortable and he probably doesn’t smell all that well.

Hugh Bliss: Bacteria

Bessie: She’s a cow…

General Skun-ka’pe or his minions: All I need to say is gorilla.

Bruno: He is a bigfoot, need anymore explaining?

Brady Culture: I don’t think I can explain why, but I think he just doesn’t smell good at all.

Anton Papierwaite: HE IS FRENCH! (Also his *secret* makes him smell worse probably)

Girl Stinky: She smells like really bad, but tries to haphazardly spray perfume to cover it up.

Charlie Ho-Tep: People don’t have the decency to wash their hands before playing with him.

Any sea creatures: I absolutely despise the smell of fish…

Any of the baby characters: Babies can smell really bad…

Jurgen’s Monster: He is basically Frankenstein’s Monster, so he probably doesn’t smell good.

The zombies: They are undead and *god* do the dead smell gross.

Eldritch horrors of any kind: They don’t smell very good.

Molemen or the Rats: These guys smell like shit and probably don’t care about showering. They live in the sewers.

Grandpa Stinky: It’s in the name, he smells absolutely rancid. He probably hasn’t showered in decades.

The Soda Poppers: THEY SMELL REALLY FUCKING BAD

[theadventurerslog]

Sam & Max Hit the Road | Part 3

The Adventurer’s Log

Guess who got hopelessly stuck again? This is a post of suffering spread of over multiple sessions of absolute obstinance and outright missing things. Oh the missing things, OH the missing things.

First though I had Trixie's trailer to check out! Some easy early progress.

I found a stiltwalker costume in the box and a minigolf score card in the closet. The card opened up a new location.

But was there anything on top of the closet? (No, no there wasn't, but it was among the first thoughts to occur to me; thanks King's Quest).

New location with gator mini golf!

I kinda really love this fellow.

I talked to the owner and found the place hadn't always been alligator themed, but at one point the course got flooded and in came the gators, and really what else can you do? He also had a bigfoot who has escaped hmmm. And he's a huge fan of Conroy Bumpus. I also got a broken golf ball retriever.

I moved on to the course itself and ran into Conroy Bumpus and his assistant again. It seems he's also looking for Bigfoots. We exchanged Words. Certainly Max did.

Ahh civility.

Max got hurled and landed into the dunk tank. The jerk pair left and I needed to rescue Max.

I was working on it, Max. But look, look! The second biggest monkey head I've ever seen! Monkey Island references, I love you.

The owner told me the gators will eat when food is in front of them, so I swapped the golf balls with a bucket of fish and went fish golfing. I had some struggles but I was able to get the gators to line up to form a bridge so Sam could hop across.

Max was mad at how long Sam took and they got into a bit of a verbal spat. I may or may not have dunked Max a couple times before actually releasing him... I mean... the button was right there... and I know it sucked being thrown into there but he was being a bit of a jerk...

The beast was dunked.

I let him out and he'd found some bigfoot hair and mange. Ick. Now I had two samples of Bigfoot hair.

Then I got very stuck. I wandered and tried things. I accidentally discovered the fish magnet could be attached to the ball retriever but it needed something to hold it in place, so I tried the severed hand and that worked. I also found out I could attach the empty cup instead of the magnet as well. Then I wandered some more and stopped for the night.

During my wandering I also tried golf some more just to see what would happen if I hit all those different figures. They each do a little animation/sound so that's fun.

I tried again for a bit in the morning, no progress, took a short break, tried some more and eventually found I'd forgotten I could interact with the ball of twine from inside the building. I was able to plunge the ball retriever magnet combination into it and grabbed a mood ring. Triumph, sweet triumph! For a minute.

And then I got stuck back at square one. I'm writing this before my next session that I hope will lead to a solution in continuing this post. As of writing this I know I need to find Dougie Moleman's uncle Shuv-Oohl, but I don't know if that's actually my next goal or not. I have no new locations and I feel like I'm out of things to solve in the locations I do have, but then I thought that before finding the mood ring, so I'm missing something; I just don't know what... or where... or how.

Is the mood ring even useful yet? For what? I keep eyeing the rasp as well. I haven't had a use for it yet. And what of the twine?

I could check the hint-book, but I've gotten spitefully stubborn for now. We'll see how long that lasts but I want to solve this. Myself! I don't take issue with checking a guide for specific things, but something's got me riled up into full spiteful stubborn mode, so here we are.

I'm also forming a one-sided feud with that giant ball of twine. I want to unravel it. I want to see it fall. It even contained one of my sticking points just to rub it in.

A depiction of me at this point.

Another break happened.

Okay, my current thought process of things that may matter:

Office area:

Can I do anything with the TV beyond changing channels or turning it off and on? So far no.

The LOVE message appears when it's dark. Just a fun thing or relevant? I suspect just a fun thing

The door can be opened or closed. I wouldn't think much of that but Monkey Island 2 has me paranoid that that matters or will matter

Max's roach farm. I can look at it which means interaction. Relevant or flavour?

Outside the office the mailbox has been damaged and mail spilled. Can I do anything with the mail beyond examining and horrifying Sam with the idea of mail theft?

There's a cat that sometimes shows up but seems random so probably just for flavour?

Intoxicated pigeons??

Anything with Bosco's?

World of Fish:

Fish that farts bubbles when fed. I got nothing.

Biggest Ball of Twine:

My enemy. That said I feel like I've gotten everything I can from it?

Snuckey's:

I got the rasp and pecan candy, bought the mini games. Opened the jar. Doesn't seem like there should be more here?

Unless something can be done with the horse ride

Carnival:

Flambé - can breathe fire. Can ask him to in two different directions. Seem relevant but how?? Can't interact while he's doing it from conversation

Something more with the attractions in the tent?? Or the Kushman brothers??

Golf course:

Feels like I got everything...

The office area seems to have the most potential, but I could also just be missing something entirely like I did with the Ball of Twine... I keep going back to the office but nothing I've tried has been working. Time to go through each area again I guess with a fine-tooth comb.

I dipped back in to try a couple things that went nowhere but did have me continue the stubborn streak and damn it all I missed picking up a magnifying lens at the carnival that I had looked at! A few times! But I'd used 'use' instead of 'pick up' I guess before, so I was thinking it was something I had to, well, come back and use with something else at some point. Not something I could pick up. Mechanics error ><. Honestly I do wonder if I simply misclicked at some point and landed on the game machine next to it. I always try to look at, and pick everything up. The hotspots, have felt finicky at points, especially when there are a few things close together. I will own my other mistakes, but I don't know if this one was entirely on me. Either way, argh, it's always the simple stupid stuff that hangs you up! (spoiler alert: It really really is always that)

That all said, that's all fine and well, but like the mood ring I still don't know what to actually do. I'm having an issue of not knowing what I'm even working toward specifically at the moment outside the broad goal of find Dougie's uncle for more Bigfoot info.

Okay, so I brought the magnifying lens to the ball of twine restaurant and was able to attach it to the binoculars. That let me see a bunch of weird locations but still hasn't opened anything useful in terms of progress.

Locations such as the Enchanted Argyle Forest. Or the Eternal Plane of Acid Rain among some others and a rock. Just a rock. I did a full loop of looking a few times but nothing was coming up and I can't do anything but pick a direction or pause it. I thought it'd open me a new location on the map, but nope, so am I still missing something here?

Once again I had a nice little moment of triumph swiftly shut down by Now What. The title of this post should be "Now what?".

Progress at last!! A whole lot more wandering and trying to figure out what my path would have been if I'd done things in a more expected order and I kept coming back to the Gator Golf because that's where Trixie's trailer led me, and sure enough... Sure enough!!

I missed the damn door on the dunk tank. It's not even subtle! There's a big gap! I don't know how I kept missing it despite coming back here a few times before.

My only minor defence is the both broad but finicky hot spots. Like I could click a spot that wasn't even on the target and still get the target interaction, but even still... SIGH. I swept over the area too much with a Look and not enough with Use I guess...

I got a sno globe in there without any actual 'snow'. But it had the Mystery Vortex and on the bottom was engraved a message to Shuv-Oohl. This opened the Vortex on the map, so a new location at last. Off to the Vortex. It's also missing its stopper which may be important. But most importantly: Progress! Hopefully to find Shuv-Oohl!

Here we are! New location, new location at last!

This game is making my head ping.

Next time: explore this place and hopefully make a bunch of progress without spending ages, and I do mean ages, stuck. Because of a door. This is worse than missing part of the office.

I was noting time but I have no idea anymore, so that's a stat that's just not going to happen anymore for this game. It jumped by a lot; I can say that much.

To mysteries and vortexes!

[ladykeane]

Salmonax disk horse

Not sure when the s3 reboot is being released, but now’s as good a time as any for my disjointed ramblings

As great as a new Sam & Max game season/TV reboot/feature film would be, I hope the franchise stays relatively small and undergroundy. I shudder to think what would happen if the rights were acquired by a massive media conglomerate. They’d probs cast James Corden as Sam or smth

Granny Ruth was hands down the best character from the TV series and I want her back if Skunkape Games ever do s4

Speaking of what I want, an officially licensed enormous plushie of Sam. Because reasons. (Nothing sus, tbh I’d just want to curl up and fall asleep on him like the kitten in the Looney Tunes shorts)

In the theoretical s4 I hope they bring back Mack Salmon and have him team up with Sammun Mak, would totally not be confusing

Is everyone just ignoring the fact that Mr Featherly is a rooster who lays eggs? Sam and Max really said trans rights

Also on things that are criminally overlooked: Iconic 90s classic about a lovable dog in a hat, played by Bill Farmer, who takes a road trip with his little buddy Max. I’ve connected the dots. Powerline & Conroy Bumpus world tour 2023

ALSO Roger L Jackson as evil monkey with improbable sci fi arsenal who wants to take over the world, but that one’s obvious. Still makes me so damn happy

I don’t ship Sam & Max romantically myself, but the freelance husbands shippers are heroes who have kept the fandom alive on this hellsite with their adorable (and surprisingly wholesome) artworks. I salute them like a caffeineated girl scout

TBH Sam & Max are the reason I got into Sherlock Holmes in my teens: irreverent vigilante detective duo with flagrant disregard for law & order who take all the weird cases also one has a strange gifted brain and a heartwrenching death scene which was kinda a fakeout

I’ve never eaten a corndog in my life and cuz of Sam & Max I intend to never do so

PS Jurgen is the tumblr sexyman who never was. He’s so cringe and horrible and I frickin love him for it

[bawfulio]

And that he’s the sheriff

And we’re frozen out here

And we’re in there

And I JUST REMEMBERED

We’re out here

[oury-boros]

god letting me get video editing software was a mistake

[samandmaxiscool]

My boy Conroy Bumpus!!!

[talenlee]

Okay, so straight up, Sam and Max Hit The Road is one of my favourite games. It’s a point-and-click adventure game with some frustratingly obtuse puzzles. I don’t know if I can even recommend it as a game per se because the times I struggled with the solutions to its ridiculously obtuse view of the world are all so far in the past that I can’t imagine how anyone would solve them. Some of the puzzle solutions are positively arcane.

When you boil down a lot of point-and-click adventure games, they have one problem: Use key on door. In fact, sometimes games that tried to do something different (like Future War and Full Throttle) were criticised for the involvement of those other elements. In Sam and Max Hit The Road, there’s a handful of, y’know, bits and stuff designed to introduce other puzzles and problems, but none of the game is too hard once you grasp the thread of the game’s weird poke-it-and-see methodology.

So, right, as a game: It’s good, but it’s of its time. The GOG release brings automatic saves and windowed play and those are nice modern conveniences. Okay? Play it with a walkthrough nearby but don’t follow the walkthrough directly. Just use it when you’ve poked everything to laugh at the responses you find, but not to remain stranded in a narrative point for a while. I like it, I think it’s good, it’s cheap and it’s really funny.

And hey.

Now.

Let’s do the heck out of talking about Sam and Max Hit The Road.

Culture

Sam and Max Hit the Road is a game that really couldn’t be made today, and we know that because when Sam and Max got episodic content that content worked more or less at odds with the way the game felt, but more about that later when I talk about the sequels. Everything in the game had going for it was one of those lightning-in-a-bottle moments for its genre, for the gaming culture, and even for the company that made it.

It was made by Lucasarts, the only people who could comfortably make fun of Star Wars in the gaming sphere, who had access to some top-notch graphic assets (in the form of artists) and an engine that they knew inside and out. What’s more, that engine was really good at this one specific type of game and didn’t try to get weird or cute with it. They had the tools and the skills and the people and they had an idea for an intellectual property that was very much being built on the creative mind and work of one of the people working on the game rather than chasing a marketable franchise. Basicaly, Lucasarts had enough money and clout to make something nobody cared about before they started, and made it excellently enough that it endures even now some twenty-three years on.

While games like Day of the Tentacle and Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis sought to represent a location or a single movie’s adventure narrative, Sam and Max Hit The Road wanted to make its whole story about a ridiculous road trip across an enormous country and show a resting state of considerable, constant weirdness. This meant that the game was about showing off a culture, and that meant that most of the game, for all that it’s about following an interruption to the status quo, is about representing a status quo that somehow all fits together – a default state. And that means you can look at Sam and Max as a little time capsule of the childhoods of the people who made it reflecting on the America they knew released into an America that was.

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Sam and Max represents a world that is pre-cellphone. It’s 1994. There are phone booths – and one factors into a puzzle. It’s pre-internet, too, and the world it depicts is the Weird America of that pre-internet life. If you journey across Sam and Max’s America, you’ll be treated to a series of roadside weirdnesses. Their starting point, a office in the big city, is crime-riddled and surrounded by degeneracy. There are gunfights at random, a store selling GUNS, LIQUOR, BABY NEEDS (which still makes me laugh) is on the corner, and violence ensues at almost all opportunities.

It’s when they’re pulled out of this needless depiction of 1990s inner-city crime and poverty that they streak across the country looking at this compulsively weird culture, and that culture is something that’s sort of faded. It’s a given in Sam and Max that there are UFOs and Bigfoots and roadside attractions with strange dark fates to them and tourist traps that are themselves, actually real things. There’s Jesse James’ severed hand in a jar and it’s just, y’know, there, in a carnival. There’s even a puzzle about finding a location on the map that lies between other, extremely ludicrous magical locations.

It’s this particular view of America’s middles and betweens as being populated by the unnatural simply forgotten by the cities that has faded in recent years. The era of the cellphone and the universal camera means that a lot of the things that Sam and Max jokes about existing are kind of past beliefs, with new, much more dark and hateful conspiracy theories replacing them.

There’s something childish about it, too. There’s something lovely about how you play with paper cutout dolls, or a diner placemat map, or that you can play Travel Carbomb (and that’s a name that aged poorly, fast). It’s a game that remembers being on these journeys as a passenger.

Values

There’s a lot of subversion in the oddness here as well. There are some locations that are literally interchangeable with one another – functionally identical spaces but for some minor, superficial changes. The Snuckeys are all the exact same locations, with the exact same key items and dialogue and puzzle solutions, a little subtle poke at the very nature of American tourist trap franchising.

Yet at the same time, this little corner of capitalist culture features a little glimpse of one of the other values that runs throughout Sam and Max Hit The Road: Happiness.

Whenever you meet people, broadly speaking they are doing okay. The story represents a whole range of people across the United States, mostly people who are working in touristed areas, doing menial jobs or thankless tasks… and they’re okay.

Most people aren’t happy, not wildly so, but they’re okay. There’s the Snuckeys employees, who are all identical and talk about having to comply with the brand’s standards, but they’re okay. They take pride in their work. They enjoy things in their work. There’s a man whose business flooded and he devised a solution. There’s food servers and store owners, there are tourists and hobbyists and yes, some bigfoots and people solving their day-to-day problems with rebranding efforts, and mostly, people are okay living their lives in their weird ways. There’s no apocalyptic sadness or unhappiness – there’s a certain joy for all these people who are just enjoying what they enjoy, doing what they do.

The thing that’s really interesting to me is the story only really represents a small number of people as being unhappy. In fact, specifically, there’s only one major character who both starts and ends the game unhappy, and that’s Conroy Bumpus, who is also depicted as being vain, self-obsessed, cruel and rich. Conroy built a monument to himself in his ranch and he spends much of the game disappointed and unhappy because he can’t have what he wants – a non-human humanoid to torture. The one other probably-wealthy person you see in the game is Evelynn Moriss, who is depicted as being a bit spacey but also using her wealth and position to benefit the bigfoots – who are her guests.

Narrative

Hell, let’s talk about story structure because, inexplicably, Sam and Max Hit the Road has a good one. I’ve spoken about how good stories that want to feel rooted to the real world are ones where there’s a single instigating event, like in Stranger Things.  There’s a single instigatory event in the narrative, but without that instigating event, the other things in the story exist and would have existed in a sort of stasis. The Bigfoot party was going to happen whether or not Bruno showed up; Conroy Bumpus was always fooling around looking for a Bigfoot to add to his collection; and Sam and Max weren’t even going to do anything different with their day unless the instigatory event happened.

That event is Trixie, the Giraffe-necked girl, conscripting the Fire-breather to free Bruno, with whom she’d believed she was in love. Trixie is a lot of things (it’s kind of weird she’s white but I’m also super relieved she isn’t black), and her story is silly, but she’s still someone who wanted something, made a plan, and took action to make it happen. It’s kind of hard to hold her up too high because she is ultimately a silly character in a silly story where almost every character you encounter is an incompetent boob, but she’s not worse than anyone else?

That’s another thing, too! Hit The Road has like, women in it? After replaying Space Quest games it’s kind of dizzying to realise that Sam and Max, with its four women with speaking roles, is a lot better about women than some other games of its era. Because holy hell that’s so depressing. FIVE! And none of them suffer anything randomly terrible – though I suppose Trixie does get kidnapped at one point, which sucks. There’s also a woman in the introduction who is herself not a character, but does exist to show up the awfulness of the self-styled Nice Guy archetype.

Still, in this era of Oh Yeah Women Exist?? it’s amazing to see this game treats them in a way that’s Definitely Not Good Enough, but still is so much better than many of its peers. It has a better plot and better character representation than many games of its generation – and this is a game where you play a talking dog who’s friends with a lagamorph!

Verdict

You can get Sam And Max Hit The Road on GOG, and that’s all for now.

Verdict

Get it if:

You already own it in some other format

You know you like point-and-click games and want a large one

You want a game that’s funny and want to marinate in it

Avoid it if:

You’re looking for a game that’s mature in its problem solving

You’re really not into the use-thing-on-thing school of problem solving

You want all your puzzles to be very key-on-door solutions

[continuity category=8]

Game Pile: Sam & Max Hit The Road Okay, so straight up, Sam and Max Hit The Road is one of my favourite games. It's a point-and-click adventure game with some frustratingly obtuse puzzles.

[h-worksrambles]

Upon replaying Sam & Max Hit the Road, I actually think some of the fandom kind of sleeps on how funny the side characters there are.

Conroy Bumpus is hysterical and his villain song slaps. Bruno and Trixie’s relationship is both cute yet also so freaking weird. I love that one foul mouthed magician at the World’s Largest Ball of Twine who’s just sat there bending tools and cussing people out. Or the gift shop saleswoman at the Mystery Vortex casually dropping in that working at in a place with upside down gravity means she routinely has to get spine re-compressions. And that’s just some of them.

I’m really happy to see how much love fans give the supporting cast in the Telltale games and cartoon. But I think there’s a potential gold mine of fan art and memes and even fics you could make with the Hit the Road cast.

[angelus05-blog]

Let's Play Sam and Max Hit The Road (with commentary) Part 6

The sixth part of my LP of Sam and Max Hit The Road. Please like, subscribe to my Youtube channel, and leave comments. Thank you all are appreciated. Hope you enjoyed this video, and have a great day or night depending on when you watched it. Stay tuned for the finale of this LP, and future LPs.

[sapphymayeyeplease]

I’m messing around with sam & max songs rn and I’m giggling over nightcore conroy bumpus

[draconicdetective]

conroy bumpus does not sing in french

i repeat conroy bumpus does NOT sing in french

[theadventurerslog]

Sam & Max Hit the Road | Part 5

The Adventurer's Log

Guess what? With dinosaurs, vegetables and Bigfoots it's finale time.

To start I had a choice between dinosaurs and vegetables and I did dither a bit, but I just couldn't resist those dinos. Vegetables could wait.

Dinos, tar and bungee jumping out of presidents' noses that is. Everything you could want here.

'Dino Bungee National Memorial' It said so on the sign.

First stop: the dino and mammoth.

I knew I needed something for the stiltwalker's costume to make it more sasquatch-y and I found it in fake mammoth fur. With some help from Max I got lots, but I couldn't attach it to the costume without something to get it to stick.

I also got to examine the T-rex to learn about Rex, the Thunder Lizard, the king of the Jurassic Period with tiny useless forearms.

Next attraction: tar pit and slide. Delightful fun for the children with bungee jumping for the adults.

There was a lift leading to the top where a lady was running the bungee jumping, combining waste management and social fun. Can't fault her…creativity? I guess?? She was also getting flirty with Sam who wasn't having it. I sent this pair bungee jumping and while I failed to do anything on the first go I realized it was finally time to put the golf ball retriever and cup combo to use to get some tar on the second go.

Stilwalker's costume + fake mammoth fur + tar = sasquatch costume! Well, part of one anyway, I still needed something for the head.

Seemingly done here I headed off to the Celebrity Vegetable Museum, which is exactly as it sounds? Vegetables carved to look like people faces. I got a vegetable of Conroy Bumpus that the carver was pretty much just giving away; she had a whole box of them. And she could make anyone else provided she had a picture, so I gave her that portrait of John Muir. Did I have a reason? No. Did I need a reason? Also no. Aside from, you know, if you can get a thing in an adventure game, get the thing. It'll be needed later for more than just having a veggie of John Muir, which is probably reason enough on its own.

I also got vegetable puns from Sam and Max's conversations as you'd expect. Certainly not disappointed. Such as "Lettuce be going and see what else we can turnip."

I still needed a head piece for the sasquatch costume. I ended up back at Bumpus' mansion because I had the Bumpus vegetable and it seemed the thing to do I found a use for the Bumpus vegetable.

I was able to use it to replace Bumpus' wig in the ol' slide the object in place of the target object. It still tripped the alarm and we still got kicked out, but I got to keep the wig!

I thought I was good to go. I went back to the Savage Jungle Inn and used the costume with the phone booth. I didn't even get to see it because the Bigfoot Bouncer thought it was good but was too grumpy to let me in. His feet have been really bothering him, getting in rough shape not helped by not being able to get shoes as trying to get shoes for a bigfoot would be rather difficult.

So, I needed to find a way to help his foot problem to cheer him up. I got a bit stuck here and ended up stopping for the evening to take a break. When I came back to it the next day I tried a couple things that went nowhere. I did end up back at the dinosaur bungee place and discovered the T-rex's mouth could be examined separately.

I finally found a use for that twine! Looped around one of the T-rex's teeth and brought to the car...

And I was able to use the car to yank a tooth out. It didn't help my current cause but I was glad to have it later.

Then I took the lessons learned from the gator golf door incident: work with the most recent places. I was pretty sure I'd thoroughly checked both the dino bungee by now, and the veggie place had made it quite clear I was done there. So back to the inn. I was looking at my inventory and then it hit me. The rasp! For filing nails and presumably rasping off dead skin and such... The rasp I've been waiting to use for most of the game. That was indeed the solution and I felt a bit silly but at least wasn't stuck for anywhere near as long as the door. I also had gotten a bit stuck on the idea of needing to find him shoes, so that misdirected me. But hey, I got a dino tooth out of my needless wander at least.

Giving him the rasp cheered the bouncer up and it was time to see my new sasquatch costume at last. Are you ready?

Behold the glory:

I was so waiting for this and was not disappointed. Isn't it glorious? I don't really laugh out loud very much with games even when I think something is funny but this one tickled me and got me giggling.

I don't know that I'd call it a nice costume exactly, but the bouncer is feeling nicer and let me into the party.

I walked into a party and a Bigfoot chief making a speech to be summed up as follows:

Hundreds of years ago their time was starting to run out. They were complacent leaving the problems for the future, falling on tradition and the status quo. The humans and their technology are moving faster than they are. Unless they pull together and embrace change they'll lose not just their way of life but possibly their lives. With their current actions they'll only fall behind, moving backwards into extinction. Then back to the music and partying.

Getting kind of real here...

I was able to chat to three different Bigfoots, two of whom were the escapees from the golf course and mystery vortex, rescued by Bruno and Trixie. The one from the mystery vortex was off on conspiracy theories about aliens and Bumpus being one, and Bruno being involved in a top secret reconnaissance mission to the aliens' home planet. In general there seemed to be a favourable opinion of Bruno, if a low one of his intelligence. And low opinions of Bumpus but enjoyment of his music. The other bigfoot was the wife of the chief and a real gossip and she shared the sentiment of Bruno being none too bright while being a fan of Bumpus' music if not the despicable man himself. She was also blocking a door that was only for bigfoot chiefs.

I found my way into the kitchen where I ran into Bumpus and his henchman. His henchman left to go find a net because they were fooled by my magnificent costume, leaving me to confront Bumpus.

"Look behind you, a three-headed Monkey!" Monkey Island reference again <3. The classics.

Bumpus was insistent we were really a bigfoot so I took off the costume. The henchman came back with news that they'd left the net at home. That's okay though because Bumpus had a better idea: to take the costume and infiltrate the bigfoot ranks, learning their ways and then pick them off at their leisure.

And speaking of dunces, they went into the freezer to get the costume on but were having trouble with it. That gave Sam and Max the opportunity to simply slam the door shut. Problem solved! Well, that one anyway.

The sasquatch chief who'd been making the speech before found us and in thanks for taking care of Bumpus granted us the title of Honorary Bigfoot Chief. That let us pass through the door his wife was guarding too.

The chief brought us outside to share their biggest secret.

Four totem poles that have been passed down through the generations and were meant to hold a secret to their salvation, but they haven't been able to work out that secret. Bruno entered the scene too - "Who can party while their world comes to an end?"

The chief further explained these totems may be able to save them but they don't know what they mean, most of them have been too busy partying too much to figure any of it out and they have a hard time operating in public. So, they were asking for help, something they wouldn't normally do but were desperate.

Sam and Max agreed. The chief left to go to the hot springs. Sam noted they should wait a while to return Bruno to the circus. He had a feeling something big and important was about to happen to the bigfoots and Bruno should get to see it. Sam's been hesitant about this as was; Max just wants his money. For now it was time to see what to do.

I could talk to Bruno about the totem poles but he didn't have much that was actually useful to say, more just silliness, which is perfectly acceptable as well. I was able to circle around to the back where I found the chief and the hot springs. I was able to get more clues about the totems from him, although the images on the totems were making it pretty clear to me.

From left to right, summing up as follows:

a whirlpool like the wild side of bigfoots, something ancient, a harmony from the coexistence of two similar beings, and something symbolizing growth.

I was able to give him three of the necessary items that he threw into the pool: dinosaur tooth, the John Muir vegetable and the pillow with the hair tonic - the hair tonic being key. Each time the corresponding totem would vanish.

I was only missing the whirlpool/whirlwind. I was also running out of inventory by this point. I figured the sno globe would be the answer, but I never did sort out the missing stopper issue.

I went back into the hotel and stopped by the kitchen again where I checked the fridge to find the now frozen Bumpus and henchman. They're certainly making out like a bigfoot now. I also found an ice pick in the freezer.

I decided to go back to the Mystery Vortex thinking maybe I'd missed some kind of fix there or maybe I could find a replacement. As it turned out I had missed the Mini Vortex booth in the gift shop. Or at least I don't think I'd tried using it before even though it's big and obvious. I wouldn't have been able to have done anything with it before anyway so no big deal. I did try the sno globe with it, and I did capture the energies of a vortex, however, with no stopper it just emptied out again.

Keeping in mind my most recent areas patterns I went back to the bigfoot party to see if I'd missed anything. I missed a wine bottle on the table. Perfect because wine bottles come with corks. I didn't have a way to get the cork out though. I tried the ice pick; it didn't work but it had a very ice-pick-specific message of failure which meant it had to be important. I knew, or hoped I knew what to do.

I went back. Once more. To the Ball of Twine. Again. In hopes that the tool bending guy could help. Thankfully I was right! He twisted the ice pick into a corkscrew and I could pop the cork out and use it with the sno globe.

I went back to the vortex, caught the mini vortex, corked it up and was good to go.

One mini vortex ready for the pool.

I brought it back to the chief and that was all the items, but there was one more step of course... because what do rituals always seem to end up needing? That's right, a sacrifice.

And I thought "uh oh" thinking this was about to go sour on Sam and Max. But then Max had an idea and wandered off and the chief just left saying he'd go see if he could find someone willing to off themselves for the greater good...

And Max's idea?

Putting the frozen "bigfoot" Bumpus and Harvey to use.

Gather round for a good ol' sacrifice and spell casting! Just chuck Bumpus in there.

Bye Bumpus...

Then things got majestic.

First a rain cloud over the pool.

Then a tree sprouted and grew out of the pool.

And then!

Trees! Trees burst up around the hotel and into the city!

And overtook the western side of the States map! Trees!

Beautiful.

Or as Sam says:

"Well, that was one heck of an impressive display." With Max chiming in with "And actually highly destructive to boot." Win-win situation I suppose.

Chatted with Bruno and Trixie who had no interest in the new forest and were ready to head off to Vegas and get hitched, maybe start a family.

The chief noted they should be proud of what they did today.

You bet they're proud.

The chief gave Max his medallion which turned out to be foil-wrapped chocolate. Max was happy anyway, until remembering they forgot to get paid.

There was also still one last loose end. We never did get Bruno back to the circus. But, hey, we've replaced a sasquatch before.

I suppose the frozen Bumpus and henchman just sunk to the bottom of the pool and were easily retrieved? Either way here's an attraction.

How could they ever repay them? Would they settle for 3000 Skeeeeball tickets?

And some parting words:

"...then so be it!"

"You crack me up, little buddy."

And we ended with the Kushmans wondering if Bruno always had four arms. Whoops! But, hey they still got an attraction out of it!

And roll credits.

I got to shoot targets in a shooting gallery while the credits rolled. No real end screen, so have this one. While the after-credits messages tried to shoo me away.

Bruno and Trixie got to go get married, the Kushman brothers got an attraction back, Sam and Max get to go play in a shooting range, the bigfoots have a forest back and the western states are overrun with trees. All in all a happy ending I'd say!

I'll be honest, and I don't know why this was, but I had some slight misgivings about this game before starting it. I've experienced other Sam & Max stuff and enjoyed it. Maybe I was worried it wouldn't hold up or that my tastes had shifted or it would be infuriatingly difficult. I don't really know, but those feelings were unfounded. I really really enjoyed that.

It was fun, funny and goofy. It looks and sounds nice. I was actually glad for the voice acting which was a very hit and miss thing in the '90s.

For my worries of difficulty it was quite manageable for me. Yeah, I had my stuck points--a big chunk of a post dedicated to my spiral of madness and screaming at a door--but I was never stuck in a 'how is anyone supposed to figure that out' way. My worst sticking points felt like my fault--not seeing things--not the game's fault.

I'm not going to say the game is easy or hard. I don't like making those calls on puzzle games, or any game for that matter, because people think differently and have different levels of experience with a genre. It could be I simply clicked with its internal logic and language. My experience with some other comedy point and clicks presumably helped as well. The game had its challenges absolutely but I felt it was overall decent with its clues too. I mean, I didn't use a guide at all and I have certainly done so for points in other games. I would have saved myself some grief and certainly time with the missed door and part of their office, but aside from those spots I had puzzling moments for sure, but never so badly I had to fight against the urge to go look up a solution. Sometimes just taking a break helps too. I feel like, in some ways, I would have been more annoyed looking at a guide seeing that was all I'd missed... anyway.

My only complaint with the game is the hot spots felt finicky. Sometimes a spot would feel too broad, so I'd try to examine something else and get the thing with an unexpectedly broad spot instead. Sometimes I had a bit of trouble getting Sam to go where I wanted. And sometimes, though this at least seems very much in character, Max would get underfoot and I'd get the interaction with him instead. It wasn't enough to break the game for me or anything so drastic, but it did cause a little irritation sometimes.

Overall though, I had a great time.

Thank you to those who voted for it in the poll! I'm really glad I played it at last and it was just so fun to play another '90s LucasArts game I hadn't played before. They were gold then.

And thank you for reading and following along!

[krystanadrew]

Game: Sam & Max: The Devil's Playhouse

In Episode 4, Beyond the Alley of the Dolls, having Max use the psychic ventriloquism power on the jukebox in Stinky's Diner will have Max sing "I remember my childhood in Brighton..." before Sam stops him from singing any more of the song. This is the opening lyric to the song "King of the Creatures" sung by the character Conroy Bumpus in LucasArts' earlier title Sam & Max: Hit the Road.

[britesparc]

Weekend Top Ten #371

Top Ten Videogame Antagonists

So last week I went through my favourite protagonists in videogames, and this week I thought I’d Break Bad and get stuck in with antagonists. The best baddies in interactive fiction.

And I’m focussing on antagonists here; specifically, the “big bads” you face in a game. With one exception (which I’ll come to) I’m dismissing “types” of enemy and focussing on characters. So no genestealers, xenomorphs, beholders, cyberdemons, koopas, geth, combine, or shamblers (not least because a few of those originated in material outside of games, and I want to stick to game-specific nasties). No, I’m on about individuals; nemeses. Not necessarily moustache-twirling Bond villains who will monologue you given half a chance, but certainly characters with a personality. Not the horde, but individuals.

So there you go. my favourite interactive arseholes. Enjoy.

LeChuck (The Secret of Monkey Island, 1990): ghost pirate, zombie pirate, whatever; he’s funny, he’s threatening, and he’s responsible for the single greatest ending in videogame history. Buy this man a root beer.

The G-Man (Half-Life, 1998): creepy and with the best voice in gaming, his true motives are unknown and the extent of his altruism is suspect; is he the ultimate evil? An apathetic defender of the status quo? Secretly in league with the combine? Let’s face it, at this point we’ll probably never know.

GladOS (Portal, 2007): sticking with the Half-Life verse, GladOS is both funny ha-ha and funny peculiar (like Zsa Zsa Gabor). Sinister and machiavelian but with a gentle demeanour and a nice line in dry sarcasm, she’s the most personable digital bugger this side of HAL.

Wario (Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins, 1993): way, way better than Bowser, this anti-Mario is hilarious and an utter bell-end. His whole demeanour and design is a beautifully funny inversion of Mario’s aesthetic, and his personality when fronting the Warioware games is a chaotic delight.

The Flood (Halo: Combat Evolved, 2001): ah, here we go; the one exception to my “no generic foes” rule. That’s because of two reasons: one, the rug-pull left-field turn of the Flood’s appearance in the first Halo; and two, because they essentially operate as a hive mind, represented in Halo 2 by the Gravemind. This means I can crowbar them into being one character because they’re a sort-of weird sentient space-fungus.

Conroy Bumpus (Sam & Max Hit the Road, 1995): just pipped to the post by GladOS in the “best song by a videogame villain” stakes, Conroy has always delighted me because he’s a country & western signer (both kinds of music) who, for some reason, has a Liverpudlian accent (despite claiming to come from Brighton). He’s funny, he’s got a funny design, he sings a funny song, but really it’s the incongruity of his origins that I find appealing.

Doctor Robotnik (Sonic the Hedgehog, 1991): also loads better than Bowser. A big fat twat with a stupid moustache (a genuinely delightful visual design), his continual reappearance as a boss at the end of levels in Sonic gives him the put-upon air of a supervillain failing to best their foe. Don’t give me no “Eggman” though; what’s up wit that?

The Illusive Man (Mass Effect 2, 2010): we’ve had a few funny ones but now here’s someone genuinely sinister, fantastically portrayed by Martin Sheen (Martin Sheen! FFS!). He’s got creepy eyes, a mysterious office, and he smokes, the utter bastard. A properly shady and threatening presence, having to work with and for him in Mass Effect 2 gives that game an exceptionally amoral and unsettling air.

Anatoly Cherdenko (Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3, 2008): frankly we’re back to the comedy. In a game series famous for its over-the-top acting in cut-scenes (going right back to the not-exactly-star-studded Red Alert in ‘96), casting Tim Curry as a Russian premiere is solid gold. He does not disappoint, in a performance that is hammier than Miss Piggy’s socks.

The Dragon (Moonstone: A Hard Days Knight, 1991): look, he’s a bloody big dragon that just flies in and utterly destroys you, showering the screen with bits of your knight’s gizzards and fountains and fountains of blood. Frankly terrifying, as all good dragons should be.

[yellowskinnedwackyman]

Creeper owns an infinite amount of copies of the “hit”  “King of the Creatures” by Conroy Bumpus. Many he uses for cluckshot practice. He keeps one in the lair because he enjoys the thrill of owning something so despised, like having the Necronomicon.