#ive looked at their AWESOME work and gone these are some really cool puzzle pieces! and its so so cool what youve done with it

[tazzmanian-devil]

13 - The Evil League of Mutants 16 - Shadows of evil

To Three, the keyword had been "we".

[chubbyooo]

Blurred Lines Chapter 21 - Resemblances

Chapter 21 switches over to Terri as we catch up with their venture into another temple (I know there’s a lot of jumping around at the mo but due to the timeline it’s kinda needed)

Terri and Lusari investigate another temple and have a scary experience (it’s a long one boys)

A chuttering sound came from the speeder as Terri began to park it, it was slightly worrying maybe she should check it out later. Terri had some mechanical skill so maybe she could fix it. Lusari had arrived next to her and began parking, her hair was messy and full of small sticks and leaves, Terri wasn’t that surprised with the length of Lusi’s hair things were bound to get caught in it. She promptly grabbed her satchel and picked out a hair brush, Terri tried to hold in a smirk as Lusari tried her best to a least tame her hair. 

As she finished she spoke up “ok we got everything for the ritual” Terri checked her many small bags and pouches for her adventuring gear and sure enough she was kitted out and totally rad.

“cool adventuring gear check, super good flashlight check, awesome lightsaber check, you?” she did think the adventure was super cool, she had always dreamed of being like the adventurers in the archives of the sith academy, she was very pleased to be doing it in a less evil way.

Lusari began riffling through her satchel “let’s see ritual components double check, emergency defences check aaaand one very cool holocron check” Lusari displayed her holocron for a second before returning it to the bag. It was cube shaped with triangular corners, the thing was much bigger than most holocrons she had seen but glowing just as sinisterly with a red hue. Apparently it was stuck that way which made sense considering it’s content, still that’s what they were here for to right that wrong. 

Terri snapped out of her accidental daydream and responded to Lusari “alright let’s get to it then” she was trying to be more confident in herself and the mission after the talk with Lusi last night, she was hoping it helped.

Lusari nodded in agreement and they headed towards the temple. From what they knew this temple was buried in the side of a mountain but it’s entrance was still out in the open and from their scans the interior was still somewhat intact. As they made their way to the cliff edge they very quickly spotted the overgrown temple entrance sticking prominently out of the rock face it was covered in moss and vines and looked more like a cave than a temple. It looked very dark in there and as they moved closer they could hear echos resonating throughout the temple. 

“woah that’s freaky” Lusari said seeming a little uneasy

“yeah we should stick close together, stay in my light” Terri turned on her flashlight and Lusari moved in close 

“thanks Terr I’ll be right next to you the whole way” she took Terri’s hand and they began to go into the darkness. Terri was a little scared admittedly but she thought anyone would be, this place was spooky. As they moved further into the temple they could see cobwebs lined most of the walls and a huge amount of dust was caught in the ray of Terri’s flashlight, the dust levels were so high they were making the back of Terri’s mouth tickle. Every now and again they could see a little bit of rubble crumble off the side of the walls, this place would probably collapse within a few months. Terri could also hear a faint dripping sound echoing through the halls, must be water nearby.

Lusari suddenly spoke up “hey Terr do you know the way to the main chamber” Terri was confused the other one had been pretty clear

“no is it different to the last one” Lusi had looked at the maps and planned out most of this ritual, she was the smart one but Terri was defiantly the cool one after her fight with the commander.

“yeah this place is a Labyrinth but I totally solved it, it wasn’t even that well made” Lusi sounded a little mad, Terri knew that Lusi loved solving puzzles and she knew even better how she got mad when she saw a bad puzzle, this defiantly matched that tone.

“do you know the way then? are we lost?” Terri didn’t realise they could get lost in this creepy temple otherwise she would’ve been much more careful

“yeah no I’m fine just checking you knew” good thing too she would’ve just gone in a straight line forever

As Lusari began to lead they heard a creepy echoed voice chuckle. Immediately Terri’s hair all stood on end and she started to tremble, she began to turn around looking for the voice

“u-um Lu-lusi d-did y-you here that” Terri thought about igniting her lightsaber but didn’t want to draw attention to herself, it wouldn’t exactly be covert

“ye-yeah u-um what was that?” oh no Lusi didn’t know what it was that was really bad 

“I don’t know um is it the Lady?” seemed unlikely but maybe it was a test

they were both looking around anxiously in the space “n-no she ca-can’t talk while con-contained” Terri kinda already knew that but she didn’t want to believe it was something else

“let’s uh let’s walk back to back y-you know for safety” Terri would feel better if they covered all their bases

“uh huh sure” Lusari backed up to were Terri was and she passed over the flashlight. They began to walk forwards carefully looking around for the source of the noise, Terri was facing backwards and could see little of were they came from without the flashlight but she swore she could see a small glow of blue coming from the end of the corridor. They continued down a few more passageways until they reached a door, Lusari stopped and Terri accidentally bumped into her back letting out a little surprised shriek.

“sorry, there’s a door here I need to concentrate” Terri nodded awkwardly and began surveying the chamber to avoid the embarrassment. She looked around the room for a bit before she found a average size moveable piece in the wall, It seemed too simple to be rubble and it may mean there’s a mechanism behind it. She closed her eyes and used the force to move the rock but then she suddenly felt a force knock her to the ground, what was that? it felt like a bunch of pipes maybe it was a mechanism. She reopened her eyes to see a Kaleesh skull starring at her, she cried out as she quickly moved the skeleton of her.

“ah oh my god oh my god oh my goood there’s a creepy dead Kaleesh here” Terri’s heart was racing, she had never been so frightened in her life but more than that she was confused; Kaleesh weren’t exactly native to Yavin IV so this was not random. Not only that but there still looked to be meat on his bones, but this place was abandoned it didn’t add up. As she looked up though she did see a lever in the hole so at least her wimpy moment wasn’t for nothing. She pulled the lever and as she did she saw that Lusi was still deep in concentration, the door began to lift and she opened her eyes.

“see I just needed a little time” she said with a smile, whaaat this was Terri not her she better not take credit. Terri gestured intensely to the lever “oh... right well um nice job” Lusi seemed a little disappointed but Terri felt it was more important to get out of this horror movie waiting to happen. They continued through the corridors eventually reaching the main chamber where Lusi began unpacking her things on the similar tablet in the chamber.

Terri took a defensive position as Lusari set up the ritual but as they prepared they heard the same echoed voice “hmhuhuhuh two little sith flies falling riiiight into my trap” Terri looked around for the source of the voice igniting her lightsaber for extra intimidation factor. 

Lusari looked at Terri concerned but they had a job to do “Lusi get on with the ritual I can hold off whatever this is” she wasn’t really sure of that but she had to be brave and trust in their plan “show yourself” Terri shouted into the chamber as Lusari sat down to begin the ritual, she was protected like that Terri wasn’t sure how.

As her shout echoed around the chamber a blue etherial form materialised in front of her. It was a Male Togruta with a snarl covering his face, his teeth were like fangs and he was covered in some form bone armour. Terri was immediately scared of him what was this guy? an ancient warrior? a crazed zealot? whatever he was he seemed loco

“well well another fool has entered my abode ohohohohoo I’m going to enjoy skinning you” oh no no thank you no skinning, Terri began moving backwards as he talked, what was she supposed to do he was a ghost she couldn't exactly hurt him. Could he hurt her?

her hands shook as she said “stay back I-I know how to use this thing” she was actually pretty good with a lightsaber and probably could take this guy if he was a real person

But in response the ghostly figure just chuckled spitting as he did “go on then I’m dying to see this” Terri tried a proper stab but it just went straight through him, in response he began to laugh in a booming voice

Terri had to regain the upper hand Lusi was counting on her to stall “yeah but you can’t hurt me either right...you ghost” it was true right he could only use the force against her and she was good at blocking that.

“oh but my dear I won’t be doing the hurting” he began to whistle and as he did Terri could here a aggressive shuffling sound coming from the other end of the temple “you best be prepared my Varactyl haven’t eaten in weeeks” oh god oh god what did Terri do she had no idea how to stop this she was going to ruin everything. She could hear the Varactyl coming closer and closer soon they would be here then what would she do, she had no plan and they were counting on her

Suddenly then she heard a familiar echoed voice but this time in her head “Terri get the ghost close to me” close to her what does that mean? close to the holocron, best option she got right now

She quickly shuffled next to the holocron, how was she going to get him over “oh I see how it is not brave enough to fight me yourself, afraid you’ll lose” she could see a little twitch in his face, please say that worked she could hear the varactyls howls very close

he began to step forward “believe me missy nothing would make me happier than flaying the skin off of you myself but” he was getting closer, yes! thank the force, stupid monologuing sith so easy to trick “I’m afraid I’m otherwise impa-” as he was talking his words were almost drained away from him and suddenly his form was being pulled towards the holocron with a chilling energy. Oh my god the Lady is saving her she felt so honoured, she heard a snarling coming from behind her, oh no the varactyl she saw them enter the chamber ready to pounce. She was petrified she had no idea what to do she just closed her eyes and trusted the Lady had a plan. 

She could here the togruta screaming as she stood there unable to move “noooo, noooo you will never cage me I will destroy yo-” and then silence Terri could still hear the snarling though, she wasn’t brave enough she had really tried but now she had just froze. But then she heard them whimpering and as she opened her eyes they were running away.

“oh oh oh my god my Lady h-how did you do that” that was soooo coool Terri was sure she had messed it up but the Lady totally had a plan

The voice resonated inside her head once again “absorbing of a force ghost is defiantly a crude and dangerous way to achieve power but none the less effective” absorbing? so all his power now the lady’s? well at least it was with someone who would use it well

“you absorbed him? like all his power and personality wow you’re so powerful” Terri hadn’t talked to the Lady much before, that was more Lusi’s job but she was still very pleased to talk to her

“yes it’s actually not a very hard ritual but given to a naive young force user and it can lead to disastrous consequences for the individual trust me” she sounded so smart, Terri knew that the Lady was quite an old being but her understanding of the force was always so baffling 

“Thank you so much for saving me from the Varactyls I know you didn’t have to” Terri felt like she should at least thank her, she hoped it wasn’t rude

“nonsense Terri you’re important to the plan just like Lusari, you’ll realise your part eventually” whaaaat she did have a part to play? she thought she was just helping out, why hadn’t Lusi told her?

“oh um well thank you” Terri felt very giddy after all this praise

“I must return to the ritual I have been away from it too long, Lusari may be getting doubtful” Terri let her go without another word and sat on the wall  excitably replaying the events over in her mind. It was dangerous but also so cool not only fighting the commander but a force ghost, her friends would be so jealous. As she sat the room slowly began to glimmer with light, oh yeah she got to watch the ritual this time awesome. As the glimmers became clear she could see many different language symbols all lighting up with a glowing yellow light, as the ritual continued the glowing formed tendrils which branched together all leading into the holocron. The chamber then returned to the darkness it was once in and the room was silent.

Lusari stepped up and turned around “what did I miss” Terri smiled she was gonna be so jealous...

[pokefanbri]

If I move on, even if we're not together anymore...it just feels like a betrayal & i dont know if I can bring myself to do it, Idk if I can! 😭 I was left like an unexpecting pet or even pokemon lol wondering where its owner went after it was abandoned without knowing why...i know that sounds silly...but it makes me wonder if I was left hanging in such a way with no closure...am i like left on a back burner or some shit. Its ridiculous I know, i shouldn't wait for a return when there's none deserved...but in my eyes, we both must work on ourselves including with self love & evaluating our faults etc, b4 jumping into something serious...like jumping the gun b4 we're ready..& I know he knows that too. He doesn't realize how awesome of a person he really is, fuck the bruised ego or what have u after everything, he doesn't like showing weakness i know him well...thats also a guy thing 😅 it doesn't make him less of the great person ive known for months.

But i don't know what to do, im at a loss, id be giving my heart to someone else when it was wide open for him if he wanted it...and the more I learn & understand by putting myself in his shoes, somehow my love grew even more so after the fact....which makes it even more of an agonizing pain. I don't need his validation, I would just like to speak 😔 It may or may not be painful for him to, but it is for me to not.

The whole relationship, all the events, everything karma,God or even Satan ffs is giving us thereafter....its all piling up without release. Right now at this moment as im sobbing again, id do anything for a proper chance to be redeemed in some way & maybe truly experience the relationship the way its meant to be 😭 but I know deep down its probably not likely even if granted we were brought together for a reason like fate for self growth for example. All I know is that I'd rather hear it from him, that everything is gonna be okay, & that he prays for me just as much as i do for him 😭😭😭 I don't care about the era of our relationship, I can move past the downs without forgetting the great positives.. id put that shit aside if it means i can just get my best friend back 😭 cuz losing both at the same time is whats killing me rn, i can't handle this shit, I just dont want to think about this anymore...it just hurts too much. I hope with time, things change & we're cool again if that would ever be a possibility.

Nothing like this has ever happened to me before, im so confused & scared its harder to trust with everything out to get me..this was not supposed to be how my life turned out..Im a hot broken mess. I ask myself everyday why, why did it have to be like this after all the good, what was it worth...was it worth losing someone in a blink of an eye to avoid dealing with it rather than confront & becoming better for eachother, was it worth sacrificing it all including our well being!? And why, why was i unwanted for a whole half a year!!!!! No, if anything especially MY time & energy was wasted, I did everything right, I damn well know what it takes to be in a relationship I thrive on long term...he made his choices & it ended up costing us both. If I knew the end result would ruin me in certain areas, I would've risked it to have gone in the 1st place...😔 Who chooses to close themselves off even more, not want to fix whats broken for greater things within, & instead runs away from it 😭 Who guards themselves from vulnerability so much so, as if they've locked themselves up from any1...makes me think who tf fucked his heart up in his past where he thinks he can't be close? Am I crazy or in the ball park I have no idea, me trailing off to theories is exactly why im confused, my mind is literally working overtime to figure it all out & i can't stop it...actually gives me a headache. Im not sure ill ever get my answers 😔 I just know Its harder to move on without knowing how I ended up here. A small part of me thinks its a cruel joke just to put us in a position to get our shit together on our own merits & everything would be fine between us again..but at what cost. I just don't know anymore.

Though i grew fond of him & my heart grew 3 sizes bigger..over time his became less & left cold, but throughout...we were still homies til the bitter end, that ill always cherish.

You will never know how to truly love someone & be given the glory of that life, if you're unable to love yourself first. Nobody is perfect, but when u look at the one u love...they're perfect to you. When i looked at him, I thought he was the most amazing person...flaws & all I didnt care, I accepted him for who he was. Like "see that person right there..their face brings me joy & is why I get outta bed just to see it in the morning" All i wanted was for him to feel the same 😔

Theyll always have a piece of my heart, the bond connects even if by a thread, it will always be there. The pieces of the past are a puzzle to my heart & it searches within those pieces for what it needs.. it will be sewn or put back together eventually & may swell again, by who I do not know. Idk if ill ever feel that way again or find someone who'd measure up to that same level as I again. Only time will tell, all i can do is pray...for them & myself that we find peace, to forgive & forget so we rest a little easier to better face today's challenges as they come. I pray they're alright & send any strength they may need to fight whatever battles they face as well. Thats all i can do

[ciathyzareposts]

Infocom Marathon: Leather Goddesses of Phobos (1986) – Part One

Written by Joe Pranevich

Sex sells, but few things market a product better than controversy. Throughout much of the 20th century, it was an adage that a book or a play “Banned in Boston” was guaranteed to sell well elsewhere. Oscar Wilde once said that, “The only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about.” Barbara Streisand discovered that the fastest way to get a lot of people interested in taking photos of her house was telling them that they could not. So it was in that spirit that Steve Meretzky penned A Mind Forever Voyaging as a controversy-magnet, guaranteed to get the conservative pundits wagging their tongues about his leftist pollution of young minds. The controversy never materialized and that game flopped. Unperturbed, he pushed for yet another game that could “go viral”, but this time he aimed to incite the ire of the pundits (and the libido of the players) by embracing sex. Could an assault on decency succeed where AMFV failed?

Whether it was the sex, the return to traditional puzzle-based gameplay, or something else, Leather Goddesses of Phobos garnered enough attention that it became Infocom’s final true “hit”. TBD reviewed the game in 2017 and so I will look at this game through a different lens. Instead of a sequential playthrough and review, I am going to focus on the game’s puzzles. This game is rightly credited as having some of Meretzky’s most clever mind-benders, but does he put them together in a satisfying way? I will also place LGoP in the context of Infocom’s broader story as we progress towards the end of 1986.

My original plan had been for this to come out as a single post, but it turns out that I have more to say about his puzzles than I thought. Rather than cut it down, I’ve decided to split the work into two. Today, we’ll cover the introduction and collect the first four key items. Next week, we’ll conclude with the final puzzles and some thoughts on how the game comes together as a whole.

Another in-joke that got out of hand?

Leather Goddesses of Phobos began as an office in-joke that got out of hand. As early as 1982, Steve Meretzky, still only a game tester rather than designer, scrawled the name onto a whiteboard with a list of upcoming titles before a press event. It was erased quickly, but it became a bit of a catch phrase around the office and would be mentioned whenever a hypothetical game was needed. This repeated meme wound its way into an official Infocom product in 1984 with the re-release of Starcross. As previously discussed, the shift to standard packaging as part of the “corporatization” of Infocom led to changes in all of the earlier titles’ game documentation. The earliest titles, such as Zork and Starcross, received expanded backstories although even later games saw changes. For Starcross, this backstory included a set of the player character’s diary entries that highlighted his boredom before his date with destiny. Tucked away in one such entry is the first public mention of the Leather Goddesses:

M.C.S. STARCROSS 03-28-2186 

Underway less than four weeks and I’m about to go crazy! First, the entertainment tapes were mislabelled. It’s all highbrow stuff like operas and lectures. Leather Goddesses of Phobos was really something about the history of the Terran Union. What a rip-off! I suppose I can always talk to the computer. I can’t stand those tapes. I’ll save them for later in the voyage when I’m really desperate. I’ll play games with the computer to keep amused that way.

Although this furthers my suspicion that Meretzky was the uncredited author of some of these new materials, it wasn’t long before Brian Moriarty got into the swing of things as well. The pleasure arcade in Wishbringer featured a Leather Goddesses of Phobos arcade game. While we never got more than that title tease, the idea spread around the office enough that when Meretzky– just off of his failure of A Mind Forever Voyaging— suggested making the game “for real” that it may have felt fait accompli. Their soon-to-be corporate overlords didn’t object and before long Infocom had its official twenty-first adventure game!

Infocom struggled to find consistent sales from the earliest days.

The mass protests never manifested, but Meretzky still managed to garner a few complaints and a computer store or two that refused to sell the title. Still others were unhappy that a game sold based on sexual content wasn’t pornographic enough. Whether or not the controversy helped, Leather Goddesses sold more than 50,000 copies in the first year and ended its run at 130,000 units total, making it Infocom’s sixth most popular title ever. Not bad for a game released so late in the company’s history! This success guaranteed that it would receive a spinoff, the Infocomic Lane Mastodon vs. the Blubbermen in 1988, plus a proper sequel in 1992. Sierra would even parody the title in Space Quest IV.

Activision may have eventually become a bit squeamish about the title. Inexplicably, they did not include it in either of the two Lost Treasures of Infocom sets from 1991 and 1992. Purchasers of the second set could order the game via a special coupon, but at $9.95 (roughly $19 today), that was no small sum for a six-year old text adventure. It was also not included in any of the 1995 compilation box sets, but would finally be included in the Classic Text Adventure Masterpieces of Infocom (1996). That box set was also the first to include non-Infocom games released alongside Infocom ones, but that will be a conversation for another day. It was not until 2012 when Leather Goddesses was finally included in an official Lost Treasures set, the much-loved but now dead release for iOS. I am still angry at Activision for refusing to update that app for 64-bit devices.

Also note the first appearance of the “Infocomix” branding!

Much like their other titles, Leather Goddesses included “feelies” including a Lane Mastodon comic, a scratch-and-sniff pad, and even a map of one of the game’s dungeons. As usual for this period, the comic is required reading as it includes copy protection solutions for several of the game’s puzzles. The comic was drawn by Richard Howell, known for stints at both Marvel and DC as well as helming his own independent comics company. He may be best known for his work on Vision & Scarlet Witch, a series that serves as one of the inspirations for the upcoming WandaVision TV show. The comic was converted to 3-D by Ray Zone, a pioneer in commercializing red-blue 3-D art and who produced many such works during the 80s and 90s. Howell also produced illustrations for the hint book.

The manual tries to place the game in the Zork universe, at least in a tongue-in-cheek way. There are references to Zorkmids and even Dimwit Flathead. While the two previous games that mentioned the Leather Goddesses (Starcross and Wishbringer) were “Zork universe” games, I just cannot buy the technology in this game making sense in the sci-fi worlds of Starcross or Planetfall. I’m going to hold my personal head-canon that Leather Goddesses is popular fiction in the Zork universe and you can all snicker at me that I would even think about this enough to care. There is also a mail-away coupon in the manual for self-help books like you would find advertised in old comics. The address on the coupon is in Somerville, Massachusetts (the next town over from Infocom’s offices near Boston), but the street name doesn’t appear to exist. I’m at a loss to explain what they were doing here as they should either have gone with a very fictional address (so that it was obviously fake) or a real one (so that they could sell some unexpected “feelies”); an address that looks mostly real but doesn’t lead anywhere is very strange. It is also possible that Somerville renamed that street in the last three decades.

Downtown Upper Sandusky, circa 2009.

Our game begins– after a warning that the software we are about to play should not be played by the prudish– outside of Joe’s Bar in Upper Sandusky, Ohio. If you are a child, as I am, of that part of the midwest then your mind immediately went to just how awesome a place Sandusky, Ohio always seemed. On the shores of Lake Erie, Sandusky is the home of Cedar Point, one of the oldest and greatest amusement parks in the United States. Pittsburghers know that Kennywood is even better, but Cedar Point was still a pretty cool place. However, Meretsky fooled us: the game takes place in Upper Sandusky, a town along the Sandusky River a bit more than an hour south and completely devoid of amusement parks.

The primary purpose of the bar is to give us a chance to customize our Leather Goddesses experience. After a night of drinking, we have to relieve ourselves and to do so we have to select whether we are going into the Ladies’ room or the Men’s room. Inside we find a stool which we’d better grab and then do our business. That will set our gender for the remainder of the game. I’ve played through as both male and female, but other than swapping the genders of our comrade-in-arms (either Trent or Tiffany, always the same gender as you) and a few other (ahem) partners along the way, it doesn’t change much. A few turns later, the Leather Goddesses abduct us and lock us in a cell on their spaceship.

Escaping the cell is simplistic as the Goddesses simply left the door unlocked. They also left behind a surprising number of adventure game provisions (including a painting of a cat, flashlight, blanket, metal tray, and piece of chocolate). From there, we can explore their ship, easily rescue a ditsy-but-genius new friend from the cell across the hall, and teleport ourselves towards adventure. A couple of  seconds after rescuing her/him, Tiffany/Trent will have an eureka moment and work out a plan to build a device that can defeat the Leather Goddesses and save the Earth, but we’ll need to find eight surprisingly mundane objects to complete the task. These consist of: a common household blender, six-feet of rubber hose, a pair of cotton balls, an eighty-two degree angle, a headlight from a 1933 Ford, a white mouse, a photo of Douglas Fairbanks, and a copy of the Cleveland phone book. Why these items? We have to play the game to find out.

The primary thrust of the game will be to explore Mars and Venus, as well as a bit of Earth and other locations, as we track down the key items. The design of the planets are heavily influenced by the work of astronomer Percival Lowell who, in the 19th century, popularized the idea that Mars may have been an arid landscape cross-crossed by canals. This was then used and reused, perhaps most famously by Edgar Rice Burroughs in his John Carpenter series of books. This game’s depiction of nations on Mars in a state of decay may also have been inspired by Burroughs. Most of this exploration is done by locating and using “black circles” which are scattered literally everywhere; entering one will take you to some other location, usually with no immediate way back. In this way, the game keeps up tension and you are forced into situations where the only way out is to progress forward until you can locate the next circle. Gradually, we develop a network of such portals that allow us to explore at will. Once on Mars, we will eventually discover a royal barge that can be used on the still-intact canals to float downstream. Passing by each canal dock only once (until an alternate method of transportation is discovered near the end of the game), we again feel the tension of needing to do everything and explore everything carefully because there is no way back once we leave. While I may not love the setting, we have to give Meretzky credit for building a not-quite-open world in a new and interesting way and unlocking new areas to explore incrementally. It’s well done. Let’s dig into the puzzles.

Second game in a row with a killer Venus Flytrap!

Puzzle #1 – Venus Fly Trap One of the two black circles that we can discover on the Leather Goddesses’ ship leads to a jungle on Venus and our first real puzzle. It also happens to be one of my least favorite, an example both of how clever Meretzky can be and also how he can overdo it. I suspect that playtesters had difficulty with this one because they added a second solution that is at least more straight-forward than the first.

Immediately after we arrive, a Venus flytrap approaches. It blocks a path to the west, so you know going west must be important. As it chases us east, we quickly reach a fork in the road where the path circles around a pit in the ground. My immediate thought is that we are supposed to get the pit between us and the flytrap, perhaps lure it to the other side then sidle around so that we can go west without it catching us. That idea was completely wrong. If we hide in the pit, the plant will go away, but she comes back when we emerge. How are we to get past her?

At the beginning of the game, we found a piece of paper with a grid of letters on it in Tiffany’s cell. She claimed to not know what it was and that she wrote it in her sleep. Converted to a spreadsheet for easy editing, the grid looks like this:

  My first guess was that it was a code, especially as a code is mentioned in the Lane Mastodon comic. Unfortunately, that is a dead end. My break came when I noticed the word “HEADLIGHT” in the second row from the bottom. When we first discovered the paper, Tiffany had not yet had her “eureka!” moment, but by now we know that a headlight (from a 1933 Ford) is one of the key items that we have to find. Searching carefully, we realize that this matrix is a word search puzzle and some variant on the names of each of the eight objects can be found inside. If we find and remove them all, a secret message is revealed:

The message reads: “HISSING FRIGHTENS FLY TRAPS”. I follow its instructions to hiss at the flytrap chasing us and it is destroyed, allowing me to reach the western edge of the jungle. There, we find a can of “untangling cream” and a circle leading to the hold of a mysterious spaceship. More on those later. If we had not worked out the word search, we could eventually discover a wooden trellis and a bag of leaves. By combining those over the put, we create a flytrap trap that has the same effect.

I wish I loved this puzzle because the idea of a word search isn’t terrible, but it doesn’t make any sense in context. Tiffany wrote it before she designed the anti-Leather Goddesses weapon and it’s strange that she would have embedded a solution to a completely unrelated puzzle inside. Tiffany’s subconscious may be clever, but this feels a bit too clever. If there had been a hint somewhere– perhaps Tiffany remarking about a dream that she had while we were running away from the flytrap– it would have worked better for me. As it is, I solved it on my own but it wasn’t as easy as it looks.

Science!

Puzzle #2 – Weird Science

The second major puzzle on Venus is easier but requires trial and error as we navigate a tricky scripted event. We stumble on a mad scientist’s lab in the jungle and are led inside and forced to participate in one of his experiments. We are taken down to the basement where we discover a cage with two gorillas inside (one male and one female), next to a slab covered in strange equipment. We also immediately notice that the cage contains a six-foot length of rubber hose, the first of our key items. We are quickly strapped to the slab and the scientist presses a button. We immediately discover ourselves in the cage, in a gorilla’s body, with an amorous gorilla of the opposite sex nearby.

While the scientist watches carefully, we are given the choice whether or not we want to “frolic” with our gorilla counterpart. Is it bestiality to have sex with a gorilla while you are a gorilla? I have no idea. Regardless of how we choose, the scientist notes our response with excitement and leaves us in the cage.

Escaping is the most difficult part. We do not have the strength to bend the bars, but the game implies that we almost do. How can we get a little more strength? The answer relies on us figuring out the properties of one of the items we found earlier: the chocolate bar delivered with our food way back when we arrived in the Leather Goddesses’ cell. If we had eaten it at any point, we would have received a bit of a “buzz” thanks to the sugar. If we eat it right now, the added sugar and energy it provides is enough to allow our gorilla-self to bend the bars. Unfortunately, the bar is being held by our human-self so that means that we need to quickly put it in the cage during a brief window (1-2 turns) after we are brought downstairs but before we are strapped to the table. Once we are free, we can push the red button to return to our own body, but we should not do so until we (as a gorilla) take the hose out of the cage and untie our human-self. Otherwise, we just wasted time and the game is unwinnable.

This is a fun “on rails” puzzle to solve, but it’s all trial and error and passing items into the cage during that brief window. I worked it out but honestly thought that gorillas (like many other animals) were unable to eat chocolate. Once we get the timing down and do everything we need to do, it’s a fun sequence.

Before we leave Venus, we’ll need to finish exploring the jungle. There’s a coin hidden in an old phone booth, a “Tee Remover” that can be bought off of a traveling salesman, as well as a black circle that gets us back to the main ship. Experienced players may have more difficulty with the traveling salesman than it would appear since he will only accept the flashlight as trade; I was very reluctant to trade my only light source in fear that there would be other dark areas to explore and so only did this when I was stuck elsewhere.

Poor King Midas!

Puzzle #3 – King Mitre Mars is the largest explorable area of the game, although we will have to navigate some puzzles to get to much of it. The area that we are dropped into initially consists of several ruined castles and deserts, surrounded on three sides by a martian canal system. There’s a canal boat north of King Mitre’s castle– more on him in a moment– but the canal is a one-way trip and can land us in an unwinnable state. The first puzzle we find is perhaps the most famous puzzle of the game: King Mitre.

When we arrive in Mitre’s throne room, we get a long infodump where we learn that the Earth legend of King Midas who turned all that he touched into gold is just a corrupted form of the story of King Mitre who turned everything he touched into forty-five degree angles. The game itself admits that this makes no sense, but we go with it for the sake of the puzzle. Much like in the legend, the now depressed king has turned nearly everything, including his daughter, into a forty-five degree angle. He needs some help. What are we to do?

The answer lies in the odd machine that we bought off the salesman on Venus, the “Tee Remover”:

‘It’s a TEE remover,’ he explains. You ponder what it removes — tea stains, hall T-intersections — even TV star Mr. T crosses your mind, until you recall that it’s only 1936.

The “Tee Remover” is a small device with a door and a button. You place something inside, shut the door, push the button, and it will have all of it’s “T’s” removed. It’s quite clever. Later on, we’ll be able to turn a rabbit into a rabbi and many other fun jokes, but for now the key thing is to realize that the “untangling cream” that we discovered in the Venusian jungle can quickly become “unangling cream” when we remove its t’s. If we apply that to King Mitre’s daughter, she reverts to normal. The king becomes so overjoyed that he provides us with an eighty-two degree angle in reward. How he did this when he can only create 45-degree angles is left as an exercise for the reader. We take it and continue on our quest.

As you leave, you hear behind you the sound like a forty-five degree angle landing on a pile of forty-five degree angles. “Oh shit! Not again!”, you hear Mitre moan.

The joy in this puzzle comes from working out what the “Tee Remover” does and how we can apply it to the situation. Depending on whether the player went to Mars or Venus first, it’s possible that this puzzle could have remained a mystery for a while. Unfortunately, this is the only case where the Tee Remover comes in useful; while there are other t’s to remove for added humor (“rabbit” into “rabbi” is my favorite), there are no more where we need it to solve a puzzle. Overall, this deserves its reputation of being the most “fun” puzzle in the game, but it still doesn’t make a ton of sense.

Elsewhere on Mars, we can discover a marsmouse on “Hickory-Dickory Dock”. As a mouse is one of the key items, we try to pick it up and fail. Despite the name suggesting that this puzzle would have something to do with a clock, the actual solution is trivial: show the mouse the picture of a cat and it will become stunned enough to pick up. It’s a bit of a letdown really, but that is two key objects in just a few minutes!

Pittsburgers call Cleveland “The Mistake on the Lake”

Puzzle #4 – Cleveland Rocks!

In a desert east of Mitre’s castle, we discover a fountain and a black circle that has been drained of color. If we use the black stain that we discovered on Venus, we can re-power the circle and are transported to the mythical land of… Cleveland!

Cleveland is, literally, a joke. After the sprawling expanses of Venus and Mars, we suddenly find ourselves cramped in a tiny suburban area that is somehow cut off from the rest of the world. Meretzky pokes fun at this, but the minimalism of this area feels jarring compared to the dynamic environments elsewhere. I’m sure that was deliberate:

You suddenly find yourself longing for the slime pits of Venus or the sandstorms of Mars. This particular section of Cleveland has exits to the northeast and south.

We can explore two backyards and enter one tiny house. The yards have a bag of leaves and a wooden trellis that we can take, both of which could be used in the alternate Venus Flytrap solution. As it is, the sack is only useful for me as a way to ease the inventory limit.

Inside the house, we find a bedroom with a window open to a neighboring street. Just outside is a 1933 Ford with an intact headlight– one of our key items! If this had been a real location, it would be simple to just go around to the public street where the Ford is parked and pick up the headlight. Instead, we can only get there by climbing out a second-story window. How can we do that? Searching the room, we discover a sheet on the nearby bed. We can tie it to the bedpost, but it’s not long enough to reach the window. We cannot move the bed or tie the sheet to anything closer. The solution is to make the sheet longer by ripping it into strips and then tying them together to create a makeshift rope, then tie the assembled rope to the bed. We are too heavy for the rope, but Tiffany will agree to go down instead. Doing so seems like a mistake:

Tiffany climbs down the rope and unscrews the headlight. Suddenly, a truck barrels down the road and hits Tiffany, carrying her out of sight. Moments later, you hear an explosion. As the smoke drifts past the window, your eyes fill with tears. You hang your head in sorrow for a moment to honor your brave, loyal companion who gave her life that humanity might be safe from the terrible scourge of the Leather Goddesses of Phobos.

Of course, she is revealed to have survived the blast a turn or two later after a misadventure with miners on Pluto or something similarly nonsensical. I could not solve this puzzle on my own and had to take a hint. I worked out that I could tie things to the bed and I was trying to use the sheet as a rope, but I never thought to rip the sheet into strips and assemble them that way. I suspect that I have not watched enough jailbreak movies. Tiffany also usually ignores you when you ask for help, but she leaps to it this time.

My biggest issue with this puzzle is how unnecessary it seems. We’re in Cleveland. The car is parked on a public street. It breaks my sense of immersion in the game to have such a clearly constructed puzzle only make sense within the realm of a game. Had Meretzky had duplicated the exact same puzzle in a motel on Ganymede, I am certain I would have enjoyed it more. Either way, we have picked up our fourth key item. Only four more to go!

But… we’ll just have to wait until next week for our shocking conclusion.

source http://reposts.ciathyza.com/infocom-marathon-leather-goddesses-of-phobos-1986-part-one/