#she had a lot more fun off grid w him than she's going to admit | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

turquoisephoenix · 8 years ago

Text

Distractions

A Banjo-Kazooie one shot

While an ogre-ish scientist works on the machines that will drain her beauty and youth away, Tooty has an idea that might stall the project and buy her brother a little more time... While drawing this picture, I started writing a companion story to it just for fun and writing practice. I ended up getting carried away, and attached to it is a bunch of personal ideas I have for Klungo’s backstory. Plus Tooty is a character that I kinda wish saw more use in the fandom (I mean her being discarded after the first game doesn’t help her case but still) and I always liked the notion that somehow, after the events of Tooie, the two of them became friends, with Tooty even becoming more science-orientated than her brother, who’s more down-to-earth. Characters: Klungo, Tooty, Gruntilda (mentioned), Clanker (mentioned), the bear and bird (very lightly mentioned) ------------------------------------------------------------------

In this nondescript summer's day - a boring sort of day where the bees buzzed and the leaves rustled in the warm, sunny breeze - a talented scientist was fine-tuning the greatest experiment of his life, one that would cure the persistent magical corruption in his boss and make her youthful again.

That was the nice way of putting it, if one didn't mention that the scientist was a mutated hunchbacked goblin-like creature named Klungo, the experiment wasn't an unstable contraption with a high body rate in small rodent test subjects, and his boss wasn't Gruntilda, a gross, belching witch who used her own cauldron as a toilet and had just committed a kidnapping out of pure spite.

"Always gotta keep a positive outlook on these things," Klungo thought to himself with a tiny smile as he flicked a globule of blue, glowing ooze from his workstation as he reconfigured the wiring in one of his Beauty Suckers. Name, patent, and copyright pending. Klungo never was very good with names.

This beautiful summer day started sour for him. The first ten minutes or so of the experiment today had to be wasted in order to explain to Mistress Gruntilda just why he couldn't immediately throw the switch and be done with it in a matter of minutes, but instead needed quite a few hours. Days even.

Gruntilda...did not take that bit of news very well, he thought to himself as he gently nursed part of his monstrous jaw where one of the objects she threw at him connected. Gruntilda was not a patient employer; after Klungo finally explained with paper work and concrete evidence of past experiments that if he flipped the switch now, the chances of her turning inside out were alarmingly high, she stomped off in a huff and decided to amuse herself by shouting out threats to Tooty's brother, now marching ever upward in her lair.

That was a problem too, Klungo noted to himself miserably, his smile turning into a grimace. All of his experiments before didn't have a time limit attached to them. And now he had to get this machine to work before some revenge-seeking bear mauled him.

Klungo as a scientist was a very meticulous worker; his experiments took years, with the Clanker project spanning almost a decade in fine-tuning and still wasn't, in his head, considered finished. He wasn't expecting to wake up today and suddenly be ordered to use one of his machines, a machine he hadn't even properly tested yet without blowing up or mutating the unfortunate animals inside, on both his boss and a girl he's never seen before.

If only Mistress had given him the proper measurements of the child he was running through the machine ahead of time instead of expecting him to make a slipshod job of the whole matter, if only she wasn't so rash in presuming that he'd conform to her random changes in thought...he tried his best to keep his temper in check. No use ruining his whole day by being angry at things beyond his control.

Plus he had to admit, the henchman was practically thrumming with excitement to see this machine, this concept that had been lying around unused for years, finally see use. A twisted mockery of a smile lit his face. If this worked, the Mistress promised in a sing-song voice as she gently grasped his chin, then the second user would be him. Yes, him. We can use that idiot brother of her's. Only she used a lot more rhyming.

Maybe he can actually call his wife after all these years...

Thoughts of his wife and the panicked stream of consciousness wondering just how many months have passed since last contact that followed immediately started to cloud his mind, so he turned to look at the key ingredient in the experiment. "Tooty" (the locals always did have weird names, Klungo noted) was right where he left her, still inside her chamber. Not that she had anywhere to run with that laser grid in place - Klungo spent a good forty minutes setting that up too - but with all the wild, untamed magicks on the island, Klungo would also not be surprised if the local bear life in Spiral Mountain knew any teleportation spells.

The young child had ceased calling him names or yelling about how much her brother was going to beat him up and now sat curled in a fetal position, her head resting on the crook of her knees as she stared out in mute terror at her green captor.

The first hour or so, she was kicking and screaming and spitting at Klungo as he was writing down appropriate data for his tests. Years of living with Gruntilda - who could do far, far worse than anything Tooty could throw at him - had tempered his patience and he merely held the bear down with a firm but gentle hand as he did things like weight and height measurements. She did draw blood with her tiny bear claws a couple of times, but Klungo was used to tiny furry animals attacking him before he ran them through the Beauty Sucker. If they knew what their sacrifices were for, they'd be much more grateful.

This quiet change in behavior in the bear was fine with Klungo. The way he saw it, a silent, motionless test subject made his work easier and will make the experiment run more smoothly. With a snort, he turned back to the control panel. Let the little girl mope.

He continued to input code into his machine - hopefully his data on Gruntilda's mass and bone density hasn't changed since her last questionnaire - but with his attention off of Tooty, he didn't notice the subtle change in expression on the bear's face.

Tooty had an idea.

"Err...Mr. Mungo?"

"Klungo." he said automatically. It was the first thing Tooty had said to him that wasn't a personal insult or a threat, but the scientist was too focused on his work to have any sort of opinion on the matter.

"Mr. Klungo. Um..." Tooty hesitated a bit, desperately searching for a topic of conversation. She was unsure if he was smart enough to see this as an obvious distraction tactic. "Why do you have that lisp?"

"Klungo'sss tongue too long for Klungo mouth. Klungo mouth alssso hasss teeth that make talking chore." he said in a bored tone without looking up, fingers still tapping away at buttons and knobs. If the little girl was going to insult him, she was going to have to do better than that, he thought sourly to himself. If she asked him why his eyes were two different sizes, his next answer wasn't going to be so polite.

Tooty grumbled to herself and then looked up towards the ceiling, tapping her foot. This was harder than she thought. She never was one for idle chatter. That was more Bottles' thing.

Minutes passed in relative silence but the faint buzz of machinery, and then a tiny voice ran out in the laboratory.

"Where are you from, Klungo?" Tooty asked.

Klungo's hand stopped. He looked up, his brow furrowed. It was a small question, a light conversational topic, but it was also the first time in years that anyone showed interest in Klungo's life and not so much whatever machine he was working on or how ugly he was. It was the tiniest of tiny acts of kindness, not completely earnest, but it was enough. Tooty had found the chink in his armor.

"Ssst. Petersssburg and later London?" Klungo answered, confused. This was a question he had answered many, many times in his life, especially in medical school.

Tooty remained silent. Klungo nibbled on his lip.

"Klungo from Motherland."

The tiny bear child began to tilt her head to one side. With a grunt, Klungo got up from the control panel and stumbled closer to the little bear, fists scraping against the stone floor as his hunched back ruined his natural stride. Walking was always a bit of a chore for him nowadays, with the curvature of his spine warped from his own ongoing mutations. Still, maybe the tiny bear can't hear him properly when he was so far away.

"Sssoviet. Union." Klungo accentuated in a tone used for pets or very small children. "U. Sss. Sss. R."

Still nothing. The mutated scientist exhaled through his teeth and began tapping the side of his face.

"....Russsia?"

Tooty laughed nervously, a kind of halting, awkward titter as Klungo watched her. Tooty like most small children believed herself to be a child genius, much smarter than her dopey brother, so her revealed ignorance on Klungo's home struck a minor blow to her ego.

"I...don't think I've heard of any of those places, Mr. Klungo..." Tooty admitted.

Klungo broke into a grin regardless, and Tooty cringed at bit at the unnatural, twisted canines that parted his lips like broken shards of porcelain. He rather liked the sound of "Mr. Klungo". He'd prefer "Dr. Klungo" (or Dr. Klaus O, but he wasn't sure where his brain pulled that name from) but it was better than nothing.

"Far off country. Far from Isle of Hagsss. Klungo come here to do experimentsss. Sssomething happened with experimentsss, ssso ended up working for Missstresss. That ssstory of Klungo'sss life." the scientist said with a flourish of his arm. It was around this time it dawned on Tooty that Klungo wasn't talking the way he was because of a lack of intelligence. It was because he had some sort of accent as well as his aforementioned mouth deformities. A "Russsia" accent. Klungo was picking his words carefully because he was trying to find the smallest words lest his speech dissolve into incoherent hissing.

"You know..." Tooty continued, her distraction working. He was away from the controls now and he seemed to be in a good enough mood to keep talking about himself. Her dumb brother needed all the help he could get. Knowing Banjo, he had his head stuck in a grate somewhere in that old hag's lair. His bird friend didn't seem too smart either, even if she was really loud and obnoxious.

"I'm unsure what you are. You look like the Gruntlings that I've seen walking around, but you also look like a Grublin. Are you an ogre? A troll? Do they have trolls in Russssia?"

Klungo gave a small snort. They did have trolls in Russia but he wasn't one of them.

"Human, actually." he said with a grin.

Tooty's reaction - a blank stare that slowly sank into a deep horror the moment her brain realized just what Klungo was saying and just how mutated he actually was - made Klungo's smile falter a bit. That was usually the reaction he got, but it didn't hurt any less the fifth time he received it.

"Oh no, don't worry, Young Bear! Masshine didn't caussse thisss!" he said, tapping the right side of his face with a broken claw, his finger just under his swollen eye. Tooty grimaced - she was beginning to notice things like how one of his hands had a vestigial pinky finger and how he had scraggly hairs still clinging for dear life on his chin and head - but any minute spent talking was a minute spent away from the controls, away from figuring out the coordinates in order to steal her youth and beauty away.

"Did...did Grunty do that to you?" Tooty asked. She was trying to pick her words out carefully; Klungo seemed good-natured but she was afraid of him having as bad of a temper as his master. No need to insult the creature holding her captive. Especially when he was big enough to eat her.

"No, Klungo did. Experimentsss. Magic. Life forssse. All of thessse can corrupt if not careful." he said in far too cheerful of a tone considering the circumstances. Honestly, he just felt happy he could discuss this with someone who wasn't Misstress, his creation/son Clanker, the workers in the Rusty Bucket loading bay, or some judgemental mutant crabs that lived in Clanker's home.

"Klungo...wasssn't. That why Klungo built massshine. To fix problem. Missstresss very interested in project too. Would not make much progresss otherwissse." He patted the machine a couple times for accentuation. Thank goodness for small miracles, Klungo thought to himself. If Gruntilda didn’t find him half-mutated, cut off from the outside world in his lab working on his talking robot whale, who knows what would’ve happened! Clanker even has his own home now, chained up and free to eat as much garbage as he pleases. Clanker seemed fine now. He still needed work though.

"Aaaah...so it sounds like both you and the witch have the same goal. Both of you want to be beautiful." The child concluded, nodding her head.

The ogre guffawed at the notion. His harsh, barking laughter sounded like a hippo with stomach problems. "Klungo will sssettle for humanity. Not like Missstresss! Missstresss doing thisss all for Missstresss. Klungo doing thisss for sssomeone elssse."

"Really? Who?" Tooty asked. By now, Tooty had gone from just using the scientist as a means to help her brother to being genuinely curious in Klungo’s life. Klungo didn't seem like a social butterfly, with or without his mutations. Did he have any scientist friends?

It was then that Klungo walked closer over to Tooty so that there was barely any space between them save for the laser grid, looked around to make sure that Gruntilda wasn't going to come into the lab, and dug inside his labcoat pocket and pulled out a tiny piece of gold. It was a small golden circle kept safe in a little plastic bag to keep it free from contaminants. No, a ring, Tooty corrected herself, too small to fit on any of his fingers. Tiny diamonds sparkled in the green and yellow glow of the lab. Klungo cradled the ring gently in his hands, a precious, lovely treasure he kept hidden even from his Mistress. It was probably the only thing of value the scientist had in his possessions.

"Little bear can keep sssecret, yess? Not sssure if Misstress know or even care, but Klungo have a Mrssss. Klungo back home. Might not want ugly troll or goblin or whatever husssband, ssso once masshine work, Klungo will be better. Klungo can ssseee Mrs. Klungo! Klungo...I..." his voice began to falter a bit. His smile began to break up. He gritted his teeth in pain and hugged the ring close to him.

"...I missss her very much." he said in a voice that didn't belong to Klungo, the abused bumbling minion of a witch that lived in a tower, but to Dr. Nikolas Oserov, the missing researcher - presumed dead by most of his peers - who was inches away from the breakthrough of the century regarding the properties and biologies of lifeforces and souls in places like the Isle o' Hags, Crocodile Island, and Timber Island before everything started to go wrong.

He took a deep breath and shifted his weight a bit, and Tooty wasn’t sure how, but suddenly he had the appearance of an incredibly broken, tired man who chased a dream, ignored several key warning signs, and now was working for a monster while looking like one himself.

"I haven't talked to her in yearsss." he said, dragging a hand across his face. His voice now sounded tiny. Exhausted. His accent was still there, but somehow he sounded less “minion-y” to Tooty’s ears. "Cut off contact. Firssst I didn't call her because I thought it wasss contagiousss, now I won't call her because I don't want her to sssee me like thisss. No, better off thinking I wasss dead in that case. Ssshe’sss probably given up by now..."

The little girl had nothing to say as the creature in front of her struggled with his own emotions and memories, physically restraining himself to keep himself from breaking down and crying. He knew - he just knew - that if he lost control now, he’d be inconsolable and drained for too long of a period of time. Not when Gruntilda was already angry at him earlier today. Yes....Mistress Gruntilda would be mad if Klungo suddenly stopped working...

With that in mind, that tiny little magical suggestion in his mind that kept all of Grunty’s minions in check, he quickly caught himself, suddenly embarrassed at that brief glimpse of vulnerability, and the person he once was became buried again inside of Klungo, mutated bootlicking lackey of Mistress Grunty. Fangs set in a snarl, expression unreadable but strangely frightening, he shoved the ring back in his pocket, turned away from Tooty, and started stomping back to his work station.

"Wait, Klungo!" Tooty pleaded. She couldn't help but feel she did something incredibly wrong. "Do you have a favorite color, a favorite band! A favorite fruit? Hobbies? Video games? Please, don't go back to work!"

"Do sssvidaniya, little bear. Talk over. Wassste enough time." Klungo responded in the deadpan tone usually used by customer service representatives, his hunched back turned to her.

Tooty continued to call out, but whatever she said - from pleas to shouted apologies - was aggressively ignored. She'll tire herself out eventually, he thought sorely to himself. Klungo had learned to tune people out over the years, even before this whole mess had happened and people were calling him and his research on soul manipulation "crazy". You could never create a soul out of thin air, that’s insane. He heard it all. He’s heard so many things...

Inside of his lab coat, the weight of the tiny gold ring burned against his chest, a tiny burst of cold fire that kept bringing back those unlocked memories. They always hurt, memories. But in time, they disappeared back into the foggy recesses of his mutated brain and he could focus on the present. That was the blessing of having the DNA properties of a Gruntling; they weren't too developed on long-term memory or general intelligence.

A stray wind from the other room blew in the smells of summer into his lab. It was a beautiful summer day outside, full of buzzing bees and blooming flowers. If this experiment worked, he'd have enough pride to go outside on a day like this.

He had to get back to work.

#klungo #tooty #banjo kazooie #fanfic #turquoisephoenix tells a story #I rarely write fanfic at all anymore; used to back in the day #Rareware

11 notes · View notes

ciathyzareposts · 5 years ago

Text

Missed Classic: Borrowed Time – Won! And Final Rating

Written by Joe Pranevich

It seems like only two days ago that we started our look at Borrowed Time, the first game by Subway Software and a fun diversion as I prepare for Batman Returns. This is the first adventure game created by “The Game Doctor”, William Kunkel, during a brief period where he transitioned from game journalist to game designer. We left off last week after an extended chase sequence as my character, the hardboiled detective Sam Hawlow, survived an attempt on his life.

The plot thickens right away. As soon as I step out of the bar where I had fled, my assistant Iris finds me. Someone has kidnapped my ex-wife Rita; Iris recommends that I search Rita’s apartment for clues. I learned a few minutes earlier that Rita was on good terms with one of the thugs, Fred Mongo, so I do not understand why she was kidnapped. Was she double-crossed? Is this a setup intended to lure me to my death? Was she so upset about the unpaid alimony that she would seek out the mob, only to end up in over her head? I’ll have to play some more to find out. Although my character should know where her apartment is located, I will need to explore the city to find it. Let’s see what we see!

The dogs kids love to bite!

Rather than give you the usual boring play-by-play, let’s cut to the chase and I’ll summarize each area as I found it. The streets are in a grid so explaining the layout isn’t so bad:

First Avenue, running west to east, is where my office and the bar are located. Walking down the street to the west, I discover Hawkey’s newsstand, a vendor selling hotdogs, and a shack at the end of the road. Hawkey insults his own newspaper and won’t sell me any of them. In contrast, the hotdog stand is happy to sell me a weiner, but we eat it immediately rather than stashing it in inventory for later use. I’ll return to the shack in a bit. The hotel that I raced through at the beginning of the game has been closed due to “vandals”, but my office is still open. Shame there’s nothing new there.

The next street to the south is Sixth Avenue, so thank heavens for narrative compression. From east to west, that street features a police station, a park, Bruce Light’s house, a Medical Office, and a pile of trash at the end of the street. The park consists of two rooms: a statue of George Washington and a shed with a combination lock on it. I’ll be on the lookout for a combo. The trash at the end of the street hides a bone, which I pocket in true adventure style. Bruce’s house can’t be explored without a search warrant, but we catch a glimpse of some pill bottles on his table.

Not completely animated, but these scenes give the impression of a living city.

To the north of First is Polk Street, a residential area. I find a house guarded by a “bruiser”, Rita’s apartment, the offices of a company named “G&W”, and a parking lot. There’s a brief scene the first time you arrive at the guarded house: a woman goes, but comes out quickly flanked by a couple of goons before they all get into a cab. I don’t recognize her or the thugs so I have no idea if this scene is significant.

The only location not on those three east-west streets is a post office, tucked away between First and Sixth. The post office has a long hallway of locked PO boxes which seems promising. My bet is that I will find a key to one of them later.

I had to work all of that out over several restores. There seems to be an internal timer where if you don’t trigger some action to advance the plot every few turns, the mob catches up to you and eventually kills you. This gives the game a constant forward pressure, but it makes exploring difficult and is unfair to someone just trying to get the lay of the land. Before long, I got into the habit of saving whenever I think I found a clue, then using that to iterate until I find the next one. I use that trick to also ensure that I move from clue to clue as efficiently as possible, just in case there is an overall timer too.

Not the Kidnap Victim We Were Looking For

While I explore, I stumble onto some situations that warrant further investigation. The first of these is at the shack on First Avenue. Fred Mogo steps out just as I arrive, but hails a cab and speeds away before he sees me. The door to the shack is locked, but a little bit of shoulder-pressure knocks it down easily enough. Inside is the tied up figure of Mavis Brown, the barmaid who gave me advice then ran at the beginning of the game.

I admit that I had a complete “blue screen” moment when I arrived. Had I won the game already? Did I find my kidnapped wife without even trying? No! My ex-wife’s name is Rita Sweeny. Mavis Brown was also kidnapped, although we didn’t learn that until we found her here. Checking out the place, I also discover a white tube and a novel, Babes and Bullets by Bob Tucker. I free Mavis and she tells me that she was kidnapped because she was seen talking to Doris Maglam. Who is that? Doris had told Mavis that Fred has to see someone about a car, but why that information is so sensitive as to warrant a kidnapping is unknown. She believes that Fred thinks she knows more than she does. It sounds like I’ll need to see Doris myself. The tube contains medication for Fred from Dr. Lafferty, but it’s not clear what the medication is for. The novel doesn’t seem important, but Fred was using a receipt from Stiles Safe Park– including a license plate number– as a bookmark. Is this the car that Fred is interested in? Mavis heads out in a few turns and I follow suit.

Let’s pause a second to talk about Bob Tucker. Unless I miss my mark, this is a reference to a famous fanzine and science fiction author from the 1930s through the early 2000s. “Bob” Tucker was a pen name used by Wilson Tucker while writing fandom materials starting in the 1930s. I have tracked down twenty novels and many short stories that Tucker sold starting in 1941, but no “Babes and Bullets”. Given Kunkel’s deep experience with fan magazines and fandom communities, I would not be surprised to learn that this was a “deep cut” and that Tucker really did have a self-published story or novella by that name, even in 1934. Even if not, it’s a nice homage.

I head to the police station to tell them to arrest Fred, but they tell me that they need to catch him red handed. I saw him leave the scene of the crime. There is a witness who would testify that he locked her up, plus we found prescription medication in his name at the scene of the crime. What more could they possibly need? I resolve to ask at the doctor’s office next.

HIPAA Violation

With a map of the area, finding finding the doctor’s office is no sweat. I head inside and am confronted by a nurse. She asks if I am a patient and I honestly answer “no”. She asks me to sit in the waiting area… and I wait and wait and wait. I eventually restore and tell her “yes” instead. She then immediately leads me into a consultation room. I search it to find some bandages in the desk, but what’s more important is what I see through an open doorway into an examination room: Fred Mongo is here, being treated by the doctor for something; I can see the doctor bandaging his hands. This must relate somehow to the prescription that I found in the shack, although I am not sure how yet. If I try to confront Mongo or even stay too long in the consultation room, some goons ambush me and drop me unconscious back into the street. Any further attempts to get into the office results in the receptionist threatening to call the cops on me. I hope I found everything I needed.

Next door to the doctor’s office is Bruce Light’s house– I know this from the description but I have no idea who he is. He lets me in when I knock and I am shocked to discover dozens of pill bottles out in view on his front table. He blocks any attempt to go further into his house without a search warrant. I’m not sure how or if it connects to Fred’s doctor issues, but he seems like he’s up to something. I’ll come back later.

Visiting the Ex

Getting into Rita’s apartment is easy if you apply a little bit of force: we have to break down the door. Immediately after entering, someone attacks me from behind and I am knocked unconscious. When I wake up, I am dangling from the ceiling pipes with my hands tied above me. There’s not much exploring that I can do in this situation, but luckily a nearly table contains some matches and a candle. Using absolutely superhuman feats of skill, I am able to pick up both with my feet and toss them up to my tied hands. It seems impossible, and the game text plays off the silliness of completing this action. With the matches, it is easy work to light the candle to burn the rope that holds my hands to the bar. I drop to the floor unharmed and continue investigating.

My first observation is that everything is covered with dust. Either Rita doesn’t actually live here or she doesn’t clean much. I search the kitchen and come up with my next clue: a receipt for some burn salve. It costs exactly the same about as the white tube says on the label so they must be one and the same. That answers a few questions but opens a few more: Rita must have been helping Fred Mongo. After he burned his hands, he sought medical treatment and needed Rita to help him buy or apply the salve. Was he at the doctor getting his bandages replaced? Fred and Rita must be in cahoots– but why? And how did Fred burn his hands?

This is the point in the game where the inventory limit is starting to matter. We are able to hold eight items, two of which must be our wallet and gun. That leaves six slots but my hands are already full. I drop the glass shard so that I can pick up the receipt; I doubt I will need that again.

I wish I had found these earlier…

Case Files

Although my screenshots are of the Amiga version, up to this point I had been playing the DOS version. Realizing how much nicer the Amiga was, I figured out FS-UAE and downloaded the correct disk image. In the process, I end up playing over the whole start again and producing the lovely screenshots that you see above.

But in the second pass, I find a major missing font of knowledge, right at the start of the game: my case files. In your office, you can browse your records to get a list of open and recently closed cases. They shed a ton of light on what is going on in the game, so much so that I am surprised that I worked out as much as I did without them.

They are:

Case #1 – We are investigating Fred Mogo for the arson of Acme Paper. We’ve seen Fred twice now, first when we saw him leave the shed where Mavis was being held and then in the doctor’s office. The burn salve that we found (and connected to my ex-wife, Rita) must be to help him heal from wounds that he received during that attack.

Case #2 – We investigated F. Nagler for his political activities at the request of his employer. We found him innocent, but I’m not sure what kind of “political activities” he could have been involved in. Unionizing? Gosh, is he a socialist?

Case #3 – We investigated missing money at the Dublin Rose bar next door, discovering that Ms. Athlea was nicking from her employer to buy a sports car.

Case #4 – I am helping the FBI gather evidence against “Boss” Farnham. They are 90% sure that he is a mob boss, but need help to pin it on him. Doesn’t a nickname like “Boss” give it away?

Case #5 – G&W Inc. hired me to track down an embezzling employee. I worked out that it was Jim Schuman, but they demote rather than fire him. Case closed, even if that was a terrible decision on their part.

Case #6 – Morris Motors hired me to investigate Doris Maglam who was 60 days late for her car payment. We found her and the car was repossessed, now sitting at Stiles Park. Doris is who Mavis was talking to when Fred nabbed her; he seems to be interested in this car and I should find that parking lot.

Case #7 – We are investigating R. M. Donald, a “burger bandit” who is on the run. I’m sure he’d eat like a burger king, if he just went in (and out) of a Wendy’s. Robble, robble!

Of those, we know that we are dealing with #1, #4, and #6. I’m not really sure how pertinent any of the others are, but #7 is clearly just a fast food joke.

Duking It Out in the Parking Lot

When you arrive at the parking lot for the first time, there is a scene where Jake, the parking attendant, and Fred Mongo are arguing. Jake refuses to release a DeSoto to Fred because it’s been repossessed. My guess is that he left something in the car that he doesn’t want anyone to find, possibly pointing to his arson case. If I come back later, the argument is over and Fred is gone. At that point, I try to show Jake the receipt to find the car, or just to search around and see if I can find it myself, but neither does anything.

But here is where I get stuck. I can find nothing new to do. I cannot get past the thug into the townhouse, find a key to the safe deposit box, or anything else. I resolve to take a hint: I need to break up the argument.

I have to restore to catch the argument in progress, but that is not too big of a deal. If I flash my gun at Fred and Jake, they stop fighting. Jake tells me that Fred was trying to take burned gloves and three cans of lighter fluid from the impounded car including. Aha! That is proof that Fred was involved in the arson. A turn or two later, Jake calls the police and they tell me that I have to show them evidence. When I show them the burn cream, the receipt, the lighter fluid, and the gloves– one at a time– they tell me that they are interested but there isn’t enough evidence. When I show the last item, they are satisfied and arrest Mr. Mongo for arson.On his way to the big house, Fred rats out his former boss Farnham. He says that he hid a key in Rita’s apartment that opens box 999 at the post office. He says that there is enough evidence there to send Farnham away for good.

Seeing Fred taken away in handcuffs is oddly satisfying.

The Chase II: More Chasing

Searching Rita’s again, I find a key hidden behind the stove. Fetching it is more difficult than it looks since I burn my hands and drop everything. I need to apply the bandages before I can gather up my things and continue.

Using the key at the post office, I am surprised to only discover a poem: “In the country, in the city, under the father’s eye, dig six feet and you’ll have all that money can buy.” It’s not a particularly good poem, but it does have the number 6316 written on the back. What could that be used for? The shed! I head to the shed in the park next and try that combination on the lock. It works! Unfortunately, that only contains a shovel. But “under the father’s eye” is pretty clearly a reference to the George Washington statue so I go there to dig. I discover a suitcase!

Founding father!

Unfortunately, thugs emerge from all directions. I don’t have time to do anything except run; any other action kills me. I head north and find thugs coming from up the street. The only safe direction I can go is west but when I arrive at the end of the street (where I found the bone earlier), I am killed when I turn north. It takes more than a minute to realize that I can “hide” in the trash. Inside is a very angry dog, but he calms down when I return his bone. Leaving the pile too quickly gets me killed, but I can head east once the thugs pass.

The way east leads to the police station and that is where I head next. I tell them to arrest Farnham based on the evidence in the case and they take me to his headquarters. I hand over the suitcase as well as the folder describing embezzlement that is contained inside, but they are not enough. The police accuse me of sending them on a wild goose chase. Farnham stays a free man and I’m stuck.

Alas, I was unable to arrest him this time.

Taking a Hint

After thrashing about a bit and remembering that I’m supposed to be playing Batman Returns, I give up and consult a walkthrough. It’s not as satisfying, but it does get me to the end. I am satisfied that I came close to solving the game, but I needed two more bits of evidence to send Farnham up the creek.

The first thing I didn’t do properly was handle the thugs in the bar. They scared Mavis out and into the street where she was picked up by Fred, but I would not have thought to threaten them with my gun… twice… to learn where Lebock’s hideout is and how to get in. I wasn’t even thinking about Lebock. My only note on him is that he is “Farnham’s man” and that he was last seen with Rita and Fred. After the second threat, they tell me that the password is “tinplayer”. I head up to the building guarded by the bruiser to try it out.

This leads me into another “escape” puzzle. When I arrive at Lebock’s place, he is sitting in a chair by the fire. He kicks me out immediately unless I run east into his dining room. There, I can grab a candlestick and use it to knock out the thugs that are following me. I can then proceed further east and out the back door to emerge at the street. Any deviation gets me shot. All good so far? No. I missed some evidence! What I needed to do was immediately lock the door. Somehow, I don’t get shot or kicked out and Lebock acts defensive. That gives me time to search the fireplace for a piece of partly-burned paper documenting his wrong-doings and then I flee east as before.

The second bit that I missed was due to a mapping error. There were rooms west of the parking lot and that lead to the mob headquarters and another house. If you visit Farnham without the police, you can watch him say “hiyo” to his dogs to calm then. He won’t help me because he’s a mob boss and I’m a detective, but the “hiyo” is what I needed to get past a group of vicious dogs guarding the other house. Inside, I find Rita and Mr. Wainwright which is doubly impressive because I didn’t realize he was kidnapped or know who he is at all. If I talk to him after the rescue, he hands over an audit report that proves money laundering. I take all that evidence to the police (with the rest that I had found earlier) and I win! Farnham is going to jail for a long time.

Time played: 4 hrs 00 min

Nothing but the best minimum-security prison for you!

Final Rating

That was fun, if not particularly long. I’m used to the deep writing and twists and turns of an Infocom adventure and this wasn’t quite that. It reminds me of Scott Adams-style adventures like the Questprobe ones that I played, but more sophisticated in its approach to storytelling. There is a very rough sophistication here that I can’t put my finger on but which demonstrates a promise for future games. Let’s see how the score comes out.

Puzzles and Solvability – Overall not bad, if a bit unfair at times. The highlight (of a sort) is the three chase puzzles where you have to escape from thugs. While it was a rough way to begin, it was more fun than challenging. I only struggled with the second chase at Lebock’s place because I would not have thought that locking the door would have stopped him from killing me. Beyond that, identifying what evidence you needed for the police was nice and the little riddle with the poem was cute, if not particularly difficult. Having to flash around your gun to get people to listen to you fooled me twice– I just don’t think of that sort of thing. My score: 4.

Interface and Inventory – You know, I want to give a nice score here because the game looks polished… but it’s really not. The mouse is available but pretty much useless. The noun and verb lists do not update throughout the adventure and seem to be broken. The game is worse off for having those useless panes taking up so much space. Add to that a strict inventory limit which played off poorly with the timing-based puzzles and I just consider this a well-intentioned failure. Better than Curse of Enchantia though, right? My score: 2.

My completed map of the game.

Story and Setting – The game drops you into a world with a lot of names quickly, but once you work out how to read your case files it gets easier to understand how everyone connects. Solving one unrelated kidnapping while you are researching a second really threw me off in terms of what was going on. On the bright side, all of the cases led together back to the mob and the ending scene specifically calls out that you stripped Farnham’s allies one by one before taking him on. I was going to go lower, but I like the effort that went into creating the interlocking cases. My score: 6.

Sound and Graphics – The animation touches are nice and the images are fantastic… on the Amiga. Some of the scenes seemed a bit repetitive, but nowhere near the image reuse that we’ve seen with similar games in the past. This is nice as far as illustrated text adventures go. My score: 4.

Environment and Atmosphere – The chase sequence gave us a tense beginning to a game that never ceases pushing you forward. While I do not always like that from a puzzle standpoint, I do from an atmosphere one. The city itself was well-designed, if not that large, but the naming of the streets gave you the impression of someplace bigger. Nicely done. My score: 4.

Dialog and Acting – The text used in the game was limited, but what was there was fine. I wish that there had been more attempt to clarify who all of the names were that got thrown around at the beginning. My score: 3.

Add it all up: (4+2+6+4+4+3)/.6 = 38 points!

Looking over my scores, that puts it right around Spiderman and Hook and that feels about right. It was a bit of a transition game from text adventure to illustrated ones, plus the first game by a fledgling design house. It was an enjoyable few hours and I have no complaints.

Up next will be our regularly scheduled program: Batman Returns (1992). My copy of the game (and instruction manual) have finally arrived. Tune in next week: Same Bat-time, same Bat-channel.

source http://reposts.ciathyza.com/missed-classic-borrowed-time-won-and-final-rating/

#retro games #dos games #retro #crpg #adventure #amiga #oldcomputers #8bit #16bit #blog #repost

0 notes