So I took a bit of time today to go ahead and finish Remedy. At last I was able to answer a question about Carol that had stumped me for a long time: she never gets paid for her detective work, so how does she have any money?
At the end of this first game she gets both an inheritance and a reward large enough to make her financially independent, thus allowing her to do free detective work for her friends and neighbors. So, that's a relief.
It was really instructive to go back and play this first game after so many others. The Nyqvists made many changes. First, the watercolor effect has faded away. It was very nice and it got a lot of attention when this game came out, but I imagine it does take an awful lot of work, when most players like the scenery anyway, and are just as interested in the gameplay.
Plus, they have improved navigation vastly. The cursors now are larger and easier to find, and everything goes in four directions, everywhere. You don't have to just luck into certain screens and get lost trying to find them again.
The in-game hint system really helps. True, good adventures feature tough puzzles. However, the audience that has developed for these games tends to be older and female (like me), and perhaps not entranced by the need for three hours, or days, or weeks, of frustration. They want to enjoy their game. The hint system, absent from this game, allows them to do that.
I went to a walkthrough. I'd played the game before anyway, and I did beat most of the puzzle box types of problems on my own. My problem in these games usually is just deciding what to do next. However, the final puzzle in this game is a music one. My sister could have done it in ten seconds. I did need the WT to figure it out.
I remembered a lot! There was the church:
A great place to get lost in
We wander around in a lovely park:
Scene from the park
And talk to people:
Will she let Carol in?
And we always wind up in some industrial area:
The docks
Really, the thing that made this game somewhat more difficult than the later versions is the navigation. Constantly having to go back and forth to other locations has remained a stock strategy, and Carol's habit of picking up odd items before she has any idea she'll need them continues as well. But that's what searching for items is all about. You pick up something and it comes in handy later. That's hardly an invention of these games!
But it was fun! And a great walk down memory lane.
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