The Longest Journey 11: Water, Water Everywhere . . .

Got quite a lot of playing time in especially yesterday. Advanced quite a bit! I'm no longer shy about checking the WT if I really hit a snag. This game is lots of fun, but the puzzles range from a cinch to bizarre. 

Got so much done that I didn't have time to post here.

So once April gets her spirit messages at the Mole People party, she has to go find the evil alchemist in his floating tower to get him to release the winds.

Made it to Chapter Five!

Pretty obvious that's an evil alchemist's floating tower

Which has a labyrinth. Of course it does.

But we get to make magic potions!

Once April defeats the alchemist, she manages at last to get the sea captain to take her to some islands she needs to visit. That, of course, will turn out to be not straightforward. She'll have to do a bit of deception, which turns out to have uncertain results.

Nice ship!

But there are storms at sea.

And now I've got April under the sea, about to meet with mermen. She got one of her stones from the mole people. Betcha she'll get another one from the mermen. But first she has to learn how to breath underwater and how to talk with the mermen.

Kidnapped!

Nice digs. A City under the Sea!

Getting ready for a conversation

And you just know that it's going to be a long conversation. So that's where I'll start next time!

Next Entry.

The Longest Journey 10: Party Time!

Well I did manage to get a little bit of playing time in yesterday and today, and I advanced to Chapter 5!

And after venturing farther into the woods, I did meet an actual monster! Yay!

A monster. You can tell, can't you!

I confess that I was too lazy to stick with the puzzle connected with this monster, even though I should have been able to solve it with just the try-all-the-inventory-on-everything strategy. Actually, I did follow that strategy, but I missed a thing to try the stuff on.

So after that we get to go to a party! All the little mole-people see April as a hero, and she gets to sleep in their special, magical chamber that will allow her to communicate with the spirits. And she does!

Welcome to the party!

Magic will happen here

Once we've watched this (long, always long) cutscene, we make it to Chapter 5! Tomorrow for that!

Next Entry.

The Longest Journey 9: Game Prize

And yes! I got hours to play today (although probably not again until Saturday). Got pretty far into Chapter Four: Monsters. Maybe not too far, however, as I have yet to meet any real monsters.

Where are the Monsters?

I did however, have numerous long conversations--again. We get shifted into Arcadia again, and meet the nice lady who owns the inn, and who tells us more and more about the perilous situation that might upset the precious balance. In fact, they're having a sort of balance festival. So, off we go to learn yet more, as we talk with a strange creature we met at the inn.

Interesting guy, rather unstuck in time it seems

We go to the library and there we read and read and read. I wound up muting the dialogue because it was repetitious, and the only thing that mattered was reading the "books" anyway. It went on and on. And after all of that, I still had to hit the WT to find out what to do next. I did everything I could figure out to do.

Books, books, books

The interminable librarian.

It seems that there indeed is a way to win the cups game without using magic, and get the bird, finally. So the WT told me how to do it and I now have my new, very talkative, friend. With a Brooklyn accent, of sorts.

The Game of Cups. No magic allowed!

Our new friend, Crow

Into the woods

So now I've made my way to a forest, in which I will attempt to locate an alchemist who has captured the wind. Once I get him to release the wind, which of course I will do, I'll be able to get on a ship and go to an island I need to visit.

I am really seeing in this game the best and the worst of the adventure genre. Wonderful imagination--which is the core of the good stuff, excellent artwork for the period, great voice acting for the major characters anyway. But, the constant, unending conversations that just go on and on and on, and the repetition of the actions that I had to do about ten times in the library, those put people off the genre. The puzzles are normally fine and challenging and fun when you beat them, but some of them are just so obscure that the frustration can put you off the whole game. 

But I don't think I'm even halfway through the game. Mostly it's plenty fun, and I do remember when I finished it so many years ago, I thought it was the best ever made. 

So I expect to have a similar conclusion this time! Until Saturday!

Next Entry.

The Longest Journey 8: My Triumphant Return!

At last I have managed to grab a break from Reality. I think I have a bit of a handle on things now, so I ought to be able to play games again. 

Having been gone so long I did have to go to the WT just to get going again. I read my little blog here and quite a bit of April's diary to get caught up. And I'm back making some real progress in the game! In fact, I have reached Chapter 4: Monsters!

But first I had to finish the stuff in the police station. Didn't have any problems with the archives once the WT told me how to get into them, and I got the stuff I needed. Fortunately, I noticed that the WT told me to pick up a screwdriver from the police station floor as I exited the place. Good thing I noticed it in the WT, because I had already left when I saw that. I reverted to my game that I had saved after I finished the archives and that was extremely fortunate. Just to see if I could, I tried to re-enter the police station and ran into the same glitch as before: Crash! And you need that screwdriver to advance in the game. If I hadn't saved the game there and had just continued, I would have had to go back and do the entire episode over again. Whew!

Tricky puzzles in the locker room

The Archives aren't all that tough

Do NOT miss that screwdriver!

From there I didn't have any real difficulty. I was able to go and meet Burns Flipper in the shipyard garage--and that is another scene I remember from my first playthrough years ago. The guy is massively sexist. I doubt that dialogue would be put into a game these days. 

I remember this!

But I also was able to figure out all on my own how to get the item that Burns Flipper wants. Got it, delivered it, and went to a location that it turned out I needed to go to. Then back to my room, where the chapter ends.

So it was a really nice playing session! I'll have more time tomorrow too! 

So nice to be back!

Next Entry.