Oakhaven 3: Don't Go into that Puzzle Unarmed

Oops. In this easiest of all games I made a serious boo-boo. I went to the herb garden and didn't pay any attention to the descriptions of the plants. I also didn't read the book in the library on herbal teas. But I did pick a mint and put it in my teacup, and I put that teacup up with the other teacups, and that produced a puzzle that you can't get out of and for which I had not at all prepared. (Update: yes, you can get out of puzzles easily. Just right click. The puzzle will pick up where you left off when you return to it.)

It's a really easy puzzle--as long as you've done your homework. Absent that, you're not gonna solve it without research.

Somehow I managed to minimize the game, opened another, did my homework in that one and went back to the original. Solved the puzzle easily. (Update: Of course, none of this was at all necessary, had I only right clicked.)

But by doing this I learned that the tab key does not solve the puzzle for you in this game, as it did in Cliffhouse. I really thought I was seriously stuck. However, I just kept hitting keys until the game minimized. Whew.

So you can get stuck in Oakhaven Plantation. Moral: combining inventory items with onscreen items produces puzzles. Save your game before you do that in case you have to crash. (Update: this statement is completely wrong, but it shows you what you miss when you don't try simple things.)

Anyway, I also did that portrait puzzle up in the attic, and took the boat ride out into the swamp. It's really quite a nice swamp, and you find this nice house in it:

The abode of the swamp witch. Beware!

This is where you get your Tarot cards read. I saved a special game there, as I had on my original Oakhaven copy, so I could have fun going back anytime to play Ouija board or Tarot cards. It's quite nice. You can play them as often as you like.

Went back to Daphne's room, she slept, apparently, and it is now the morning of the next day. I saved there, and will go back to being Dominic when I feel like it.

(I finished a massive Kirkus book today, so I'm ahead there. I can relax tonight.)

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Oakhaven 2: Billiards and Perfume

Took another few minutes and played a little bit more, as Dominic for a short while. Did the rifles puzzle, the billiards puzzle, and the classic literature puzzle (I like that one). I'm remembering most of the puzzles so far, but the billiards one escaped me. Memory game, far too easy. So I didn't remember it.

Ha.

Then I switched back to Daphne and did the mint julep. I love the music in the billiards room, different for Daphne and Dominic, but nice and bluesy for both, and the room is nice too:

Joe will mix you a drink

So far I'm still looking for a couple of perfume bottle stoppers.

Anyway, I'm deep into an actually good Kirkus book, so I'll clear off for tonight.

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Intrigue at Oakhaven Plantation 1: How Exceptionally Kind!

Wow. After my playthrough and review of her newest adventure game, Haunting at Cliffhouse, Cindy Pondillo was kind enough to send me another copy of her earlier game, Intrigue at Oakhaven Plantation. I had reviewed that, gosh, seven years ago for Four Fat Chicks, so I won't review it again. But I lost my review copy when my old Mac died, and that was the only game I was never able to replace (although folks, it costs $4.99 as a download here. Of course it's worth it, but I'm poor until I can get my business started).

Although I have a new pile of Kirkus books to do, I remembered that this game is so easy to play that I thought I'd be able to do a playthrough of it anyway. So I started last night.

It's a puzzle game that we play through two characters, Daphne and her adopted cousin Dominic, to see who will take over Oakhaven Plantation when Grandmére passes away. They compete for the opportunity by completing puzzles.

I started with Daphne, and managed to do the really nifty little letter-arrangement puzzle in her bathroom. First, we must find the objects which, clicked on the right hotspot, will produce the puzzle.

This one is just a little challenging! You have two letters each to arrange, and the trick is to find which arrangement makes actual words. Once you have a word or two it's easy. Getting to those words, however, doesn't happen instantly, making this a quite good little moderate-to-easy puzzle.

My next was a whack-a-mole puzzle wherein you'll have to recognize a pattern to win in the time allowed. Movement-challenged players may have trouble with this one.

The rest of my time was spent visiting various screens and collecting inventory items.

Here's the front entry, which looks lots like the front hall of the Cliffhouse game:

Lots of exits here

I called a halt after just a bit of playtime, switched to Dominic, and saved there. 

I'll go back to the game when I need a break! (The funny thing is, that this is a short game, but I'll probably have more posts for this one than for longer games.)

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Darkfall 1: Retrospective

No, I'm not going to play Darkfall: The Journal again, at least not for another few years yet. I must have played this little game through three or four times. However, as I'm filling in the blanks on my game series, I thought this wonderful little ghost game deserved a post.

This was Jonathan Boake's first hit. He made it all himself on virtually no budget and sent some copies out to gamers. It took off and won awards, and still finds plenty of new players. Shoot, the game appears to play on virtually any Windows operating system, from 98SE up to at least Vista, if not beyond (I haven't tried it on Win 7 and 8).

So Darkfall: The Journal is still out there! And deservedly so. The imagination and skill that went into making this game shows up on every screen, decisively demonstrating that budgets don't matter when you've got real creativity working. 

(I have no clue why the game was given the subtitle, "The Journal." It was the distributor's decision, apparently. The game has nothing whatever to do with a journal. I suppose it needed a subtitle to distinguish it from the second Darkfall game. That's what happens when executives insist on getting involved in projects. At least they didn't change the game.)

I remember when I first played this game. The whole atmosphere didn't scare me exactly, it just kept me . . . uneasy . . . all the while I was wandering the hotel hallways. Once I got into a room with a nice puzzle to solve I felt safer. But you're never--actually--safe, are you? 

It isn't the ghosts that keep you on edge. The ghosts are mostly rather nice. It's the dark force that has imprisoned them, and that is coming for you, too, now that you're here . . .

The creepy atmosphere starts immediately:

Inviting, yes?
(Click to embiggen)

You have to solve some easy puzzles in the train station first (or you should):

Can you find coins to make a phone call?

The basic idea is that your brother has been working on a remodel of the old Dowerton Station Hotel, which closed under mysterious circumstances in 1946. Also currently in residence at the hotel are a couple of ghosthunters: Nigel Danvers and Polly White--the first time we see them in a game. (Nigel indeed is still Jonathan's avatar. We see him in a photograph. It's a bit like Hitchcock appearing in his own movies.) 

Your brother calls you and tells you to come. He needs your help, he says. As soon as you arrive--somehow waking up in the abandoned train tunnel--you start hearing the voice of what obviously is the ghost of a little boy, Timmy. Timmy doesn't sound too threatening and promises to help you.

So you go in:

Looking down on the reception area

But can you get out?

Notice the camera angle of that shot of the reception area above. That's one of the things that puts Boakes' games a cut above. He's a real photographer and knows about such things as camera angles. See how it makes the game seem involving and dynamic, even though the whole thing is just a slideshow presentation?

Mostly this is a puzzle game and the puzzles really are pretty darned good. Added to it all is serious suspense that comes in the form of little sounds that surprise you wherever you go: one note on a violin, a kind of light zipping sound, a ghostly voice that says, "here." 

That audio is another thing that make Boakes' games better than the average. Really and truly, nobody does that kind of creepy, scary audio better. He never slugs you in the face with it. It's just there, kind of under the surface, all the way through, and you never know when it will reappear.

At any rate, as you solve the puzzles, get into new areas and learn more about what's going on, and get more and more scared in this simple little game, you'll find out why this original Darkfall game has lasted so long.

Play it! Shoot, it only costs $4.99 on Steam! (It costs the same on Amazon, but comments complain that the link is bad, so beware.) Best value in gaming.

Hope Springs Eternal 2: Puzzle Solving

And actually, I did solve it myself, although I did have to check to see where to go next a few times.

I must have replayed this only a few years ago. I remember almost all of it, so I was able to just zoom through the whole thing rather easily. I even remembered the ending about halfway through, although that, of course, isn't really why we play. The Carol Reed plots aren't really the driving forces behind these games. We want the gameplay.

I remembered so much about it that I was able to do almost all the puzzles myself--even the infamous (to me, anyway) fuse box puzzle.

Ha ha. Just seeing it here won't help you!

Although it did involved some traipsing back and forth, as usual, for once I was able to figure out what to do with the fuses, and even pretty much what to do with the broken cable.

Hint: you have to remember where you've seen some helpful items, and go back for them. That at least does break the tradition of Carol picking up things before she knows she needs them.

I will confess that I wrote in my old Time Stand Still review for Four Fat Chicks (now relocated to TAP) that the Nyqvists needed to allow players to finish the games--but I think that may have been one where they just laid out the whole solution for the players. This one was fine, although some serious deus ex machina comes in the form of a suddenly delivered--out of nowhere--incriminating letter at just the right time. Ah--did I say the plots really don't matter.

They really don't much, except to keep the gameplay going.

So! That was Hope Springs Eternal! Next is the one I reviewed. However, more Kirkus books arrive tomorrow and I've only got two weeks to get 'em done.

Number three will have to wait, most likely.

Hope Springs Eternal 1: Retrospectives

Why not do at least one more? I'm pretty sure I played this a second time (probably played Remedy twice before too--it was a bit too familiar) because I remember several of the puzzles already. That's fine. I'll be able to zoom through it!

Although the cursor is the same small size and there's still no in-game hint system, I must say that the navigation is much easier in this game. That's a relief!

Also, this is the game where they introduced Carol's still-useful conversation system: to talk, click on Carol's statement in her stenography pad:

Getting Carol's next case, a missing friend

And Bigge is here too, providing his usual comic relief:

Bigge changes jobs in every game

I don't remember the solution to this one, but I do remember that I'm off on a long walk next! It's in a lovely neighborhood though, and I'm pretty sure that soon-to-be-Carol's-boyfriend Jonas is at the end of this path!

A nice walk ahead

Although I'm not sure Jonas starts making advances until the next game!

Till next time!

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Remedy 2: Memories

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.

Remedy 1: Starting Over

Well all that playing of Haunting at Cliffhouse and Amber's Blood got me going on Carol Reed games. I've got all but the last of them, and I never blogged the first few. It's been long enough since I played them (years) that they're almost like new games to me. So I though I'd start with the first, as I have another couple of days before more Kirkus books arrive, and my new carpet probably won't get here until next week. Imagine! Actual time for my little hobby.

Alas, as Remedy was the first game in the series, it lacks the in-game hint system, and the navigation can be quite confusing. Just getting around in this game is a major part of the puzzle. The Nyqvists got better at this in later games.

Also, in the first games, instead of just posting straight photographs of the town, the Nyqvists photoshopped them with a watercolor effect. It really looks quite lovely:

Carol's View

Compare that with Carol's view in Amber's Blood, and you'll see the difference. I like them both.

Also, this game starts with a rather obscurely difficult puzzle, so players could become frustrated right away. You have to combine two rather unlikely items from two different locations in order to get into a locked apartment. Really, the only way to do it would be to scour every available screen for hot spots and get every inventory item possible (and both are in places that you almost have to get lucky to find). And even if you do find these items and actually try to combine them, the solution still doesn't make sense. It does work, though. You get into the apartment.

Fortunately the Nyqvists got better at everything. But as I recall, this is still a quite interesting game. 

I'm remembering some of it. I've managed to uncover the target of the investigation, and I think I even recall the reason for crimes being committed, but that doesn't distract from the gameplay. We still have to get through all these puzzles.

This game is where the tower was! I know it's in another game later on too.

The Tower

I did remember not to go down a particular stairway. Got trapped in there the first time. Yes, you get out, but it's frustrating.

So I left the game at a spot I remember.

Getting around in here isn't easy either

Later!

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Amber's Blood 2: Out of Control

Oh silly me. So I sat down at the computer and fired up Amber's Blood, and golly gee darn it, I played the whole thing.

I was able to do that puzzle I found last night, but it took a few layers of investigation before I got the correct numbers. Wasn't difficult once I saw the clues, but you do have to visit several places to find them, as always.

OK, so it's true that the Carol Reed games are all alike, but if you enjoy 'em, that's what you want! This one was no exception. 

This one is about finding out the scandalous history of Stina's grandfather, who it turns out, unbeknownst to Stina, died only a few years ago instead of decades ago, as her family said. Why did Stina's family hide most of the life of her grandfather? And, if he lived all the way to age 94, what else might be going on?

Carol's investigation will take her to several derelict buildings (as usual), one of which we'll be visiting at least half a dozen times. Good thing the scenery's nice, but this is standard operating procedure in Carol Reed game.

The usual supporting characters all eventually appear: Stina, Jonas and Bigge. And as usual, we have to gallop all over Norrköping, back and forth, looking for items.

I confess that I used the hints four or five times. A couple of the "whadda-I-do-next" things were pretty darned obscure. I did, of course, hit my head once or twice because I'd already thought of the thing, but just hadn't looked closely enough at some of the screens. I'd like to say that's because I've been away from these games for so long, but yes, it's true--I miss stuff in every game.

And as always, the screens are some of the best parts of these games! For example:

 There are always lovely city parks

We always visit Carol's allotment

A scene from Carol's window

We get sepia-toned photos of sites we visit

We always have shots in four directions wherever we go

An unusual night scene of Norrköping at the beginning of the game

The lovely industrial park always shows up

A nice street scene

We explore some old windmills

Some art work in a museum (closed, but Carol gets in!)

With all that eye candy, who cares if we have to traipse around, back and forth, to get every little inventory item? That's actually part of the point. You explore a new area to find perhaps just one item, but usually you'll have to go there at least twice.

And there was humor. Bigge has started to get personal, for example. Also, "Amber's Blood" isn't what you think it is. Yes, Carol often does murder mysteries, but this title does not refer to a bloody body hiding in some obscure place.

However, as has been the case in the recent games, there is a villain who will threaten Carol with death or bodily harm--but don't worry. The villain will stand there threatening you until you figure out how to escape.

And the puzzles were pretty good in this one, perhaps even above average for an MDNA game.

I enjoyed it a lot, obviously!

And here's another little treat (I'm sure this isn't real):

There's at least one more visual reference to adventures in the game for those who look!

Have fun!

Amber's Blood 1: Long Time No See

Ah the joy of finishing one fun game and starting another. I've had this No. 8 Carol Reed game for months now (No. 9 is already pubilished!), but have been so snowed under with Kirkus books that I haven't been able to get to it at all.

So now, Carol, I'm finally back! 

And already stuck.

Actually, I have found a puzzle that I ought to be able to solve--a coded box. Just haven't figured it out yet. I have a date and I have numbers that seem to correspond on the box, and I have a document to examine for more clues. 

This is the game's first actual puzzle, so it ought to be doable. Plus, at the moment there are no further leads.

But my baked ziti finished cooking, so I had to go and eat that. And, after spending much of the day with the Cliffhouse game, I'm kind of all adventured out for tonight. Gonna watch some Netflix shows.

My made-from-scratch baked ziti. Tempting, yes?

Yum.

So, tomorrow for Amber!

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Haunting at Cliffhouse: REVIEW

The fun new adventure Haunting at Cliffhouse was done mostly as a one-woman production from Cindy Pondillo, who gave us the simple but entertaining Intrigue at Oakhaven Plantation some years back. 

If you enjoy the Carol Reed games you'll probably enjoy Cliffhouse. Although this is a ghost story, don't worry. You won't be scared. The ghosts here are intended to be intriguing, not to frighten players.

You play as Sarah, a recently bereaved widow. You find a brochure to the Cliffhouse Bed and Breakfast hotel in the mail and decide on the spur of the moment to go there. It turns out to be a beautiful place, but you'll be seeing ghosts almost as soon as you arrive. The puzzles and the plot of a historical, hidden romance begin right away, easily pulling players into the game world.

Cliffhouse continues Ms. Pondillo's tradition of making simple games, although this effort is far more polished than Oakhaven. The puzzles are much more difficult and the story more complex. Nevertheless, we deal with static scenes and stationary cutouts of people, although the characters do come with voiceovers and subtitles. Much of the voice acting is quite good, with Marinda as the standout. The lead actress does very well. She's perfectly pleasant to hear throughout the game, and adds a lot to the experience. 

Of course it's primarily a puzzle game, with the rewards for solutions coming as ghostly scenes that fill out the historical plot. Again, the puzzles may seem simple, but several can challenge players quite well enough to keep attention turned up to high. Several picture-assembly games take some thought, as does a nice jigsaw puzzle and an ongoing scavenger hunt. You can play an ESP game with Zener cards just for fun as many times as you like. The climactic puzzle comes as a nifty logic game, with clues available onscreen. However, once you begin a puzzle there appears to be no way out of it until it's solved, so saving the game before beginning a puzzle might be a good idea. I learned late in the game that you can automatically solve a puzzle by hitting a certain key, but I'm glad I didn't know it earlier. 

I will reveal, however, that you access the save/load/quit screen by hitting the space bar. Nowhere does the game tell you that. It is, apparently, one of the puzzles.

Nevertheless, Ms. Pondillo makes sure players won't experience too much frustration even as she deliveres some nicely involving gameplay. No one should need a walkthough for this game, although players must be certain they access every node and hot spot in order to advance. Some patience may be required, but the cursor is large and changes color to red whenever it touches a hot spot, and all exits are nicely labeled. Players will not be getting lost. Even the maze features a little fairy as an optional guide for maze haters. 

Art and music really stand out here, even in such a low-budget effort. Plenty of work went into the lovely graphics, and the music throughout the game remains equally pleasant and appropriate to the scenes. Nighttime scenes come with hooting owls and beautifully rendered pastels. Appropriate sound effects work well throughout the game without causing any distraction. I was really impressed with the production values.

The Japanese Garden at night, with cursor

OK folks, this isn't a twenty-hour, complex adventure in the vein of Jane Jensen or Jonathan Boakes and wasn't meant to be anything like those major efforts, but it certainly is a highly pleasant way to spend an evening or two.

If you enjoy adventures but don't want to get your hands too dirty with a weeks-long gaming excursion, Haunting at Cliffhouse delivers everything you could want as a fun, intriguing little puzzler. It doesn't claim to be more than it is, but what it is works quite well indeed.

A lovely little game! We'll look for more!

Haunting at Cliffhouse 3: Endgame

Finished! The above picture is a reference to the fairy who will guide you through the maze if you need help or despise mazes. (I used her advice to get out once I'd solved the logic puzzle.)

So I indeed was close to the endgame, although there still remained a few puzzles to solve. Now I recognize what the clue on the windows referred to. When I found that puzzle, it just didn't click with me, darn it. Had I not known about the tab-key escape, I probably eventually would have figured it out on my own.

The chapel puzzle is easy peasy, but has nice atmosphere. Lots of work on the art for just that little scene!

The Chapel at night

I did have a short stuckness with the lotus candle puzzle. You need seven candles. You'll find five easily, but have to turn just the correct way to get the last two. 

The Lotus Candle Puzzle. Pretty!

Once that's done, you've got two more puzzles to solve--another picture assembly, but done in an unique way, and that nice little logic puzzle.

I do like logic puzzles. This one wasn't terribly devious, and you can refer to the clues onscreen, but I was happy I'd copied them down.

The endgame wasn't at all what I was expecting. We get a suspenseful video and a nice resolution.

So that was fun! Very glad I played this!

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Haunting at Cliffhouse 2: In the Shadows

A new day, and finally triggered the nighttime. I wasn't as close as I thought. Found a buncha new puzzles and a room I hadn't been to: the attic. Once I figured out how to grab that last item for my scavenger hunt (and where it most likely would be), I found several more puzzles. Mostly these were "assemble the picture" types, and a few were fairly challenging. However, once completed, there was a bit more figuring to do and some bumbling around. (Hint, you need to look at the pond more than once.)

One odd thing happened. I went to one of the bathroom scenes, where you can turn on the faucet of both the tub and the sink. I clicked on some "essential oils" and the voiceover said "I can use these." But after that, the hotspot died and I had not picked up anything. A glitch? Something planned and later cut? Or a clue for later? We'll see.

There was a slider puzzle that you can skip by pressing the tab key. I did. Often I don't mind sliders, but somehow this one frustrated me early. Nice to know about that tab key.

I had quite a bit of trouble figuring out how the totem pole puzzle in the attic worked despite the instructions given, but once I tumbled to it, I only needed some patience to get it solved. I'm still not sure what I was supposed to do with the music box "puzzle." I hit the tab key and the thing opened with a nice clue and a lovely tune.

I have also picked up a few clues that clearly are meant for later in the game. Numbers and letters shine on windows, and we find instructions for what's obviously going to be a logic puzzle. Oh goody. I like logic puzzles. I took notes.

So my stuckness merely required wandering around to see what I'd missed. Patience, grasshopper.

And the garden looks really nice:

Cliffhouse Garden scene

I will pause here for awhile. I have achieved the nighttime, and have just stepped outside my room to chase a ghost that's whispering my name (we are "Sarah" in this game).

Time to eat, do some actual gardening and more de-dusting in my own house. Then I will give myself the reward of perhaps finishing the game!

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Haunting at Cliffhouse 1: A Pleasant Time

Having finished my entire stack of Kirkus books, and having done some good de-dusting (my house was the empire of dust during the worst part of the rennovation), I earned the pleasure of playing a simple but fun new adventure game. This one is made by the same lady who did Intrigue at Oakhaven Plantation, which I reviewed for Four Fat Chicks years ago. It's essentially the same style of game, although more complex.

You can get Haunting at Cliffhouse as a digital download, available here. You can get it on CD from the same site, if you like. It's a very nice little game done by one independent lover of adventure games, and so far I think it's well worth the price.

I am having fun! There are puzzles to solve, and while they're certainly not devious in the slightest, they still require some concentration. The easiest so far was in fact a game of concentration. There was a nice jigsaw puzzle that I really enjoyed. It had enough pieces to make it a real jigsaw puzzle, and not one that you could just slap together in two minutes. There was, alas, a piano puzzle, but the clues were simple and non-audible, and you can go back to the piano and have it play some nice music for you anytime you want. There's an ongoing scavenger hunt for which I've found everything except one item that needs to be combined with another item. I just haven't seen that ellusive item yet.

The basic premise is that after your husband suddenly died, you decide to take a vacation at this lovely old place on the Oregon coast. There you explore the place, pick up inventory items and start seeing ghosts almost immediately. As a reward for completing puzzles, you get another ghost scene. These scenes reveal the history of the family that built the house. There is conflict and scandal.

Cliffhouse

Isn't it pretty?

The screens are all static, as with Oakhaven, and the folks you talk to are immobile. Some of the shots are really lovely, as above. Some real work went into the art. 

This time, unlike Oakhaven, there is voice acting. The lead character (you) is quite good. Others range from excellent to pretty bad, down to just reading out the script. But who cares--this isn't a high budget game. As with the Carol Reed games, I think the use of some obvious amateurs contributes to its charm.

Once we get into a scene, it's fairly easy to find hot spots. The large blue cursor changes to red, so you have no excuse for missing anything. 

Entry Hall

Plenty of exits here!

So far I think I'm pretty far into the game. I've found lots of items, used a few, and done lots of stuff over the course of two or three hours (ha, I lost track of time!). I've played a couple of games of ESP. I've even broken into a couple of rooms and stolen stuff. I was pretty sure I would not get caught.

However, obviously I still have plenty more to do! There are a couple of puzzles I haven't been able to access in the "Japanese" garden (which looks entirely Chinese and is run by a Chinese guy, Lu Ling, who's family has been in the country for more than 100 years but who, oddly, still dresses and sounds like a refugee from the China of the 1850s--no, I don't think he's a ghost). I also can't get into the chapel, and I have a mission to go "in the morning" up the coast to a rain forest, for which I have acquired a map.

The Chinese Gardener in the Japanese Garden

However, somehow I'm going to have to find the trigger that lets me end this day so I can get to the morning mission. I'm in a bit of a stuckness until I find that trigger. Ergo, there is more fun ahead! Ah, how nice it is to just immerse myself in a fun little game made with love.

Tomorrow! Literally!

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