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Anime Reference posted:Somebody did an LP of that, although it didn't get archived for some reason. I swear 75% of that game is copy protection. I remember that thread, it was pretty great. At one point someone edited Jim Walls' wikipedia page to say he committed suicide because he realized he had created the worst game known to mankind. Ok, it was me. It stayed that way for upwards of a month because nobody gave a gently caress. I'd definitely look forward to more Jim Walls if Peas is willing to sacrifice himself some more. If not, this thread was far and away more effort and quality than the PQ games deserved.
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| # ? Apr 11, 2012 04:56 |
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| # ? May 18, 2013 19:52 |
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Geomancing posted:Just as a note, snuff is very much still a thing in a large portion of the US, though I'm guessing that the game was referring more to chewing tobacco than 'take a pinch, sniff it up your nose' snuff like you'd see in the 18th century by rich folks. A couple people here at work in West Virginia used to dip, and bottles of brown saliva and spitting are truly disgusting. Ice cream is miles better. Let me tell you a story about how this went when I wrote that entry: 1. I wonder if this snuff thing is on the level or if Walls was just on crack. 2. Or snuff. 3. Okay, usage definitely peaked in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, that's good. Let's see what's off Wikipedia, though. 4. Huh, there are a lot of companies that sell snuff. 5. Good lord, there's a whole culture here. 6. Is this a snuff message board? What the hell? 7. I should probably just ditch this joke. 8. Wait a second. It's in character for the narrator to make fun of this anyway. 9. ...I've just wasted an hour of my life. HiroProtagonist posted:I just recently broke myself of the habit of making separate individual saves with a short description of what I had just done. I have not. It still bothers me when I can't name my saves (which is in almost every game these days, so clearly this is my problem).
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| # ? Apr 11, 2012 05:38 |
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Anime Reference posted:Somebody did an LP of that, although it didn't get archived for some reason. I swear 75% of that game is copy protection. Yeah pretty much except for the frustrating gambling minigame and, of course, the Falafel van chase in a Middle Eastern city. 
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| # ? Apr 11, 2012 19:51 |
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Hi, I marathoned the thread a few days ago and I wanted to say that it was a terrific ride. Moving, funny, suspenseful, and most of all unexpected. I'm not sure if it was ever said for sure whether you'd be doing Police Quest 3, though. Does trading out the Sonny avatar for a Gunnerkrigg Court one mean that this thread is close to over?
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| # ? Apr 18, 2012 03:11 |
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Nope, I'm going on to PQ3. At the moment, I'm waiting for something to arrive in the mail, although it's taking its time. One way or another, I figure I'll start in early May. The avatar switch is just because I really like Gunnerkrigg Court.
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| # ? Apr 18, 2012 04:01 |
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Just finished blazing through the LP, so awesome. One of the first games I ever played was PQ3, I'm super excited to see that one. I never actually played the first two, there are so many references that I never got because I didn't know the back story. NOW I SEE THE LIGHT. I rather liked PQ4, but it was a much more serious game. Not sure if "protagonism" would play as well there. PQ1-3 are a lot more zany.
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| # ? Apr 29, 2012 05:06 |
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So, I finally got what I'd been waiting for in the mail. This is the Police Quest Casebook. I actually didn't know about this thing until I'd already started the LP, or I would have picked it up earlier. It's been out of print for years, but the second-hand market has some copies floating around. These days, this sort of thing would be called a strategy guide, and indeed it does have a full walkthrough for each of the first three games. (Another edition was released to cover the fourth game, but I didn't need that one for the LP.) But really, a full walkthrough of all three games would be about twenty pages long. Even the full point list only bulks it up a few more. So what's in the rest of this book? Well, there are a few very brief character bios and some true-life police tips, but the majority of the book? Fanfiction. Officially authorized fanfiction. The bulk of the material in the Police Quest Casebook is a novelization of each of the first three games. Now, far be it from me to look down on this concept, given that I'm in the middle of writing what amounts to UNauthorized fanfiction of all three games. Let's have a peek at how it handles the climax of the second game. Police Quest Casebook: A Meal Served Cold posted:Sonny fired a single shot into Bains's upper body that shattered his collarbone and sent him spinning into one of the control panels on the opposite wall. "Halt," Sonny said, drawing closer, his weapon raised. "Police." Wasn't that nice? As we proceed, I'll be delving into this book to find the choicest tidbits for you, dear readers. I think we'll find the different perspectives on Lytton and its characters illuminating.
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| # ? May 3, 2012 03:49 |
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So it turns out Sonny is a cold blooded murderer. Who knew? Wonder how Marie is going to react to her man wasting a dude without warning and making it look like a justified shooting. Or how the Texas police will react to Sonny's prints being on evidence.
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| # ? May 3, 2012 03:55 |
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Well, that was worth the wait. By which I mean, that was incredibly bad. also not in character for Sonny bonds I MEAN REALLY allow me to write a ten paragraph essay on this subject
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| # ? May 3, 2012 03:55 |
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paragon1 posted:So it turns out Sonny is a cold blooded murderer. Who knew? Wonder how Marie is going to react to her man wasting a dude without warning and making it look like a justified shooting. Or how the Texas police will react to Sonny's prints being on evidence. Funny you should say that. See, one of the ongoing problems in the Police Quest series is that the continuity is different in every game (and even different between the EGA and VGA versions of the first game). The author of these novelizations was fully aware of this, and tried to help us resolve it... by adding another incompatible continuity. As a result, Steelton, which is in Texas in the second game (or Florida, if you look at the area code), and is in California in the VGA version of the first game, is actually in New Mexico in the novelization. In any event, now that I've had a break and have this masterpiece of modern police fiction in my possession, expect to see me start updating again in the next week.
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| # ? May 3, 2012 04:03 |
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I....huh.....what? Jesus, what the hell?
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| # ? May 3, 2012 04:04 |
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idonotlikepeas posted:So, I finally got what I'd been waiting for in the mail. I have this book, along with the similar ones published for King's Quest and Space Quest. It's probably rotting away in some closet in my parents' house. As much as it pains me to admit today, they provided me hours of unironic entertainment as a teenage fan of Sierra games. Oh, and if you think the author of this book had to struggle with the novelization, imagine what had to be done to turn the King's Quest games into a coherent narrative. There's also one for the Leisure Suit Larry games, I think. Which is, if you think about it, not just semi-official fanfiction but semi-official erotic fanfiction.
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| # ? May 3, 2012 04:44 |
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orenronen posted:I have this book, along with the similar ones published for King's Quest and Space Quest. It's probably rotting away in some closet in my parents' house. As much as it pains me to admit today, they provided me hours of unironic entertainment as a teenage fan of Sierra games. That is a truly terrifying thought. You really are making a lifelong study of this despair thing, aren't you? So, since I feel badly about forcing you all to read that, let's have a bit of a Police Quest 2 Bonus Update. A couple of people pointed out a death I'd missed... and I'm glad they did, because I was unaware of it, and it is hilarious. Of course, we all remember the sewer level, right?  Yeah, that's the one. There are several pockets of methane gas, as you'll recall:  So, what happens if you try to fire your gun in one?   Yes, that's right. An earth-shattering kaboom!   That's one heck of an easter egg. But wait, there's more! Recall the beginning of the game.  Sonny is in his car pulling up to the police station... but who says he has to go inside? Let's see where else he can go. The game itself is very linear, but we have this convenient text box we can type any command we like into.  It pains me to type this, but the game does not let you use a quotation mark here.  No radio chatter... no Keith smoking... it's just not the same.   And here we are at Marie's.  She isn't at home, and we aren't married yet, but we can totally poke around her empty house like a creep if we want to.    Note that it is not wrecked, and the lamp is intact, and there are no signs of a struggle in the bathroom yet. They built this whole room despite the fact that most players will never actually see it.    Thanks, Marie! It won't feel weird at all when I use this to buy you a flower later.  This is probably the most interesting thing in the room, but we'll come back to it later.  We can actually go to pretty much any location in the game. Let's check out the Warehouse district.  No dead body in a trunk, and no bad Italian accent.  Quite so, Mr. Walls. Quite so.  Oh, we'd better get out of here, then. Let's go look at Cotton Cove.    No jogger, still no Italian stereotype, and everything is nice and peaceful. We can mess with the phone here, too.    Not much good, though.  This is where Bains would try to shoot us and run us down, but he hasn't escaped yet.  No drag marks, and...  ...nothing in the trash yet.  If you keep driving around, eventually this happens.     Uh-oh! Apparently being late to work without calling to tell anyone what's up makes your boss upset! Who knew? I wonder what he will do?     Got that, FELLA? You can only see this close-up interaction scene if you screw up, which is why I wanted to show it to you.  Now fascinating as it is to look at a bunch of screenshots where absolutely nothing is happening, how about I show an easter egg that our good friend Larry Laffer alerted us to in the airport in the main playthrough?  Back to Marie's...  ...because there's a phone there.       These numbers were, of course, accurate at the time. I wouldn't advise trying them now.        Wah wah waaaaaaah... Well, let's try that BBS.     Remember BBSes? I used to run a local one back in the day. Hell, I remember when I had enough time to be playing TradeWars on six local BBSes at the same time. I can't imagine doing that now. Ah, well. Good times. Anyway, let's try that customer service number again and see if we can get something out of him if we try a different reply...          This doesn't actually work as a command, but he just keeps talking anyway.      Yes, that's right, Al. Have a nice day, everyone!
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| # ? May 3, 2012 05:32 |
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Awesome update. Those art assets probably didn't take too long to make, but it's really great that they included them.
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| # ? May 3, 2012 05:52 |
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Did Al Lowe ever have hair?
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| # ? May 3, 2012 05:55 |
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Whoa, Passionate Patty's original name was Polyester Patty. That may be the most obscure Sierra trivia of all time.
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| # ? May 3, 2012 06:25 |
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You can't call Wallis?
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| # ? May 3, 2012 14:20 |
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Glad to have you back idonotlikepeas! Loved the update, I never encountered any of that in any of my playthroughs--I'm sure I was too young to even realize I could go off the rails like that at the time!
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| # ? May 3, 2012 15:20 |
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orenronen posted:There's also one for the Leisure Suit Larry games, I think. Which is, if you think about it, not just semi-official fanfiction but semi-official erotic fanfiction. There is a similar LSL book - I got it as part of the then complete collection some 15-odd years ago...
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| # ? May 3, 2012 21:54 |
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So, Little Richard was the police chief? Too bad his face looks like it was made of leather. Those were pretty neat easter eggs though. You just don't see that in games today.
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| # ? May 3, 2012 23:41 |
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I had the King's Quest and LSL version of those fanfiction books, as a teenager, I thought they were fantastic. Had no idea there was a PQ version as well.
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| # ? May 4, 2012 00:49 |
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idonotlikepeas posted:Fanfiction. Officially authorized fanfiction. The bulk of the material in the Police Quest Casebook is a novelization of each of the first three games. As a teenager, I used to dream about writing King's Quest novelizations/animated series scripts. I had no idea those already existed, so I assumed this was just an incredibly awesome dream that would never ever come true. By the time I was old enough to know otherwise, those books have been out of print for ages, so I guess I'll just have to live the rest of my life knowing they probably wouldn't have been very good anyw orenronen posted:I have this book, along with the similar ones published for King's Quest and Space Quest. It's probably rotting away in some closet in my parents' house. As much as it pains me to admit today, they provided me hours of unironic entertainment as a teenage fan of Sierra games. I need them for an... LP of King's Quest I'm going to be doing in the near future. Going to be the best drat LP any of you have ever seen, if only I have those books to draw inspiration from. Also, a previously undisclosed family member is at death's door, and the only thing that could revive them is a dramatic reading of King's Quest fanfiction. ... No, not just any fanfiction, read by any internet stranger. Official fanfiction, read by your truly in person. I have some reason to suspect King's Quest fan novels hold the key to curing cancer and saving the world?
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| # ? May 4, 2012 02:08 |
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Xander77 posted:Give. Them. TO ME. Looks like they're going for $20-30 on Amazon at the moment. Not vouching for the quality, although my PQ one turned out alright. You could check eBay, too. How much is a childhood dream worth? I used to want to write those kinds of stories too. So I guess I'm living the dream now? And to all of you talking about loving these books as teenagers: nothing wrong with that! I mean, looking at the one I have, this is just the kind of stuff a teenager would love. And considering that was probably who it was written for, the author did a good job. Orange Devil posted:You can't call Wallis? Not that I'm aware of. If he has a phone number in there, I don't have it. You get Al randomly when you call the customer service line.
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| # ? May 4, 2012 03:39 |
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Xander77 posted:Allow me to confess something. This may shock most people here who obviously know me as an extremely (emphasis on x-treme, dude!) cool guy who couldn't dream of incredible nerdhood (nerd-dom?) I used to own this book when I was younger. I remember actually liking it, but I can't really vouch for my taste in fantasy novels 15 years ago. Or even more recently, to be perfectly honest. I don't think it was particularly connected to the rest of the King's Quest universe beyond starring Prince Alexander, but then that does put it on even footing with the actual game series.
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| # ? May 4, 2012 05:50 |
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JPrime posted:I had the King's Quest and LSL version of those fanfiction books, as a teenager, I thought they were fantastic. Had no idea there was a PQ version as well. There's also novels done of the first 2 Gabriel Knight games, except they were written by Jane Jensen herself so they're not exactly fanfiction.
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| # ? May 4, 2012 06:40 |
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whitehelm posted:There's also novels done of the first 2 Gabriel Knight games, except they were written by Jane Jensen herself so they're not exactly fanfiction. Also trying to justify the nightingale puzzle as an actual element of the book's plot was hilarious.
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| # ? May 4, 2012 07:37 |
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Xander77 posted:Also trying to justify the nightingale puzzle as an actual element of the book's plot was hilarious. Don't remember a puzzle like that in the games, and googling turned up nothing. Care to elaborate?
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| # ? May 4, 2012 11:16 |
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Kopijeger posted:Don't remember a puzzle like that in the games, and googling turned up nothing. Care to elaborate? In any case, Gabriel has to wind up... some sort of a mechanical bird, so that it's knocking will distract a snooty guy at the entrance to the hunting club. He then snuck around to do... stuff. It was very high in literary value, I assure you.
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| # ? May 4, 2012 11:45 |
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Xander77 posted:Eh. The nightingale specifically may have been from King's Quest 6. He hides a cuckoo clock in a potted plant. It's exactly as stupid as it sounds, though the second novel was vastly improved over the first, which was basically a step-by-step walkthrough-with-dialogue of the first game.
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| # ? May 4, 2012 11:56 |
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gschmidl posted:He hides a cuckoo clock in a potted plant. It's exactly as stupid as it sounds, though the second novel was vastly improved over the first, which was basically a step-by-step walkthrough-with-dialogue of the first game.
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| # ? May 4, 2012 12:10 |
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Oh, I remember that now. I just found it strange that I couldn't recall anything about a nightingale. Out of curiosity, what was the justification in the book?
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| # ? May 4, 2012 12:17 |
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They didn't do the third GK game? Too bad, I've always wanted to know the rationale behind putting tape on wall so that Gabriel could make a cat-hair mustache.
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| # ? May 4, 2012 14:16 |
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Kopijeger posted:Oh, I remember that now. I just found it strange that I couldn't recall anything about a nightingale. Out of curiosity, what was the justification in the book? I'm not actually sure what Xander77 is talking about...it was completely cut out of the book and replaced with Gabriel using a drivers license to unlock the door. nimby posted:They didn't do the third GK game? Too bad, I've always wanted to know the rationale behind putting tape on wall so that Gabriel could make a cat-hair mustache. From what I've read in interviews that puzzle was forced in the game by one of the producers, so I doubt it would've been in a hypothetical novel at all.
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| # ? May 4, 2012 14:31 |
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nimby posted:They didn't do the third GK game? Too bad, I've always wanted to know the rationale behind putting tape on wall so that Gabriel could make a cat-hair mustache. The cat's hair got stuck on the tape as it was passing under the wall.
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| # ? May 4, 2012 14:32 |
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nimby posted:They didn't do the third GK game? Too bad, I've always wanted to know the rationale behind putting tape on wall so that Gabriel could make a cat-hair mustache. Well, how else would he have impersonated a man without a moustache?
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| # ? May 4, 2012 14:32 |
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Hey, I remember reading one of those when I was like 4 years old as well. The only thing I remember is that the King's Quest version of the stories had to do the same contrivances to explain Roberta Williams' random puzzle solutions. The only specific one I remember is the one where you have to throw the leather bridle on a snake to turn it into Pegasus in KQ2. There's no indication in game to do this, so you'd have to try everything to possibly figure that one out. The other option is to use the sword on the snake, the more obvious solution (but, I suppose, keeping with KQ themes, the violent solution is never the REAL answer). The book awkwardly writes this in and has Graham screw up and reach for the sword and accidentally throw the bridle.
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| # ? May 4, 2012 14:38 |
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nimby posted:They didn't do the third GK game? Too bad, I've always wanted to know the rationale behind putting tape on wall so that Gabriel could make a cat-hair mustache. There was honey involved in that too, wasn't there?
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| # ? May 4, 2012 14:45 |
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Mister Roboto posted:The other option is to use the sword on the snake, the more obvious solution (but, I suppose, keeping with KQ themes, the violent solution is never the REAL answer). And, IIRC, if you use the sword on the snake, good luck getting through the poisoned thorn forest to Dracula's castle without the magic sugar cube. It can be done, but it is...painful.
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| # ? May 4, 2012 14:50 |
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ulmont posted:And, IIRC, if you use the sword on the snake, good luck getting through the poisoned thorn forest to Dracula's castle without the magic sugar cube. It can be done, but it is...painful. This pretty much sums up the reason adventure games kind of died out, imho. Is the new stuff by Telltale et al any better with the bullshit factor?
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| # ? May 4, 2012 16:33 |
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| # ? May 18, 2013 19:52 |
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re: Gabriel Knight and stupid puzzle logic Death of Adventure Games http://www.oldmanmurray.com/features/77.html
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| # ? May 4, 2012 17:03 |
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