Anyone played it already? Thoughts?

Anyone played it already? Thoughts?
Looks interesting.

hit

Completed it on hard mode last night which took me about 15 hours. Story and characters are good, puzzles are more logical than what youd expect from Ron Gilbert and atmosphere is comfy.

1-5 rating?

Is it on Android?

It's pretty good.

Its main problem is it's a love letter from Ron Gilbert to Ron Gilbert with high meta-wank levels, in a parallel universe that ignores adventure games had a few interesting innovations after Gilbert left Lucasarts. A puzzles requires you to brush up on the technical innovations Ron Gilbert brought to adventure games, another to find the solution on the game's kickstarter site, another to give a game developer award to a certain adventure game developer who happens to be in town, there's barely a screen without a Maniac Mansion or Monkey Island 2 reference. There's also a bit of a bitter undercurrent as you get the feeling at times that Gilbert didn't like working at LucasArts all that much (well, he left after all).

On the other hand this meshes unexpectedly well with the setting since it's about a small town living in the past shadow of their former glory days. Several characters are has-beens who can never ever recapture happier days and will have to make peace with the notion and move on. It's nicely bittersweet, and then mixes in Twin Peaks and a helping of classic Lucas insanity.

However, only half the cast is really developed, the two agents are almost interchangeable except that Reyes has got a better arc than Ray who's really just a joke despite seeming like the straight one in the duo, and there's never any reason given for the five to work together, which becomes a bit strange when in a cutscene they all act like best pals. The game does away with many questions near the end and goes in a wildly different direction, and in that it's definitely made by the same guy who wrote Monkey Island 2's ending. It does retain that bittersweet quality to the very last click though.

If you were a fan of Lucasarts' golden age it's definitely worth a play, but otherwise it's a bit too enamored in its own legend.

Oh and hands down the best "has been" bit is that Dave and Sandy, the protagonists from Maniac Mansion are now an old passive-agressive couple flipping burgers in a shitty diner while somewhere else you hear about Bernard, who went on to star in DOTT, being highly successful in life.

>If you were a fan of Lucasarts' golden age it's definitely worth a play, but otherwise it's a bit too enamored in its own legend.

That's exactly the impression I got from watching other streamers play it.

4.5/5 in my book. Only few minor complaints about the story lowers the score from 5/5 but that is just based on an opinion.

Probably the best review of the game I've seen, and oddly fitting, given that the devs themselves are pining for better days.

Best review of the game. What are your thoughts on Ransome and Delores as characters? Ray and Reyes were pretty boring in comparison.

If you have a hard on for old lucasarts games, that this is definitely a must play.
But the game is far from perfect/good.

the things that annoyed me:
- shitty voiceacting (mostly from female cast)
- you have all those verbs, but only certain ones can be used, with most just resulting in standard actions like "talk to".
- too fucking many Lucasats references and annoying 4th wall breaking
- both agent have the 99% same lines when talking to the NPCs
- All music tunes are dogshit with no memorable themes

with all that being said, ist still one of the best adventire games that came out in recent years.

There are actual cases of pixel hunting (and not just the joke achievement), several occasions of getting the solution of a puzzle long before the puzzle itself and it is in fact possible to permanently lose some objects and get forced to reload (hey pal let's hope you didn't trust us when we said the autosave would take care of everything) so at this stage it's more of a 3.5-4 for me. I also kinda dislike the kickstarter puzzle because if that site ever goes down it'll become the worst example of moon logic ever even though that's the joke. On the other hand I loved the one way you can get a game over.

how can you lose objects?

Not him, but from what I've seen in forums, you can apparently toss items that are useless into a dumpster. Though one of them the bottle you trade for a nickle can also be thrown away, but you can supposedly find another one at the same spot you found the one you tossed. I haven't seen anything about other items though.

The bottle is easy to find again and is part of an excellent double-layered joke. "Oh you, picking up every object you see like an adventure game player. Turns out all that stuff lying on the ground that you've been picking up is literally garbage, hohoho" later followed by "turns out you needed some garbage all along!".

The case I've had is giving the hat to the walkthrough guy in the con. He said nothing and the hat was gone, which is naturally problematic as the hat is very important but for something else. Only worked when giving the hat while wearing it though, so it's obviously a bug. But I've also heard of some people losing the cheese with present-day Ransome by using it on the wrong hole and it disappearing.

What pixel hunting, I had no problems finding all items. None of the items you can toss in the fire are crucial to progression except the bottle but you find more of them on the side of the road like the coins you can give to the bum. Getting solutions to puzzles earlier than the puzzles tend to happen due the game ain't 100% linear. Kickstarter puzzle was pure analwaste I give you that and also the ending was a little too forced.

Spot on

>pirate game to see what the fuss is about
>find an empty bottle on the road side
>inspect it with the female agent and she lists all the states it's worth 5 cents in
>she lists Arkansas twice

Literally dropped it right there.

I fully expected Ransome to be great going in and he didn't disappoint, all his dialogues are fantastic. What I didn't expect is that Delores would be so great. Not for her game nerd schtick, but for the whole escaping her uncle's expectations to follow her own dreams and then coming back to the old town where she's on good terms with everyone but there's also that quiet impression that she disappointed everyone by breaking her uncle's heart, and nobody wants to listen when she tries to get them to understand the private and public man were different. A bit of a pity her dad's not nearly as interesting, though that's part of the joke.

I'm a bit torn on Ransome's eventual conclusion though. Ending spoilers, while his main step *is* apologizing in the present day I'm not sure what to think of the revised flashback. Is he just finally wallowing in regrets over a life he'll never have again and mistakes he can only correct in his mind or is it really the process of acknowledging where he went wrong and moving on? I do choose to believe it's the second since it makes more sense thematically. Delores obviously has a more interesting ending, though it doesn't contribute to her character.

As I said, I think Reyes is by fr the more interesting of the two agents, since he has a legit and thematically appropriate motivation to be there. But he's kinda robbed of his ending. On the other hand you could've cut Ray and only lost some sarcasm. Still, maybe she was needed for the few scenes where she's the straight man to Reyes.

Now I'm wondering if I'd have gotten a different ending by pushing the last tube on the first machine and concluding the game the "right" way, though. I'll have to try that.

Old time Lucas fan here

I'm 3 hours in
really amusing
constant 4th wall gags
Constant references to old games (objects, backgrounds)
Touch friendly, which is a killer feature IMO

Theres also bad stuff, like a lot of recycled puzzles from the past, but it's cool for the memories

Fan service, desu