Together Retro: Grim Fandango

[noiseredux]

man, I really find Double Fine's output polarizing. I mean, I admire these guys so much. And going back to Lucas games I adore Maniac Mansion/etc. I'm thrilled that DF is working on an HD remake of Day Of The Tentacle. I recently played through Iron Brigade w/ the homeys and actually found that as the game went on and we got into the much more difficult DLC that really makes you have to plan as you can't be carried as easily, I really started to enjoy it. My wife and I played Costume Quest until my laptop battery died on Halloween and loved it. Yet on the flip stuff like this and Psychonauts (both critically lauded) have had trouble holding my attention.

[MrPopo]

I'm still early in the playthrough, but the first thing I've noticed is that compared to Monkey Island there is only one puzzle to solve at a time, in some kind of chain of deals fashion. Also in contrast to Monkey Island, there is a lot of backtracking to areas that suddenly have a new thing for you to interact with. The one that got me stuck for far longer than I'd have liked was when there was too much air pressure for the card to stay blocking the tube. The solution being to punch some holes in it. You do this with the hole punch on the secretary's desk that wasn't interactable before and from the camera angle you see it at is a featureless box on the desk. The only hint there is all the little paper circles by it, but unless you're already thinking about it you're not going to realize it's anything more than visual fluff.

But yeah, exhaust the dialog with everyone, because you can never get yourself into an unwinnable situation. That gives a lot of clues/items. And don't be afraid to explore everywhere, as apparently at my current point I need to backtrack through an alternate route to get the puzzle item I need.

[BogusMeatFactory]

I'm still early in the playthrough, but the first thing I've noticed is that compared to Monkey Island there is only one puzzle to solve at a time, in some kind of chain of deals fashion. Also in contrast to Monkey Island, there is a lot of backtracking to areas that suddenly have a new thing for you to interact with. The one that got me stuck for far longer than I'd have liked was when there was too much air pressure for the card to stay blocking the tube. The solution being to punch some holes in it. You do this with the hole punch on the secretary's desk that wasn't interactable before and from the camera angle you see it at is a featureless box on the desk. The only hint there is all the little paper circles by it, but unless you're already thinking about it you're not going to realize it's anything more than visual fluff.

But yeah, exhaust the dialog with everyone, because you can never get yourself into an unwinnable situation. That gives a lot of clues/items. And don't be afraid to explore everywhere, as apparently at my current point I need to backtrack through an alternate route to get the puzzle item I need.

Yeah the tube puzzle is a bit arbitrary and is one that really confused me for a long time, because some of the solutions to the steps were really common sense, but I was a kid at the time and didn't have that! When you get to chapter 2 though, there will be numerous puzzles interwoven together and it can be a bit difficult to unravel, but it is VERY doable. Just stick to one task at a time and again, listen to the conversations.

[MrPopo]

I just got to the Casablanca part. This game is forgiven for every obscure puzzle and bad design decision previously seen and to be seen in the future.

[BogusMeatFactory]

I just got to the Casablanca part. This game is forgiven for every obscure puzzle and bad design decision previously seen and to be seen in the future.

Now you start to see some of the scope and grandeur that people rave about. That place is so charming!

[nullPointer]

I started playing the remastered version last night. I must say that there are certain stylistic qualities by which one can immediately know that they are playing a Tim Schaefer game. Whether it be sense of humor, the logic to solving puzzles, the general "rules of the world", or what-have-you, there's definitely a coherent line of thought that runs through all of his games. Any hoo, this game has that "Tim Schaefer-ness" in spades (whatever that is exactly, ) The voice work here is just phenomenal and easily the best that I've heard within recent memory. That's a good thing too because shoddy voice work in this game could really break the experience, IMO. Instead it really helps the immersion into this wondrous, absurd, and often ridiculous world.

The puzzle solving logic really runs the gamut, alternately wavering between fairly straight forward and practically inscrutable. So far I've not run into anything that was straight up insurmountable though, so that's a good thing.

The solution being to punch some holes in it. You do this with the hole punch on the secretary's desk that wasn't interactable before and from the camera angle you see it at is a featureless box on the desk. The only hint there is all the little paper circles by it, but unless you're already thinking about it you're not going to realize it's anything more than visual fluff.

I'm not sure if I cheated or not, but your comments here helped me to make short work of this particular puzzle. Thanks a lot! Believe it or not, you can always interact with the hole punch in the Remastered version of the game. There's an achievement for it and everything! (Or alternately ... an "achievement" for those that don't like being rewarded for mundane rudimentary tasks) If you're playing that version, do give it a shot, as the dialogue for doing so (like much of the game) is fairly humorous.

I got to the beginning of the petrified forest last night, and will probably continue on this evening. So far so good!

[MrPopo]

Something year two starts doing is making your scythe much more useable than in year one. Most of the time in year one attempting to use your scythe would get you "I don't wanna" error and you couldn't even pull it out. So I stopped considering it something I'd need (at least until the end of the game). But year two makes it a fairly normal part of your puzzle inventory; I've had to use it several times to proceed.

And that final puzzle annoyed me. A few of the clues for solving it are only clues because "I heard this piece of dialog and I have this thing that happens to reference one of the nouns from that dialog, so those nouns must be related to the thing, because this is an adventure game".

Still, the atmosphere and dialog and characters are amazing. The bad puzzles are just minor roadblocks to gate my enjoyment of those aspects.

[BogusMeatFactory]

I know everyone is going to enjoy playing the game themselves, but if any have no interest in playing, but instead watching, I will be streaming in about twenty minutes (8:00 PM EST) on my Twitch Channel. MY daughter has finally been getting some sleep so HOPEFULLY she will continue to do so. If not, then don't hold it against me

[MrPopo]

Warning: save often. The game does not autosave ever, and apparently it has a bit of a soft locking problem. I blasted through year three and was part way through year four and then I soft locked the game; got stuck in an animation trying to trigger a conversation after using an item on a character and the game was unrecoverable. Fortunately, I was able to find a save game online shortly before the point I was at so I didn't have to redo year three.

[MrPopo]

Beat!