Sam & Max The Devil's Playhouse: The Penal Zone discussion!

[PISLIX]

Where the heck did axe come from? I mean, who threw that to Flint Paper? (or who is gonna throw, Sam or Max -a creepy timeline disorientation-).

I bet we have to wait until final episode to find out. (:

[GinnyN]

Originally Posted by PISLIX

Where the heck did axe come from? I mean, who threw that to Flint Paper? (or who is gonna throw, Sam or Max -a creepy timeline disorientation-).

I bet we have to wait until final episode to find out. (:

I think Stinky is trying to get rid of Flint Paper because he's "near" of find out who's Sal. I mean, he has THAT letter!

[zprospero]

I liked the game and I trust TellTale to make the season great.

I do have a few concerns though, but I think most of these stem from the fact that TellTale is trying to make it so that you can play this season without playing the other games first. As this being the first episode, I expect a lot of the things that seemed a little overdone to me to die down a lot in the next ones.

I have some qualms with the Narrator, though I love his character and completely understand the parody, but I am quite annoyed that he speaks directly to me. Narrators seldom speak directly to the reader/listener/player, and that makes it feel a little too much like a movie rather than a game. He doesn't appear that often, though, and there's usually at least one really great line every time he does, for example: bowel tingling climax!

I like Future Vision, but I do think it made some things to easy, not all just some. Even just a few tweaks here and there to the dialogue could have made it feel a little more like I was doing some detective work.

For instance, to revive the Brain.

He says something like "Easy peasy! All it took was a little of Stinky's Demon Broth and Momma Bosco's power core!" Why tell us who owned them? The phrase "Demon Broth" is suggestive enough, who on the street do we know that is fond of both demons and cooks? Or even, which building on the street involves food in some way? Grandpa Stinky/Stinky's, of course! I think this seems off to me because I've played all the other games and so I instantly associated it. This is part of what I expect to die down later on, but considering the street is very small and there's not that many people to talk to, I think the player could have been trusted to find out who made the Demon Broth on their own. It's not that the game was that easy, it just wasn't as subtle as I remember it.

The only other thing is the foreshadowing. It was a little overdone. Too many interactions that lead you to believe that something bad is going to happen to Max! Just a few, or just Momma Bosco's comments and that "distant future" bit at the end would have been enough to build unease, in my opinion. (Though I've heard of a cutscene that happens if you teleport too much, but I haven't seen it myself)

Apart from that, I loved everything. Skun-ka'pe was a brilliant villain and has some of my favorite lines (apart from the aforementioned one of the Narrator.)


I come to you with a message of Peace and Love.
Uh... Sorry about that building.

*talks about molemen riding his "fantastic gamma beam"*

...(I don't kill them.)


But, all concerns/whining aside, the strength of these games is when you play through all 5 of the episodes of a season and get the full story. And I am confident that when I finally play through the final scene it will feel just as much of a masterpiece as the other two seasons.

[Trogdorman]

I may be over-exaggerating but, I think THE PENAL ZONE WAS AWESOME!!!! I especially liked the beginning of how it took us to the alternate ending. I can only think of a few flaws:

1. occasionally the lighting on Sam or Max would screw up

2. Mama Bosco's hair being black instead of gray

3. wasn't the subway tunnel once a tunnel for the soul train?

4. I miss Sam and Max's office (I could've said Bosco, Sybil, Bluster Blaster, or Lincoln, but by now everyone already said it so I'll stick with the office)

other than that: THE GAME IS ALREADY AT AN AWESOME START!!!!! And as a response to all those hating on the future vision: without it I wouldn't know anything about the power core or the Demon Broth

[Hassat Hunter]

Originally Posted by Kroms

Can you imagine how bad the pacing would have been had they decided to make that puzzle harder?

No. This is an example of FV being using right.

Seriously, if I could get the banana without using future vision I would have solved it myself as well. And then there are 5(!) visions that tell the complete answer. Not hints, not parts of the solution, no, the whole solution.
(If this would have upset the pacing I don't want to know how bad you think the pacing of the game was, all others being more difficult and generally better than this one.)

Don't you think that's a little too easy? Worst puzzle in the entire game.

Now, Jake's example makes sense, some way we need to know what we need to revive the brain. If not FV then some other way, that puzzle wasn't the problem. Neither was the bird one. But ones like these were the answer was given were.

What I think the best puzzle, using FV of the game was was the one with the gorilla's at BoscoTech. There FV was more a subtle hint, instead of the solution presented to you on a platter, the way I think it should be.

PS. I think the difficulty of S&M1 and 2 was just fine. But W&G, ToMI and S&M3 are noticably easier than both titles...

[Trogdorman]

...another thing I should add, without the FV, who knows what could've become of FLINT PAPER!!!!!!!!

[PISLIX]

Originally Posted by GinnyN

I think Stinky is trying to get rid of Flint Paper because he's "near" of find out who's Sal. I mean, he has THAT letter!

They want us to think like that, i think... And in case you didn't notice, there was a light beam a little before axe's arrival. I thought, it must be related to time travel, teleportation or something like that.

But that doesn't clarify the connection between Flint Paper's allergy and Stinky's meal.

[Hassat Hunter]

Originally Posted by PISLIX

a light beam a little before axe's arrival.

Pretty sure there wasn't. Must have been a graphics glitch you experienced...?

[PISLIX]

Nope, I'm sure. The camera zooms towards the helmet's light. Then it flashes.

[GinnyN]

Originally Posted by PISLIX

Nope, I'm sure. The camera zooms towards the helmet's light. Then it flashes.

I just checked, is when the reflected light of the Helmet reveal the penauts.

Anyway, I could be that surprised if wasn't, but I still think It was Stinky. It's the only person who had a reason right now. If some other person has a reason, we hadn't meet it yet.

[Kroms]

Originally Posted by Hassat Hunter

Seriously, if I could get the banana without using future vision I would have solved it myself as well. And then there are 5(!) visions that tell the complete answer. Not hints, not parts of the solution, no, the whole solution.

The joke went over your head. You only think they give you the solution.

And what 5 visions?

[Rather Dashing]

Originally Posted by Kroms

The joke went over your head. You only think they give you the solution.

And what 5 visions?

No, they did give you the solution. At least the part you had to do. The fact that there is an accompanying "OH HA THAT IS NOT WHAT YOU EXPECTED TO HAPPEN" joke(which admittedly was a good gag) does not retroactively make the puzzle(the gameplay part of the game) a good one, or even not a bad one.

[Hassat Hunter]

What Rather Dashing said.

The joke was good, the puzzle was horrible.
1: Sam (solution)
2: Gorilla (solution)
3: Manhole (solution)
4: Pawn shop (solution)
5: Thrash cans (okay, not the exact solution here, but still...)

[Rather Dashing]

Trash can vision was actually a good use in my book. If you looked at the trash can first, Sam would say "It's just a bunch of trash. If only I knew what I was looking for..." It was a simple enough puzzle, but probably the best they can do with "use future vision" as the answer.

[Lena_P]

Oookay, I've gone through quite a few pages, but not all, so if this was already discussed I hope you'll all forgive me, *bows to floor*.

What's with all the ghostly floating crap when we're inside Max's head? I love it, obviously, but I don't get why it's there. Any of you superfans have ideas?

[light_rises]

Originally Posted by Rather Dashing

Trash can vision was actually a good use in my book. If you looked at the trash can first, Sam would say "It's just a bunch of trash. If only I knew what I was looking for..." It was a simple enough puzzle, but probably the best they can do with "use future vision" as the answer.

Yeah, the trash can vision was the only one we needed. Everything else could have been inferred through the usual means. I had some misgivings about how Future Vision was being used in other cases (though there were some excellent uses as well, such as the lauded "knock out the two research assistants" puzzle). But this was the only time all the extra "hints" felt extraneous to the point of making the whole puzzle stick out like a sore thumb to me.

Originally Posted by Lena_P

Oookay, I've gone through quite a few pages, but not all, so if this was already discussed I hope you'll all forgive me, *bows to floor*.

What's with all the ghostly floating crap when we're inside Max's head? I love it, obviously, but I don't get why it's there. Any of you superfans have ideas?

I have two -- currently very, very vestigial -- theories:

1) We're talking about Max with psychic powers. Infer what you will.

2) We're talking about Max. Infer what you will.

Also, I used "infer[red]" too many times in this post. Oh well.

[Kroms]

Originally Posted by Lena_P

What's with all the ghostly floating crap when we're inside Max's head? I love it, obviously, but I don't get why it's there. Any of you superfans have ideas?

Max is insane. That's pretty much it.

Originally Posted by Light_Rises

But this was the only time all the extra "hints" felt extraneous to the point of making the whole puzzle stick out like a sore thumb to me.

I guess you guys just wanted a bit of subtlety. Though, I know adventure gamers and these forums well enough to think that, had the puzzle actually been a hard one, you'd have started complaining that it was Sam and Max's answer to Tales of Monkey Island's jungle puzzles. The whole point was the gag. You do it, you get over it. Remember that this puzzle doesn't actually contribute that much to the story. You just remove some random guard from a location.

[TheSquire]

I wonder if the guys put Leonard back in the closet after the end of 205. (Knowing their undying hatred of the man, I wouldn't put it past them).

If so, that would mean that Leonard's in Skunkape's makeshift Penal Zone, a prospect which both horrifies and amuses me to no end.

[Hassat Hunter]

Originally Posted by Kroms

Though, I know adventure gamers and these forums well enough to think that, had the puzzle actually been a hard one, you'd have started complaining that it was Sam and Max's answer to Tales of Monkey Island's jungle puzzles.

Wait... did I miss anything (like... the jungle puzzles being called hard anywhere by anyone at any time?)

Remember that this puzzle doesn't actually contribute that much to the story. You just remove some random guard from a location.

Same with the guard at BoscoTech. But that puzzle is quite good. So there's no excuse...

[The Highway]

The only quip I have is that when the axe hits flint in future vision, his head is missing