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[quote="Jagged Jim" post="485917226" Does anything happen if you try to take the wizard's [/quote] Strangely, it's the same message as taking the cake; both do the same thing, same as the other two options lead to getting caught the same way. Guess the game doesn't want us stealing the book.
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Jul 8, 2018 19:50
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| # ? May 25, 2024 19:06 |
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Level Three: How The Prime Mother Got Her Groove Back In which we get felt up by a bug, then teach the Prime Mother of the Insectidae how to love again... mostly by reminding her of all the ways she murdered the men she loved before. Note that I'm not sure whether the last hint means to suggest that the two husbands she's listing are separate; it's not very well-written if so, and I can't offhand recall if that's the case or not.
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Jul 9, 2018 17:55
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Sleep deprived and making multiple grids in a heatwave. I can't really explain my reasoning because I'm only half-following it myself, but this is what I ended up with: First husband, Buzz, yellow, decapitated. Second husband, Humm, brown, drowned. Third, Zziggy, brown, strangled. Fourth, Mmanny, green, the egg-implanting thing. Fifth, Zzammy, yellow, fed to ant-lions. I'm probably overlooking something that means this is completely wrong, but I don't care.
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Jul 9, 2018 18:38
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Not gonna lie, I found this one to be remarkably simple for how late in the game this feels. After the past couple, I was expecting a right nightmare at this point. It looks complex, for sure, but the first clue alone basically tells you the order: It's oblique, but it makes it so that the order has to be: decapitation, Humm, Zziggy, the only green mate, ant-lion death. The order requirements limit it to either that or minor permutations, but later clues make it impossible for Zziggy to be earlier than 3rd because he's brown and brown can't be first (can't be second because that makes both statements impossible to resolve and the requirement of something between him and the ant-lion death make fourth impossible too). That prevents the Ant-Lion from coming earlier than 5th. After that, it's just a pretty simple matter of checking the boxes and quickly seeing where only one possibility remains which gives us the order. First was Buzz. He was a Yellow mate and died by being decapitated. Second came Humm. He was a Brown mate and died by drowning. Third we have Zziggy. He was the second Brown mate and ended up dying via strangulation. Fourth comes Mmanny. He was the only Green mate and died via the injection of eggs. Fifth has to be Zzammy, then. The final Yellow mate who was thrown to the Ant-Lions.
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Jul 9, 2018 18:38
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Hint #1 implies Humm is the 2nd and not green, #4 proves he's brown, and #2 means he was drowned. The last husband isn't Humm or Ziggy (#1), Buzz (#2), or Mmanny (#5), so he's Zzammy. He's not brown (#4) or green (#1) so he's yellow. He's not Buzz, so he was antlioned (#3) The first one then has to be yellow, and Buzz, and decapitated. At this point I kinda just filled in the holes based on what was left. I think it's right? Buzz-decapitation-yellow Humm-drowning-brown Zziggy-strangled-brown Mmanny-implanted eggs-green Zzammy-antlion-yellow Edit: yay I'm not alone! GuavaMoment fucked around with this message at 18:48 on Jul 9, 2018 |
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Jul 9, 2018 18:46
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Nakar posted:Level Three: How The Prime Mother Got Her Groove Back I took the last hint to just be giving the fifth name and cause of death, without specifying whether they belong to the same or separate husbands, and I was able to solve it. There are two possible orders given by Clue 1, starting with either decapitated husband or Zziggy. Since Clue 2 says that Zziggy is brown, and Clue 4 says that the first husband wasn't brown, the order is (decapitated, Humm, Zziggy/brown, green, antlions) from first to last. Clue 3 says that Buzz and the one fed to antlions are both yellow; Buzz must be first because the middle three already have names or colors. Clue 5 matches Mmanny with implanting eggs, and only the fourth slot is missing the name and cause of death so that's him. Adding that information gives (Buzz/decapitated/yellow, Humm, Zziggy/brown, Mmanny/eggs/green, antlions/yellow). Clue 2 says there's another brown husband besides Zziggy that drowned, so that must be Humm. At this point only one name and one cause of death is missing so Clue 6 fills those in to give the final answer of (Buzz/decapitated/yellow, Humm/drowned/brown, Zziggy/strangling/brown, Mmanny/eggs/green, Zzammy/antlions/yellow).
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Jul 9, 2018 18:51
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To start, we know from the first clue that the decapitated husband comes immediately before Humm, the green one comes after Humm and the decapitated one, Zziggy comes before the one who was thrown to the ant-lions, and there is at least one husband between Zziggy and the ant-lion guy. From here, we know the only possible arrangements are as follows:
However, we also know that Zziggy is brown (2), and the first husband was not brown (4). Since Zziggy can't be first, the only possible order is: decapitated, Humm, Zziggy, green, ant-lions. Zziggy can't have been decapitated or thrown to ant-lions, because that would cause an overlap in clue 1. He also can't have been drowned (2) or implanted with eggs (5). Therefore, Zziggy was strangled. Mmanny obviously isn't Humm or Zziggy, and since we know his cause of death from clue 5, he can't have been decapitated or thrown to the ant-lions. Therefore, Mmanny has to be the green one. As stated earlier, the first husband can't be brown, and since Mmanny - the only green bug - clearly wasn't decapitated, process of elimination tells us the first husband was yellow. We know the yellow bugs are Buzz and the one thrown to the ant-lions (3), and since the one thrown to the ant-lions is fifth, Buzz has to be the first husband - and consequently, the husband who was decapitated. From here, we can simplify the order as: Buzz, Humm, Zziggy, Mmanny, guy eaten by ant-lions. By process of elimination, Zzammy is the fifth husband, who was thrown to the ant-lions. Furthermore, now that we know the C.O.D of four of the husbands, we can deduce that Humm was drowned. At this point, all that's left to do is to figure out the colors of Humm and Zzammy. Luckily, clues 2 and 3 tell us that the drowned husband was brown and the husband thrown to the ant-lions was yellow. The final answer is: BUZZ was the FIRST husband, was DECAPITATED, and had a YELLOW exoskeleton. HUMM was the SECOND husband, was DROWNED, and had a BROWN exoskeleton. ZZIGGY was the THIRD husband, was STRANGLED, and had a BROWN exoskeleton. MMANNY was the FOURTH husband, was IMPLANTED WITH EGGS, and had a GREEN exoskeleton. ZZAMMY was the FIFTH husband, was THROWN TO THE ANT-LIONS, and had a YELLOW exoskeleton. Dang, Mmanny gets to have the unique exoskeleton color and the coolest death. Lucky guy. You know, except for the "dying horribly" part.
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Jul 9, 2018 18:52
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Level Three: Our New Pal In which a certain lovesick insect queen welches on the deal, so we gather our party before venturing forth. It's going to be a lot of
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Jul 10, 2018 15:25
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...'prominent nose'? Dude has a claw for a face. (Which is... not good, since his language suggests he's Jewish.)
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Jul 10, 2018 15:45
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Black Robe posted:...'prominent nose'? Dude has a claw for a face. (Which is... not good, since his language suggests he's Jewish.)  I did mention that we weren't as out of the woods as I figured with respect to the "Oh, it was the 90s"-ness of the game. I think I get what they were going for (though I'm not sure if Zweigler did), making Iggy a stock con-man/lives-by-his-wits character, but it doesn't quite have the same connotations it might've when the other traits are factored in... traits that, these days, would generally tend to be left out, for obvious reasons. ...Whatever the case, we're friends now, so we're in it for better or worse.
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Jul 10, 2018 17:05
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His dialogue seems like kind of a random mishmash to me, so it seems more like they were going for "quirky" than Jewish specifically. So far, at least--if he's sticking around there's still plenty of time for them to blow it.
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Jul 10, 2018 17:10
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Level Three: This Place Is Rigged To Blow In which we confront the dastardly deathtraps of the Pyramid of the Insectidae, made all the more dastardly by at least one of them being outright wrong. Our next update will finish up the third level. Unlike the first two, there is no Castle Perilous/Citadel of Osmet Khan-style massive PoP to negotiate, just a short one leading to the Moon of Madness itself. The game does not technically distinguish the Moon from the third level in any gameplay sense, but for organizational purposes (and to dodge table of contents spoilers) I'll be calling it the "fourth level." It's much, much shorter than the others -- even the first level eclipses it in PoP number -- though the PoPs are mostly not filler and the final PoP of the game is understandably the most complex of all. The Moon does a very cool thing to distinguish itself mazewise from everything up to this point, one that will become apparent once we arrive. First, however, is the Invisible Maze, which is a traditional maze except that it doesn't restrict your options to valid travel directions and gives you a comical 1960s Batman pop-up when you blunder. I have of course mapped the Invisible Maze in its entirety, so the challenge will not transfer very well to the next update, but just recognize that I had to try every direction in every square of the maze to make sure I had the layout right.
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Jul 11, 2018 16:33
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That rods puzzle is some bullshit, but the others were basically password checks. Which I guess is one way to encourage your players to fully-explore every area and therefore spend more time connected to (and paying for) Prodigy. Still waiting for the crone's hint to be relevant though...also, if anyone in the Invisible Maze wants a name, "Sheltem" had better be an answer. 
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Jul 11, 2018 16:45
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Level Three: Over The Edge, Into Madness In which we leave behind all that we've ever known or understood in pursuit of our quest. Except Iggy. And Valterre, and the Talisman. Which is pretty much everything we really cared about anyhow.
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Jul 12, 2018 02:41
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Oof. Sending you so far back if you climb the cliffs is pretty brutal, given that it's more logical than jumping. I guess it's kinder than just killing you outright?
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Jul 12, 2018 03:01
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I like that Iggy has been generally useless so far.
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Jul 12, 2018 08:23
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Did they actually try to make a spherical maze? I guess they could get a decent approximation if they used enough teleporters, but it'd be hell to map.
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Jul 12, 2018 13:09
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A little late, but if the "[color] is the color of [thing]" was meant to refer to the dial, switch, button puzzle, did we ever see any hints for what the switch was supposed to be set to? Or what animal was the intended setting? Or was it supposed to be a thing of "The dial is pointing at X animal, press the button associated with that animal and pull the switch, it then asks for another animal", and you have to figure out which animal is associated with each thing the color means?
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Jul 12, 2018 13:16
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Level Four: Its Own Little World In which we get our bearings on the Moon of Madness, and get in touch with a few of its residents. They are not quite as mad as expected... at least not in the conventional sense. Zandar posted:Did they actually try to make a spherical maze? I guess they could get a decent approximation if they used enough teleporters, but it'd be hell to map. Randalor posted:A little late, but if the "[color] is the color of [thing]" was meant to refer to the dial, switch, button puzzle, did we ever see any hints for what the switch was supposed to be set to? Or what animal was the intended setting? Or was it supposed to be a thing of "The dial is pointing at X animal, press the button associated with that animal and pull the switch, it then asks for another animal", and you have to figure out which animal is associated with each thing the color means?
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Jul 12, 2018 18:19
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Has earth magic ever done anything remotely beneficial to us? The map design on the moon is really cool, it seems like such a time-waster.
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Jul 12, 2018 23:31
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Keep in mind that Prodigy charged by the hour so wasting your time was probably the point. Also I love Iggy getting unnerved by our insatiable bloodlust. That librarian was just doing his/her job, man!
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Jul 12, 2018 23:41
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ORB MAZE
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Jul 13, 2018 00:06
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Ah, I see, the Moon of Madness is a giant bureaucracy. I wonder if we're going to see any references to Brazil?
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Jul 13, 2018 01:27
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"The only way to the Moon of Madness is through the Prime Mother's throne room." ...once again, I have to ask, is this how Persephone presumably got there? Is this how ANYBODY ELSE gets there? It would also appear "the only way" usually involves our magic sword and magic talisman.
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Jul 13, 2018 02:55
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TooMuchAbstraction posted:Ah, I see, the Moon of Madness is a giant bureaucracy. I wonder if we're going to see any references to Brazil?
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Jul 13, 2018 02:58
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Andyzero posted:"The only way to the Moon of Madness is through the Prime Mother's throne room." That, or Persephone cheats like hell. We'll find out if we ever catch up to her. This is the end of the road, so she can't be too far away if she made it this far.
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Jul 13, 2018 04:16
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Given that we're meant to be agender, to best suit whatever the player identifies as, but we've been referred to explicitly as "she" during the 3rd maze on more than one occasion, I'm half-expecting some kinda dumb twist where we were secretly Persephone all along or something (or maybe that cairn did something since I noticed it after that point...). It'd arguably make more sense than some of the stuff we've seen around here at least. 
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Jul 13, 2018 09:09
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Dragonatrix posted:Given that we're meant to be agender, to best suit whatever the player identifies as, but we've been referred to explicitly as "she" during the 3rd maze on more than one occasion, I'm half-expecting some kinda dumb twist where we were secretly Persephone all along or something (or maybe that cairn did something since I noticed it after that point...). It'd arguably make more sense than some of the stuff we've seen around here at least. I think that's supposed to be the insect people assuming you're a worker.
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Jul 13, 2018 10:24
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Andyzero posted:"The only way to the Moon of Madness is through the Prime Mother's throne room." We don't know of anyone who's actually gotten this far, do we? We already passed by Persephone's grave.
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Jul 13, 2018 14:42
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Have we even read the note we're supposed to give Moraziel? If there's a twist I bet it involves that.
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Jul 13, 2018 19:22
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Level Four: Catching Up In which we don't find the Bureau of Records, but do manage to find someone we've been looking for since our journey began. No, not Moraziel; I wish it were that easy. Tendales posted:I think that's supposed to be the insect people assuming you're a worker. whitehelm posted:We don't know of anyone who's actually gotten this far, do we? We already passed by Persephone's grave. GuavaMoment posted:Have we even read the note we're supposed to give Moraziel? If there's a twist I bet it involves that.  that we're being set up, but the Archpriest seemed well aware that we were coming, and has done nothing to impede us...
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Jul 13, 2018 20:09
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Honestly, something seemed super shady about Persephone. She seemed way too chill about being locked up, and the back of her cell being just straight up open to space? Weird poo poo.
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Jul 13, 2018 20:22
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That better be some drat good cake.
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Jul 14, 2018 01:20
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Domus posted:That better be some drat good cake. I think that maybe, just maybe, the Mad One took a cue from Glados. (or vice-versa, I guess, but I wouldn't trust that cake)
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Jul 14, 2018 01:44
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Great job, Persephone. That's 0% sarcastic.
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Jul 14, 2018 02:34
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Qrr posted:(or vice-versa, I guess, but I wouldn't trust that cake) I hear they put radish in it, the madmen.
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Jul 14, 2018 05:25
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Level Four: Getting Our Paperwork In Order In which we try to remember something very important the Lady has told us no fewer than three times, deepen our relationship with Iggy, cut through some red tape, and finally acquire that library card. Regrettably, procedure still claims its due, as it always does.
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Jul 14, 2018 16:14
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The first alien we found at the MoM was running away from some Throckmorton fella, and since when we mention either that name to the bridge, or the Bureau of Records, it tells us to go to the same place, I`m reasonably sure that particular bureaucrat was our Throckmorton. I can't find his first name anywhere, though.
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Jul 14, 2018 17:34
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It's kind of annoying, because if you did this "for real", his name would be on the marriage license. Edit: Speaking of the authors, they are downright brilliant when it comes to bureaucratic ineptitude. Even if you aren't into tabletop RPGs, it's worth picking up Paranoia just for the writing. For example, there's an adventure where troubleshooters have to guard some important barrels. They're labeled "Petroleum Jelly". Smart folks might think to open one and spread some on the floor, so intruders will slip on it. But whoops, they're slightly mislabeled. They actually contain jellied petroleum. Napalm. Hijinks ensue. Domus fucked around with this message at 18:14 on Jul 14, 2018 |
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Jul 14, 2018 17:57
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| # ? May 25, 2024 19:06 |
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All I can think of at the moment is that the name Nadia Thimbatool is meant to be a hint at some relationship between first and last names on the moon, or a property that all full names have. I can't find anything, though, so I'll just guess based on a random thought I had while checking anagrams. Obviously all names on the Moon of Madness must have the letters MAD in them, as seen in Nadia Thimbatool. Since Throckmorton only has M, its first name must have A and D, which means that the only possible name out of the choices given is Beadle. This cannot possibly be wrong.
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Jul 14, 2018 18:30
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