Bohemian Asshole Simulator - Let's Play Next Life!

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chitoryu12: Apr 24, 2014

I feel like I'm reading the transcription of a fever dream.

# ? Aug 14, 2015 05:09

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# ? May 5, 2024 16:19

Spaced God: Feb 8, 2014; All torment, trouble, wonder and amazement
Inhabits here: some heavenly power guide us
Out of this fearful country!

Is the murder supposed to be one of the jokes in this game? I can't tell what's supposed to be a joke that fell flat or just... something else.
I mean, this is the game where one of the characters is a 9/11 victim, but also they make silly jokes? This game is baffling and I love it :allears:

# ? Aug 14, 2015 05:31

Danaru: Jun 5, 2012; 何 ??

Spaced God posted:

Is the murder supposed to be one of the jokes in this game? I can't tell what's supposed to be a joke that fell flat or just... something else.
I mean, this is the game where one of the characters is a 9/11 victim, but also they make silly jokes? This game is baffling and I love it

I honestly can't tell anymore, it's SUPPOSED to be a horror game mind you.

# ? Aug 14, 2015 18:08

mycot: Oct 23, 2014; "It's okay. There are other Terminators! Just give us this one!"; Hell Gem

It takes a certain kind of malign brilliance to flat out admit every adventure game puzzle is just different applications of sticks, rocks, and grass.

# ? Aug 14, 2015 19:55

Junpei Hyde: Mar 15, 2013

You killed a man to get stockings.

YOU KILLED A MAN TO GET STOCKINGS.

THIS IS ONLY UPDATE 2.

# ? Aug 14, 2015 20:17

Accordion Man: Nov 7, 2012; Buglord

You know its kind of funny, considering that this game is possibly set in Purgatory (I have a feeling that its going to be something even stupider like aliens or something, but regardless), how it pretty much is the textbook example of all the worst sins of the entire genre, (Pixel hunting, horrendous puzzles, nonsensical writing, a sociopathic and unlikable protagonist, etc.) and how it came out during the tail end of the Dark Age of the genre where it was pretty much just European devs churning out absolutely lovely adventure games and right before the genre came back from the dead better than ever, this game is like Purgatory for the entire adventure game genre. Its a silly idea, but its kind of funny how it fits.

# ? Aug 14, 2015 21:02

Poil: Mar 17, 2007

Unfortunately I remember a lot of the game from the previous LP and it's only going to get worse from here.

Danaru posted:

I honestly can't tell anymore, it's SUPPOSED to be a horror game mind you.

If by horror you mean horrible, it is. :v:

# ? Aug 14, 2015 21:35

Junpei Hyde: Mar 15, 2013

Poil posted:

Unfortunately I remember a lot of the game from the previous LP and it's only going to get worse from here.

How?

We killed a man.

For stockings.

# ? Aug 14, 2015 21:56

Ghostwoods: May 9, 2013; Say "Cheese!"

Junpei Hyde posted:

How?

We killed a man.

For stockings.

At least we haven't poisoned a hobo so we could steal his pocket change. Yet.

# ? Aug 14, 2015 22:07

Poil: Mar 17, 2007

Junpei Hyde posted:

How?

We killed a man.

For stockings.

You're going to have to enjoy the full ride down the depths of a bad game that brings shame upon the Bohemian people to find out.

# ? Aug 14, 2015 22:29

Junpei Hyde: Mar 15, 2013

Poil posted:

You're going to have to enjoy the full ride down the depths of a bad game that brings shame upon the Bohemian people to find out.

I refuse to believe the game gets stupider.

# ? Aug 14, 2015 22:41

corn in the bible: Jun 5, 2004; Oh no oh god it's all true!

Ghostwoods posted:

At least we haven't poisoned a hobo so we could steal his pocket change. Yet.

Dont spoil my upcoming mystery of the druods elpee

# ? Aug 14, 2015 22:58

Picayune: Feb 26, 2007; cannot be unseen; Taco Defender

I guess next we'll strangle a man for one stocking. :v:

# ? Aug 14, 2015 23:03

JamieTheD: Nov 4, 2011; LPer, Reviewer, Mad Welshman

(Yes, that's a self portrait)

Junpei Hyde posted:

I refuse to believe the game gets stupider.

I love your faith, Junpei, but I have seen some of the worst adventure games (And their cousin, RPGs) have to offer, and I know this game can get more stupid. I don't even have to see a walkthrough or a synopsis to confidently predict this. I can just point at someone like Cateia (Who, like many HOPA devs, seems to think things like "plot resolution" can be dealt with by OMIGORSH, SUPERNATURAL CONSPIRACY!), or games like Hugo's House of Horrors 2 (I'd love to see an LP of that series, if only to see someone else suffer as I did) or the Dracula series (5 games for the no-plot of 1!)

No, I fully believe this game can get dumber. I really wish I didn't.

# ? Aug 14, 2015 23:29

anilEhilated: Feb 17, 2014; But I say fuck the rain.; Grimey Drawer

I'd love to get my hands on whoever provided them with the English translation. The "I'm Adam and I'm from Bohemia" bit? No Czech would say that: Bohemia is an old name of the country (as in, based on a tribe that supposedly lived here around 500 AD) that doesn't really exist in Czech or English; as a matter of fact, it's Latin and actually refers to only about a third of what's now the Czech Republic (along with Moravia and Silesia). As such, it stopped being relevant around the fifteenth century - either Adam is even more of an accomplished time-traveler than we thought, or the translator is an idiot.
Another bit of Czech trivia: Central Europe. I don't think I've ever heard about it anywhere else and here it's a distinction that kicked off in 1989. See, we can't be in Eastern Europe because that would mean being in the same zone as the Russians and that won't stand.

Anyway, Czech adventure games tend to be batshit insane whether they try to be funny or serious (while decidedly failing at both of those). Best of luck with that one, I'll try to keep watch for more. This game and Painkiller: Overdose are why we generally don't admit to our nationality on the Internet.

# ? Aug 15, 2015 15:28

Junpei Hyde: Mar 15, 2013

JamieTheD posted:

I love your faith, Junpei, but I have seen some of the worst adventure games (And their cousin, RPGs) have to offer, and I know this game can get more stupid. I don't even have to see a walkthrough or a synopsis to confidently predict this. I can just point at someone like Cateia (Who, like many HOPA devs, seems to think things like "plot resolution" can be dealt with by OMIGORSH, SUPERNATURAL CONSPIRACY!), or games like Hugo's House of Horrors 2 (I'd love to see an LP of that series, if only to see someone else suffer as I did) or the Dracula series (5 games for the no-plot of 1!)

No, I fully believe this game can get dumber. I really wish I didn't.

Nope. All further game is a fever dream and that's all I'll accept.

(I hope we end up killing the whole cast for increasingly trivial reasons.)

# ? Aug 15, 2015 15:56

Danaru: Jun 5, 2012; 何 ??

Update 3 - Welcome To Construction Zone :siren:

So where were we?

Right, right.

So some of you might be thinking "You know what this boring listless adventure game could use? An area that needs actual thought to get through, a real test of your intelligence and problem solving!"

I thought that too but hey gently caress you here's a minigame, that's all we're getting.

So Adam's fear is represented by a yellow ball that you have to use to light up all these dots. If you hit one of those dark holes, your ball resets and it unlights the farthest light you've lit up. There's also orange balls that bounce around and knock you away. They also have weird physics where if they hit a hole, they reset but also speed up slightly, so sometimes they'll start accelerating to the speed of light, making this puzzle impossible to win.

Meanwhile Adam is constantly chattering away, and for some reason in this section his audio only comes out of the right channel, the left channel is just the ambient wind sound. I was going to make a joke about how this represents his psyche, but no human alive has enough university to figure this guy out.

Adam would go to Silent Hill and it would just be a giant empty field because the town would balk at the tangled mess his mind is.

So just to be clear, if you let the time run out, nothing happens, Adam just yammers a bit about how he needs to calm down, and all your lights reset. As usual, failure results in nothing funny, just wasted time.

He also makes no comment when you succeed at the minigame.

Not much we can click right now, we can click on the pulley...

"Getting there is not going to be easy..."

Especially if you make no effort to get there. We can also click on the beam Adam's on.

"It won't hold much longer, I need to get away."

Neither of these options do anything helpful, and Adam's wrong, you can sit here forever. What you need to click on to progress is...

...Adam's belt, which has never been clickable up to now.

gently caress you, Adam.

Just to be clear, he takes off his belt and puts it in his vest pocket. I just feel like I need to make sure everyone understands that.

"I can't hold much longer..."

Now we use the belt on the pulley, because of course we do.

Adam Indiana Jones' that poo poo up onto the pulley

Which... turns bright red for some reason.

"This is pointless. I'll fall all the same."

Despite saying that, Adam suddenly has no qualms about climbing up the hook and onto the crane itself.

I'm not exactly sure what Adam means here, did he expect to magically teleport to the ground by climbing up? :confused:

We tried to climb off the beam and that's exactly what happened.

Adam also magically gets his belt back, try and figure that out.

Adam manages to shimmy his slow rear end over to the end of the crane, at least he has an excuse for being slow this time.

"Oh! ...It's blowing in the wind! I've got to get away!"

Clicking on the left rope gives us something we've never seen before. We can't pick this item up, but by clicking on it, we can use it as if we were carrying it. It's not crazy interesting, but the game is giving us something new, so I can't complain.

In this case we want to use it on the pulley.

Adam ties the left rope to the crane strut, securing the right part of the rope so we can climb down. This will be the peak of logic for this update. Fair warning.

"I hope it's going to last a bit. I'll get down there one way or the other. The question is how fast."

Maybe save the mugging for when you're not dangling from a drat crane, jackass.

Alright let's get off this crane and onto stable ground!

Or not. I'm going to ignore the fact that Adam purposely got himself into the most precarious situation he could and compliment the game for a second. I might be biased since I really love industrial-themed horror stuff, this entire update is full of it, and if it were any other game it'd make for a really enjoyable level. The fact that you can't see the ground because of the fog is also a nice touch, and throughout this, it plays a lot of ambient creaking and metal-on-metal screeching. I'll see if I can pull the audio from the game later on.

What I'm saying is this level cribs from Silent Hill's art direction a bit, and I wish they'd tried to copy more from Silent Hill.

Anyway, back to the game. Adam, get down from there you dumbass.

There we go. Adam manages to stick the landing and...

Nope, wait he's having some trouble, he's...

Welp, Adam's dead.

Dying in Next Life just returns you to what you were doing before you died. There's zero repercussions for dying. Not even a pun.

Once again, we have to use our belt on the hook to progress.

Now Adam can climb down the belt and not die. Seriously are Adam's bones hollow? At least a belt is more likely to hold a human's weight than a pair of stockings, but christ.

"Good, this will do. If only I can keep up..."

Whoop. Anyway, let's move the only direction we can.

Now we're going to get into some of the REALLY dumb adventure game stuff. There's a ladder down on the left, but it's missing the top rung so we can't get down.

You probably notice the confusing bucket just sitting in the middle of the beam. A normal person might step over it, Adam on the other hand...

"I'm not taking any unnecessary risks..."

Creates a much more stupid problem for himself later.

This pipe isn't clickable until you move the bucket.

"It will come in handy. It's a pity there aren't any more of these."

I... don't know.

We all know where this is going. Adam vaguely manages to attach the pipe as a rung. Magnets? Telepathic welding? the world may never know.

Whatever it was, it didn't work well, since it falls off. It's polite enough to wait until Adam gets to the bottom though.

Off to the left is a worker's helmet! Has a hard hat ever been used in an adventure game as an actual hard hat?

Also you can still see Adam's belt hooked onto the giant hook. No more dumb belt puzzles.

"This will come in handy."

I've been leaving out a lot of it, but Adam chimes in after literally ANYTHING you do, as if it was an engine limitation that every action has to include a voice clip. It's generally just another way of saying "THIS IS AN ITEM" or "I DID A THING AND I'M SAD ABOUT IT"

Back over here is a tool box. We can get to this one, but the other is blocked by the bucket. An insurmountable obstacle.

Clicking it gives us this view of the box.

Clicking that view of the box exits that screen and shows Adam opening the box.

Then you need to click on the box again. This game has zero respect for your time.

Inside the box are a bunch of rusty n... :cripes:

Come on guys you know the drat difference between a nail and a bolt.

"They will come in handy."

And so they will! If you try to walk past the bucket, Adam is completely incapable of figuring out how buckets work, and falls off the ledge.

However if you use the rusty bolts on it...

Adam fills the bucket with them until the rope breaks. This is the only way to get past the bucket.

"That's it!"

If Adam had kicked the bucket to the right, this puzzle wouldn't have had to happen. That's also the ONLY use for the bolts.

In any case, we can move on to that other toolbox.

A hammer!

A hammer in an adventure game is as good as gold.

"Has a good feel to it, I'll keep it."

For once we agree on something.

Adam says this when you try to open the box. It's a bit hard to tell from the lighting, but the box is actually nailed shut. It's never that easy, is it?

Over on the other side is a rag. Since quarters are tight, Adam walks even slower, but at least you don't have to be precise with your clicks. Adam won't fall off unless you do something the game doesn't want you to.

"That's just what I needed. I'm sweating like a hog."

Gross.

The next section is just down this ladder.

This screen is completely useless mechanic-wise, but I absolutely love this shot. It really makes you realize just how huge and sprawling this hulk is. It raises a lot of questions about what this is, where we are, how did we GET here? I just wish it were in a competent video game. :smith:

The next section is a simple walk over. Once again we're faced with a ladder missing it's top rung, but also there's oil dripping from whatever's above us.

Trying to walk over the oil makes Adam slip and fall off. That's fair, at least.

However we can use the rag to put over the oil so we don't slip! I'm pretty sure that the rag would slip and fall off just as easily, but whatever. It's progress.

Now that the rag is there, we can stand on it and catch some oil in the hard hat.

"It wouldn't be bad to catch a few drops..."

This is one of the more sensible things we've done so far, frankly.

Once that's done, we take this pipe

and put it here. It's literally the exact same puzzle. Adam even says the same "It's a pity there aren't any more of these" line. :effort:

We also grabbed the rag again, since apparently this screen is all about reusing puzzles.

Seriously, on the SAME screen. I guess it's kind of clever in that you might expect there to be a second rag, but no, I'm not giving this to them.

Also notice the rung didn't fall out this time. You know what that means.

Over to the right is an elevator! The game makes you click the ladder to climb it because why wouldn't you want to take a ten second break after finding this?

But unfortunately, there's no handle. You saw it coming don't even lie.

"Doesn't anything work around here?!"

There's a pipe over to the right, it's a bit tough to notice. With this pipe comes kind of an obtuse puzzle. Firstly we have to use the hammer on the pipe to...

...try and make our own handle. There's no way that'd work, I know that, you know that, but against all odds...

...It still doesn't work.

"Hmm, strange... It looks like a crowbar. Maybe I'll have a use for it."

Not only do we have to do something stupid, we have to do something stupid and FAIL in order to progress. Next Life.

But where can we use a crowbar?

Aaaaaaaaaaaall the way back.

Back to this nailed shut toolbox.

"This isn't exactly the ideal crowbar, but hopefully it'll work."

It does, because gently caress logic.

"Now that's what I call a treasure!"

'
Pictured: Treasure.

The most obvious thing in here is the wire, so let's pick it up.

"I can't carry everything I find."

Says the rear end in a top hat who's been walking around for two days with a vest full of rocks, are you making GBS threads me?!

The wire also becomes unclickable just as an extra middle finger.

Clicking anything on the left gets you

"I can't possibly lug all this around."

At this point, the only thing clickable is the pile of junk, but it just prompts Adam to bitch even more.

BUT IF YOU RIGHT CLICK IT

"Let's see what we have here..."

OH LOOK AN ELEVATOR HANDLE.

This game has NEVER required you to right click anything before, apparently it'll prompt Adam to look at something, while left clicking prompts him to grab stuff, but he grabbed the handle when we right clicked, and right clicking doesn't do anything useful except in situations where it's necessary to complete the game.

God loving dammit.

The lever works and we take a quick run through cutscene zone.

At the bottom is... this tiny platform. Well gently caress.

Adam vents his frustration by kicking the barrel into the abyss.

After a few seconds of silence and no bang of the barrel hitting the ground...

"That can't be... so long... what is this supposed to mean?"

Again, a really awesome and creepy moment that would have worked in a better game. We're so high up that we can't hear the barrel hit the ground.

Adam then vandalizes the platform by stealing a chain from the safety rail. It's what he does.

Then we... oil up the chain.

"I'll try to oil it, it can't hurt."

I'm serious. We have to oil the chain.

Because we're about to go on a ride!

WHOOOOO gently caress YEAH

If we didn't oil up first, the chain would snap in half and it would restart us back at the platform.

Well that was fun!

"(A groan of pain.) Oh my, that terrible ride tore my skin!"

:stare:

Alright maybe it wasn't so fun.

We're in a tiny little room with only a couple things to click. The most obvious is the button on the winch here.

Pushing it causes the winch to come to life and start winding up...

Which causes the cable to snap! No more backtracking! :woop:

"Not bad for an amateur, was it?"

Imagine playing Silent Hill, and Heather spouted something like "HELL YEAH PRESSED THE poo poo OUT OF THAT BUTTON WHAT'S UP" after interacting with anything.

I'm sorry I know I keep bringing Silent Hill up, I just wish I was playing a competent horror game.

There's also some gloves over here, it's the only thing besides the button that we could have interacted with.

"They look ok. I'll take them."

The gloves pass Adam's stringent inventory inspection. Without the gloves, if you climb down the wire, Adam will remind you his hands are all kinds of hosed up. I'm pretty sure it would still hurt like a mad fucker even wearing gloves, but it works. Mind over matter I suppose.

oh poo poo

"Stupid gloves! Just a couple more feet and I'd be dead!"

Hand wave on why we don't have the gloves anymore, don't think about it too hard.

Adam stares at his hands for a second since that's the most important thing on the screen right now.

There we go, now he notices.

Once again clicking on the guy leads Adam to whine about it. We want to right click.

"I don't recognize his face. Maybe he was also looking for a way to go down... Maybe there isn't any. But why did he hang himself when he could have simply jumped?"

Adam Raichl: Literally critiquing a dead man's method of suicide. gently caress you, Adam.

Oh hey an elevator! I wonder what bullshit method will be preventing it from moving!

Good money is on elevator repair puzzle. Dark horse candidate is Resident Evil style boss-lock.

"It won't be that easy..."

Keypad lock! Simple but effective, not bad.

To the left is this small room. We don't know why yet but Adam NEEDS to get over to the room on the right. The clearly empty room that Adam can see is empty and has nothing inside of it. We can't progress until we get there though.

These boards are like the cable on the crane we woke up on, in that you can pick them up but you can't put them in your inventory. The bags of cement nearby are the same. This puzzle is... sensible compared to some of the other poo poo in Next Life. That's not a very good metric.

First there's two bent rods we want to straighten out.

"It won't be easy..."

I just want to remind you guys that I've cut out like, 75% of Adam's dialogue this chapter. Their usage of "It won't be easy..." has to be in the double digits.

"Strange... The iron must be inferior. It's the only explanaition I can come up with."

Hey! This update has actually been pretty good with typos and dialogue being wildly different from the subtitles. The main reason being it's the same loving voice clips over and over.

Adam smacks down the next rod, even saying "This won't be easy..." again.

Next we lay the board on the iron bars.

"Not really stable, but certainly better than nothing."

I don't know if it is, frankly. Adam refuses to get on the board, but we can use the cement bags to stabilize it a bit.

You have to lug over all three, and it's all the same except...

"I wouldn't bet on it."

"Let's see..."

"It's not getting any better..."

Again, I swear the engine requires a voice clip for every action. God dammit Adam shut the hell up for a while.

Lastly you have to shift the top board on top of the cement bags. I don't... think it would have the kind of effect he thinks it will, but hey, whatever makes him feel better.

Adam makes his move...

He takes a leap just as the board falls over!

And he sticks the landing!

I'd like to know why the gently caress you needed to come over here in the first place!

Adam forgets his hands are all messed up and climbs this grating just fine.

You can click on like, twenty things up here, and almost none of them do anything. Good.

Adam can fumble with the rope for a bit to no avail.

We can also boot this ladder so we can get back down!

"I thought I'd never get out of here."

We've been stuck for about eight seconds. Adam gives up quick.

There's also a hand saw! Hell yeah!

"There's a catch. It's not plugged in."

Dammit. You can see the cable going down to the floor, so let's head down.

Here we go, let's get this thing plugged in.

Haha oh gently caress no, I didn't even try to do this on my own. I had a guide handy.

If you get the wrong one, you can't tell until you go up and try the handsaw. gently caress that.

Let's cut down the hanged dude. This update could do with some corpse looting.

"Strange... At one point it occurred to me that he would break a bone..."

Adam almost feels the emotion known as 'empathy' for the first time and the last time.

Bullshit, Adam.

"Here... in the left pocket... Hmm... Maybe a good-bye note... and a small paper slip..."

Wow, that's cold, Adam.

"What you're holding in your hands is not a good-bye note, but a plea for forgiveness. As a foreman I was unreasonable in signing invoices for second-rate materials and indulging in bribery. I should never have let things go this far, but it's too late now. I can't pretend not to see. I can't just wait until the construction collapses under it's own weight like a house of cards. Also I don't want to spend the rest of my life in prison. I no longer have a choice. Please forgive me if you can. I've decided on the rope instead of a quick death. I long for pain to cleanse me of my sins and give me a chance to be born again in a better world. Farewell."

Well that was a lot of slowly spoken words about a guy who's name we never got. Let's check out the other note he had.

You know what that means!

Let's get the hell out of here!

Oh but wait, there's one more section of busywork. :sigh:

"Why do bad things happen when everything looks all right? Are there any brakes here? It might be too late!"

There actually is a brake, so hey, problem solved.

I don't even know what would cause this to happen. Friction? I don't think that's how friction works.

Either way, Adam just has to bonk it down with the hammer.

The background actually does slow down a bit to show it's working, but not well enough. What else can we do?

Hey what if we just biff a bunch of cables into the elevator's workings? That sounds like a plan that couldn't possibly backfire!

Again, it slowed down a bit, but we're still going pretty quick. There's no time limit to this by the way. You can fall forever and Adam's never in any danger.

For our final plan, we use our makeshift crowbar on the cable!

Seems to me like a good way to snap the cable and send the elevator free falling to the ground, but hey, who the gently caress am I?

Pictured: Effort? Confusion? Indigestion?

The elevator slowly grinds to a halt. Wait, wait we didn't want to STOP, we wanted to slow down.

Confusion? Anger? Did he just realize that cutting down a dead guy and sassing him is a dick move?

Well, any moral he learned was suddenly stopped by Adam collapsing. What hellscape will we face next? An endless cave? An underwater facility? A sinking ship?

...Oh no.

Please no not the drat island again.

God loving DAMMIT.

Izmael was wrong, this isn't purgatory, this is hell.

UPDATE 3 - STATS :siren:

CORPSES LOOTED:

One

CONSTRUCTION SITES ESCAPED FROM:

Zero, technically

THINGS ACCOMPLISHED THIS UPDATE:

# ? Sep 1, 2015 07:54

Ghostwoods: May 9, 2013; Say "Cheese!"

Well, that was... um. That was.

OK, moving on. Nice atmospheric vistas in that construction zone. Yeah. Shame about the game they wandered in to.

In that penultimate shot, Adam looks quite a lot like Neil Gaiman.
Poor Neil.
He should sue.

# ? Sep 1, 2015 12:08

Seraphic Neoman: Jul 19, 2011

He reminds me of David Duchovney when he's in the elevator.

# ? Sep 1, 2015 17:56

Kangra: May 7, 2012

I'm halfway through playing Black Mirror, and it actually shares a lot of the flaws of this game.

The use of right-click to do something comes up almost the same way, in that there's no indication about it. I don't much have a problem with using it as an 'examine closer' action except that it literally does nothing when it can't be used. So you usually have to right-click twice on everything, just in case it missed a click.

The protagonist is an rear end in a top hat, but he's an entitled rich dude, so it sort of fits with his character; no callous murdering as far as I know though..

Most of the logic is at least reasonable by adventure game standards (nothing like that bucket so far), the mini-puzzles are actually interesting, and you almost never have to fuss with randomly trying a bunch of inventory items to see what works. Having certain objects only frobbable when the game decides is annoying, but at least it prevents that sort of thing.

It does have a ton of backtracking and tediously slow animations, though, especially when you initiate conversations.

That said, it has way more atmosphere (not horror so much as melancholic and unsettling, with a building spookiness) and the characters are pretty well fleshed out. The English voice acting is pretty bad for the main character. I'm playing it in German instead, and the voices seem fine.

Here's a typical sequence, showing some good and bad points:

When you first arrive at a large country estate, the doorbell at the gate is broken, and you have to improvise a typically silly solution to get it working.

Later when you meet the lady of the house (a distant relative), you mention the doorbell to her, and she says the groundskeeper should probably fix it at some point.

You go tell the groundskeeper she wants the doorbell fixed today and he needs to be better at his job. He says he's only got two hands, but he'll get to it when he finds the time

(By more conversation, you discover that he possesses the key you need, but the lady of the manor has forbidden the door to be opened, and he won't give it up).

Eventually (time proceeds based on whether certain events have occurred) he goes out to work on the doorbell.

If you talk to the lady of the house again, she starts complaining that the groundskeeper isn't mowing the grass like he's supposed to be doing.

You go out and ask the groundskeeper why he's not mowing the grass. He says he'll do it after fixing the doorbell and doesn't even get angry with you.

You go back and whine to the lady that the groundskeeper is refusing to mow the grass. She says to tell him to do it.

You go back to the front gate and tell him he'd best get to mowing, and so he leaves. He leaves his toolbox there, and of course you raid it for items (including a piece of wire).

Once you find the place where the groundskeeper is mowing, you notice his jacket hanging on a tree nearby. But you can't steal from it without him noticing.

When his back is turned, you throw the wire into the grass. You then have to wait about 30 seconds for him to reach the point where the wire is.

The wire breaks the lawnmower. Groundskeeper doesn't even say anything, he just wanders off to get his tools, at which point you grab the keys.

The groundskeeper spends the rest of the afternoon fixing the lawnmower.

# ? Sep 1, 2015 18:15

corn in the bible: Jun 5, 2004; Oh no oh god it's all true!

Kangra posted:

I'm halfway through playing Black Mirror, and it actually shares a lot of the flaws of this game.

The use of right-click to do something comes up almost the same way, in that there's no indication about it. I don't much have a problem with using it as an 'examine closer' action except that it literally does nothing when it can't be used. So you usually have to right-click twice on everything, just in case it missed a click.

The protagonist is an rear end in a top hat, but he's an entitled rich dude, so it sort of fits with his character; no callous murdering as far as I know though..

Most of the logic is at least reasonable by adventure game standards (nothing like that bucket so far), the mini-puzzles are actually interesting, and you almost never have to fuss with randomly trying a bunch of inventory items to see what works. Having certain objects only frobbable when the game decides is annoying, but at least it prevents that sort of thing.

It does have a ton of backtracking and tediously slow animations, though, especially when you initiate conversations.

That said, it has way more atmosphere (not horror so much as melancholic and unsettling, with a building spookiness) and the characters are pretty well fleshed out. The English voice acting is pretty bad for the main character. I'm playing it in German instead, and the voices seem fine.

Here's a typical sequence, showing some good and bad points:

When you first arrive at a large country estate, the doorbell at the gate is broken, and you have to improvise a typically silly solution to get it working.

Later when you meet the lady of the house (a distant relative), you mention the doorbell to her, and she says the groundskeeper should probably fix it at some point.

You go tell the groundskeeper she wants the doorbell fixed today and he needs to be better at his job. He says he's only got two hands, but he'll get to it when he finds the time

(By more conversation, you discover that he possesses the key you need, but the lady of the manor has forbidden the door to be opened, and he won't give it up).

Eventually (time proceeds based on whether certain events have occurred) he goes out to work on the doorbell.

If you talk to the lady of the house again, she starts complaining that the groundskeeper isn't mowing the grass like he's supposed to be doing.

You go out and ask the groundskeeper why he's not mowing the grass. He says he'll do it after fixing the doorbell and doesn't even get angry with you.

You go back and whine to the lady that the groundskeeper is refusing to mow the grass. She says to tell him to do it.

You go back to the front gate and tell him he'd best get to mowing, and so he leaves. He leaves his toolbox there, and of course you raid it for items (including a piece of wire).

Once you find the place where the groundskeeper is mowing, you notice his jacket hanging on a tree nearby. But you can't steal from it without him noticing.

When his back is turned, you throw the wire into the grass. You then have to wait about 30 seconds for him to reach the point where the wire is.

The wire breaks the lawnmower. Groundskeeper doesn't even say anything, he just wanders off to get his tools, at which point you grab the keys.

The groundskeeper spends the rest of the afternoon fixing the lawnmower.

Black Mirror 2 and 3 are much better. Coincidentally, they were made by a different company...

# ? Sep 1, 2015 18:46

Major_JF: Oct 17, 2008

It is almost like the lead writer doesn't know how to be nice.

# ? Sep 1, 2015 20:48

Jen X: Sep 29, 2014; To bring light to the darkness, whether that darkness be ignorance, injustice, apathy, or stagnation.

That was legitimately somewhat scary on a visceral level, so job well done? As you said, it's a shame that sequence wasn't in a competent game.

# ? Sep 2, 2015 07:51

bawk: Mar 31, 2013

This game is a loving masterpiece

# ? Sep 2, 2015 15:54

K-ParAdoX: Jul 12, 2004; ...but.this.phone.is. always.off.it's.hook...

I'm having so much trouble believing any of this is actually a thing.

# ? Sep 2, 2015 18:03

Hammurabi: Nov 4, 2009

this lp is good.

# ? Sep 11, 2015 23:51

Danaru: Jun 5, 2012; 何 ??

Update 4 - Bell Tower Two: Bell Tower Harder :siren:

So in between these updates, I got the chance to read Crowfeathers' LP of Legie. I strongly recommend it if you want to see more of how the Czech Republic loving hates video games.

I keep wanting to call this island my own personal Purgatory, but considering what Izmael was saying, that feels a little on the nose

]

Weather's still looking lovely, but at least the rain stopped so I don't have to deal with that annoying unending rain sound effect. We also get to start our day off with a heaping dose of Hermann!

Nothing starts your day right like posing like superman in front of some guy you hate!

This is pretty much how I look first thing in the morning too, minus the weird meshing issue he has going on with his collar.

"Make fun of your granny."

"I didn't mean it like..."

"drat, I'm not in a mood for jokes."

"You're a grouch."

"While you are wonderful and rich..."

"Stop that."

I want to say Hermann is calling Adam a bourgey douche, but he also constantly makes fun of him for being a communist. Maybe the rich comment was about him being communist. Maybe I'm putting more effort into this than the writer did.

I'm going to skip over the rocks and sticks collecting. The ground is still wet, so Adam won't be burning anything down this update.

The camera angles have also changed again. :sigh:

I have a decent sense of direction, but it doesn't help considering the hot spots for moving around seem to be almost randomly placed.

We've been given zero direction, so let's head up to the bell tower, which we've already opened and found was empty, so we have no reason to go there.

"drat, someone must have just locked them."

Once again our goal is to get into the loving bell tower. Again.

Bell tower.

BELL TOWER.

Back down the cliff, Hermann is jumping around like an idiot, apparently terrified of the fact that there's dirt outside. Needless to say we go bug him again.

"Don't worry."

"Were you already born pissed or what?"

"Did you notice that young italian? She's a chick!"

...What?

"Probably."

"I would really go into that."

What?!

"When I saw her laying on the bed."

WHAT?!

"Really?"

"I'm sure she's upon me. I can feel that."

"How can you be so sure?"

"A proper man is always sure."

So I'm pretty sure Hermann was supposed to sound a LOT less like a rapist there, but holy loving poo poo. Let's get away from this guy.

Dorothy is hanging out in front of Danica's cabin. Let's go bug her.

"Did you sleep well?"

Dorothy drops some well deserved sass on Adam.

"Doesn't it feel like afternoon even though you can't see the sun."

I would have went with a question mark, but Future Games is more bold with their usage of punctuation than I am.

"We always wake up in the afternoon and fall to sleep before it gets dark."

...Dorothy are you okay

"Well it was the same yesterday."

"But it didn't feel like it was afternoon then, I thought it was morning."

"That was because of the weather young lord."

She says "young man" out loud, is 'young lord' an expression people use?

"What are you guarding here?"

"The entrance, so that nobody gets in."

"Is that because Danica is so bad?"

Why would y-- never loving mind.

"No, but she needs to go to the toilet and take a shower too."

"I understand, we don't have very much privacy here."

Especially when one rear end in a top hat constantly barges into peoples' cabins asking them about stupid poo poo and shouting "HI IM FROM BOHEMIA :downs:

"And the two of us help each other this way, make sense?"

"Do you have any idea about where to find tools..."

Exactly! That's exactly the kind of stupid question you keep asking people! You're the reason people need to employ a guard in order to take a poo poo!

Even Dorothy is getting exasperated with your bullshit Adam, and she's one of like, three people on this island willing to tolerate you.

"I know, they..."

"But wait, I've seen that Scottish guy caring something long in his hand."

There's a lot going on in that sentence, take it all in.

"OK, thanks for your advice."

"You're welcome."

So now we're off to find Edwin to hopefully find something to help us break into the empty bell tower again. We haven't seen him yet today, where can he be?

Haha gently caress you if you honestly thought it would be that easy. You should know better by now.

Good thing we have four different screens of loving NOTHING we can traipse through!

One of these screens is just the god drat bell tower screen reused, except you're in the background of it. gently caress you Future Games.

BY THE WAY EDWIN'S IN THIS SCREEN AND ONLY IF YOU ENTER THE SCREEN FROM THE RIGHT SPOT

There's so many jokes I want to make right now, but "Tool" isn't a strong enough word to describe Adam.

"What tool man?"

That's what we're asking YOU, Edwin. You're one of the characters I like, don't do this to me.

"She said you were carrying something in your hand."

Dick joke. There, I said it. We can move on.

"I see, that was just a stick, I didn't know that you had already moved the stone."

"Yeah I did, Hermann and I."

"That guy is strange."

"Yeah, I think he's disgusting."

"I don't trust him."

This is what counts as foreshadowing this game, a character literally saying "I DO NOT TRUST KAISER VON CREEPO"

"How do you feel today?"

"Bad, I had those dreams again. Did you have them too?"

"I had them too, but somehow..."

It wasn't really scary, just... dumb.

"I was forced to killed the Russian guy in it, it was either me or him. Just one of us could get out..."

"But it was just a dream..."

"But where is the Russian guy then?"

Oh no, not Comrade Boris :saddowns:

"Well, I haven't seen him, but that doesn't mean..."

"It's a terrible feeling!"

I have nightmares a lot, like a LOT. I've gotten to the point where I can wake myself up out of sheer spite if I realize I'm dreaming. It's a bizarre feeling, like I have a second, phantom set of extremely heavy eyelids. If walking around a ridiculous construction site was the worst I had to deal with, I'd be in the green.

Oh, also that was a complete red herring. Edwin didn't have anything for us. Once again we were required to fail in order to make progress.

Hey Maria, how do you feel about creepy germans, because boy do I have news for you.

Classy, Future Games.

"How did you sleep?"

"I always sleep well."

Give it another night, you'll see some poo poo.

"But I was hoping to wake up at a different place."

"Got it."

"I see that the joke continues."

Wow this prank involved making me fall unconcious at the sound of a bell what high production values :downs:

Get your poo poo together, Maria.

"I don't want you to lose your illusions."

"Hey! don't be nasty."

I didn't think anyone would believe that subtitle.

Well that was pointless, but you have to talk to her, otherwise Danica never finishes taking a dump, and we need to talk to Danica to progress.

He keeps setting me up for it.

"Adam you must have noticed that we keep losing things..."

"I know but..."

"Wait a minute, I remembered something..."

"Great, what is it?"

"Someone has been hiding a hook to bring down coconuts."

"Where?"

"He's been hiding it in a hole in the cliff, over which I stood yesterday."

...No it isn't.

"Why there?"

"He said it contained iron and prevented detection, but I don't know why."

:confused:

"Thanks a lot for your help."

"But I already told all this to the man with the hat."

gently caress! Hermann probably has the hook already. I know we're not adverse to killing, but you know drat well that turning this into a weird Czech Hitman game is off the table.

I'm skipping all the wandering, it's just right of the bell tower.

"What are you looking at?"

"drat, my hook fell down there."

God dammit.

"What were you doing?"

"I was trying to get down to that tree but why the hell do you care?"

"That hook would be useful for me."

"Well if you're so clever then come on, keep it."

Yeah! Offer to let him have your stuff! That'll... show him?

"That's nice."

"I'm always nice."

"Where is your hat?"

"It fell down to the platform over there and I can't get it."

"That's annoying, isn't it?"

...what?

"Take care for your bald head so you don't get a flu."

Adam, what the gently caress do you think a flu is.

"drat, don't gently caress me about you Bolshevik."

Anyway enough of that loser, let's talk to Maria.

"What are you looking?"

An attempt was made.

"I like watching the birds."

"And what is so interesting about them?"

"They are like humans, fighting for a piece of food."

"Look Hermann makes an eye on you."

There was a point where I wanted to take this in a more narrative direction, like I did with Shadowrun where I added my own dialogue, but honestly the reason I didn't is because I'd have to try to keep these characters consistent, and frankly I'm not that good.

"I know, he gapes with his eyes wide open and his bald head becomes red when he talks to me."

"But I thought you liked him..."

Actually you know what, let me give this a shot.

"HI I AM ADAM I AM FROM BOHEMIA REPUBLIC CAN I HAVE YOUR OBJECTS"

"THE DEVS WANT ME TO BE FANSERVICE BUT ALL THE HUMANS IN THIS GAME LOOK TERRIFYING SO IT DOESN'T WORK"

"FTHHHHPTHHHHHHHHLLLLLLLLLLLL"

*Aggressive barking sounds*

That was actually easier than I thought.

WHAT THE gently caress DO YOU THINK ADAM

"Look, the beaver and the Russian man are gone. They are probably home!"

I have it on good authority that Izmael prooooobably isn't home right now. Although hey someone removed the body for us. Convenient!

"That would be the best."

"Why do you scare me all the time, is it part of the game?"

"Sorry, but I'm afraid it isn't."

Well that's the end of that conversation. You can actually see the "hooked nail" in this picture, can you find it?

I don't know if it's a perspective issue, but that's a loving ENORMOUS hooked nail.

Fortunately we don't have to fashion a ballista out of random household parts, we can just biff a rock at it.

Heyy ya missed pal. Hope you have two rocks.

The second rock hits it's mark, and Adam pretends he didn't just blow it in front of a guy who hates him and a girl who's ambivalent towards him.

Maria even gives him a sarcastic congratulatory applause.

We want to get to this hook though, since it lets us create one of the most important items in the game.

We use the hook...

On the stick...

To create Hookstick. A weapon to surpass Metal Gear.

Hookstick laughs at your pathetic attempt to keep it out :black101:

Hookstick causes the padlock to... explode I guess, the animation engine isn't that good.

Naturally Adam is still a wuss, even with Hookstick's power, like last time, we need to pry it open with a regular stick.

The thought of doing things makes Adam cry for some reason. For absolutely NO reason, you have to use the stick on the door twice. He does the same animation, it just doesn't work the first time.

Also for some reason we have to jam a stick in the door so it doesn't close on us, despite not needing it before. Why not?

Here we are again in the empty-rear end bell tower. Great.

We can use Hookstick to move this rock, since Adam is too much of a wuss to use his fingers.

Oh hey, there's some paper underneath!

"There is a document here, it looks old."

Sweet! Maybe this'll tell us what the hell's going on!

"The text is in Portugese, mhmmmm."

:cripes:

"Maybe someone else will help me with it."

SUPER GLAD WE CAME BACK HERE.

Leaving automatically brings us to Edwin hanging out by the door.

"Man how did you find out what makes the bell ring?"

"It wasn't too hard, it doesn't seem to work mechanically."

"Yeah, it doesn't even move when ringing."

"It looks like a speaker instead, but we can't get up there."

"It seems someone's playing a prank on us."

That... is one hell of a prank.

"I'll have a look up there later."

"Do you by any chance know any Portugese?"

"Not at all, why?"

"I need something translated."

"Oh what?"

"I found some documents."

"Oh a document. That's real useful for us."

Edwin says this super sarcastically, but... it COULD be useful for us.

"Ask the young Italian, the languages sound similar to me."

I can't tell if that's racist or not.

"They don't to me, but thanks for your advice."

Yukiko refuses to even look at us, so let's go find Maria.

...Uh, hey Danica, getting a little close to that cliff there.

"Well, I had the dreams again."

"Probably because of the weather."

"No, it's not because of the weather, you didn't have any dreams last night did you?"

"Yeah I had a stupid dream."

A VERY stupid dream.

"There you see. And it will only get worse."

"But they're just dreams."

"I don't believe that."

Welp let's leave the lady who clearly stated she was considering suicide by this cliff, we've got stuff to do. Adam's a dick.

Oh hey a new guy! Let's go bug him!

It's tough to convey in screenshots, but every once in a while he winks with his right eye.

"Nice to meet you, my name is Hans. Where do you come from?"

"Bohemia."

"You see? We are neighbors, I am Austrian."

"Looking at that volcano, I don't understand it."

"You don't understand what?"

"I work at a post office in Linz, but craters are my hobby..."

Considering my hobby is playing video games for the internet, I'm not one to judge.

"Really?"

"I have models of all volcanoes in my computer..."

"And so what?"

"Adam, you know, I don't know that small hill at all..."

:stare:

"How could that be?"

"That's what I don't understand, are we on Earth at all?"

"You are scaring me."

"I'm sorry Adam."

"Oh my god, why do you ask?"

"You have a tic in your right eye."

"I got that since my childhood."

Wow, dick move Adam.

"I see, I'm sorry."

"That's OK Adam. A neighbour's dog savaged me."

"I understand."

"You are a nice boy Adam."

Hans is a nice guy, but wow he is a terrible judge of character.

We still have to talk to Maria though, so let's head into her cabin.

...Ugh.

He seems kind of drunk in this scene, and I kinda wish we could find booze on this island.

"Do you wanna walk in my shoes?"

"You were sleeping."

"No, just thinking. I see Maria went somewhere for a while."

"I see."

"That girl's after me, it's clear."

"Congratulations."

You know, hanging out in someone's cabin long enough to fall asleep probably doesn't count as "behaving as if nothing happens".

"I'm sure you're an expert in that."

"Finally I hear something reasonable from you."

I'll skip the wandering around since no one tells you where Maria went.

She's in Cabin 1 where god loving dammit I hate you Future Games.

"It's quite important and that's the reason why I'm climbing here."

"That's OK, I'm not shy. I know Portuguese very well, my grandma lives in Lisbon."

I'm not even censoring this to keep it work safe, so much as GOD IT'S HORRIFYING :gonk:

The flaws in the character models are never quite as obvious as they are here.

"Will you translate this document for me?"

"Thanks."

We place the document on the table and leave so we don't have to see any more terrifying malformed pixelated rear end and titty.

When we leave, we see Hans walk... the only thing in that direction is the ocean, so he just walked off frame into nothing. At least it's one less person we have to bug.

...Oh gently caress.

Oh gently caress.

Holy gently caress Adam you are literally the worst person. Poor Danica. :smith:

Also the bell rings and now we're asleep. End of chapter!

This is update number four, and we're still on square one, except also multiple people are dead. At least we didn't murder this one.

Oh hey, a train, that's...

The camera zooms up to show Adam just standing on a railroad track like a dipshit. Nice vacant stare, rear end in a top hat.

GAME OVER. loving FINALLY.

Or wait we wake up in our car! Was this all a dream? A long boring-rear end island dream?

Well our car is stuck on the tracks with an oncoming train, but we can deal with that in the next update!

:siren:

UPDATE 4 - STATS :siren:

DOCUMENTS TRANSLATED:

Zero

FRIENDS MADE:

One

BELL TOWER STATUS:

Plundered... again.

Danaru fucked around with this message at 00:34 on Sep 26, 2015

# ? Sep 25, 2015 21:25

Poil: Mar 17, 2007

and

This game is even worse than what I can remember from the video let's play.

# ? Sep 25, 2015 22:08

Seraphic Neoman: Jul 19, 2011

I gotta say, this game works a lot better in Russian: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f0rqxsL0b8Y
Seems they got voice actors and actually tried to crowbar the script into something usable. In later episodes Adam comes off as a dude who has a wry sense of humor, but he's a lot more likable than he is in this version.

Mind you the gameplay is still bad and there are certain parts of the script not even these dudes could fix, like that part where Hermann comes to talk to Adam.

It gets better in the later episodes, but I can't post those cause we're not there yet.

Seraphic Neoman fucked around with this message at 22:19 on Sep 25, 2015

# ? Sep 25, 2015 22:15

Danaru: Jun 5, 2012; 何 ??

SSNeoman posted:

In later episodes Adam comes off as a dude who has a wry sense of humor, but he's a lot more likable than he is in this version.

You can ALMOST hear them trying to get that wry sense of humour in the english version, but it runs through a filter of "loving stupid" before leaving Adam's mouth.

Also I think "Reprobates" is a way more interesting title than Next Life, so we don't even have that going for us either :smith:

# ? Sep 25, 2015 23:17

chitoryu12: Apr 24, 2014

"Don't gently caress me about you Bolshevik" is my new go-to insult.

# ? Sep 25, 2015 23:18

RickVoid: Oct 21, 2010

Had to post before reading page two. Holy poo poo this game is bad, but your presentation is excellent. I was laughing myself silly right up until

quote:

gently caress.

Looking forward to more unnecessary murders and an utter lack of accomplishments.

# ? Sep 26, 2015 00:13

ultrafilter: Aug 23, 2007; It's okay if you have any questions.

You have a broken image tag. Search http://lpix.org/2222637/NextLife%20(04).mp4.Still245.jpg to find it.

# ? Sep 26, 2015 00:29

Danaru: Jun 5, 2012; 何 ??

ultrafilter posted:

You have a broken image tag. Search http://lpix.org/2222637/NextLife%20(04).mp4.Still245.jpg to find it.

Whoops! Got it fixed, thanks!

RickVoid posted:

Had to post before reading page two. Holy poo poo this game is bad, but your presentation is excellent. I was laughing myself silly right up until

gently caress.

Looking forward to more unnecessary murders and an utter lack of accomplishments.

Dorothy is one of the few characters I don't groan at. She's probably the closest thing to a well portrayed character in this game in that she has more depth than whatever stereotype the devs wanted to go for.

# ? Sep 26, 2015 00:40

D3m3: Feb 28, 2013; Why do birds suddenly appear every time you are near?

You know, when I read the title of this thread, I was imagining something totally different.

I think this is much more interesting, in a terrible game way, than whatever hipster adventures I was picturing.
It is not interesting in terms of being actually interesting, but one step at a time. When I read it, I feel like I am in a place where language has betrayed me, and everything exists in some sort of twisted dream-logic.

# ? Sep 26, 2015 02:59

SystemLogoff: Feb 19, 2011; End Session?

Danaru posted:

Whoops! Got it fixed, thanks!

Dorothy is one of the few characters I don't groan at. She's probably the closest thing to a well portrayed character in this game in that she has more depth than whatever stereotype the devs wanted to go for.

How long until she dies then? This game is not very nice to anyone not the main character. :v:

# ? Sep 27, 2015 01:18

K-ParAdoX: Jul 12, 2004; ...but.this.phone.is. always.off.it's.hook...

Make fun... of your granny?!

WHAT.

# ? Sep 27, 2015 11:49

The_Frag_Man: Mar 26, 2005

This game is kind of awesome, I'm glad I'm not playing it though.

E: Please PM me the uncensored images, thanks.

# ? Oct 25, 2015 16:29

The Watercrown: Feb 10, 2014; We Shall Become Gods

We Shall Become Gods

WE SHALL ALL DIE AND BECOME AS GODS

So, is there an update coming, or should we stop anticipating the next batch of foreign madness?

# ? Nov 17, 2015 13:23

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ? May 5, 2024 16:19

Danaru: Jun 5, 2012; 何 ??

The Watercrown posted:

So, is there an update coming, or should we stop anticipating the next batch of foreign madness?

It's coming, every time I get a chance to record and strip screenshots something major comes up :shepface:

it's been two straight months of "alright tomorrow night I'll record some Next Life and OH poo poo"

# ? Nov 17, 2015 13:27

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Let's Play! > Bohemian Asshole Simulator - Let's Play Next Life!

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