Bohemian Asshole Simulator - Let's Play Next Life!

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

Danaru: Jun 5, 2012; 何 ??

What's this?

Next Life is an adventure game developed by Future Games, the creators of The Black Mirror, which I guess was pretty good?

wikipedia posted:

The main character Adam Reichl possibly dies in a car accident and wakes up on unknown island in the middle of nowhere. He starts to explore and tries to find out where he is only to find that there are other people in the island seemingly from different time periods.

If that sounds interesting to you, you're in for a surprise.

Hey wait, didn't you already LP this?

Yes, actually! Next Life was the first LP Grace and I did back when the bad games thread was still open. Our videos are fraught with technical issues, neither of our microphones worked overly well, and I had no idea how to actually edit videos at the time. I wanted to revisit this game in SSLP form since it gives me the opportunity to really get into the details :v:

Is it any good?

Let me level with you. Here's a short list of games I've already LPd.

-Mario is Missing
-Jurassic Park (SNES)
-Mario's Time Machine
-Steven Segal is The Final Option
-Sonic 2006

I can say with complete honesty that Next Life is the absolute worst game I've ever played. The only comparable game I can think of is Limbo of the Lost. I am so not making that comparison lightly. The main character is impossible to like, the graphics are a bizarre combination of high quality textures on low quality meshes, the plot is so bad that it gets worse the more you understand it, the characters are at best one-dimensional and at worst racist caricatures, and I'm not even going to start on the moon logic bullshit thrown around by the 'puzzles'.

Wh-why would you LP this game twice if it's that bad?

Experience Bij.

What's the spoiler policy?

No spoilers, not even tagged. If you watched the VLP and if it hasn't happened yet in the SSLP, don't bring it up. No one will believe you anyway.

Hey! You made a typo!

I promise you, if it's from dialogue, no I didn't. I'm transcribing all the text from the subtitles, and I'm leaving every minor typo alone to preserve the experience. If it's not in dialogue then yeah I probably hosed up.

# ¿ Aug 8, 2015 23:09

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ¿ May 18, 2024 16:44

Danaru: Jun 5, 2012; 何 ??

Chapters

Update 1 - Belltower Blues
Update 2 - Bohemian Crapsody
Update 3 - Welcome To Construction Zone
Update 4 - Bell Tower Two: Bell Tower Harder
Update 5 - Adam ~~Kills~~ Saves Some People
Update 6 - 130 Seconds
Update 7 - Adam! Do Something!
Update 8 - :downswords:

Danaru fucked around with this message at 06:16 on Jan 15, 2016

# ¿ Aug 8, 2015 23:09

Danaru: Jun 5, 2012; 何 ??

Update 1 - Belltower Blues

Our story starts off with our hero walking into a decrepit looking shack, as most heroic stories start.

Or... actually that's his garage. Alright. Maybe things are different in Europe.

This is our hero, Adam Raichl. I honestly can't think of a single personality trait for him besides "ugh" and "vest". I guess he's kind of a hoarder, but that's more of an adventure game thing than an Adam thing.

SUDDENLY HE loving EXPLODES!

INTO A STARGATE!

Or not. Adam stares blankly ahead trying to figure out whether he's having an epileptic seizure, but decides he's good to drive anyway. gently caress you Adam.

Pictured: Me realizing I still have the walkthrough for this game in my bookmarks.

In any case, Adam decides to head off to... work? There's no way this rear end in a top hat got invited to a party.

Question for any eurogoons: Is it common to just have a ruined tower on the street corner? For that matter, is it common to have roads thin enough that only one vehicle can fit on them? What do you do when you're driving one way and someone else comes in the opposite direction?

Adam gets a call on his cellphone, and decides that driving after experiencing an epileptic aura isn't dangerous enough let's get distracted too!

"Hi. I just left."

One thing you'll notice is that people in this game don't exactly talk like humans do. I was originally going to point out how many subtitles don't actually follow what the character's voice actor says, but no joke I hit almost 30 in this one update before I gave up. I'll just be transcribing from the subtitles since those tend to be more hosed up. :v:

Adam is still driving by the way. This intro goes on for loving forever. There are multiple transitions between a scene of Adam driving to a second scene of Adam still driving.

OH poo poo

SUDDENLY HE loving EXPLODES!

INTO A STARGATE!

Normally we have these things called "Traffic Lights", they show a red or a green light in order to direct traffic to explicitly avoid this kind of thing. With that said, we also have a thing called "Don't drive like an rear end in a top hat". Next Life takes place in an alternate Earth where the average competency level is "Touch electrical fence to see if it's on".

Adam's fine by the way. :sigh:

The term "Karma Houdini" will come up a lot in this game.

Even Adam is confused about the whole not being a large pile of ash thing. Not even mildly barbecued.

I think he's supposed to be noticing his belongings are missing, since that's a reoccurring theme, but it looks like he's just checking to see if his precious denim is safe. We also haven't been introduced to the loving pocket dimension that is Adam's vest yet. I don't know, I'm pretty sure I'm putting more effort into this cutscene than the devs did.

The models in this game are kind of creepy, the textures are fairly high resolution, but they're wrapped onto a sort of lovely mesh, and it just gives an unsettling vibe. Just look at his hand.

GOD JESUS speaking of unsettling. A tiny asian lady is staring at Adam without saying a word.

Suddenly she runs away. Okay.

Keep it classy, Future Games. :sigh:

Jesus loving christ the faces in this game. :gonk:

This isn't even the scary part of the game yet.

"Hi, did you pull me out of the water?"

Our new friend speaks with a German accent done by someone who has never head of Germany aside from playing Wolfenstein 3D.

I only included this because this guy loves giving the thumbs up a lot. Also because his facial expression is hilariously :smith:

while talking about how lucky he is for surviving a fall from five kilometers.

Wait he survived a loving five kilometer fall without injury?!

"And I was just listening to the radio that Nixon is in big trouble because of Watergate."

I didn't skip a line, that's his followup after the whole hey a loving miracle just happened bit. It's easy to overlook that he's talking about the Watergate scandal as a topical event, that's not a mistake, that's a plot thing.

"Before my motor collapsed."

Again I didn't skip a line here. THIS ISN'T HOW HUMANS TALK.

Our new friend suddenly becomes upset at his own inability to communicate like a normal human, and just leaves without saying another word.

Pictured: Me when I realized I never actually uninstalled this game since the VLP.

So now we gain control of Adam. We have a bed, a toilet, and a shower, but if you click on them, Adam will just whine about not having to take a poo poo or something. "Whine" is pretty much Adam's default state.

On the table is a bottle of water and a pack of cookies. Let's introduce you to the process of picking up an item.

First you click on it, and when Adam finally finds the precisely right place to stand and rotate, he'll grab the item and cram it into the exact same inside pocket on his vest. It's always a goofy adventure game thing when characters have a magical inventory, but it gets taken to some pretty insane extremes in this game.

With the item safely stuffed into his vest, Adam will go back to standing normally as a small icon of the item appears for a few seconds. You cannot skip these few seconds.

As a result, it takes about seven seconds of unskippable animation to pick up any items. That's best case scenario. Sometimes Adam inexplicably takes longer because he has the dexterity of a pile of bricks.

This doesn't sound so bad right now, but wait. Just... wait.

With our water and cookies in hand, we step outside to... this.

"This must be a dream... How is this possible? Where in the heck am I? I did not pay for a holiday in the Caribbean as far as I know."

I'm pretty sure that was a joke, but the delivery made it sound like Adam was genuinely worried that he was being charged money to be here.

I mean, I would too, but I don't live in a fancy house with a fancy run-down garage.

Adam becomes 100% obsessed with this loving belltower. Adam's entire motivation right now is GET TO BELL TOWER.

"Maybe I'll find out something. Should I try to climb up?"

G E T T O B E L L T O W E R

The game is a little merciful, and lets you see any exits from the screen when you hit E. It's less 'helpful' and more 'absolutely loving necessary to complete the game'. It doesn't show items though, so you're on your own for pixel hunts.

We take the exit right behind Adam, to the beach.

Can you spot Adam? It doesn't actually matter, since once you click on someone, you teleport right to them. If you didn't realize that, you'd probably spend an ENTIRE MINUTE watching Adam waddle his stupid rear end over to the tiny lady who was staring at you.

If you double click, you can run, but... That'll come up later.

"Hi, I'm Adam."

Stares in silence, nods, then looks back to the ocean.

"Can you hear me?"

Clearly turns her head at the sound of Adam's voice, and nods twice to confirm that yes, she can hear him.

"Mhmmm, I guess you are not in the mood to talk."

Turns her head back to the ocean, satisfied that Adam understood what she was trying to convey.

"What are you watching?"

Turns to Adam, confused that he just acknowledged that she does not want to talk, and yet continues to talk to her.

"Well, thanks for the chat."

Good work Adam, you've successfully harassed someone who's openly uninterested in you.

Then spoke about her while she's directly in front of you. Good. You're the hero.

We'll address the elephant in the room, it's easier to see in the game, but there's a man doing stretches, and another man on his knees and kinda wobbling to the right.

If you double click an area transition, it won't make Adam move over to it, and will just transition right away. Thank god.

Other games released in 2007:

Portal
The Witcher
Mass Effect
Crysis

Let's talk to Captain Prayer here, frankly we could use some points with the big guy upstairs.

"I'm sorry for disturbing you, my name is Adam."

"Hail my brother, I'm the servent of my Lord."

I remember him saying "I'm a servant of the lord" in actuality, which makes him sound way more humble and less douchey.

"And do you have a name?"

I feel that's a facial expression Adam sees a lot when he talks to people.

"Do you have any idea where we are and what we are doing here?"

"We are in a purgatory, haven't you understood that?"

Izmael doesn't say the "A", which again, makes the line make more sense.

"Well I had a serious accident before I appeared here mysteriously."

"You see, your body is dead and your soul is waiting for a new journey."

"It's next" journey :sigh:

this is why I didn't bother keeping a gently caress up counter.

"But my feeling is that my body is quite alive."

Adam decides to switch from "whining" mode to "openly insult" mode.

"Are you staying n your knees for the whole day?"

Did no one even read the subtitles before shipping?

"I'm repenting for my sins, you should do that too."

"You are obsessed with the purgatory, aren't you?"

"Do you see the traces of fire from the apostles?"

"You mean those burned fetches on the ground?"

"They will decide if you should stay here or go there."

You can kinda see what they're talking about on the previous map with Yukiko, but you can never get a particularly good look at what they're talking about.

"Look..."

"You've still got a chance, so don't waste it."

Well that would explain the whole waking up from a firey hellstorm on a lovely island thing. At least we didn't get chucked downstairs immediately.

Adam vents his frustration by passive aggressively insulting Izmael in third person. You're just too cool Adam.

Oh man, you guys are going to love this.

So remember when I mentioned how long and arduous Next Life's item animations are? Well there are three common items you can find all over the island: Rocks, Sticks, and Arid Grass.

Each item source is infinite, and often you'll need more than one of each per section. You can carry up to five rocks, three sticks, and one arid grass. Sometimes a section will require more than this.

As a result, it took 35 seconds of unskippable animations to fill our vest with rocks, and you need to do this pretty much every chapter.

GAMEPLAY!

We also grab from an arid grass source on the screen. I'm not showing you where it is so you guys can understand just how loving invisible these sources are sometimes.

That's a deep-rear end squat there pal. Heels are coming up a bit though.

Let's see how we can passive aggressively insult this guy.

Adam has a weird tradition of switching up where he says he's from. They're always correct, but he varies on how specific he is.

"Hello, my name is Edwin and I'm Scottish."

Edwin's accent is kinda "Scrooge McDuck but slower", but honestly I can look past it because he's an alright dude. I'll take any silver lining I can get.

"Do you have an idea where are we?"

"Man, I would myself like to know. I shipwrecked close to southern Australia, but there are no volcanoes there."

"Shipwrecked?"

"I'm a yachtsman, I am at sea all the time, but I don't have a yacht here, and on top of that with no stars..."

"There are no stars here?"

"Man, I've seen none so far."

"Well then I guess you can't help with where we are..."

"Sure I do, the west is there, where the sun sets."

Edwin kinda jerks his thumb in a direction behind him, it's kinda hard to tell where exactly.

Edwin that's not how spines or arms work.

gently caress you Adam, he has his poo poo more together than you do.

If you enter an empty cabin, you just have to wait for Adam to slowly turn around and leave. You also can't tell what cabins have people in them. If you try to take the water or cookies, Adam will just say

"I am not a theif."

spelled just like that.

We also finish the trifecta of filling our vest with nature. Just to recap, inside Adam's vest is

A water bottle
Cookies
Five rocks
Three sticks
A pile of dry grass

If we were playing Kings Quest 6 we'd have a loving robot nightengale and a magic map by now.

A couple more obvious rock and stick points, and two more cabins. Both have people in them that we can insult.

Cabin 7 contains yet another shirtless man.

The faces

"Oh welcome, molodyec. My name is Boris Vasilyevitch and I am an oilman."

"Molodyec" (молодец) is apparently a russian phrase kind of like "buddy" that an older man would use for a younger man. It's also not pronounced that way. Boris is VERY proud of being an Oilman.

"Do you know where are we? I am from Prague..."

"I see, you're a Communist. You're one of us."

"No! That was over a long time ago."

"But Comrade Brezhnev sent our young boys in order to protect you..."

"Brezhnev, now I understand. All right then, see you next time."

:eng101:

I believe the incident Boris is referring to was the Prague Spring. In 1968 Alexander Dubček, the leader of Czechoslovakia, was trying to grant his people more rights regarding media and travel, as well as splitting the nation into the Czech Republic and the Slovak Republic. Leonid Brezhnev, the leader of the Soviet Union at the time, wasn't super cool with all this talk, and ended up invading Czechoslovakia in order to stop the reforms. They succeeded in occupying Czechoslovakia in a month, and ended up controlling the place until 1989, when the Soviet Union started making GBS threads out.

Then four years later Czechoslovakia finally managed to split in two.

Needless to say, Boris and Adam would have two very different viewpoints, considering Boris is clearly from the Soviet era, and only knew from Soviet propaganda what happened. Adam on the other hand would have had a history lesson of "Then the loving Soviets ruined everyone's fun for 40 years." It also makes sense that considering the devs are Czech, this is one of the very few times a plot point is competently made.

With that said, I only gleaned this from like 20 minutes of research, so let me know if I'm wrong about this. I'm Canadian, so we didn't touch on the cold war much during history class, except the part where we won the cold war via hockey. :canada:

Adam I can understand you being salty, but don't take it out on Boris. He's just an oilman.

"A silly Russian guy, what was he saying?"

Less than three feet away. We're almost 100% on insulting people in third person right to their faces.

In cabin number 8 is another person we can bug.

Her voice actress is refreshingly not racist like you'd expect, but... confusing? I've NEVER heard that accent before.

"Good day, my name is Adam Raichl and I come from Bohemia in Central Europe."

"God knows with all these statelets."

She very conspicuously says "Those countries" instead of "these statelets".

"My name is Dorothy, and I come from the big apple."

"You mean New York?"

"Got it chap."

:confused:

"Where are we?"

"Who knows, but they steal here more than in the Bronx. I lost all my jewels."

"You don't know where you are, but you seem fine."

What the gently caress does that mean, Adam.

"What should I do, start crying?"

"Well not exactly but..."

"I'm afraid they'll fire me. I'm a secretary in the Twin Towers and got three sons."

"The Twin Towers are gone..."

"Are you kidding? It was just a fire, wasn't it?"

"Yeah, just a joke, forget it."

"Stupid joke."

So hey, remember how Adam was in a car crash, Edwin was shipwrecked, and the german dude crashed his plane?

DOROTHY WAS WORKING DURING THE SEPTEMBER ELEVENTH ATTACKS.

CLASSY, FUTURE GAMES.

Adam decides not to make any pathetic one liners and just awkwardly leaves. There's one more section of the map with people to annoy.

Hey it's the German guy! Remember when he slapped the rear end of an underage girl? Thanks, Future Games!

"Hello, we've already seen each other, I'm Adam."

"Cheers, I'm Hermann."

There, now I can stop calling him "German Guy".

"Where are you from?"

"I'm German after my father, born in Switzerland"

...Is it?

"Yeah."

"And where d'ya come from?"

"From Prague."

"Jesus Christ, that's the Eastern bloc."

"Come on, we're in Europe for years."

"Sure, like Moscow is."

More communist chat. Watergate was in 1972, so Czechoslovakia was still USSR aligned by virtue of still being occupied by soviet forces :v:

"What are you doing?"

"Just killing time, that's why I'm throwing stones."

Hey we have a vest full of them, maybe we should join in!

"drat, there are fools here, they keep lying to themselves that the come from the future. One is a fanatic, another..."

"And what year do you think we have now?"

"So you must be crazy too!"

For once, Adam might be right.

The cabin on the right is empty, but the one on the left has the final new character!

Aww, she saw Adam coming in.

"Good day, my name is Adam Raichl and I come from Czechia."

"good for who knows whom. My name is Danica and I lived in Sarajevo, but none of that matters anymore."

"Do you know what that bell tower up there is?"

B E L L T O W E R

"Nobody knows, but we all fall mysteriously to sleep after the third ringing. So be careful to be at a safe place. You have your whole life ahead."

Danica is basically :smith:

personified, but wait what was that bit about falling asleep?

"Are you falling asleep?"

"You will fall into sleep too, you'll see."

"You're not well, I won't disturb you."

We then proceed to immediately disturb Danica.

"Do you feel okay?"

"I'm chased by nightmares."

"What kind of nightmares?"

"I was pulling my dead granddaghter from the ruins, it was horrible."

"But that was just a dream."

"I'm not so sure about that, boy."

"Just a bad dream, forget about it."

She just loving said she has nightma-- nevermind. Let's move on.

There's one more section we haven't explored.

I want to say there's an arid grass source here, but either way we're just moving on.

If you're eagle-eyed, you'll notice the boulder to the left that's kinda wedged in there. Unfortunately, being eagle eyed is probably a detriment for Next Life.

Rather than the boulder, you have to click on the rocks below it so Adam can have the idea of climbing up to the boulder before interacting with it.

And he climbs up every rock.

Very slowly.

It takes half a minute because Adam takes a tiny step, stands perfectly upright for a second, rotates slightly, and takes another tiny step.

Anyway, now you're here, so let's push this boulder out of the way.

So up in the top right you'll notice the green bar. This is your stamina. Yes you have stamina in Next Life.

It goes down for most things, including running, so the game punishes you for trying to get Adam to do anything in a timely manner. You can eat those cookies or drink the water to gain a bit of stamina, but naturally each item has ten uses, each use only increases your meter by a tiny bit, and each use has a long unskippable animation of Adam shoving things into his face. If you run out of stamina and food, and need stamina to perform an action to beat the game, you just can't do it. Gameplay.

Anyway, the rock is jammed I assume, since Adam really just lightly pushed it and immediately gave up. You might be thinking "Well there's clearly a log underneath it, just use that as a lever to push it out!"

"It won't work this way."

Joke's on you! The obvious answer is to:

Use a stone

On an arid grass

To create a fire

Then light the log on fire.

"Just like in the stone age."

gently caress you Adam.

"The fire's almost out."

Now naturally a dry, arid log would never be able to fuel a fire on it's own, so you need to add a stick to the fire. If you don't do this quick enough, you have to make the half-minute climb down and get another arid grass.

Then you wait for the log to burn up. I'm not joking. You can even control Adam while you wait, but you can't really do anything. This takes about a minute for the log to burn up.

Eventually, FINALLY, the log burns away, so we can finally move this fucker out of the way.

"It won't work this way."

Well okay, it's a big rock, but NOW we can use a stick as a lever, right?

"I can't move it by myself."

The best part about this is you HAVE to do all this to continue. The game REQUIRES you to spend twenty minutes trying and failing to move a rock. Otherwise it'll never trigger the next flag, and you'll just wander around forever.

The game requiring you to fail is kind of an accidental theme.

We're actually done with that rock for now. :sigh:

You may notice another person is here, let's see what they've got to say.

Comrade Boris! You need to be a pretty strong guy to be an oilman, he can help us out!

"Would you help me to roll the stone away so that I can get to the bell tower?"

"Why are you going to the bell tower? Capitalist leftovers!"

"But..."

"All churches should be demolished and prison's built instead."

Huh, I wonder if the Czech devs are somewhat salty about communism for some reason.

"Bigots should be kept in there, that's what the oilman thinks!"

"Fine, but would you help me?"

"Molodyec, don't bother an oilman with stones."

"It's a real experience talking with him. What will he talk about next? Battleship Potemkin?"

quote:

Battleship Potemkin (Russian: Броненосец �Потёмкин�, Bronenosets Potyomkin), sometimes rendered as Battleship Potyomkin, is a 1925 silent film directed by Sergei Eisenstein and produced by Mosfilm. It presents a dramatized version of the mutiny that occurred in 1905 when the crew of the Russian battleship Potemkin rebelled against their officers of the Tsarist regime.

...Sure

Over on the next map, we see the lady that Adam annoyed walking into Dorothy's hut. Let's barge in uninvited!

We can talk to either person, but let's start with Dorothy.

"Is the girl dumb or she does she just not understand?"

Great loving proofreading god dammit guys.

"I don't know, we call her Yukiko. She fell in love with an Australian, who was in number three before you. He disappeared yesterday."

Well that explains why she was creeping on Adam when he woke up.

"Disappeared?"

"You'll see things happening here, just you wait."

"Do you have an idea what is up there, by the bell tower?"

B E L L T O W E R

"You won't find anything there, the tower is locked. This is a tiny island. Lost in a big sea, very depressing."

"And what about the big island with the volcano I can see in the distance?"

The only screen you can see it on is the one right after Adam leaves his house, and his fat rear end is blocking most of it.

"Exactly, God help us if it explodes. The ground shakes all the time here."

Talking to Yukiko only nets us the same options as before, so let's just leave.

Oh this'll be good.

"Would you help me to roll that stone away so that I can get up there?"

"Which stone do you mean?"

"Here, by the corner, in the gap."

"Not now, I'm waiting for them to pick me up, I'm sure they already found the plane."

"Which plane?"

"My plane you fool."

The game tries to make Hermann out to sound like an rear end in a top hat, but most of his interactions with Adam seem appropriate.

"I couldn't know..."

"I don't know what miracle helped me to survive but now I'm waiting here."

"All right, so keep waiting."

Adam doesn't know the game is called Next Life, so I don't really get why he's so skeptical about a plane looking for the downed pilot. Then again I'm normal.

There are a couple large people on the island who could help us move the rock, the most likely I'd say is Edwin. He seems to hate us the least, anyway. The game realizes this, and moves Edwin.

So hey, if you were like "LET'S ASK DANICA TO MOVE THE ROCK!", you were on the right track and also get the gently caress out of my thread.

Let's talk to Danica first. She could use a cheering up.

"You are nice, but the only thing that can help me is death."

Well this might be beyond Adam's ability.

"Stop that please..."

"Leave me alone please."

Well that was fun. How about you, Edwin?

I love Edwin's "Aw gently caress he noticed me" look.

"Hey man, I noticed yesterday that it fell in there after an earthquake and that it fit quite tightly..."

"Do you think we can manage it?"

"If you pry the log out we may succeed. It makes no sense without that."

Good work Adam, he probably thinks you're a maniac now. Rightfully so.

"Now we might roll the stone out of the way, it's moving."

"Well OK but in a while alright?"

"Why?"

WHO CARES ABOUT THE LADY WHO CLEARLY EXPRESSED SUICIDAL IDEALIZATION WE HAVE ROCKS TO PUSH! gently caress you Adam.

I kind of want Edwin's response to just be this.

"Danica is terribly depressed right now so I'm watching her..."

"Got it."

"Wait for me by the gap, I will come soon."

"All right."

There. Finally we can accomplish something. I've taken almost 300 screenshots including images to transcribe text from, and we haven't actually accomplished a single loving thing.

When we step outside we hear a clock tower bell. I can't believe you actually thought we'd get something done.

You can wander around a bit more, but honestly you're just waiting for the bell to ring a second time.

Eventually the third bell finally rings, and Adam falls asleep immediately! We're treated to a black screen and a hissing static noise. Maybe something will finally happen now?

Someone stole all of our rocks and sticks?

"What's gonna happen? Are we gonna wake up in our cabins or..."

UPDATE 1 - STATS

PEOPLE INSULTED:

Yukiko
Izmael
Edwin
Boris
Hermann
Danica
Boris again

BELLTOWER STATUS:
Unplundered

THINGS ACCOMPLISHED THIS UPDATE:

Danaru fucked around with this message at 23:14 on Aug 8, 2015

# ¿ Aug 8, 2015 23:09

Danaru: Jun 5, 2012; 何 ??

Nidoking posted:

Wait... do you really have to burn the log BEFORE Edwin will tell you to do it? It really seems like the sort of thing that, in a decent game, he'd tell you to do if you just tried to move the rock and failed, and then you'd go do it and report back to him that you did it and just have to deal with all the backtracking.

I think the trigger is actually trying to pull out the log by hand, which moves Edwin and Boris to their new spots and lines.

Also to give the game a little credit, if you don't torch the log, Boris will have a line about trying to find something to smoke, which I guess is a hint to the stone + grass = fire thing? I only said a little credit.

# ¿ Aug 9, 2015 01:21

Danaru: Jun 5, 2012; 何 ??

corn in the bible posted:

Calling Adam a reprobate was clever because this game was also released under the title of Reprobates, get it

A very fitting title considering the general likeability of the cast.

Ghostwoods posted:

For the record, yes, Prague does have quite a lot of crumbly old towers on random residential street corners, as well as some separated shack-garages (quite common in the semi-suburbia villages just outside official Prague) and one-lane feeder roads for some of what are effectively residential closes.

The one-laners usually have passing places built in here or there, so if you get a car coming in the other direction, the person who is nearer to a passing place (or less stubborn) reverses, or, when plausible, you both drive up on the kerb a bit. (We have one-lane roads in the rural UK a lot, too.)

I lived in Prague for several years. It's a truly beautiful, magical city with a good atmosphere and a fun night-life. If you ever get the chance for a visit, grab it. (Gets bloody cold and dark in January and February, though.)

Huh, neat. Prague is one of the few places I'd like to visit some day, I won't hold this game against them :v:

# ¿ Aug 9, 2015 12:31

Danaru: Jun 5, 2012; 何 ??

Update 2 - Bohemian Crapsody :siren:

Well, here we are again. :sigh:

Let's grab our cookies and water and get out of here.

It's raining today, so no luck on getting Edwin to check out the stars. A lady in a red jacket bolts out of cabin 4.

Then awkwardly meanders back and leans on the doorframe. A good start, but you've got a ways to go if you want to be as weird as the other islanders.

MORE IMPORTANTLY AW YEAH ROCKS GET IN MY VEST YOU SAUCY BASTARDS

She's clearly unimpressed by the bohemian man sprinting out of his cabin and onto a pile of rocks, so let's actually talk to her.

"Hello I'm Adam."

"Maria, Ciao."

If Hermann learned his accent from Wolfenstein, Maria learned her accent from Mario. It's not good.

"Where are you from?"

Maria hand-talks like a madwoman, which I can't tell if it's the animations being weird or Maria just being Italian. I'm dating someone from an Italian family, and I've gotten clipped a couple times when I got too close during an explanation.

"...but it seems things got out of control."

"Don't you find it strange being suddenly here?"

"I think it's a joke with candid camera."

"Unfortunately not..."

"Don't you play these games, I hope you'll return my things back to me."

"I see that you're quiet..."

...I have no loving idea what this means. It almost sounds like he's trying to be sassy, but the line is delivered completely straight.

"Look, this must have cost a hell lot of money and I always like to travel free of charge."

"You're great..."

"I'm in for every fun."

"But..."

"But really great, from the Madrid train right to the beach... Look now I got it. So what are we waiting for?"

Just want to remind everyone I'm transcribing these subtitles exactly as they're written. Also that was seriously the end of that conversation. let's just move on.

Oh good, Izmael's pasty bare white chest. At least Edwin did some situps once in a while.

"Why are you bathing in the sea?"

"Why are you asking brother?"

Riveting conversation, guys.

"Salt water is nothing special for washing."

"It is God's tears..."

"And it's cold..."

"I'm washing off my sins, but it is nothing compared to the suffering of Jesus."

"I see..."

I uh, don't think 'washing off your sins' is meant to be taken this literally, Izmael.

The shiny wet effect is actually kind of impressive for 2007, but why would you use it on THAT?

It's kind of dark, but Hermann is hanging out in his doorway. Yes this game is "talk to everyone repeatedly forever", thank you for asking.

"loving weather, they won't see me from the plane if the weather is like this."

"Your nose is filthy."

WHAT??

"Stop loving me about!"

"And who else fucks you about?"

"Everybody, you're a bank of fools, what are you playing at?"

"And what if things are different than they look?"

"How do you mean by different? I'm not a fool!"

So you might find it a bit out of place that these two suddenly dropped three F-bombs in a ten second span, the thing is, they totally didn't. Hermann says "Stop messing about!" and Adam says "Who else is messing about?". They still don't make a lot of sense together, but it's less jarring.

One thing you might notice is that the perspective has changed a bit.This is the same beach from yesterday we're standing on. They're going for a disorienting effect I think, which works well, but also just makes this even more of a slog to get through because the hotspots to move around are very specific.

STIIIIIIIIIICKS

Since it's raining, there's no arid grass anywhere. This sounds like one less thing to collect, but...

Anyway, we're nearby, so let's see if Danica slept any better.

I'm... gonna assume no.

"Are you feeling better tonight?"

"I won't be better, Adam."

:smith:

As much as I poo poo on the voice actors, Danica's really does do a good job of conveying the mood.

"Well, the weather is depressing, but it won't be like that forever."

"It won't get any better inside anyway."

"We, it can't get any worse..."

"It can, Adam, it can."

"Oh, I'm sorry to hear that."

"It's not your fault."

Hey it's Dorothy! Maybe she can lighten the mood.

"Quite a day, isn't it?"

"It's nasty alright."

"So why are you running outside if you don't like the rain then?"

I love that Dorothy never feels afraid to call Adam out.

"I won't be like sheep. I have to do something."

"Good Lord, there were so many life you here and they've accomplished nothing."

"Have you been here for a long time?"

"Two days before you arrived, but I've heard about older ones who disappeared..."

If you'll remember, when we asked about Yukiko, she mentioned an Australian dude who disappeared, and was in the cabin we were in.

"That sounds like a bad horror movie."

Or a bad horror game :smuggo:

"It looks like one too."

:smuggo:

Dorothy has my back.

Edwin... doesn't look so hot. Come on dude we have a BELLTOWER to besiege!

"Will you help me with that stone today?"

"I'm sorry, I feel terrible."

"Head or stomach?"

"Man, I had a terrible dream, a nightmare."

"Well if it was just a dream..."

"Danica told me that everyone's turn comes after the second night."

"That's gossip..."

"That's what I thought as well."

Adam doesn't give a poo poo about you unless you're helping him, so that's the end of that conversation.

Oh good let's continue to bug Yukiko

"How are you?"

Adam's speech is almost always in white text, but for some reason this line of his is green. Yukiko's facial expression is the perfect mix of "are you serious?" and "Yeah, I know the drill."

Also:

quote:

The term pro forma (Latin for "as a matter of form" or "for the sake of form") is most often used to describe a practice or document that is provided as a courtesy and/or satisfies minimum requirements, conforms to a norm or doctrine, tends to be performed perfunctorily and/or is considered a formality.

I think Adam realizes he's in an adventure game.

Well Edwin's out, so let's see if Boris changed his tune.

Classy, Future Games.

GOD JESUS THAT IS NOT THE FACIAL EXPRESSION YOU SHOULD HAVE

"Oh molodyec, never mind, the oilman is used to it."

Well, that makes sense. Quality dump time would be at a premium when you're working on an oil derrick.

"It's a silly situation."

"I've had to go in the grass more often than in a bowl."

Alright well, maybe things are different in soviet Russia.

"I apologize."

"And the whole village was watching me."

WHY?

You know what, gently caress this. Let's just go see if we can mash Adam into the rock enough times for it to fall loose.

Oh hey! Hermann's already here trying to jimmy it loose! He's continuing to try after a single attempt so he's better at it than Adam.

Adam daintily steps on every rock as usual, and uses a stick on the rock, like Hermann is doing.

Which... causes him to push the rock without a stick.

But hey! The rock clipped through the ground and disappeared!

If you click the rock without a stick, Adam just shakes his head and whines. You have to click on the rock with a stick in order to make Adam not use a stick. Maybe the stick gives him hope.

Well here we are! There's like nine different screens up here and only three of them are of any use. Whoo.

You know drat well what our first stop is.

RENDER UNTO BELLTOWER.

Adam that's not how you open--

ADAM COME ON

The actual reason for us not being able to go in is the very hard to see padlock here. No, sadly we can't just smash it

Adam attempts to give the lock a nice back rub, but unfortunately the lock just won't open.

"The door is probably locked."

gently caress you, Adam.

"It might be possible to unlock it with a piece of wire, but where do I get one?"

If you don't notice and massage the padlock, you will never trip this flag and wander around the seven useless screens forever.

Speaking of useless screens, Hermann just stands here forever and Adam refuses to talk to him.

Also there's a beach. I'm not showing any of the other useless screens because they're boring.

This screen, however has something interesting.

A crack in the cliff!

"This could be useful later."

It can! In fact, Adam gets a strange urge coming over him.

We combine a stick and a rock

To create... a stick and a rock.

Then Adam hammers the stick into the crack.

And now the stick is stuck! And that's all we can do with that for now.

Hey, Dorothy moved, that usually means we have to talk to her.

I love the amount of times people look disgusted at the prospect of talking to Adam.

"Young man my pockets are empty the same way yours are."

"I just..."

"But I saw Yukiko running by with some wire in her hand."

"That might work, thanks."

"You're welcome."

Aww :unsmith:

You're one of like, three characters I don't hate, Dorothy.

"I fell asleep so early yesterday, and someone put me in a bed."

"Yeah, that's how it works here."

"I don't understand..."

"The third ring hypnotizes us and they put us in our beds."

"Who are they?"

"For goodness sake, nobody knows that!"

So far our theories are:

-Izmael thinks God put them here.
-Hermann thinks the ocean put them here and nothing spooky is going on despite people disappearing and poo poo.
-Maria thinks Adam put them here
-Boris thinks the Bourgeois put them here, probably.

Brainpower isn't at a premium right now.

"You expect me to believe that?"

gently caress you, Adam. If she or anyone else knew what was going on this would be a much shorter game.

"Investigate yourself my dear. And don't make that face."

"It seems like the salt water help your legs?"

...uh?

"You're right, they get sore sometimes."

"You seem a bit sad today."

"Just thinking about what my boys are doing at home. I miss them a lot..."

"I can imagine."

"I'm here alone and they're all alone without me..."

"I didn't mean to upset you."

...

You may remember Adam and Izmael talking about "burnt fetches". This is what they were talking about. You can have Adam investigate...

...And he bestows this on you. He also walks in front of Yukiko so you can't click on her without moving Adam first.

Yukiko seems to get angrier as the game goes on. I don't blame her.

"Look at my hands."

We have established so many times that she can hear you, you condescending rear end in a top hat. She's mute, not stupid.

And no, she's not just reading lips. She's reacted to hearing Adam talk without her looking at him. She can hear.

I have no idea what that facial expression is. It's hard to see but she IS holding a metal piece

"Thanks, and where did you find it?"

Yukiko points off to the left, which could be anywhere really.

Look, there's no time for looking at it, we can FINALLY get into the belltower.

All kinds of screen transitions later, we're finally here! Let's get this poo poo open!

I honestly won't even complain about Adam picking a padlock with a piece of wire, as long as it works.

"There... It should open now."

We're finally going to get some answers, guys. Let's see what's...

adam

"I can't move it by myself."

Oh my god Adam.

Despite what he says, the answer is to use a stick on the door.

We're this close, and the game knows it, so it's pulling the biggest dick move yet. Using the stick didn't work, so naturally the answer is

To use a stick on the door again.

If you're a sane person, you'd think "this side" meant this side of the door, as in it's blocked from the inside, but nope. gently caress you, Adam.

YOU HAVE DONE NOTHING TO WARRANT A THUMBS UP YOU WASTE OF CARBON GET IN THE GOD drat BELL TOWER.

NO IT COULDN'T

...

...

...the bell tower's empty.

It got worse.

Adam stuffs an entire box of cookies into his mouth out of sheer disappointment.

You can examine the rock on the string there, but Adam just says

"It's too high."

and you can't do anything with it.

There's also a shrub here.

"What's happening here? The bush is completely dry, I could set it on fire, but what should I use?"

WHY?

"Mhmm Boris was gathering some leaves yesterday, maybe he hid them somewhere."

Look at that thousand yard stare. That is a man in the midst of an intestinal cataclysm.

"Yes I do, and I've hidden it too! I've got some dry grass hidden in a good spot."

"Can I have some?"

"Look at you, a capitalist, take it easy, Quid pro quo."

"And what would you..."

"You call it free market, don't you?"

"Yes, what do you need?"

"Bring me some leafs from the northern cliff. They'll be nice and hot for smoking."

"And how do I get there?"

"The best you can."

I generally hate the writing in this, but I actually do like that line

Maria is hanging out with Dorothy, while Dorothy is smacking the floor with her shoe. Alright.

"What are you doing?"

"Beetles crawl in here when it rains and I hate them."

"They need to live too."

REMEMBER THIS LINE.

"I hate these creeps. Our house was full of them when I was a kid."

"I see..."

"God forgive me but I can't live with them."

Let's switch it up and talk to Maria.

"So now you know it's not a joke?"

"Look let's leave it at that. Look, you play it quite well, but I'm really curious for how long will you be playing."

"We're not playing..."

"Yeah, I'm completely yellow-bellied."

I don't know what that means, but we actually can't progress from here. I might seem hard on the bullshit you need to do to trip certain flags, but...

We can't do anything until we actually LOOK at the leaves Boris mentioned.

"It will be difficult to get there."

Now that we've gotten that phenominal line, we can continue!

This is what passes for an idea in the nightmare that is Adam's mind.

"Are you a transvestite or what?"

Classy.

"Ha ha, I need them for something else."

"You can take them, they are in the jacket in cabin No. 4."

"Thanks, I..."

"Well if the nutter lets you in."

"What nutter?"

"The beaver, he's a good-looker."

"I see..."

She means Izmael, and no he isn't.

Like she said, Izmael is blocking her door. Let's see what his problem is.

"Have you seen the fallen woman who lives here?"

"You mean Maria?"

"Oh my God, she has the name of the supreme saint!"

Dude you just took the lord's name in vain while in purgatory. That's not going to help your case.

"I just need to get to her jacket..."

"No I have to purify this profane place."

"Come on, don't be silly..."

"You're all reprobates!"

Title drop! Kinda, this game is called Reprobates as well. I dunno.

"You must be crazy..."

"Get lost you wretched person!"

Well Izmael won't let us in, so we'll have to convince him.

First we'll use a stick...

On Izmael...

And loving MURDER HIM.

You might think I'm joking, but I'll spoil it. We never interact with Izmael again. Adam seriously just murdered a dude to get a pair of stockings.

This is the guy who poo poo on Dorothy for killing beetles.

gently caress you, Adam.

THERE WERE MANY OTHER OPTIONS YOU MANIAC.

Let's just get the drat stockings and leave.

By the way, if we click on Maria's cookies or water...

You're the WORST, Adam.

In any case, we... god loving dammit.

Do I even need to say anything about this puzzle. What the hell are those stockings MADE of?

We've got the drat leaves, so let's head back to Boris to get the grass so we can light the bush on fire to... I don't know. Adam's a pyromaniac as well as a murderer I guess.

What do you think it is, Adam.

"Where did Boris disappear? I have to find him."

Just as a bonus middle finger, they move Boris.

Just checking on Izmael as we go by. Still dead.

Boris is in Cabin 9, although nothing tells you this. You just have to check every cabin.

"Do you think you could withstand such a stink?"

I just want to stop talking about this man's bodily functions :saddowns:

that's all I want.

"I'm sure I couldn't."

"You see, my stink doesn't bother me that much. but who can say what's too much...?"

"You're right."

"You're a moma's boy."

"Here are your leaves."

"Smart molodyec, they smell nice..."

"Will you give me the grass?"

Just to be clear, his "good spot" for hiding was his pocket.

"Thank you."

"Thank you too."

Maria is looking forlornly up the cliff. There's nothing up there except your stockings on a stick. Don't ask.

"Do you want to have a look up there?"

"Maybe later, it's slippery and in these shoes..."

"I will take you out there!"

"Look you broad-shouldered man, don't boast, we'll both fall to our mouth."

Adam can't push a rock, but he can suspend himself from a pair of stockings one handed. I don't even know anymore. Maybe his bones are full of helium?

Although I do like that Maria is making GBS threads on him for being a weakling :v:

"I just wanted to help..."

Sarcastic thumbs up! You're slowly becoming alright, Maria.

Alright let's light this poo poo up, finally.

This time the game sees fit to fade out and back in, instead of forcing us to watch it burn. We also don't need to add a stick.

A loose stone? Maybe there's something under it?

Of course Adam can't just pick it up. Let's try using a stick to jimmy it out. God forbid we ever have a puzzle where we don't need a rock or a stick.

"They don't fit."

Of course they don't. And guess what! THE BELL TOWER IS RINGING. WE'VE COMPLETED THE CHAPTER.

I didn't grab a picture because honestly I got up and walked away from the computer when I heard the bell ring, but if you go outside, you can see Izmael behind the tower praying, but Adam doesn't acknowledge him, and there's no ground where he's standing, so he has to be floating. :confused:

A ghost? Can you even die in purgatory?

We get treated to another black screen with static, and once again wake up in our room with our inventory missing.

Or... wait, this looks new.

This... Looks... What?

WHAT?!

UPDATE 2 - STATS :siren:

PEOPLE MURDERED BY ADAM RAICHL:

Izmael

BELLTOWER STATUS:

Disappointing

THINGS ACCOMPLISHED THIS UPDATE:

-Unlocked the bell tower
-Killed a religious guy
-Set bell tower on fire

# ¿ Aug 14, 2015 01:17

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

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

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

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

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

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

Danaru: Jun 5, 2012; 何 ??

Update 5 - Adam ~~Kills~~ Saves Some People

Alright I'm alive again! Where were we?

Oh, right.

So we're stuck on the tracks, and somehow we managed to turn on the vehicle, take out the keys, and lose them somewhere.

Also the... car door is locked somehow and we can't unlock it from the inside. Maybe GMC just REALLY hosed up this specific kind of car.

Every time we gently caress around, the game shows us another clip of the train hurtling at us. Despite that they still manage to have pretty much no sense of urgency here.

Just to add another layer to this poo poo heap, Adam can't unbuckle his seat belt. I don't know whether it's part of the car being hosed up, or if Adam just doesn't realize that tugging on the seatbelt doesn't actually do anything.

"Piece of garbage! It's stuck... Now I can't possibly have a better reason to panic."

When I first started I planned on making a new portrait for each person per update, but I'm just so drat happy with how terrible each one looks. Adam's :saddowns:

face is just perfect.

Train's still on the way, apparently.

We can completely circumvent this stupid train thing by...

Just yanking our mirror right off the loving car!

Adam puts it in his endless vest because he's a loving idiot and needs you to tell him to use the mirror to signal the train.

This... actually works perfectly. The train stops. The SOUND of the train hurtling at you doesn't, but you can now prat around and listen to Adam whine and moan about what a terrible purchase he made with this shitmobile.

"Thank god! I almost ceased to believe..."

With the train stopped and politely waiting for us to get our poo poo together, we can get around to looting the car!

...I... What?

I mean, he's right, we do need it in a bit, but... :psyduck:

Is he showing self awareness?

"For the first time in my life I regret I can't steal cars."

Nevermind. We need to find these drat keys. Where could they be?

why though

"Dammit! This can't be! Where the hell are they?"

You have the reflexes of a brick wall.

All the fun of actually dropping your poo poo in your car and having to shuffle around for it! Except you get to be an idiot from Prague! This truly IS the future.

There's our keys, and that's what we needed the umbrella for. I assume his line was meant for AFTER this point.

"How can this be? I'm only a couple inches off!"

heh. Right click the umbrella to extend it. I'm skipping this because it's just bullshit busywork. I know the answer Future Games just let me continue the drat game.

Adam starts up his stupid car, and we're rewarded with a cutscene.

Adam is so angry at his current situation that he clips his hand through his windshield in protest.

Also the train got sick of waiting and decided to hit the gas again! Either that or Future Games didn't actually account for you solving the loving puzzle.

GMC should loving sue considering how badly Future Games has portrayed it as a death trap. First Adam crashes the thing into a tanker truck and kills himself, now the car has trapped him on a railroad track.

Adam just manages to scoot out of the way before the train hits him! Better luck next time, train.

Adam decides after that narrow escape that he should drive like a loving nutjob

Slow the gently caress down, you moron! You've already died once!

GOD DAMMIT

gently caress YOU, ADAM

Even the GAME is calling you out, Adam. The game you're supposedly the loving hero of.

God...

Dammit.

SOMEHOW?!

"What the hell..."

Yeah! You're on fire again, idiot! Also you probably just killed a car full of people! Stop murdering people!

I shouldn't have to tell the protagonist of the game I'm playing to stop murdering people.

"Oh god, not this!"

So now we have to escape our burning car. Again, GMC, consider a lawsuit.

"Adam can't reach because why not."

We can yank off the windshield wiper though. If we try to use it to get the fire extinguisher...

"It's too slippery..."

Instead, we have to think to use the windshield wiper on the seatbelt connector, which doesn't work of course, but it DOES break the wiper.

"It didn't last long. I don't know what I expected..."

The game even calls you stupid for doing the illogical thing it forces you to do.

"I hope it's OK. Seems a bit too light..."

The screen cuts to black because actually animating Adam hosing down the fire would be too expensive.

"Well that wasn't much... The rest must have vaporized somehow."

Well, our car is slightly less on fire, that's something at least. Our next step is to smash the seatbelt link so we can get the gently caress out.

NextLife.jpg

Oh gently caress me. :cripes:

so here's how this nightmare works. You need to click whenever the reticle gets into one of the sections. Once you've got a section down, you need to stack that section until you hit the middle.

The reticle spins faster the closer it gets to the center. In the center it's basically just down to luck.

You have to do this three times before the yellow bar at the bottom empties. When it's empty, the car catches on fire and you have to start over.

fun

Pretty much how I feel about it too

"I hate pain... it's worse than I thought..."

So here's the gimmick of this chapter. We've got three things we need to deal with. From left to right: Car's on fire, Adam's got a head wound, and Call for help. If we gently caress up and let the timer run out on any of them, we start over from this point.

First thing's first though, let's check on that white car Adam sent careening off the road.

drat, that car must have had a poo poo ton of force behind it.

Woah careful Adam, you almost expressed an emotion there.

He looks sad, but remember he made this same animation when he was mildly annoyed at the bell tower being locked.

"They are unconscious... What will I do now? Forutnately they're still alive, but... This should never have happened."

Considering you're the one responsible, you should feel a little more strongly than that.

Car Man and Car Lady are now on our list of objectives. We also can't do anything with the car or it'll fall into the canal.

Token guilty emotions done with, Adam goes looting through the nearby purse.

"I can't see anything I'd need at this time."

Adam chooses not to rob the two people he nearly killed not out of decency, but because the poo poo they're carrying around is lame.

If you look closely, this is where Adam's car rolled over in the cutscene. Somehow it teleported like, fifty feet away.

You may also remember a blue car turned in here. Hey maybe he can help!

"Hey! Mister!"

"What?"

"I need your help! Quick!"

"Oh... That makes two of us. Can't you see I've just had a car crash?"

"You too? And... Are you OK?"

"Doing great, thank you. The car I can write off, but other than that I feel terrific!"

It looks like it's supposed to be sarcastic, but the voice actor says it 100% sincerely.

"How did it happen? I didn't see you at all, just... those two that crashed into each other."

Adam you lying piece of poo poo.

"I was driving right behind that other car you saw, but when this idiot showed up I took a sharp turn, skidded and ended up here. That's the whole story..."

"Oh I see... And can you help me? There's people there... And I don't know what to do."

"Look... I may be a bit foggy, but don't try to make a fool of me. It was you, that rear end in a top hat, wasn't it?"

Adam he's IN THE PROCESS of calling you out, you can't just keep lying.

"Just passing by, right? Now that's interesting. So where's that blood on your head from, eh? Will you stop pulling my leg!? I'll beat your brains out, you--"

Well poo poo that escalated quickly :stare:

Aaaand now he's dead. Huh?

"Jesus, man! Are you all right? Wake up! I don't get it... What just happened?"

This dude gets added to our objective list too. It's hard to tell, but he got electrocuted because there's a live wire in the puddle. Adam refuses to enter the puddle, not because it's electrified, but because he doesn't want to get his shoes muddy.

Also we got a brick.

Next to that site is a trailer. Adam yells at it for a while which results in nothing.

"Locked. I don't know what I expected..."

And boot.

"Half the pair."

Cool.

We can take this board and move it under the window so we can peer in.

We... just got here, so it's pretty fair that we just tried it.

Then Adam hurls a brick through the window. Considering how this day's been going he probably just nailed someone in the nards.

Hey don't poo poo on people who live in trailers, Adam. :argh:

"Let's see, somebody's taking a nap! Hmm, I don't like this... He's in a coma. That terrible stench makes me feel dizzy. There must be a gas leak in here or something?!"

Two more objectives, Turn off the gas and Make the security guard not die. This is getting dumb.

It's tough to see from here but there's a gas stove right by the window Adam crawled through.

Well this is simple enough, just turn this off and--

Or loving Samson here can rip off the drat knob. Great work.

We can fix this fairly easily though, we snag the knife by the bread there.

I was going to make an Undertale joke here, but honestly, this is the exact opposite. I can't bring myself to do a genocide run in Undertale, and I would NEVER manage to do a pacifist run of this.

We can use the knife to pry open the cabinet and close the valve here. Frankly, as long as we moved buddy out, this place burning down is probably the only way it'll ever be clean. :gonk:

"Great. Let's hope it's not too late."

The gas is off, but the trailer is still full of the stuff. Bizarrely, the objective they considered completed was saving the guard, but turning off the gas is still on the to do list. Nice programming, idiots.

All we need to do is grab the guard's keys from the door and open it up. This creates a draft and blows the gas out.

"A draft! Nice!"

You might be thinking "Hey they actually took that into consideration!" Your faith in Future Games will go back to zero before this update ends.

Also Boot 2: Boot Harder

"One dirtier than the other."

Good.

As payment for saving his life, we steal some handkerchiefs out of his coat.

More importantly, with both boots we can cross the water here! We're getting dangerously close to failing that objective. Considering his heart's been stopped for like six minutes now, I'm not optimistic.

We get treated with a cutscene for all our hard work. A cutscene of Adam's feet bumbling through the mud.

Then he gets stuck.

Adventure Games. :sigh:

"I'd really like to know how I would get back now."

I want to reiterate about how often I cut out Adam just yelling to himself about random bullshit. Half the time it's repeated sound files too. I don't know who his voice actor is, but good lord man.

WOAH poo poo OUR CROSSING HAS ANGERED THE GOD OF BARREL FIRES REPENT ADAM REPENT

Oh, false alarm.

Turns out Next Life REALLY hates it when you alt tab ~~to change episodes of better LPs on the other monitor~~ and everything in the game stops except for particle simulation. I guess. It's my best theory :psyduck:

Oh gently caress off.

So here's how this works. Left click makes your cursor move clockwise, right click makes it move counter. Block the electricity while allowing the... blood...? through.

If he dies, his vitals just unceremoniously jump up to 25 again without even a fadeout. gently caress it.

Once you're done the world's shittiest CPR simulator, we continue our tradition of Save a life, Steal some stuff.

In this guy's car we find a jack, a tow rope, and some electrical tape. We should be able to use the tow rope to stabilize the white car.

Over here we find the door to this... warehouse I guess.

"Great. What a change. It's locked again."

Man if only we had the keys belonging to the security guard of this site.

Inside the warehouse is a fire extinguisher and a pair of pliers. Hopefully these guys actually keep their fire extinguishers properly maintained.

"The pliers will come in handy, the rest is no use to me."

This OSHA nightmare appears to be what's responsible for the electrical hell-puddle. Let's check it out.

"A nail instead of a fuse! Who cares about safety these days..."

Two people are currently bleeding out in a ditch because you rammed their car off the road, don't be a smug rear end. :argh:

We've got a metal set of pliers, but we also want to survive this, so let's wrap them in the insulating tape.

"Too bad there wasn't more of that insulating tape. I could be more sure."

Just tape yourself up like a mummy, then you'll be immune to electricity.

With that done, let's yank out that nail fuse, then we can--

Or just cut the entire cable. That works too I suppose. Honestly gently caress it, right now Adam Raichl is the most competent person, in that he's the only one still standing. Better safe than dealing with that stupid CPR minigame again.

With the electricity gone, we can pop this board over the water. This works perfectly, contradicting Adam's claim that it didn't.

That's two folks saved, and we're free of electro-zone. Our car's getting a little more burn-ey than we'd like, let's go fix that.

Turns out having an actually full fire extinguisher is a good thing! Who knew?

"It's going to last a little while. I'll get hold of somebody in the meantime."

You know, Adam had a cell phone in the intro. I just feel like pointing that out.

Our "Adam's all hosed up" objective is getting dangerous, let's take care of that. Turns out there's a first aid kit in the cabinet above the sink! Whoops!

"I didn't even hope to find something, but this is a real treasure."

Next thing we need to do is right click the packet of hankies so he pulls one out, then use it on the sink to wet it. We can use the wet handkerchief on Adam and he'll clean up the wound. I'm skipping the 13 lines of dialogue he says regarding his various states of handkerchief ownership.

"I cleaned the wound as much as I could, but it's still bleeding."

Now we can use the first aid kit to patch Adam up.

Look at yourself and really think about what you've done today, Adam.

"It will be fine. The worst part is already behind me."

Behind us is a flashlight!

"The batteries are gone, but I should be able to get hold of a spare set."

This is what counts as a puzzle for Future Games, apparently. There's a difference between an actual puzzle and just wasting my time :argh:

At least it's not much time wasted. The batteries are just in the radio three steps over.

"Batteries! I've been looking for them all this time!"

Well that was stupid. In any case, let's go save those folks in the white car. The first thing we do is tie the tow rope to the broken perspective chunk of the guard rail. Seriously, look at that thing, the second it goes behind the pole, the perspective just goes bonkers.

"It's no marine knot but it should be able to take some heat."

We hook up the other side of the tow rope to the bumper of the car. With that done, the car is stable, and we can loot the place with impunity.

And like, save folks I guess.

We also use the knife to slash up the purse, because it makes Adam look even more like a maniac when we do stuff out of order :v:

We now have the purse handle. Sweet. Let's actually work on saving these people now.

The door is stuck due to the crash, but we just have to use the pliers again. Pliers = Jaws of Life in Future Games world apparently.

"Oh no..."

Well the lady's objective just lost a ton of time since Adam decided to just let her flop out of the car and hang out for a bit. Also why the gently caress is he waving at her?! Stop being an idiot and save her!

"For god's sake! She's suffocating!"

NO poo poo. DO SOMETHING.

Clicking her gets her out of the vehicle and onto the ground. This won't be AS egregiously terrible as the 'first aid' we gave on the idiot who got zapped, but it's not going to be good.

"Where did that blood come from? What the hell is going on?!"

So her leg is bleeding as well apparently. I love that Adam is still going on about "HOW DID THIS HAPPEN?!" like he isn't the one who caused this.

"Her tongue fell into her throat and I can't seem to get a good grip on it, it's slipping."

To credit Adam, at least he's not pulling some squeamish "I NEED TONGS TO GET HER TONGUE OUT BECAUSE COOTIES". He is being a butterfingers at the worst possible time though. We need to grab the second handkerchief we stole from the security guard.

"This was the last one."

Adam's voice actor delivers this line with James Earl Jones-esque gravitas, and I'm not really sure why. Adam takes his handkerchief's super seriously.

After a bit of whining and a bit of actually getting his poo poo together, Adam pulls the lady's tongue out of her throat so she can get some sweet, sweet oxygen.

"The tongue is out. Let's hope it stays that way."

Next up is to stop the bleeding. We've already got a first aid kit, but she's bleeding too much for Adam's dumb rear end to handle.

"I can't just stand here and watch her bleeding!"

What we need to do is use the purse strap as a tourniquet to slow the bleeding down. Please please never try to tourniquet someone unless they're moments away from bleeding out this is very bad to do in most situations.

Adam either knows his poo poo a bit or fucks up the makeshift tourniquet, since it only slows the bleeding temporarily, but it slows down the bleeding enough to patch her up.

"I'll try. The bleeding is much weaker."

"I did all I could."

And with that, the lady is safe! Now to move on to the driver.

drat, Adam's showing some guts. Let's make with the heroics!

"He's stuck in there real bad. I certainly won't be able to get him out."

But we CAN move him back to stop the eternal god drat horn honking that has been playing any time we get near this section of the map.

Adam yanks a card from the driver and stuffs it in his inventory.

"Strange. I've never seen anything like this before."

Adam sticks the card into his bottomless vest without looking at it, so we have to make him get it back out and actually read the drat thing.

"It says... The owner of this card is a patient with a cardiovascular disease. In case of a sudden heart attack administer medication according."

There's a hard period here both in the subtitles and the voice acting.

"To the other side of this card."

Adam... pulls the card out of his pocket to look at the other side. How did he read all that without pulling it out :psyduck:

"Nitromack."

No! gently caress you, Adam! You caused this! He didn't have a heart attack and hit you!

YOU flew out in front of him while driving like an idiot! YOU smashed him off the road! This is YOUR fault! YOURS! YOU CAN'T ESCAPE JUDGEMENT FOREVER RAICHL I WON'T ALLOW IT

"He doesn't have his medication with him, but I can't imagine he would be traveling without it. It just has to be here somewhere."

Like we need an excuse to check out that lady's purse again.

"I just found an empty heart medication packet."

:sigh:

"Where is the rest? I'll need to search the surroundings."

If anything were to fall anywhere, it'd likely wind up in the canal, but as we established, Adam doesn't want to get wet. I guess going swimming with a likely concussion isn't a good idea, but... ugh.

In any case, we have to wander down to the other side of the map again.

I've only seen this kind of mechanism before in a cold war era radar base turned into a cement factory then abandoned. Is this something that they just leave on the side of the road without even a gate in the Czech Republic? It seems like leaving open control of your canals to dumb shits like Adam is a recipe for disaster.

"No use... It's all rusty."

We use the jack we stole from that electrocuted guy. This puzzle doesn't deserve any build up.

Alright that opens up the other canal, now we can close the other one and stop the water flow.

"Not bad for an amateur, was it?"

A man is dying.

Why was that in first person, you're not a basin, Adam.

Back over to Crash Zone, we can slide down into the canal and look for any hopefully water-tight heard medicine.

The only thing of note down here is a grate at the end. Good thing we picked up that flashlight!

"There's something there... Maybe a packet of pills of some sort. It's stuck in the grating. I'll need both my hands to get to it."

We can just set down the flashlight, thankfully. No sidequest to tape the flashlight to Adam's stupid head or anything.

There it is! Unfortunately Adam can't reach it, and bafflingly enough, the windshield wiper has disappeared from our inventory. At this point I totally forgot what to do next and ended up wandering around a bit.

Out of frustration, I stole a hubcap from their car. They won't need it anymore.

Adam's descent into a life of crime was easier than he thought once he realized he was already a thief and a murderer anyway.

As it turns out, when your inventory is big enough to scroll, and you scroll it to the right, it'll never automatically scroll back to the left once you have blank spots in your inventory.

So, you know. Cool.

"I knew it would come in handy again. Got it."

Our flashlight suddenly becomes sentient and leaps off the step, freeing it from this terrible game. We never need it again, so whatever.

We had to do a stupid puzzle where we use the knife to get the pill powder but I'm not giving it the dignity of being shown. These are NOT puzzles, this is busy work. There's a difference, Future Games.

We did it! The driver is safe and his objective is cleared!

Then we suddenly fail the Call for Help objective. Wait what?!

Apparently this guy just drives past a smoking overturned vehicle and says "lol owned" because he doesn't do a drat thing.

I'm going to post these next four images just the way they are, so you can appreciate what a mess Adam's brain is.

Aaand that's all you get. There's no more timers or anything, you're just... here now.

What you want to do is grab this broken piece of reflective glass, which suddenly unbreaks when you pick it up. You can also try to pull off an unbroken one from the barrier, but Adam complains that he can't. That's what he meant about the comment with his bare hands apparently.

Fortunately we still have pliers. I don't... whatever.

"I hope it was not merely a waste of time."

At this point we here the sound of an oncoming vehicle. Interestingly you can also clearly hear the vehicle pass by and drive off into the distance before Adam finishes talking. Might have picked a different time for that effect, guys.

"Somebody's coming... I may not have another chance, they must stop!"

Adam why the gently caress would you move behind the curve, no one can see you there.

"...Or did I? Why do I have this sudden sensation that I forgot something?"

SOMEHOW the driver fails to notice Adam in time, and sends Adam flying back in time to before he made that specific terrible decision!

Apparently we're supposed to gather from this that the car couldn't stop because of the leaked oil on the road. This problem could also be solved by standing AHEAD of it where the driver will actually see him.

What the game WANTS us to do is come back over here, get some sand, and put it on the oil slick.

But we can't just pour sand in our pockets for once, we need something to carry it in.

Some kind of object that will carry sand a long distance to the oil slick.

The answer is pretty obvious, of course.

We'll use the hubcap! OF COURSE!

God forbid it never occurs to you to STEAL THE HUBCAP OFF A DYING PERSON'S CAR.

THE BUCKET IS RIGHT THERE WHY WOULD THEY EVEN PUT IT THERE THEN EXPECT YOU TO USE A HUBCAP.

Adam even delivers this line sarcastically. They know it's stupid. THEY KNOW.

Alright let's give this another shot.

Adam still insists on waving the reflectors behind the curve because :sigh:

This time the car manages to stop before liquefying him. Yay.

This was my expression for this entire chapter. You know what the worst part is?

This was probably the closest thing to a GOOD chapter in this game.

Then Adam died.

:siren:

UPDATE 5 - STATS :siren:

PEOPLE SAVED BY ADAM RAICHL:

-ONE. ONLY THE SECURITY GUARD COUNTS. THE OTHER PEOPLE ONLY MET DANGER BECAUSE OF ADAM.

VEHICULAR ACCIDENTS CAUSED BY ADAM RAICHL:

-Four if you count when the car nailed him when he forgot to sand the oil.

GOD OF BARREL FIRES STATUS:

Appeased, for now.

Danaru fucked around with this message at 20:00 on Nov 25, 2015

# ¿ Nov 25, 2015 18:01

Danaru: Jun 5, 2012; 何 ??

Glaive17 posted:

Couple of broken links here.

Whoops, got 'em fixed

# ¿ Nov 25, 2015 20:00

Danaru: Jun 5, 2012; 何 ??

Update 6 - 130 Seconds

Well that was loving pointless.

If you'll remember, last time we were awake we found a document under a rock in the empty bell tower that was in portugese, and gave it to Maria to translate. We ended up falling asleep before finding out what it said.

Oh and there she is! Let's finally get some answers.

I hate this game so much I HATE THIS GAME

"And did you read it at all?"

"Yeah, some salesmen declared this island a property of the Portugese Crown."

"Anything else?"

"They allegedly wrecked here after five weeks of quiet sail 1418."

"Here you see..."

"They say they left a plan of the streams that make it possible to get into the next island in the cave."

"In which cave?"

"How the hell should I know?"

Well you were the only person here who read the document, also what the gently caress are you talking about?!

Adam unceremoniously ends the conversation there, but we can talk to Maria a bit more.

"Wasn't the document too preserved given it's age?"

"Don't ask me, I'm just a hooker."

What a rivetting conversation.

"Come on, you're not that stupid."

"I'm really sorry, I had no idea that everything gets lost here. And I had a nasty dream."

"But I thank you anyway, I wouldn't know anything without you."

"You are not angry with me?"

"Of course not."

You know, everyone plays up how awful the dreams are, but Adam's have just been kinda stupid.

Let's continue our daily routine of walking around and annoying everyone.

"You fool, you also believe in those gossips?"

I... I mean, it's happened, repeatedly. It's not really gossip at that point.

"There might be something about it."

I mean unless you can tell me where Boris is, or Izma... actually nevermind.

"I had bad dreams for two nights."

"Here you are."

"But that has no relation with that, that's clear."

"I may have some."

"I'll let Maria know tonight that I'm also interested."

"I'll keep my fingers crossed for you."

"And please shut up and don't tell her anything, all right?"

...I never have any idea what the hell anyone is talking about, like ever. :sigh:

Is it like, one of those things where it's all translated literally, and Czech grammar just doesn't jive with English grammar?

Fortunately on this one screen we can fill up on grass, sticks, and stones all at once. You'd almost think this was pointless busy work.

Edwin's hanging out over here, and hey! A new person! And it's a lady too, so we can have more awkward dialogue where Adam clearly can't take a hint!

Edwin you're one of the few people in this game I don't hate, talk to me buddy.

"Man, it's the same old thing. I'll probably try swimming."

"It's warm, but the water..."

"I'm used to it."

I honestly don't think Adam knows what a yacht is. He seems baffled every time Edwin mentions he likes the ocean.

"Did you find out something about the bell, yesterday?"

"No, you're right. It's a mystery."

To be fair to Edwin, the bell rang pretty soon after he started poking around.

New person time! As a side note, Yukiko becomes unclickable for this entire chapter. Adam refuses to even acknowledge her anymore.

Good-rear end conversation.

"From Prague."

"I come from Brno and my name is Eva."

Would anyone believe me if I told you she's Adam's love interest? :cripes:

I'm so sorry Eva.

"Come on, a compatriot, we're like Adam and Eve in paradise."

GET IT?!?! GET IT?!?!

"Slow down..."

"Sorry that was a joke."

The only joke here is the writing.

Even Eva wants no part of this. She's only just showed up and I already identify way more with her than our protagonist.

"You look quite calm."

"But I don't understand a thing! The girl doesn't understand me either."

Mute, Adam. Mute would be a better word.

"Mhhhm, and where are we for God's sake?"

"I'm not sure myself and I'm afraid you won't understand it."

Somehow Adam manages to admit he has no idea but still talk down to Eva. Honestly a little impressive.

"Sure, a stupid girl won't understand, you disgusting male chauvinist."

"Did I really say it like that?"

"Don't worry, I'll ask someone else."

"What is the last thing you remember before you woke up here?"

"Well it's, like a scene from a scary movie."

"What happened?"

"I was caught in the park by some awful men."

"What happened?"

Adam, let her talk. You don't need to interject every time.

Well, that's hosed up.

"Could they have been organ thieves?"

IN WHAT UNIVERSE IS THAT AN OKAY THING TO SAY

"What did you say?"

"Nothing, just nothing..."

"Mhhhm."

Well that went about as horribly as it possibly could. You have the charisma of a blood clot, Adam.

Hey, let's go bug Dorothy. She might not hate us yet.

"Horrible heat!"

"Why don't you just go up there for a walk?"

"I see what you people think that I will do whatever you tell me to do."

...what

"But..."

Dorothy are you okay

"I didn't mean it like that! You're too touchy."

"I'm sorry, it's Danica's that made me feel so bad."

Adam has... no response to that. I'm imagining him suddenly turning around and walking away.

Over here we see a second new person, let's go give them the ol' Adam charm.

Oh this guy's gonna be a real treat.

"Good day, I'm Adam."

"I don't wanna talk to you."

So this guy's name is Simon. I'm pretty sure the devs realized Adam was unlikeable, so rather than change him, they added an even BIGGER rear end in a top hat to compensate.

"You must be new here, and you don't know what is happening."

"But this fun is not my cup of tea."

"I'm afraid..."

"Was that brainless Paterson who organized this?"

Oh that Paterson, always kidnapping people and putting them on an island in the middle of nowhere, that card!

"But..."

"I've got important court hearing tomorrow, and this could be qualified."

Hard period, as usual.

"Just..."

"as kidnapping, you poor creature."

"Look..."

"I'll sue you and you can be sure your money will not be enough!"

"I see, it makes no sense."

"But don't you worry, I'll show you what my price is."

From this point on, Simon is 100% devoted to trying to gently caress over Adam, even when it serves no purpose and ESPECIALLY if it will result in Adam dying. I certainly have zero love for lawyers, but I'm pretty sure even they don't like to murder the people they plan on suing.

Once again we're without direction, so we have to assume we need to break into the bell tower again. Sure we already looted it and it's empty, but the game still expects us to check it out.

The door isn't actually locked, we just need to pry it open again with a stick.

The door swings open!

Then... slams shut again. Okay.

Instead, we need to use a combined stick and rock to... uhh...

...I have no idea, honestly.

So it's hard to tell, but the beam the rock is tied to was attached to the door. Apparently by some miracle, it broke off, and let Adam in. Nothing different was done, it just decided to break when we opened it this time because otherwise the game couldn't continue.

Don't even try to say that he knocked it loose with the stick/rock either. You can just barely make out that it's gone before he does that :colbert:

We can move the rock closer to the door so we can get out, but now what? What the game doesn't tell you is you absolutely NEED that rope. Fortunately it just... kinda untied itself from the boulder, but it's still tied to the beam. Adam has tiny, lovely hands and can't possibly untie a knot, so what can we do?

Of loving course.

"The fire is going out."

This is your cue to add a stick to the fire within a couple seconds or you waste your arid grass.

The alt-tab particle glitch works outside of our dreams too. :unsmith:

Why did the bell tower have a door that needed a counterweight when it's empty of any workings? We established the bell sound is a speaker. There's no reason to come in here, or keep anyone out for that matter.

We clearly aren't the first people in here, and whatever forces are at work can clearly tell we're breaking in repeatedly. Why bother even locking it?

And from a game design standpoint, WHY IN THE NAME OF GOD

WOULD YOU MAKE A PUZZLE

WHERE YOU HAVE TO LIGHT A FIRE AND WAIT A HUNDRED AND THIRTY SECONDS.

I TIMED IT. TWO MINUTES TEN SECONDS.

ALSO IF YOU DON'T PUT A SECOND STICK ON, THE FIRE GOES OUT AT THE 70 SECOND MARK AND DOESN'T LET YOU TAKE THE ROPE.

The first time I played this, I gave it a REALLY generous shot. I played through everything else, but this exact moment is where I stopped. I have no idea how I managed to get through this poo poo without a guide the first time.

There, we got the rope. Now we can...

...good.

Getting the rope caused Hermann to take off his shirt and hide in the bushes. I'm so sad I had to type that.

"A trap for birds. I'm a hunter you know."

I feel like Hermann could be a real interesting dude if he seemed less like a sex criminal.

"And what do you put in it?"

"Don't know yet, but a fish would be great."

"And how do you catch it?"

"I'll think about that later."

How do you manage to look both flabby and polygonal at the same time

"Why aren't you with the girls?"

"Don't wanna be in that hen party, I'm waiting for Maria to be alone. And why do you care at all?"

"I don't care..."

"Maria will not run away, that's clear."

I Do Not Like Hermann.

Oh good. Speaking of bad people.

"Are you looking for something?"

"You fool, you still don't get it in your stupid bone, do you?"

"Wait..."

"The amount that I'll win upon you is getting higher with each second..."

"But I..."

"And I'm sure you know I'm an excellent lawyer."

"Jesus Christ..."

"Well excellent, I'm one of the best ones."

While I was running through, I found this odd little thing.

I'm... pretty sure this never comes up. Not even in later chapters.

What

Oh christ, this is going to get really stupid soon.

Hey it's Eva, let's get her more pissed off at us.

"It's hot out here, why don't you take your clothes off like Maria?"

"Come on stop it! Why don't you take your clothes off?"

"I need my pockets"

This would almost be a funny joke but I'm pretty sure Adam is 100% serious.

"Why what are you carrying in them?"

"I'm collecting peanuts"

...What?

"Mhmm, I don't have a bra on."

"I don't see a problem with that..."

"You know what?"

"What?"

"Choose another victim. I don't wanna talk about this."

Congratulations, Adam. You're getting close to Hermann territory.

"Would you help me with something?"

"What do you need?"

"There is a big cowboy sitting up there on the cliff, and I need to lure him away somehow..."

Wait what? Since when? Why do we need to lure him away?

"Adam, what are you trying to say, who do you think you are?"

Have you managed to talk to this woman a SINGLE TIME without offending her, Adam?

"Sorry, but I didn't mean it like that at all..."

"Sure, but not completely differently, I see. Well you are an arrogant fool."

"Sorry, forget about it..."

"Leave me alone! You've really insulted me."

"Come on, I apologized!"

Suddenly Maria hurtles on screen like she was fired out of a cannon. Adam IMMEDIATELY forgets about Eva.

"Maria please help me, at least you."

"Look, I'm just a comforter."

"I need to lure the new one away, and the reason is too long to explain."

News to me :psyduck:

"You mean Simon? From where?"

This is the first time Simon's been given a name, but I didn't want to call him "Lawyer" or "rear end in a top hat" for most of the update.

"From the cliff up there."

"Well I like every fun, but quid pro quo."

"I'm listening."

"Give these shoes back to Dorothy. I borrowed them from her."

"If it's just that."

"I will walk barefoot, it's so nice today."

This is literally just busywork. There's no puzzle here. The shoes don't even go into our inventory, that's how little they gave a poo poo.

Also hey Hans is here! You feeling alright bud? You're looking, uh, 'sharp'

Well you look a bit less malformed up close, but not by a lot. Shocking that the half naked male models are noticeably lower in quality than the women.

"I would be ashamed, Adam. Well Edwin, he's got a wonderful body, but where did he get his swimming trunks?"

"He was on a yacht before getting here."

"Was he?"

"I think Dorothy likes him too."

"Oh my God, what do you think about me?"

"Have you heard about Danica?"

"Yes, I am very sorry. We cried together with Dorothy."

"What do you think about the new one?"

"Yucky, he's a terrible lout."

"Yucky" is kind of a weak word, but still.

"He simply doesn't feel anything."

Alright enough Gossiping with Hans, let's give Dorothy her shoes back.

"That Edwin is a piece of man"

"You like him?"

"Come on now stop that, goodness. My Winston was no tiny guy either. Even though he isn't that tall, but he's more well-padded."

I swear Dorothy is the only one who manages to have actual characterization that isn't strange, jilted, and frightening.

"Maria sent you these shoes and thanks you."

There's a weird loving perspective thing here, I don't know if it's just me but Adam looks loving enormous :stonk:

And dead eyed as usual, but that's to be expected.

Edwin is on this screen too, let's give him a shout.

I dunno, maybe if he manscaped a bit, I just don't really see the appeal.

"I was just there for a while, but I've seen something."

"Tell me."

"Under the white cliff, where the dry tree is..."

"What did you find?"

"It seems there's a cave."

"And did you go inside?"

"No man, I couldn't. The water currect was too strong."

Edwin pauses here for a second, and surprisingly he was meant to.

"Did you want to tell me something else?"

"Maria told me about the document."

"So what?"

"It can't be the cave, they wouldn't get inside."

"And what about the other ones?"

"Five weeks away from Portugal it isn't good for anything now."

"Why?"

"It depends on the weather, it could be anywhere in the Atlantic."

"Well at least it's something."

"But that's nonsense, I wrecked close to Australia"

Adam sours on the conversation and just kinda wanders off.

I'm pretty sure this is supposed to look like Maria is seducing Simon away, but honestly Simon just looks terrified of her.

So here's what we've been trying to do this entire chapter!

We can climb down these vines and tie a rope to this... tree just kinda jutting out of the cliff.

And then we can descend to a cave that was obviously there!

To be specific, we HAD to do it in this order.

-Eva and Maria won't show up on the beach until you have the rope
-Edwin and Dorothy won't show up until you ask Maria to lure away Simon and get the shoes
-Edwin doesn't tell you about the cave until after the game FORCES you to figure out how to get into the cave.

Also if you descend here while Simon's still around, he steals the rope and traps you in the cave. Then it resets you to before you entered. You don't even get a funny death screen.

Inside this cave is a dry spot to make a fire. If you don't immediately put a stick in it, it goes out. Boy THAT gimmick sure isn't old yet.

Our reward is a... broken pike.

"This could be useful later."

...Could it? It's a rusty-rear end spear. I guess we could take care of that Simon problem fairly easy, but other than that...

Once we're back outside, Adam screams about an earth quake that they made no attempt to animate. He's even standing on the flimsiest branch possible and just kinda stands there. Excellent work, guys.

Over at the belltoAdam come the gently caress ON.

"Are you tanning your legs?"

In a shocking bit of consistency, the devs remembered that Hans was a geology nerd and knows a thing or two about earthquakes.

"Why then?"

"He said there could be a big wave coming out of the sea."

This wave never comes. Is it foreshadowing or just a dev oversight? Who can say?

"It happens quite often here and the cabins are still there."

Wait, why are you carrying your shoes instead of wearing them

"While I..."

"Exactly!"

Why not bug Edwin too.

"Hey man, the new guy is an arrogant idiot."

"You mean Simon?"

"I didn't know his name."

"Maria told me."

"If I'd killed him in my dream instead of the Russian guy, I wouldn't lose sleep."

"Well there might still be time."

"Stop that!"

Hans and Hermann are hanging out on the beach. Herman's bird trap looks a lot shittier than I expected.

"She's an awfull woman, they all are."

Oh christ, here we go.

"Wait, it was me who asked Maria to lure Simon away."

"So it was you who asked her to do that?"

Oh no the Dougheyest Avenger is coming to get us! Even if we didn't have a broken pike to go all conquistador on his rear end, I honestly think Adam could take him out.

"Calm down, she took it as a joke."

"That's what I said, they are all cursed.

Well that was fun, have fun in the friend zone, Hermann.

Hermann is real interested in that rock face, let's find out why.

"It looks like a caved in entrance to a cave."

Yeah, just to be clear, that was the wrong cave we examined with the pike. another instance of having to fail to progress. It wouldn't be so bad if Edwin didn't specifically SAY it was the wrong cave.

"You're right..."

"And there are cracks thanks to the earthquake."

"Yeah, we might get into the cave."

"Adam, I think we're too weak to do that. Our tiny hands won't move that."

Adam can't even untie a rope, and yet thinks he can bust open a cave entrance.

Hans meanders off screen, and considering there's only open ocean in that direction, probably didn't go too far.

Now from that conversation we...

...Drive... sticks into...

"Well, it could be worse."

Wait, what the hell is the purpose of this?

What's the end game here? Why are we hammering sticks in the cracks? What will this solve?

Once we hammer in the final stick, the bell tolls. I just want to feel like I've accomplished SOMETHING.

Upon the third bell, we fall asleep as usual. :sigh:

Adam dreams about a volcano erupting, apparently. That's what the guide says. Just kinda looks like a tiny lava bubble to me.

Great.

UPDATE 6 - STATS :siren:

CAVES EXPLORED:

-One tiny lovely one.

PIKE USES:

-None. It was a 100% useless item that we had to get. It's gone now, by the way. We always wake up with empty pockets.

WOMEN HARASSED:

-ALL of them at least once so far. God you are the WORST, Adam.

# ¿ Dec 11, 2015 23:20

Danaru: Jun 5, 2012; 何 ??

Update 7 - Adam! Do Something! :siren:

Well Adam's stupid dream about lava bubbles counts as our nightmare, so we don't have to do a stupid puzzle chapter! Whoo!

It's raining again, which means Adam will spend as much time running around stuffing wet fauna into his vest. Guy probably smells like compost at this point.

Maria's first up on our list of people to annoy. Joke's on you Maria you've got the worst property on the island.

"You're in a really good mood, why?"

"You know, I had a nice dream, the weather is wonderful..."

This line baffled me for a bit because the voice actress clearly wasn't told the line was supposed to be sarcastic.

"Isn't Simon the reason?"

"Look I don't need a nanny, all right?"

"I'm not sure if you're doing the right thing, he's a goon."

...Ehhh, too easy.

"But unlike Hermann he is intelligent you know, he works as a lawyer."

"Lawyers are liars, that's their job :smuggo:

Yes she pats her crotch as she says that. We get it Maria, you're a prostitute. I think. It's hard to tell with this game.

"Do what you think."

"Come on. You don't have to be my gardian angel, I don't need it."

"Today the weather is horrible."

Nice save, Adam.

"So why are you running like that outside?"

"Why do you think..."

"Hey, you like Eva, don't you? She's a very nice and decent girl."

"But it doesn't matter, because she doesn't care about me."

"I wouldn't say that."

"How do you mean it?"

"As I'm saying it."

Maria you are seriously the worst judge of character I have EVER seen.

Stock up. You know the drill.

On the next screen, Eva runs from Adam in an attempt to avoid a long, meandering, accidentally misogynist conversation. I'm giving Adam the benefit of the doubt and assuming he's not bigoted, he's just a loving idiot.

Ah what the hell, let's bug Edwin first.

"Why are you lying about?"

This line's great because the actor says it as if he was interrogating Edwin on why he was being a liar.

Interestingly the credits of the game doesn't include a list of voice actors. I wonder what that's about.

"What else should I do when the weather is like this? Last night was terrible again."

"You don't have to tell me, I didn't even know if it was real!"

"And what was your dream about?"

"I don't want to talk about it."

"Yeah, everyone prefers to keep to themselves."

I'm not super sure why Adam's hiding that he dreamt about lava bubbles. It's not like Edwin could use that information against

Something I want to give credit to, you'll notice that a lot of people's clothes become dirtier as the game progresses, since there are no change of clothes around on the island. Honestly a lot of the art stuff for this game is pretty dang good, it's just too bad everything else about it is such a mess.

"Of course. I believe civilization gets everywhere. Even the natives need medicine sometimes."

"Then maybe we'll see a ship."

"Danica said they hadn't seen any even before she came."

"But how could she know?"

"Unlike us, they passed experiences on to each other."

Seriously though, why WOULDN'T everyone share their information? This isn't Zero Escape where Zero is one of the islanders :confused:

We can bug Yukiko again.

"So keep your fingers crossed for me so that it's not in vain."

...What?

...Adam did you just make a pun. It's way too late for you to be trying to win me over now, rear end in a top hat.

Eva looks like she's in high spirits :unsmith:

She probably thought she evaded Adam when he went into Edwin's cabin. No such luck.

"How did you sleep?"

"The bell is terrible, but I slept well to my surprise."

"Pshaw, it's later afternoon"

"What? That's impossible. I never sleep so long."

"Well it seems you do here."

"Do you have to be so tiresome in the morning?"

"Well everyone sleeps like that here..."

Dang she is REALLY upset about the implication that she overslept.

"Nothing, don't worry about that."

"Do I have something unfastened?"

"Ha ha you're too cocky. Why do you think everybody cares for you?"

drat, Eva :stare:

That was cold.

"Look, you really don't like me, do you?"

Why would she.

"Well I just don't get that girl in the skiing shoes. Here on a tropical island."

"She's new here, and don't run away from the topic. I asked you something."

"You should crawl somewhere or you'll get wet."

"Oh yeah, it's in vain."

Is that a Czech saying I've never heard of? Future Games seems to love to translate their sayings literally and confuse everyone.

Oh man

Okay

So

Y'all ready to see some poo poo?

As Adam begins to read the writing, his voice fades out and a German-accented man's voice fades in.

"What Walter describes is impossible. There are no rodents living here. They must have been exterminated so that they wouldn't attack the sleeping experimental subjects. We only have limited intelligence to rely on."

"It's unreadable."

This chapter is gonna get STUPID

"Rodents, experiments, people who fall asleep? I don't get a single sentence. This message is not complete, I need the whole message."

So we know there's at least five. Adam can't extrapolate that the phrase "Sleeping test subjects" might have something to do with a certain island of people that fall asleep suddenly, so we have to find the rest.

Let's go see what Dorothy thinks, maybe she'll have some ideas.

...

At least Simon's still here. Whoo.

"Do you still think that..."

"Look, this is not funny anymore..."

"So you haven't..."

"So you really think that if you give me a bum hooker from the street..."

AGAIN MARIA, YOU SUCK AT JUDGING CHARACTER.

"Well wait..."

"You can be sure of what?"

"You're just an idiot."

"I'll add that to my notebook as well you idiot."

Seriously, I'd put money on Adam being able to take this guy out. The only way this guy could be more of a douche is if he beat up a child. You've killed for less, Adam. You've literally killed for less.

Hermann is GOD DAMMIT FUTURE GAMES.

"Well if I smell nicely to you stay here."

His pants aren't even down! He's just making GBS threads right in his pants while sitting on the toilet!

"Whoa! You're red, you got sunburned. I told you..."

"Do you want to be smart again?"

"Don't be pissed all the time, I know that Maria..."

At least Boris was likeable when he talked to us on the shitter. I'm glad Hermann isn't bragging about how many people watched him poo poo though.

Shockingly, not only do we not need to assail the bell tower, but we CAN'T! Future Games finally realized an empty bell tower isn't actually a fun set piece.

Instead we want to go back to that rock wall which is suddenly a cave! What?!

Seyser Koze posted:

Actually, one way of breaking large rocks is to hammer wooden wedges into any crevices you can find, then fill them with water. The wood soaks up the water and expands, causing cracks to spread through the rock.

I have no idea if it would work with little wooden dowels like the ones Adam is using, though. And I want that not to be what he's doing because it would mean admitting that the game did something semi-logical.

I've asked everyone I know if they knew about this, and no one did. Maybe you guys just have way more collapsed caves in Europe :confused:

Future Games still thinks that "Use stick on thing" is a puzzle, but I like watching Adam flimsily push something.

We use the stick which... rotates the... rock...

And... clips it through the ground enough that we can get inside. Whatever works.

"Here we are."

The second we enter, a different rock collapses into the entryway. Adam gives it the universal "What the gently caress!" hand gesture in protest.

So this cave is... a thing. There's a bottle over there that we can touch, but we want to try some other stuff first.

On the beam is a hook. You can pry it off with a stick.

Combine the hook with said stick to form HOOKSTICK. Hookstick will come into play later.

Alright let's grab that bottle. The prize we bust open this cave for in the first place. If you look inside, there's a note inside of it.

"It's too slippery, I can't open it."

Simon's cherubic voice flows into the cave from outside.

"Pass the bottle and I'll help you!"

So lets make a short list:

-Why was Simon watching Adam enter the cave
-Why does Simon want the bottle
-How does Simon know there's a bottle
-Why in the name of GOD would we trust the man who would have killed us if we didn't sic Maria on him last update

Unfortunately we HAVE to give him the bottle in order to proceed. :sigh:

OH NO SIMON BETRAYED US WHAT A SHOCK HOW COULD THIS HAVE HAPPENED.

With that done, we can now interact with this pile of rocks up here. Future Games decided to change it up a bit to keep things fresh, so instead of a rock, we need a big rock for this.

We can drop the rock on one of the little pieces of wood holding the boat upright. The rock actually disappears mid drop and the wood piece just kinda crumbles, so it's hard to convey.

"Is anybody in there? I can hear some noise."

Our rock chucking was loud enough for Eva to hear!

"Hey, it's me Adam. I'm stuck in here. Would you help me out?"

"Wait I can see Hand in the distance. I'd jump there, but I won't manage it by myself."

Also you probably shouldn't jump off cliffs, especially for Adam.

Now we can pick up that chain attached to the boat! You saw the chain, right? Obviously!

And now tie it up to this rock.

"Hi Adam I have a small stick but you need to help me from inside. Do you also have a small stick?"

First of all: Rude. Second of all, you can't even use a stick on the rock. You don't even get Adam going "IT WONT WURK DIS WAY", he won't even try it.

"Adam, do something!"

I don't know exactly what flags are involved with getting Hans and Eva to notice you, but if you're too slow, Hans will repeatedly shout this line every ten seconds, making this significantly harder to focus on.

Fortunately we're almost done. We just have to drop another cave rock on this wood thing here, then:

Did it! You might even be able to speedrun this and make it before Hans shows up, I'm not willing to play this game enough to find out.

Also make sure to whack Hookstick against this rope! Why do you need a rope? Ehhh!

Is this

Is this Jesus symbolism

Did the game just symbolize Jesus' resurrection with Adam

Why is Hans clearly meant to look like a Shepherd

Is Hans Jesus

Who's Jesus

It was bad enough with the Adam and Eve bullshit we don't need to drag Big JC into this.

"Thanks a lot Hans, but where is Eva?"

"She was all wet."

Romans 13:4 posted:

And Jesus said upon his flock "Yo did you check the sweet nips on that chick oh gawd drat". The shepherd then began to imitate an airhorn with his mouth.

"She went to her place to get dry."

"Thank you once again."

"Dorothy disappeared."

"I'm sorry to hear that."

I liked Dorothy. She wasn't afraid to sass Adam when he was being a jackass.

"That was tight! I would rather not go back to that cave."

So uh, I'm going to be straight up. This next scene is... confusing. I legitimately have no idea if they used the wrong animation or... I don't know.

I tried multiple times to figure out how to convey this, but frankly, I'm not good enough to put this into words and screenshots.

Without further ado,
:siren:

Ode To Simon. :siren:

In less than two months, it'll officially be two years since I first started the Next Life VLP as my first LP I've ever made. To this day I still have no loving idea what that scene was supposed to be.

Anyway, we neglected to come here earlier, but the "new girl" Adam and Eva were talking about is shacked up in Danica's old hut.

There's a lot to comment on in this picture, so let's take it one at a time.

"That's OK."

"You probably saved my life."

"Dorothy disappeared. Simon is dead."

Well, bad news is usually followed by good news. Or something, I dunno. Haha Simon's dead.

"I know. Aren't you cold?"

"No, this jacket is really warm and it even dried my clothes."

It also cured my stank-leg and paid off my mortgage! This sleeveless, vest-like jacket is amazing!

"What happened here in fact?"

"Ask Michelle here. She saw everything."

Let's talk to the new girl.

"Hi you're the new one here, I'm Adam."

"Are you French?"

"I live in Dijon"

"I come from Prague! Would you tell me what happened here?"

"Simon started to be aggressive and hit Yukiko."

"And then?"

"Edwin couldn't watch it and hit Simon. Simon fell down to the cliffs and that's it."

"Got it."

So just to be clear, Simon was a salty little bitch and decided to BEAT UP A CHILD. As a result, Edwin dunked Simon's rear end so loving hard he died. Somehow people are seeing Edwin as a bad guy for saving a child from a loving maniac.

Why was Edwin not the hero of this story?! What has Adam even DONE this entire time?!

Oh hey more bullshit, thanks Michelle.

"I don't want to become part of this game."

Dude you came in at the closest thing to an interesting part. At least you weren't there for the beach episode where loving nothing happened.

"My name is Dieter Schwarz and I am an archaeologist from Dusseldorf. This island is an experimental laboratory and you, like myself, are a guinea pig. My predecessor Dr. Walter discovered that after the bell rang and we fell asleep, odd creatures came to the island and experimented on us."

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHHH

"We all have micro chips implanted under our skin that makes us sleep. Be careful, because Dr. Walter paid for this information with his life."

"What microchip? How could it get under my skin? If the message is true then.. it's worse than I thought. But I am still missing the connection with the last message. But maybe it's somehow related to the microchip mhmm... I have to find out more."

Enough of that, Edwin! Buddy! High five!

"Are you all right?"

"It was an accident. An unfortunate accident. Man I don't lie, really."

"I believe you."

"He hit her."

:smith:

Edwin's taking it understandably hard. Not everyone is as cool with murder as Adam is.

By the way, you need that rope to tie to this fallen log. What fallen log you might ask?

Now we're down here! What indication did we have that we need to come down here you might ask?

Hey look! Hermann's cap! Yoink!

Our real goal is here far away from the center of focus.

"There is a quiet bay down there. I can see the fish swimming. I could catch a fish there."

So hey! Apparently that's our goal now!

Sure!

But how do we catch the fish? We have no rod, and Adam clearly isn't catching anything with his hand.

HELL YEAH HOOKSTICK!

Adam immediately thrusts the half dead still bleeding fish into his pocket. Now we have a fish!

Now what.

Oh by the way Adam can't climb the wall, and can't clip through it no matter how hard he tries.

Use hookstick again on the wall and he kinda chips away at it. Then you can climb it. This is pointless.

Hey remember when Hermann was talking about putting a fish in his bird trap? Hooray we did that! I dunno let's go tell him we did it. I guess we like Hermann now.

Hermann is comforting Maria, and still managing to be creepy abo--

JESUS

JESUS CHRIST

Alright I guess that didn't happen then?!

"I'll take care of her."

"I don't wanna disturb you."

"Edwin looked a little suspicious to me since the beginning."

"And why for God's sake?"

"He looked like an agent."

"What?"

"Like a spy you fool."

"But..."

"That's too complicated for your head bone."

FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK

"I'm bringing you something here."

"I'll tell you something in return."

"I'm listening."

"Simon had a paper by his side that recommends inserting a micro chip under the bird's skin."

"And where do you have it?"

"I threw it in the sea, it's nonsense."

But wait, Michelle had the note Simon was holding on to, which was the one from the bottle we gave him. How did Hermann get a different note from him :psyduck:

"And would you tell me if I didn't bring you the hat?"

"Maybe yes, maybe not. Don't worry about that."

Alright let's get out of here before he does... that again.

Hans is hanging out on this cliff for no real reason other than making you track him down.

"I think it will fall to the sea soon."

"The roots will hold for some time."

"Oh I almost forgot."

Heyyyy sure why not.

"It might be useful to you."

"Thanks a lot, I will read it."

Buckle up.

"Third Message. Assuming you can extract the micro chip, you can't just throw it away. The creatures that come to the island will think that the experimental subject has died and they will try to find it. Walter theorized that placing the micro chip under the skin of a rodent should work, or at least that's what he says in the message I found buried under..."

"A piece of paper is missing here. Finally I'm getting further but I don't know what to do next. drat, I still don't know anything without the rest of the document."

SHAZAM THEN WE FALL ASLEEP ~~after waiting forever for the bells to ring.~~

Well this is looking like a nightmare we'll actually have to play.

Welp.

Me too Adam. Me too.

:siren:

UPDATE 7 - STATS :siren:

DUNKS PERFORMED:
-One by Edwin.

NOTES FOUND:
-4/5, thanks Hermann.

BELL TOWER STATUS:
-Ignored

# ¿ Dec 30, 2015 11:16

Danaru: Jun 5, 2012; 何 ??

AlphaKretin posted:

So is that model stretching a consistent bug or were you legitimately taken by surprise?

It definitely didn't come up last time I played it, but it happened at a very specific part of his idle animation. The first time it scared the poo poo out of me, the second time I let his animation run so I could see it up close :v:

# ¿ Dec 30, 2015 13:47

Danaru: Jun 5, 2012; 何 ??

Grace proofreads all my bullshit so I don't type like a jackass.

I'm going to be honest, we haven't gotten to the REALLY lovely part of next life yet. We're nearing the edge of the precipice, but it's still a couple updates off.

# ¿ Dec 31, 2015 12:14

Danaru: Jun 5, 2012; 何 ??

Update 8 - :siren:

First thing's first, let's fill up our pockets. There's a couple items to snag in here. First up is the lightbulb in this lamp.

"If it's under power, I'll get it real nasty..."

Well if it was under power, it would probably be lit.

Somehow Adam manages to get the bulb without getting electrocuted. Hooray! Also that's not how lamps work, Adam.

Next up is this rag on this table.

"Nobody will miss a silly piece of rag."

We don't have to go super far with this, actually.

There's a small pipe leaking overhead making a tiny puddle on the floor. Let's drop the rag on it.

"Great... Now I can even get a rest, this is going to take forever."

Unlike most things, this will make sense soon enough.

We can also snag this pipe on the ground. This will be another update that makes me wish I was playing Silent Hill instead.

Outside of the room we have this area. Most of the things you can interact with just have Adam say something along the lines of "ehh I don't have time for this", so we'll just go right for the door.

The door's lovely and dirty, but if we right click, we can zoom in a bit.

...Unfortunately it's still lovely and dirty, so we can't see in.

If we head back into the previous room, we can see that our rag is wet now!

Riveting.

"Oh... So it actually is glass after all!"

The more the thread mentions the russian translation that sounds like it actually had ~~voice~~ direction makes me sad. This could have been a pretty mediocre game, and Adam could have at least been a likable sociopath.

Oh poo poo, someone's inside that room! The door is locked from the outside, so what do we do?

Clang our pipe on the door repeatedly, obviously! If whoever's in that room wasn't deaf before, they will be now!

"Stop! Enough! Stop it!!!"

Oh dang it was Edwin in the room. By the way, buckle up because this is the most talkingest chapter ever.

"Edwin?! This can't be true... What on earth are you doing here?"

"What do you want from me?"

"Sorry, Edwin, I didn't mean to scare you. It's me, Adam!"

"Oh right... You expect me to believe that? Why don't you get lost and leave me alone?"

Uhhhh what

"Calm down, Edwin. I don't understand how we both got here, either."

"Whatever, man. I'm not going to listen to you."

"I'll come back later. Try to think it over in the meantime."

So yeah, Edwin is acting a bit odd. This probably won't come up later.

Down the hall is this door to the morgue, interesting that the door is labeled considering the only thing on this side of the morgue is a hall with two... cells? Storage rooms?

Oh yeah, door's locked of course, so let's see if Edwin's done thinking it over.

"Give me a single reason why I should trust you."

"At least tell me if you're OK."

"No! I'm not OK at all! I can't see squat because it's dark in here! I can't even see where I am! And there's spiders crawling on me and other bloody insects! Goddamn darkness!"

"Calm down. I'll try to do something about it."

"Leave me alone, will you? I didn't ask for your help and I'm not going to!"

"Come on Edwin. It's still going to be a lot of struggle with you."

I can see why Edwin's so pissed off, but he's also actively working against the only person who can help him get out.

"There's nothing I can do about the light. The switch must be broken or something."

You can actually try the switch and it doesn't work. I forgot to, so Adam just looks like a dick here.

"How low of you to keep me in the darkness like this, you jerk! So what is it you're expecting? You think I'm gonna crap my pants?"

"Why would I do that? Edwin, you'd better take a look at the light bulb. Check if there's something wrong with it."

"Nothing... It's not here at all."

"What? You mean there's no light bulb?"

"You want me to write it out or what?"

"Man, I'm getting sick of you."

"Did you say something?"

"Yeah, but I can write it out for you."

See? He's trying so hard to be sassy, but his voice actor just won't let him. In any case, the answer here is obvious, we have a light bulb, he needs a light bulb, and...

...Alright, apparently we're having a pointless meandering conversation first.

"Sure I do... Adam... You don't just forget that creepy island."

"Yeah, right... Let me tell you what. I'm glad you're here with me."

:unsmith:

Edwin really is the person I'd trust most to have our back.

"Well I am not."

:smith:

"Ok, I don't want to argue, I'll just tell you something. I don't know how it is with you, but I came to realize I want to get back. Back to our miserable island where I can be pretty sure I'm alive."

You know despite naming the game Next Life, Izmael's ranting is really the only time they even pretended this was actually the afterlife, isn't it? Maybe that's why they changed the name from the much more accurate Reprobates.

"Let me put it this way. I've survived worse things. And I'll survive from you and this place too."

"We can at least be partners in this..."

"Forget about that. You're only holding me back, Adam. You're useless."

"Think, Edwin. Why is it that we're both here? There must be a reason. I'm not saying I know what this is about, but for starters I suggest we cooperate. What else do you want to do?"

"Whatever really as long so it doesn't involve you. See, I've been thinking too, and I've come to realize you don't really exist. You're just an illusion. a part of another nightmare. And I'm really curious what you'll have to say to this one, smart guy."

"Oh my, this is getting nowhere. I've only been losing time with you. But that's over now. Bye!"

"Wait! Where are you going?"

"I can't go on like this, Edwin! I'm just a man too. And I don't care if you believe it or not. Do whatever you like... I'm going now!"

Jesus christ just take the loving light bulb already

"Adam! How can I tell this isn't a trap. Come on, how?"

"Well, what do you expect me to say? That's something you have to solve for yourself. All I know is we're playing the very same game."

"So what are you suggesting?"

"Heh, isn't it hilarious how fast you're changing opinions, Edwin?"

gently caress you, Adam.

"Well I don't have to tell you I too want to go back, right? And I'm going to do whatever it takes."

"So you're starting to like this little game of ours, eh?"

"Fat chance."

"But you're going to cooperate?"

"If there's no other way... Perhaps it's better than fighting."

"Exactly my thoughts."

Holy gently caress FINALLY.

"Edwin, I just want to talk."

"Too bad it happens to be me who has to listen..."

This is the first time in the game that this exchange wouldn't make sense. God dammit Edwin he's trying to help you.

"So would you have any use for something like this?"

"You're joking? Give it to me, now."

"And how do you imagine I do that, eh?"

"I don't know. It's me who's trapped. You think of something. And hurry up."

"Oh so it's news to you we're both trapped in here? Can you take down the venting window on your side?"

"Yeah, you got it. I hate dark corners."

"Ok, you hero, how about you tell me how I'm supposed to get that bulb to you? Through the keyhole, perhaps? Or should I assume you don't want it?"

"No, No! Wait... I'll try it, I'm just not sure if it's possible."

"Push something to the wall, it's not too high."

"Well what do you think? I've removed the first grate, but the other one is out of my reach."

"Never mind, I'll take care of that somehow. Thanks."

Kablam! We actually get to FINALLY DO SOMETHING as Adam smokes the drat thing with a pipe. I wasn't kidding when I said this update was heavy on the dialogue.

In a bizarre choice, you have to try to throw the lightbulb through the vent and have Adam say "BOY THAT'S DUMB" before the game will let you plot something with Edwin. Adam will refuse to talk to Edwin until you do the obviously wrong thing. This is getting old, Future Games.

"Uh, we have a problem."

"Here it comes... I knew it. So what is it? Gas? water? fire?"

Earth? Solid? Liquid? Solidus?

"I can't just throw the bulb through the vent, I've only got one. I don't want to risk breaking it."

"Hmm... Right... Hold on, I'll try something. I'm holding the other end. Tie the bulb to the string and that's it."

"Good idea, Edwin. I would not have thought of that."

Adam is really broken up over not thinking of the string idea first.

"Ok, Edwin, now!"

"Right!"

Whoo! We accomplished something!

"Listen... Where did you get that string? Was it just lying around somewhere?"

"Err, why?"

"Oh never mind. It just seemed strange to me. I'm not sure... I wouldn't expect you to be able to find something like that. And in complete darkness, no less."

"No, no... I've had around my neck it all the time. From the very start."

It took me three times to type that mangled-rear end sentence 'correctly'. Did you hit your head, Edwin?

"I tell you this even though I don't have to... I trust you, Adam."

"Wait a minute... How do you mean, around your neck?"

"There was a key hanging on it..."

:effort:

"A key? And you're only telling me now?!"

"What do you want from me, Adam? You know very well how things were. I didn't have the tiniest reason to trust you. I tried to unlock the door myself, but the key wouldn't fit."

"And didn't it occur to you that there might be other locked doors around here?"

"Well, you never told me..."

Has there ever been an adventure game that has a key that goes to nowhere? That doesn't happen here, but it feels like something Future Games would do, whether through malice or incompetence.

"So I'm telling you now! Throw me the key through the vent."

"First you have to promise you won't leave me here."

"I'll do everything to get you out. I promise. Thanks Edwin."

"If you try to leave me here, Adam, I promise I'll kill you. And I'm serious."

I wasn't going to, but I'm starting to consider it now.

Edwin's key opens up the morgue, allowing us to finally get out of this drat hallway.

"It fits! And Edwin had it with him all the time..."

"Maybe I should go back and secure the door just to make sure. And get an oak stake and a silver cross... What a hero I am!"

Adam for the love of god this chapter is chatty enough.

Not much to explore in here, if you try to interact with either of the two bodies, Adam just says it's icky and refuses. That's... fair, actually.

Again this would be spooky as gently caress if this were a better game, or if there had been any sense of urgency, or if there was an antagonist.

Nothing to poke around with in the autopsy room, but there's a couple things in this office. The door on the left is locked, meaning this is as far as we go for now. Most importantly:

A key!

"I find this whole thing rather suspicious, but it wouldn't be smart to just leave it here, either."

Back to this hallway. :sigh:

Let's get Edwin out of there. He's not a wuss so maybe he can boot that flimsy wood and glass door down.

"All right, come out, Edwin. I told you I'd be back."

"Well, you had no other choice. You can't fool me, man. You need me."

Are you going to spend this entire chapter being Tenmyouji and betraying me for no loving reason.

yes

"But I do, it's not like I can even go to the toilet by myself."

This line is loving hilarious with our 100% sincere, sarcasm-deprived voice actor.

"I didn't ask you for anything. Do you even know where we are?"

"Pathology. I've seen freezers and a dissecting room, but there's also some locked doors."

Well, A locked door.

"So you want me to believe you wouldn't escape if there was a way to do it?"

"What the hell is wrong with you?!"

"Just show me where the doors are, will you? We're only losing time."

Once Edwin wastes our time, then whines that Adam wasted his time, we FINALLY head off to the door.

It's fairly noticable once in a while, but I swear most of these backgrounds are just a 2D screenshot with the characters' models put on top of it. It's bizarre.

"So what do you suggest we do?"

"We'll have to break it open."

"Let's not hurry with that. I'll tell you what... I'll have a look at this lock while you try to look for the key. We can't go wrong that way, can we?"

"Ok, fine, but I doubt we'll be able to open it without force. Later."

We have a pipe, just smash that poo poo open and let's go. Why would a door lock from the outside anyway. :sigh:

Edwin will stand around loving with the lock forever, so we have to go search for the key.

Or that's what a sensible person would assume. In actuality we need to examine these two body bags that Adam didn't have the balls to examine before.

The first body bag contains, surprisingly, a body as well as a goofy subtitle. No one we know at least.

"Ok, ok... There's nothing to be afraid of."

The other body bag has a body in it as well. Again, no one we know.

Suddenly, there's a noise in the other room. Sounds like a door opening and closing.

Hey! Edwin got the door open somehow! Let's get the hell out of here!

Or whoops, guess Edwin's betraying us again. God dammit man you suck.

Adam tries smashing the window to no avail, something he should have tried way sooner.

"Talk to me, Edwin."

"I have nothing to say to you."

"But I do! Where did you get that key? I've search everything around here..."

"Heh... Look, Adam, my problem was not finding the key... but making you leave the room. If you still don't get it, I've had the key on me from the very beginning. Along with the first one that I gave you."

"And I, fool, fell for your trick... But still, how did you know which one to give me? You could have made a mistake."

How is that the question you're asking right now?!

"Well I couldn't. There's a label on the other one that reads 'dissecting room'. First I had you explore the terrain. I knew you couldn't escape. When everything was OK and you kindly opened the door for me, I knew exactly what I had to do to get out of here. Come on, Adam, admit you'd have done the very same in my place."

"Forget it! I'd have to be a rat of your magnitude!"

Adam has done a lot of stupid bullshit in this game so far, but no I don't think he would trap himself inside a building solely to spite the closest thing he has to a friend.

He hasn't mentioned it yet, but yes Edwin is still stuck. There's a reason he's hanging around here gloating aside from suddenly becoming an enormous dickbag.

I actually went over the character limit so I'm cutting out about ten minutes worth of "WHY YOU BETRAY ME" "DUHH I'M EDWEN". You're welcome.

Also the phone in the office area starts ringing.

"The phone is ringing..."

"What?"

"You can hear it, can't you?"

"Sure I can. You gonna answer it?"

"I don't know, should I?"

STOP BANTERING AND loving DO SOMETHING

"That's your choice. I suppose you don't expect me to do it?"

"Wait here. I'll be right back."

Alright we're in a different room now. That's a start.

"Hello. Who am I talking to, please?"

On the other end of the line is a woman who's voice we've never heard before. She seems significantly friendlier than anyone else we've dealt with in a nightmare.

"Err, hello. This is Adam Raichl. And may I know who you are?"

"That doesn't matter, Adam, believe me. Is that nice fella Edwin still around?"

No, but the rear end in a top hat Edwin is.

"But sure, he's here. I's just... Right now we've got a problem to solve."

"Could you get him on the line for me please? It's really urgent."

"Well, you see, if I could tell him who's calling, it might be easier."

"Hahaha... Please, Adam, do me a favor and call him."

"I guess."

"I won't mind having to wait for a while."

"Ok, I'll try, but I can't promise anything."

"I know I can rely on you, Adam."

Alright so let's quickly hand the phone to Edwin and we can get on wi-- yeah no just kidding we're heading into MORE meandering dialogue.

Literally. You will not believe this.

"I warn you, don't you try to trick me!"

"Oh, come on... You have any idea who it is? Some woman."

"Yeah, right."

"Well guess what, she wants you on the phone."

"What?! Stop pulling my leg, Adam!"

"I swear I'm not. I have no idea what's going on. Look, I'll go back and hang up if you want me to. Then we can talk some more and maybe she calls back."

"I'd expect more from you."

"Well, I'm sorry to have to let you down on this one, but even I couldn't come up with such nonsense."

Seriously, when the characters in your game are talking about how dumb your game is, just start over.

"What the hell is all this about then?"

"Like I said, there's a woman on the phone who wants to talk to you. I have no idea who she is. Should I hang up?"

"No, hold on... Don't you find it strange?"

"Of course, I'd like to know what's going on, too. Will you take it?"

What's killing me is that none of this dialogue contributes anything. It's just these two idiots bantering at each other. The plot isn't advancing, characters aren't developing, progress isn't being made. This is the most difficult chapter to transcribe so far just because of how drat bored I get.

"Yeah, but not so fast, You still have that lead pipe on you? The one you were banging on the door with before?"

"Well, yeah."

"Ok, put it on the table first and step back to that wall there. Just so I can be sure."

"Ok, if that's what you want. I'm not your enemy, Edwin."

I'll be honest, at this point I'd be saying "gently caress Edwin" and give him something to be paranoid about. Adam isn't quite astute enough to notice that Edwin will continue betraying him.

In any case, we put the pipe on the desk since there's no option to tell the phone lady to gargle our sweet and salty nards, or to hang up and call 911 since the phone clearly works. Part of me wishes I kept a "need to fail to progress the game" counter, another part of me is glad I didn't. We'd have multiple per update.

Now pay careful attention to Edwin's command here.

Adam clearly moves over to the left wall as per Edwin's command, but to Adam it was to the right, and to Edwin, it's straight ahead. The only person who sees that as 'moving left' is us.

Look I'm looking for poo poo to comment on as hard as I can, alright. It's like squeezing juice out of a raisin.

"Don't turn around... I can see everything!"

Edwin picks up the phone just out of camera shot, saving the animators a couple bucks and giving us even less to actually take in.

"Yes. I'd like to know to whom I'm talking... No, no, that's-- What do you mean? That doesn't make any sense! I'm not going to believe that! Hello? Hello?"

Edwin hangs up. We're never going to find out who was on the other line by the way, although we WILL find out what they told Edwin.

"Stay where you are and don't move! You heard me?"

Edwin fucks off into the morgue. He told us to stay here, but gently caress him. He's not our dad :colbert:

Alright Edwin I don't know what you're doing, but don't gently caress with bodies, that's an easy way to get your rear end haun--

OH poo poo

Adam gets knocked the gently caress out by a yachtsman with his own drat pipe. Maybe the pieces will start connecting now, jackass.

Welp, good job idiot. You managed to die in your own stupid nightmare. I've had plenty of nightmares involving me dying but at least mine usually involve space.

Oh, he's still alive. Nevermind.

"What was that supposed to mean?"

Seriously?!

"Where is my stuff? Edwin! I'll kill you..."

In actuality, the only thing Edwin stole was the key to the storage room he was locked in. We still have the damp rag, thank god.

Adam is referring to the blood trail on the floor. The bodies of those two ladies are gone too.

I... don't... understand why, but when I clicked the window, Adam walked as far away from the window as he possibly could before giving his dialogue as if he was peering into the room. In any case, Edwin for some reason moved those two bodies into this room and locked the door.

"As though he didn't want me to see them. But anyway, that doesn't mean he knew them both... It must have been a bad shock for him. The last drop..."

Suddenly the phone rings again. That went super well last time, let's give it another shot!

"Strange... I can hear a phone ringing again..."

We head through the same god drat screens again to get t the phone. There are a total of 8 screens in this chapter, we only saw one at the very beginning, and we won't see the last four until near the end.

He's probably fine.

"Is anybody there?!"

"You bet there is!"

"Edwin! What was that supposed to mean? Have you gone nuts or what?"

"Shut up! And now listen very carefully, you bastard, you drat sone of a bitch... Why... Tell me what they've done to you... What I've done to you... You creep!"

That... last insult felt a bit weak there, Edwin. Come on man.

"I have no idea what you're talking about --"

"Will you shut up! You'll regret ever touching me, I swear!"

"I swear on the graves of my wife and my little girl..."

...oh poo poo

"I swear I'll get you, you bastard! You hear me?! I'll get you! I'll chop off both your arms and legs and enjoy watching you crawling on the floor just like you enjoyed looking at my family!!!"

"What? What the hell are you saying?"

"You killed them, Adam! Right in front of my eyes! I'll kill you, Adam, I'll kill you I swear, you god drat bastard! I'm coming for you and you have nowhere to run, so wait for your death... You're gonna pay... MURDERER!!!"

"Edwin, you silly fool, what the hell are you talking about?! Edwin! Edwin!!"

"It can't be true... Those two women... Edwin's wife and daughter... What on earth makes him think it was me who killed them? This is complete madness! Except maybe that woman on the phone... But how is that going to help me now? I need to think of something before he returns. I reckon it will take a minute or two. Why has everything gone down the drain so suddenly? Where did I go wrong?"

Despite what Adam said, we don't actually have a time limit here, which is fortunate because Adam would have used it all up with that wall of text.

Our goal now is to find a way to stop Edwin. Maybe we should close those blinds so he can't see in.

...Er

Nevermind.

"Edwin... What are you after, you poor creep?"

I think he pretty succinctly wrote out his intentions on the blinds. Where'd he get the blood, anyway?

Actually, let's take a good look at what exactly Edwin's plan has been up until now.

Here's a quick map of the area. After smacking Adam, the alleged murderer of his wife and daughter, Edwin:

-Moved Adam onto the autopsy slab
-Moved the two bodies from the morgue into the storage room he was stuck in, without using the gurneys they were on by the way. Look at that blood stain again.
-Passed by the unconscious Adam and wrote "I KILL YOU" on the blinds with blood, maybe from that bucket of blood by the slab
-Went through the locked hallway and waited for Adam to wake up so he could call him and tell him he was coming to kill him.

Edwin, what the gently caress.

Well we have a madman coming to kill us, let's take a break and read a book.

"Something about muscle spasms... It's not like this is going to save the day, but maybe I'll come across some interesting detail... Muscle spasms can be induced even post mortem with electric current introduced into a center of nerve endings. e.g. in the oxter... How about I prepare a little surprise for Edwin."

So hey who's up for a spot of corpse desecration?

Fortunately we have spare corpses. Also fortunately Edwin didn't take those gurneys, otherwise we'd be SOL.

The corpse counts as an out of inventory item :v:

Adam will automatically drag the body to where the game wants it to be. I'm also cutting out Adam speaking two or three lines in order to kind of preserve what intensity this segment had. You're welcome, Future Games.

Well we've got the corpse, but now what? We need to find a way to induce the electric shock.

There's a scalpel in the office, rather than in the operating room, because sure. We could stab Edwin with it I guess, but it's got a tiny range and we know Edwin's packing at the minimum our lead pipe.

Instead, we'll use the scalpel on this lamp plugged into the wall. That sounds smart!

I'm pretty loving sure that's not how that works. Cutting a cable plugged into the wall with a solid metal instrument would kill the poo poo out of you.

But of course not here. Good job Future Games.

Alright so we have a cut cable that's only live when the plot needs it, and a corpse. What now?

Start cuttin'!

"It would never have occurred to me that I'd be cutting up a corpse..."

The 'oxter' mentioned in that book is the armpit by the way. In any case, the power cable we cut is an out of inventory item that we can plug into this dude's pit.

"This should work all right, but if it will get Edwin to do anything I have no idea."

This took like, five minutes, and four minutes was just Adam talking to himself.

"He's here... I didn't even have the time to try it out..."

I have no idea where Adam's supposed to be in this segment, but Edwin starts skulking in from the hallway.

I left those as screenshots because what

also the corpse hasn't spasmed yet, not that he was looking at it anyway, so I have no idea what that scream was about.

After meandering around for a bit, Edwin wanders over by the corpse, and Adam... somehow makes the wire shock the corpse.

Edwin shimmies backwards like someone who's pants just became full and bolts in a dead sprint away. gently caress yeah, biology!

"Whew, that was close... That drat fool!"

Better yet, he left the door open! We can FINALLY see something else!

...Whoooooo

This gate is padlocked shut, and the bottom area where the camera is located is just a solid wall, leaving only one other way out. Clearly this is where Edwin must have gone to, since the only other exit is locked. Unfortunately it's the only place we can go.

For some reason the game makes a big deal about the door being heavy.

Just click it again and Adam will put some muscle into it.

Well, Edwin's not hear, meaning he's apparently been so spooked that he stopped existing. He REALLY hated that corpse trick.

Unlike that hallway, there's actually things to get in here. We find a pack of matches in the drawer here...

...and 'Dissecting tools' over here!

Oh wait we have a crazy dude chasing us, maybe we should secure the room.

They love this subtitle.

Also of note, the drawer hurls across the room after like three pushes that do nothing.

Immediately, as if we had to bar the door to progress the game, Edwin shows up and starts screaming.

"I won't let you trick me for the second time! I know you're there, Adam! Open up!"

Edwin puts a barely noticable dent in the door as Adam laments his position. There... might be a time limit here? It takes Edwin like two minutes to swing each time. I'm not willing to wait that long.

"After all this trouble and madness, it's Edwin who brings me down..."

That IS pretty lame, dude.

"No way! I'm no sheep! I'm no going to sit around waiting until they kill me! The door must hold! It just has to!"

Edwin hitting the door knocked this photo off the wall. Let's take a look.

Hey look! Another door!

According to this picture, that other door should be right behind this cabinet, let's move the fucker over and get the hell out of here!

Or... actually Adam just tries to open the cabinet. Adam please.

Adam REFUSES to connect the dots unless you use the photo ON the cabinet. This shouldn't even be a drat puzzle.

You can do it Adam. Don't worry, we have all the time in the world to just sit here while you stare at a photo.

"According to the photograph this is exactly where the entrance is. It's probably been walled up."

Wow! Good job Adam! Why didn't I think of that?!

Adam give's it the ol' Raichl Push.

Which... somehow pivots the cabinet. I dunno. More importantly, there are boards nailed across the entrance. I work at a hospital and let me tell you, one thing they LOVE doing is just wasting rooms by boarding them up and letting them rot.

We use the... what the gently caress IS that? The game just calls it a dissecting tool but apparently it rips through planks just fine.

We get a fade to black and fade back into this. The board's are removed and strewn about everywhere. Sure is a nice one.

Whatever reason they had to board up this room, they didn't even bother to remove the equipment. The one thing I'm curious about in this chapter and they won't be explaining it.

There's a lamp here which would provide some much needed light, but it has no wick. Of course not. :cripes:

There's an old lovely rope hanging over here which we take because beggars can't be choosers.

We can cut it down with the scalpel, but we can also use the scalpel on the rope in the inventory to create a wick!

"Let's just hope it fits in there..."

Pretty sure that's not how that works, but I've already pointed that out too much this chapter.

Use the matches on the lamp and we can finally see THAT THEY LEFT A BODY IN HERE WHEN THEY BOARDED UP THE ROOM WHAT

the gently caress

Adam refuses to acknowledge them so okay whatever I guess. What we want to do now is clean up this mess Adam made cutting up the boards.

As you can see on the door, Edwin has struck with his axe twice, including the first time, in the entire time we've been loving around. He really sucks with that axe.

With the boards all moved, we want to tie a rope to the leg of the cabinet. You can see where this is going.

Yank the rope in the other room to pull the cabinet across the door again.

"Now the worst part... The waiting part..."

I dunno I'd think the worst part was you getting beaned across the face with a pipe. Worst for you, anyway. I thought it was kinda funny.

Surgical veil over here. Snag it because it's an item.

Adam never hints that you should do this, but use the scalpel to drill a peephole in the cabinet. It makes sense, but considering the last thing the game told you to do was wait, this is kinda dickish.

Once you have the peephole and the veil, Edwin makes it through the door.

"What is this supposed to mean?! Adam! Where are you, you coward?! Adam!!"

"As someone once said... The dice have been thrown..."

Shut the hell up Adam he's going to hear you!

Jesus christ Edwin had to PEEL that door. Not something you'd expect someone to do with a hatchet.

"It was a trap from the very beginning. Except I don't know if it was meant for me or Edwin. Poor fella... He's totally out of his mind. What is he going to do? Will he stay on guard here? Maybe. But it's my turn now."

I don't know what any of that means, but hey check out that head on the table. Does he look familiar?

"Simon?1 What's he doing here?."

If I had to guess, he's not here by choice.

Alright so

I hope you guys are ready for stupid.

Use the surgical veil on Edwin to...

"Edwin..."

:cripes:

Adam does NOTHING to disguise his voice other than talk in a slightly lower pitch in a monotone. He sounds LESS like Simon than he did before.

Even Edwin doesn't buy it.

And look! He's looking right AT Adam! The sound isn't even coming from the right direction to pretend to be Simon!

"You are wrong, Edwin. There is no Adam here, and never was. It's just you and me, Edwin. The murderer and the victim..."

"I don't understand. What are you talking about?"

"Just you and me, Edwin. Have you forgotten already? You have me on you conscience. That is not going to change."

"Show yourself!"

"The time has come for you to pay the debt, Edwin."

"Where are you?!"

"Here, Edwin. I was here all the time. Right behind you... Right behind you..."

Edwin looks decidedly not behind him, but slightly to his left and sees Simon's head.

Somehow he loving falls for it :cripes:

"Leave me alone! I'm sorry... I didn't mean to do it... I really didn't... I'm terribly sorry... Please... Leave me alone..."

Immediately we cut to uhhhhh wait what

WHAT

WHAT??

DID HE JUST KILL HIMSELF WITH AN AXE TO THE THROAT?

DID ADAM DO IT? HOW WOULD ADAM HAVE DONE IT HE WAS BEHIND A CABINET?

OH NEVERMIND NONE OF THAT HAPPENED

THAT ENTIRE CHAPTER DIDN'T ACTUALLY HAPPEN

GOOD

:siren:

UPDATE 8 - STATS :siren:

none I'm done gently caress this chapter I'm so god drat happy Future Games went bankrupt also we haven't hit the event horizon of stupid FYI just you guys wait.

# ¿ Jan 15, 2016 06:06

Danaru: Jun 5, 2012; 何 ??

Update 9 - The Great Island Escape

Well here we are again, but I've got good news, this is the first chapter where Adam actually gives a try to get off the island! Maybe we'll be free of this stupid setting soon! Maybe we'll even get to see something interesting!

Eeesh, maybe you guys shouldn't put the camera so close to the ground textures. They're alright, but from a distance.

We load up on sticks and rocks as usual, but I think this is a relatively rock/stick free chapter. There's... something else we use.

Hey maybe we should check up on our old pal Edwin, maybe see how his neck feels.

...

aww.

Yukiko runs away from Adam. Also sweet jesus Simon did a number on her :stonk:

Why would ANYONE feel guilty that he died trying to beat up a young girl??

Eva's not looking so good today. Seriously, I'd be partying if I were in these peoples' shoes.

"And I also had a nightmare."

"At least the weather is quite nice."

Adam's been lucking out on the nightmare front. The last nightmare was the scariest one, and even then it was mostly just slow and irritating.

"It is, but it is not too warm, is it?"

"It's silly that we keep discussing weather again."

...But you brought it up.

Eva is roughly 500% done with Adam's bullshit, so let's go bug Hans. He's got a higher tolerance for this.

Michelle is walking around without any shoes on. I've only gone skiing a couple times and ski boots aren't exactly comfortable, but if I were on a strange island, I'd probably still rather them than nothing.

Hans and Michelle are hanging out together apparently. Makes it easier to bug them both.

God these models look like poo poo.

I don't know if they messed up her model or what, but Michelle always creeps me the hell out.

"The bell is nothing special, it's like an alarm"

An alarm that puts you to sleep, so basically the exact opposite of an alarm.

"And you poor you're without shoes..."

"It's not that bad. These socks withstand a lot. Do you have an idea what time is it?"

These subtitles are getting so much worse as time goes on.

"No I don't."

There was a weird inexplicable pause here, also Hans is being kind of a creep.

"I'm absolutely out without my watch."

Well enough of that, let's talk to Hans.

"Well it's nothing special but one needs to eat you know. But you don't have to worry about me."

"I'm not worried about you."

"That didn't sound nice."

Fortunately that's the last thing Hans has to say to us. Stop being a drat weirdo Hans you're one of the few characters I ~~like~~ don't hate.

Hey let's go see how Maria's feeling. I'm gonna assume great!

Hey! You leave the fourth wall alone! The people writing you are nowhere near skilled enough to make that funny!

"Do you feel better now?"

"Hey did you see the new pensioner at No. 8?"

"Mhmm."

No you didn't Adam what are you talking about

"Isn't it strange they left her with her flippers, when they took everything else from us?"

"Well Michelle's got her skiing shoes too."

"Yeah! That's true."

"It seems for them it's just shoes."

"People wouldn't be thinking like that."

Fore...shadowing...?

"And what about Hermann?"

"Well for me he's a jerk and will remain one forever. I... just needed to be with someone yesterday, you know."

Ew.

"I understand."

"You didn't care about me at all..."

"Come on..."

"Well sure you've got your..."

"Come on, stop that..."

"Adam, you're stupid."

Ladies just can't stay away from that moist compost musk Adam's got going on.

Let's go talk to that lady Maria mentioned.

Man they put even less effort into your model than they did with Michelle's

"Good day, I'm Adam Raichl."

"Jadwiga Kowalski, nice to meet you young man."

"Are you from Poland?"

"Yes, from Krakow."

Dire Chinchilla posted:

I'm kinda disappointed that there are no Polish characters, I must say

Major_JF posted:

Why would you want to see the Polish dragged through the negative stereotyping mud that this game loves to wallow in?

"You must be a little disoriented."

"Yes, that will stop, fortunately the big wave is away."

"Mhmmm."

"I lost my snorkel, but I will pay it to the rental company."

"I'm not from the rental company."

I swear to god her face texture is way more detailed than any other texture in the game. It makes her look creepy.

"I really have no idea."

"Understand, Thailand is chaotic even under normal circumstances."

"Mhmmm."

"And now it must be even worse."

I... don't really know what she means by that, but we're done with her. Like, for the rest of the game. We never see her again. Poland managed to get out of Next Life without getting a stereotype besides "fairly responsible tourist". Congratulations, Poland!

Walking our usual path you may notice something up on the cliff that clearly wasn't before. Or maybe you won't because it's super tiny and bullshit.

Yeah.

"What is that?"

Adam gives the object the universal "what the gently caress" hand gesture, which somehow helps him see it.

"These must be Danica's glasses. I didn't recognize them before."

He didn't recognize them because they totally weren't there until this chapter. That's not a plot hint, that's lazy as hell game design. I hate that I have to make that distinction.

We can click on the bell tower again but even Adam is sick of that place. I feel like no one is super sad to see that go.

Oh hey, Hermann's trap worked! Let's go let him know and we can eat something other than cracker for once!

https://zippy.gfycat.com/KindFairAmericancreamdraft.webm

Oh.

Obviously.

Well we have a seagull now we needed that

This is actually the first time I can remember that Adam DIDN'T say something smarmy after doing a thing and this is the first time I'd love to hear his reasoning. Dude just sees a bird in the cage, takes it out, stuffs it in his jacket and goes "yeah of course don't even need to say anything about that that's just normal.

It's still alive by the way, in fact it's important it's alive, we don't know WHY yet, but trust me. Adam has no idea why he needs this bird.

God dammit this loving game. :cripes:

Let's talk to Hermann. Whatever.

"What are you doing here?"

"looking for some fish as a bait."

"In the trap for birds?"

"No, for Maria, you fool! Of course that in the trap for birds."

Hey! Remember that plot point that people are from different time periods, then everyone who showed up after the first chapter was from Adam's present? And the people from the past forgot until just now that whoops they're from the past? Neither does Future Games apparently!

"It's a toy that discomforts people, don't worry about that."

"I thought so, I was just testing you."

Adam's a dick about cell phones for some reason, I wonder why he dislikes them so much.

Oh yeah.

Enough about this, let's visit Eva. I dunno why it's just what the walkthrough says. Maybe she wants to see our seagull.

gently caress this game.

"What happened to you?"

"Don't look at me!"

"Don't be silly, I can't see anything."

At the time of that screenshot Adam can see everything which is why I'm not putting up any screenshots of this scene.

"I saw a bottle in the water so I went there to pick it up."

"Thanks a lot, I was trying to find it for a long time."

"And I slipped."

"I'm sorry to hear that."

Eva leans over and picks up another cracker wrapper like the ones we found in the last chapter. There's no dignity for anyone in this scene.

"And that's what I found inside."

"Second message."

Adam then proceeds to read the message while Eva glares at him and waits for him to leave. I hate Adam.

"The Portugese who lived on the island in the 15th century according to what I found, were able to get to the island on the horizon during low tide, using only the current. But I don't have any way to cut down a tree. So I'll try to find another way. By the way, the micro chip that makes you sleep is placed under the skin between your collarbones."

So Hermann read this, thought "I'LL NEVER NEED TO KNOW THIS" and biffed that poo poo into the ocean. Sweet.

"If this is the truth I should be able to find it. Oh my God...! I have to get rid of it somehow and then get to the other island. But I can't just throw the chip away, they would track it and me too. Maybe another creature with warm blood that would carry the chip inside could be enough. I will have to risk it."

GET THE gently caress OUT OF EVA'S HUT YOU CREEPY SACK OF poo poo

On the next screen over, Michelle has taken off her shirt even though it's been mentioned repeatedly that it's cold out. Why not though.

Michelle is also wearing Hans' shoes now. Footware would be as good as gold in this kind of situation.

"I lent my jogging shoes to Michelle. And I don't go anywhere without shoes."

"I see."

"I would have pettitoes like a small piggy."

This was an important scene. We came over here to talk to Michelle though, let's go find her.

Oh, huh, she came over this direction but she's not here.

Huh, not here either. Maybe she's--

Oh, there we go, after ten second she runs onto the screen and starts running laps.

Looking a little Star Fox there Michelle, you feeling alright?

So for some reason they decided you have to wait for Michelle to run three laps around this screen. It takes over a minute. Why though

"What do you need?"

"You had an elastic band in your hair."

"Yes. I don't need it anymore, it's too tight and uncomfortable."

"Will you give it to me? I could use it."

"Sure, here you are. Adam, I compared everything I saw. Please come by to see me after."

We will never see Michelle again.

We can use the elastic on a stick to make a slingshot. You might be able to guess our next step. Also check out that bird hanging out in the inventory. Stoic.

Eva decides to pop out and hang out with Maria, since god forbid we get a straight shot off the island without another meandering conversation.

We're almost off the island by the way, surely you can think of how we'd escape from here using a seagull and a slingshot, right?

Eva distorts her face at us for some reason, I don't know what it's supposed to mean but jesus it's horrifying.

"Are your clothes dry already?"

"Not completely, but it's cold in the cabin and I don't wanna be running naked here."

"I see. And that's why you are sad?"

"I think I feel fear instead."

"Got it."

Well that was sad, anyway let's shoot down those broken glasses! We need 'em, probably.

So for some loving reason Adam misses the first three shots. It's not even a minigame, you just have to click it four times because Adam loving sucks.

"I hit it!"

Great.

Also we're stealing that Polish lady's flippers. I forgot her name and I'm not scrolling up to go see what it is. Best thing we could do is forget she was in this game and let her keep her dignity.

She probably would have let you have them if you asked, Adam. It's really not a desperate time at all.

On our way up, Hermann apparently gave up on fishing. It's not that tough dude all you need is a Hookstick and an area of the map that's impossible to know about without a walkthrough.

"No chance, but I won't resign."

It uh, looks like you've already resigned buddy.

"What did you figure out?"

"Nothing so far, but I am still trying."

"So that means you are not so bad."

"Blast, I'm not in a mood for your stupid jokes."

what

"I am speechless."

"That's how I like you."

Yukiko's hanging out over here, and we can actually click on her for the first time in a while.

"But don't worry it will disappear. What's important is that he didn't break you anything."

Alright, it's time, we've got everything we need to leave the island. But how, you ask?

First thing's first, we use the broken glass...

And rip that microchip right the gently caress out!

So now the microchip is out, but we can't just smash it. Instead...

We use the microchip on the bird and

https://zippy.gfycat.com/DarlingEducatedBee.webm

That's just

That's just art right there

We did it video games are art.

THERE WAS NO OTHER OPTION.

Alright we're so close now. Remember when Hans and Adam had that weird out of place conversation about how they think this tree won't stay for long? That was a hint! And like four chapters ago? I don't loving remember.

Anyway, obviously we use the tiny shard of broken glasses to cut these roots holding up the tree.

This isn't even the craziest part of the update, let alone the game.

These four panels sum up my entire workflow for this LP.

A bunch of the roots poof out of existence, prompting the two 'love interests' to run over.

...And also Yukiko. Was she a love interest? For real, Future Games?

We can talk to any of the three and we get this camera angle.

"No, I will stay here. I'm not a good swimmer."

Pictured: Three people who definitely give a poo poo about what's happening.

"Will keep my fingers crossed for you."

"Me too."

"Good bye Adam."

When you're not talking to Eva, her animation involves her randomly thrusting her crotch forward for no reason other than gratuitous panty shots. This game isn't very good.

"I think it's time to say goodbye."

"Adam I'll be praying for you survival. I will be like the bearded nutter for the whole day who disappeared at the beginning."

...Dead?

"Thank you Maria, I hate parting."

"You will manage it!"

"Yeah, like in a stupid American movie."

Or a stupid Czech video game.

"Bye!"

Adam finally gets it, but they didn't want to animate it, so...

Shazam! We're out at sea now! We're also in FMV zone so the animations are less jank.

It seemed pretty early in the day, so Adam's been out at sea for a long rear end time.

Adam hops off the log, apparently close enough to the island conveniently out of frame.

This is why we needed to steal those flippers, by the way. Obviously, right?

Hey we made it to the second island! Holy poo poo finally! It's taken us nine updates but we're here!

Also space ship.

Yeah that was a space ship, even Adam's not ready for that poo poo.

Adam dives into the woods in probably the first sensible decision he's made all game.

Space ship continues searching for a couple seconds, then decides to bail. It's Adam, who gives a poo poo.

Oh also SPACE SHIP

loving SPACE SHIP

YOU ALL THOUGHT I WAS JOKING WHEN I SAID WE WERE GONNA SEE SOME poo poo

WE STILL HAVEN'T CROSSED THE EVENT HORIZON OF STUPID BUT YOU CAN START SEEING IT FROM HERE

Apparently Adam fell asleep on this suddenly way less forested beach. There's also a lady up there on the cliff which I bet Future Games will treat with respect.

UPDATE 9 - STATS :siren:

WEBMS USED:
-Two, and thank god webm embedding became a thing because god drat neither of those would fit in a gif.

WOMEN BLOWN-IT WITH:
-All of them. Adam has no dignity left.

ISLANDS RUINED
-One, soon two

Danaru fucked around with this message at 11:09 on Jan 31, 2016

# ¿ Jan 31, 2016 10:06

Danaru: Jun 5, 2012; 何 ??

https://twitter.com/HetzerGonnaHetz/status/696395789980069888
https://twitter.com/HetzerGonnaHetz/status/696399830734807040

If y'all got any theories behind the mystery of the island, let's hear them while we can because we're going to see some poo poo either tomorrow or Tuesday morning, depending on how much stupid I can handle.

# ¿ Feb 7, 2016 19:32

Danaru: Jun 5, 2012; 何 ??

StrixNebulosa posted:

Please let it be marvelously stupid instead of boring-stupid.

I can honestly say it manages to be both.

# ¿ Feb 8, 2016 02:56

Danaru: Jun 5, 2012; 何 ??

Update 10 - The End

Things are a bit different on the second island. We don't start off with any crackers or water, and it's also the first time your stamina really matters. Stamina never really makes for a big deal, it just ends up being a time consuming speed bump. It's understandable that they took it out of the nightmare sequences for that reason, but... why include it at all?

This section of the game is also exceptionally irritating in that they have what you could kinda call "platforming".

It's really loving obvious that we want to go up to the hut up there, but we can't click on it. Instead we have to click on this tiny section...

...Which makes Adam hoist himself up. Then you have to click on THIS tiny section to make him hop over the tiny missing segment. There's no risk, and it doesn't even use stamina. It's only here to annoy you and good LORD do they go whole hog on it.

I'll be cutting out most of it, just imagine twenty extra steps between every screenshot.

As an extra middle finger, the hut's empty. Cool.

The only thing clickable is this hook, we've seen this before. Yank it off with the stick, then use the stick on it to create Hookstick.

Now that we have hookstick, we can head on up to here. There's clearly a small village in back there, let's see if we can find some answers.

Ooooh I bet this is gonna be respectful.

These two guys yell at you in 50s looney tunes style "OOGA BOOGA" voices. They won't harm you, they just block off the way inside.

They don't even follow Adam, they'll just keep yelling at where he was. The puzzle clearly involves this... strange 'no smoking' totem, but we've got nothing to offer up.

If we head the opposite direction, we come across this ruined little area.

We also find our first rock source. Whoo. Have you guys ever noticed how many of Adam's animations involve him pointing his rear end directly at the camera? It's bizarre how often they force animations to be faced away from the camera.

On this map is an item we absolutely need to have. You might not even notice it if you don't flail your mouse around to find hotspots, or have a walkthrough on the other monitor.

When you click on the rock in your inventory, Adam interrupts you by walking over here. Apparently they didn't want to have to program the model to look at the coconut from just anywhere. We knock down the coconut and grab it. Nothing interesting enough to show.

Over here is a lady from that tribe, she see's Adam and runs the hell away. Good choice, lady.

The important part of this area is... aw gently caress, another bell tower. :sigh:

So here's the puzzle. We need this rope for a pretty dumb reason.

We can hack it off and take it fairly easily by using Hookstick, but...

That rope is also our only way up or down. How can we get down and still keep the rope?

The answer is uh, dumb.

First thing we do is hop down to this section here, then use our new rope on hookstick.

"This isn't going to be easy."

Adam then huffs that poo poo over the arch in the center like the world's worst-researched grappling hook.

You then need to click on the other swinging side of the rope EXACTLY at this frame, otherwise...

Adam loving DIES! :toot:

Much like in the nightmare sequences, there's no real consequence to death. The only difference is that it fades to red instead of black.

The animation isn't even different when you get the rope in the right spot, it just fades to black slightly too late to hide the recycled animation.

We also want to pry up this random rear end tile, the only hint here is that lady hanging kinda around it, and finding the hotspot when you inevitably flail the mouse again.

Hey, it's not grass or rocks at least.

To the right side, we get to the upper portion of the first screen we were on. We can snag some yellow berries from up here.

"I shouldn't be eating them, they look poisonous even at first sight."

Also Adam's a botanist now. In any case it's obvious we'll be poisoning something fairly soon.

Now that we've got the rope, we can go down the well! Whoo!

Somehow going down the well gets us... here. I'm not really sure why a church basement is connected to a well, or why we didn't use the really obvious entrance over to the right, but whatever, we're here now.

It's not stealing if you call yourself an archaeologist!

"This could be useful later."

Behind the flag is...

Oh, uh, okay.

So we can change each number separately, but we have no idea what the combination could be.

At some point during development, someone must have complained about the lack of puzzles, because this is loving :effort:

even for Next Life. Near the safe is a gravestone for Magnus Benedico. If you look carefully, there's an X underneath the letters M, D, I, and C. MDIC in roman numerals is 1599.

And there we are.

Inside is a statue of the god of the natives. How do we know that exactly? It could just be a dude.

"Gotcha!"

In any case, we take the chotchke and pop it on this pedestal here. Maybe they'll accept it as a gift.

Or maybe they'll poo poo themselves in terror. What was that thing the god OF?

Seriously, buddy with the spear just started bowing and mumbling, but machette guy is still running. Did we unleash an old one or something? No, because that would be interesting.

Speaking of interesting, do you like picking fruits off a bush and eating them for a solid ten minutes because each one fills up a 20th of your stamina bar?! I know I do!

Once we're done gorging ourselves on... plums or something, who cares, let's give this lady that necklace we found.

This situation creeps me out.

"Not Watana!"

"Listen, Dieter, don't you know Dieter?"

Adam plays by the playbook where if they don't speak your language, just shout louder at them.

"Dieter papuna, Dieter!"

"You see, and is he somewhere here?"

"Dieter, run, green, bushes, there! Tena, Tena!"

"Dieter ran into the bushes?"

"Run, tena, tena!"

"I should run?"

"Migos Dieter papuna Tahine."

I think he's trying to tell you to gently caress off, Adam.

God forbid we have a woman character in this game that Adam doesn't creep on. :sigh:

At least he didn't openly muse about her organs being stolen. What a low loving bar he's set.

In any case, let's run tena tena through the bushes like that kid said. We've got no other leads.

Uh oh, Macheteman upgraded to a spear and is blocking our path. Clicking on him just has Adam say:

"I will not commit suicide."

Adam refuses to even try to negotiate with the man. If it were anyone else this would be a puzzle, but this is Adam we're dealing with, so we have to resort to...

https://zippy.gfycat.com/ReadyPlayfulBoilweevil.webm

...what the gently caress.

So apparently there must be some kind of RNG on whether Adam can hit this guy because I missed with all four rocks and had to go get more. Rock number six finally hit the man and knocked him off the cliff.

"I'm sorry, but there was no other option."

You are the WORST.

New map, oh. Use the rope on the branch and go down.

There's more new screens in this act of the game then there's been in the entire game so far. Remember the nightmare with Edwin where we spent an hour in the same four screens listening to those two idiots whine at each other?

You have to click on every single ledge to keep Adam moving. Over here we have to use Hookstick as a step. That's a crazy strong hook, as well as a crazy strong stick.

loving nothing. Next.

Over to the right is a pig! It's just... kinda standing there doing nothing.

Let's go over and say hi!

https://zippy.gfycat.com/RequiredUncomfortableJanenschia.webm

Honestly

I think that might have been TOO well animated.

The correct answer is to put those yellow berries in with the coconut.

Adam's flat rear end blocks the animation as usual.

At least the pig actually posed a threat. Machetteman wouldn't attack Adam no matter how many stones he threw.

Rest in peace, Machetteman

"Maybe I could shift the flow of the brook with that stone."

Yep, pig had to die because Adam wanted to shift a brook for some reason. The brook was fine where it was Adam.

"The stone fell somewhere close to here, I should take a look."

The stone actually clipped through the ground, so I guess 'under the map' is close to here.

The brook actually is gone from this screen. That's almost interesting.

So here's the deal, we want to move that log behind the bushes down below to make a bridge, but Adam's a baby. So instead he redirected a brook.

Now we have to use specifically rocks from this pile, we can't use any other rocks, and move them over here.

We have to do this five times.

You'll know you're done when Adam says:

"Well, it could be worse."

This isn't enough though, the brook doesn't even really slow down at all. What we need to add is...

That flag we stole! gently caress history!

"The water leaks out between the stones. I will try to block the biggest holes with the flag."

The water starts pooling now, and in a bizarrely merciful move, you can drink the pooled water to regain 100% of your stamina. Why didn't they just make the fruit regain your stamina 100%? Why bother with stamina at all?

"The fallen log made a temporary bridge. I can cross it if I'm cautious."

We can now use a stick to pry the log loose. We did it, log's free, let's get the hell out of here.

New map! Again, you have to click EVERY platform. It's boring.

Make sure you bring Hookstick with you, otherwise you get to backtrack across the platforms.

"I don't have a very good feeling about this place!"

https://zippy.gfycat.com/DazzlingNaiveFiddlercrab.webm

Words can't express how happy I am that the forum can embed webms now. I could never properly display this majesty with gifs or still images.

The correct thing is over here, there's some suspiciously convenient stairs over here to dodge the pit that Adam should be able to see fine, but we can't because the foreground is obscured.

The giant spikey thing I couldn't manage to get to kill Adam. Believe me, I tried.

All there is to it.

"I should be careful about where I step."

Like maybe not on the really obvious group of snakes on the ground.

...Oh gently caress it, we've already been webm heavy, I'm not gonna stop now!

https://zippy.gfycat.com/ChiefImmenseCub.webm

Byootiful.

In any case, the answer is obvious, just chuck the flag over them!

You remember, the flag we used on the dam?

You remembered to take that, right?

You KNEW you could take that again, right?

"This could be useful later."

Just for that I'm chucking you in the pit again, mister.

"Here you go" is one of Adam's stock lines they reuse a lot, but him saying that while biffing a flag at a bunch of snakes is just perfect.

This lets us safely leap over the snakes.

Before we continue on, let's go back for a second. I made good on my threat and walked Adam into the pit again.

It's hard to tell from here but instead of actually animating like last time, he just drops straight up without losing his stride. That was funny, but not quite enough for a webm.

What happened when he respawned though...

https://zippy.gfycat.com/WellwornUnfitHog.webm

Video games.

Art.

Climb up over here. Flag disappeared, snakes didn't realize it they're still fine. Next.

Different pig! Also a little shack! Also this isn't a desert there's never been a desert what the hell Adam.

"Let's have a look inside!"

Why not? Maybe we'll find more artifacts to use as dams.

Pretty cozy. We can interact with the Ropeaxe on the right, but Adam just adamantly states he's not a thief. We can also interact with the book on the shelf.

This is it, folks. We're about to learn everything. All answers will be revealed in this journal.

That's right, all the major plot exposition is done in a god drat journal text dump.

Why does the Czech Republic hate me

It's not a short one either, this is a loving novel.

So basically "we learned a lot of cool poo poo. Oh, also I died. That sucked."

Next Life can't even convince it's own characters that this is actually the afterlife. Christ.

I don't know why, but I love that he adds a bracketed afterthought into his own clearly typed out diary. Nicely done folks.

We already know all this get to the new stuff :argh:

Oh hey he's chronicling how he wrote those letters we miraculously found when the plot needed us to.

Oh there it is! Robot caretakers and a space ship! Also confusingly, he wrote in his letters that you needed to but the chip in a warm blooded animal, then just broke his?

In any case, that explains why stuff keeps going missing and people appear in their rooms, robots!

You might remember that kid said "Tahine" to their mother. Also calling another language "gibberish" seems douchey.

"No time to write diary" he writes in his diary. Also I dunno, those ruins looked pretty old and lovely to me.

What do you mean the army wouldn't keep it a secret? That's literally what the army does with their secret bases!

You say you don't have time to write and yet :argh:

Also you say you're close to Tahine then you don't even spell her name right!

Oh poo poo :stare:

When he mentions the 'flashes' he gets from them trying to lock on to him, I think it's the same flash Adam got in the beginning intro, before driving like a jackass and killing himself.

It'll make sense pretty soon.

JESUS

Hey looks like that was Tahine that Adam creeped on! And the kid looks to be Dieter's! Cool I guess.

Well we know for sure it's humans now, anyway. At least we won't have to learn any bullshit alien technology.

Alright folks here it is. The final answer to everything. All the questions you've had, all about to be answered.

So yeah. Let that soak in. That's a lot of information to absorb. Let's really break it down.

-In the future, everyone is stressed out, which leads a pharmaceutical company to want to make a drug to make people less stressed out.
-Said company is in a future where AI robots, laser weapons, precision hoverships which may or may not be able to go to space, computer chips that can interface with the brain and cause people to fall asleep and have specific nightmares, and loving TIME TRAVEL.
-The company decided to use these resources to kidnap people split seconds before they die and dump them on an island where they stress them out and... get stress data I guess?
-Once someone goes nuts or dies, they transport them back to their own time.

Now, sure, the "pharmaceutical company does something evil" plot makes sense, but the drug they're making is for stress? Anti-anxiety medication already exists! They bombed a tribal village and tortured people for YEARS over an anti-anxiety drug?! Not to mention, this was written while Tahine was pregnant, and that kid was like ten years old, so this has been going on for a LONG rear end time. They've been killing a LOT of people.

For real though, you have the power of TIME TRAVEL, and the best use you have is to kidnap people and give them nightmares??

This is the worst loving evil pharmaceutical company. The amount of resources going into this stupid operation.

Well good for you, Dieter, you got new clothes and a man is dead. Why does a pharmaceutical company even HAVE soldiers?

Apparently they just gave up on trying to catch the escaped test subject. Maybe they assume they got him in the bombings.

So after almost a year, Dieter decided to pull this out and write in it again, and has left it on his shelf for the last eight or nine years. Plot.

Oh poo poo!

"Who are you?"

"I'm Adam, I escaped from the neighboring island."

"Should I trust you?"

No

"You must be Dieter. I found your message in the bottle."

Dieter decides that's good enough and lowers the spear. Can't blame a dude for being jumpy when a loving time traveling military pharmaceutical company is trying to kill you so they can make a drug that lowers stress that ALREADY EXISTED FOR HUNDREDS OF YEARS BY THAT POINT

"Boy, you must want to go home."

"You won't need to explain anything to me. I read your diary and will try it."

"I like you, but I'm too old to help you. I will finish my life here."

"Do you still have the gun?"

"Take it, but it is empty."

"Will you take me to the crater?"

"I'll be happy to do that, but you better eat something first."

Dieter is a way loving cooler protagonist than Adam. He's got kind of a Big Boss thing going on.

We hit a loading screen and come back later in the day. We can take the Ropeaxe off the wall now.

"Desperate times call for desperate measures."

If you go outside without it, Dieter will remind you to pick it up. He's giving them to you, Adam. Stop pretending you're stealing it.

We also snag a bottle of water because stamina is still a game mechanic.

"Follow me and stay in my tracks."

Dieter runs around this map. Don't walk in the center that's the whole puzzle. It's not even a funny death, the stick with the spikes pops down and he does his usual fall down animation.

That was a quick change of pace.

"You are on your own from here, take this for your journey."

"Thanks."

"And if you succeed, I'll bring those unhappy people from the other island here."

"How will you find out if I'm successful?"

"As soon as I haven't heard the damned bell for two days."

"But, you can't hear it in the jungle."

"I'll be going back."

"There's a girl there that..."

Thanks, Boss!

So our mission is to get to the facility and figure out how to get the hell home. Meanwhile, Big Boss is going to head to the other island, snag everyone, and get them here so we can get to work sending everyone home. Hopefully in a manner that avoids the death they were supposed to die from.

Every grand journey starts with a log bridge over a lava river.

Honestly I could see this plan working if it weren't for Adam. I wouldn't trust this guy to operate a toaster, much less a computer controlling the space ships and stuff.

Also, you know, the soldiers. Don't forget about the soldiers.

Once again we have a ton of new maps.

They all look the same...

...and you have to click like seven times to get across each screen.

Oh hey that's new!

"It looks like the hovercraft that followed me when I was on the sea. This one is already out of service, but I might find something useful inside."

The screen then goes to black because they're fine with making a dozen pointless volcanic maps, but not the inside of the spaceship. Also for some reason Adam's subtitles didn't show up, but he said something about finding a charger and charging the gun, so hey that's cool.

adam

We climb down the rope down to here, and climb up these rocks.

Oh drat! A robot! We know how to deal with robots!

Hell yeah!

https://zippy.gfycat.com/BouncyWillingBooby.webm

...

...

...

Next Life managed to feature a gunfight with a time traveling future robot.

And it made me hate it.

The... 'puzzle' is to hit the thing in the back. Great.

Now that the robot is shot, we have to circle around the ENTIRE volcano game area to get to the next part. It's all the same loving screens. Here's a fun thing that happened on the way over.

https://zippy.gfycat.com/DisloyalInfamousBillygoat.webm

Cool.

Oh poo poo here we go, finally something interesting looking.

It's the volcano base! Time to do some on site procurement.

"Ooff, it's hot in here."

Volcanoes are hot! Thanks, Professor Raichl!

Heading up to the roof we found the robot we shot. We need to get the robot's gun, since ours apparently only had one shot in it. The game never mentions this unless you examine the gun again and it says it's empty.

We had to use our gun to get a gun.

Next Life LOVES redundancy.

Oh poo poo.

"Another hovercraft is coming, I must hide quickly."

Adam automatically runs and hops down the ladder.

Good LORD that's an ugly loving space ship.

With the door open, we can sneak in.

It's Raichl. I'm in front of the disposal facility.

A robot pops out of the space ship, if Adam isn't hiding behind these boxes, it'll very slowly shoot and kill him.

We have to wait for the robot to open the door, then shoot him in the back.

"I hit it!"

Excellent, Raichl. Age hasn't slowed you down one bit.

We can try any of the doors here but a voice just says "User was not identified". We're not going anywhere until we can find a keycard.

So the first thing you'll notice is the FG symbol everywhere. It never explicitly states the name of the company.

Is it Future Games

Are they trying to stress me out to get data to invent future marijuana

it's working I'm stressed.

There's a knife we can snag over here. We already have a gun but why not?

https://zippy.gfycat.com/BothNaiveFoxterrier.webm

Adam, respond! Adam?! ADAAAAAAAAAAM!

So clearly we need to do something about rear end in a top hat Gear here. It's just standing here recharging, so we can just shoot it.

"It does nothing with it."

...Or not, okay. What if we shoot the charging station?

Much better! With the robot out of play, we can gently caress around all we want.

"This cannot be Windows."

Adam seems like the sort of smug idiot who would download and install FreeSmileys.exe, destroy his computer, and smugly get a Mac because "MACS CAN'T GET VIRUSES THEY WERE PROGRAMMED NOT TO."

You may also notice the pocket knife is still gone. We still have it despite the robot killing us. Programming!

Hitting this button summons a holoscreen over on the other side.

"...or touch the identification sector on the screen."

Well we don't have an identificator, and it doesn't like our finger print, so let's go elsewhere.

I don't know I'm not the one that's been acting as a mobile composter for the last week.

Oh. Dead guy.

"He must have broken his neck. Whatever happened here, I am late."

Adam immediately gets defensive as if someone was accusing him of murder. I am, of course, but not specifically this guy.

Anyway let's desecrate a corpse.

Yep. We just stole a dead man's finger.

"Desperate times call for desperate measures..."

The dead dude also has a PDA looking thingie. Let's check it out.

Oh gently caress no.

It's a jigsaw puzzle. gently caress it. This was so unnecessary.

Here's the area to the right. There's nothing here right now.

Now that we stole buddy's finger, we can open... this door and only this door. Welp.

Oh hey a barracks, and more Future Games logos.

You have to trial and error find out which locker we can open up.

Oh hey, the man who's finger we cut off's name was Captain Thomas. That's cool.

Despite saying he's not good at searching pockets, you just have to check again and he finds a thing.

"Our project was disclosed. Lieutenant Nielsen was probably arrested and interrogated by section AI A. I order all materials related to the project to be prepared for immediate destruction. Further instructions will follow. Colonel Jackson was arrested and will be put on trial."

Oh hey! Apparently the Time Police showed up and arrested some dudes. At least someone's competent!

But... wait, if the time police were here, how are people still getting kidnapped, Jadwiga was just brought to the island the day before this, all the robots are still working, what the hell?

Also if you notice, Whatever company this is has an actual military backing them.

In any case, it looks like Thomas was supposed to destroy all the evidence. Dude's dead now, we're preserving all this evidence for when Time 5-0 shows up :colbert:

We also steal his laptop.

Now is the perfect time for a shower.

We need a five letter password to get in. It's Candy, we learned it from the stupid puzzle.

We need a SECOND password to get into the e-mails. The other two buttons don't do anything.

If we come back to this room, we can find a letter in the garbage.

"I still hope that your wife will leave for her parents with the kids for the weekend, sweetie. I'll drop by on Saturday and we'll celebrate your birthday. In bed of course. So don't be too tired. Bye, sweetie. Kisses from Sandra. P.S. I hope that Robert gets this message to you on time."

So not only is he time-torturing people and bombing tribal villages, he's also an adulterer. This guy makes Adam look like a saint.

The password is Sandra.

This image wasn't resized, this is what it looks like in game :shepface:

Great work guys.

The important thing to note here is that Thomas was supposed to self destruct the facility, which would have left us stranded in the past. It's a drat good thing he broke his stupid neck.

We can use Thomas' finger on this thing too.

"Good morning Captain Thomas. Your body is not working properly. I recommend using a personal Mediscan immediately. If you want to continue, please enter your work code."

Alright, well uh, the only code we got was that GET OUT code we got from the laptop

gently caress you, game.

"We'll see what it does."

"Warning, all planned tasks are halted."

Hey we did it!

Oh.

OH.

OH poo poo.

"Leave the premises."

"At least I have access to the database."

"Database of coordinates, object Adam Raichl 2007."

"I hope I can do this. I'll set it at the crossroads and for one hour later."

ADAM WHAT ABOUT THE OTHER PEOPLE ON THE ISLAND

DON'T DESTROY THE ONLY drat TIME MACHINE AROUND

"Energy is being accumulated for teleport. Time remaining for termination..."

Well great, we have a way home, but everyone on the island is going to be stranded in the past. Adam you loving rear end in a top hat.

Big Boss is going to bring everyone back to a smoking wreck of a facility inside of a volcano. So much for your love interest subplot Adam!

What?! WHAT?!

WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?

"I'm happy to see you too."

"How did you get in here?"

"I woke up in here."

"But the door opened itself. I walked outside, the door closed and my shoes were left there."

"I can see that."

"And I couldn't get back any more."

"Will you give me the screwdriver?"

"Don't worry they are out of order now."

"Where are we and what are we gonna do?"

Why would you SAY that??

"I don't wanna know that."

"Stay here and don't move anywhere."

"I'm afraid."

"I will call you later, there's no time to talk now."

"But I'm afraid."

Thomas' finger doesn't work on the teleporter room door, because reasons. We have to bust open this vent.

"It's too short."

Future Game's is on it's last stand, so of course it won't be that simple.

We have to use the screwdriver to pull off this pipe...

Then use the screwdriver on... why is the item name for the pipe "A sound of a trumpet"?!

Whatever, Trumpetdriver works, let's bail.

"Eva! Come here!"

And now for the final puzzle of the game! Can you tell what we do?

We have to wait.

For like four straight minutes.

I'm so serious.

Eventually that monitor changes, so we use the finger on it.

drat, it's an hour after that car crash and the fire is still going. No firefighters, no emergency crews...

...Really

So when everyone else got time-kidnapped, no one noticed the giant purple orb.

Adam and Eva fall out of the orb.

Pictured: True, definitely plot developed romance.

~~For some reason there's a naval captain here watching the fire. That's very clearly not even close to what the Czech police uniform looks like, regardless of the badge she's wearing.~~

steinrokkan posted:

Also nitpicking: those uniforms are accurate, they are used by the traffic police.

I'm honestly kinda glad. I don't WANT Future Games to be this ignorant about their own country.

She shoos away Adam and Eva as if they were misbehaving teenagers.

gently caress you Adam.

So uh, is anyone going to talk about what happened?

Anyone going to mention all those people we abandoned to die in the past after promising Big Boss we'd stop the robots?

Are we going to at least tell Eva about the whole time travel thing? And the pharmaceuticals?

Danaru fucked around with this message at 00:55 on Feb 9, 2016

# ¿ Feb 8, 2016 11:02

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ¿ May 18, 2024 16:44

Danaru: Jun 5, 2012; 何 ??

Apo123 posted:

Also, FG stands for Future Genetics, you can see it in the upper-left corner of the email screen.

Every time I think we've hit rock bottom, I find out something that makes me hate this game even more :shepface:

# ¿ Feb 11, 2016 04:21

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