Let's Play - Touche: The Adventures of the Fifth Musketeer

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Rocket Baby Dolls: Mar 3, 2006; Normally I don't make aesthetic criticisms in other peoples' homes, but that rug looks like a beaver exploded. If meat is murder, then that rug is at least a severe beating.

What is this?

Touch�: The Adventures of the Fifth Musketeer is a point and click adventure game set during the French Wars of Religion. We play as Geoffroi Le Brun, who has arrived in the town of Rouen one night in 1562 to join a company of musketeers. This is a classic adventure game very reminiscent of the style and humour of Monkey Island and Simon The Sorcerer. But it does have its issues with repeating dialogue, pixel hunting and inventory bugs.

LP Details

This is going to be a VLP and I'll be recording commentary live as I play through the game. I'm going to aim to do at least one video a week, there won't be a strict schedule as a lot depends on my work rota and childcare.

Let's Play - Touch�: The Adventures of the Fifth Musketeer

Rocket Baby Dolls fucked around with this message at 23:51 on Jun 24, 2022

# ¿ May 29, 2022 13:25

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# ¿ May 10, 2024 20:54

Rocket Baby Dolls: Mar 3, 2006; Normally I don't make aesthetic criticisms in other peoples' homes, but that rug looks like a beaver exploded. If meat is murder, then that rug is at least a severe beating.

anilEhilated posted:

Is the fencing a custcene or are you actually required to do something with it? Suddenly I'm having horrible flashbacks to the fistfights in Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis...

The fencing was part of the cutscene, we don't get to do anything elaborate with it.

One of the issues of this game, as we witnessed in this video, is that the dialogue has a habit of repeating itself sometimes. I didn't mean to select the same lines of dialogue with Henri, that was down to my own incompetence. I've tried to record a video for this game for about three days now but this is the first time I've managed it without a coughing fit. I've witnessed these conversations so many times over the past few days I tuned it out a little and didn't realise until too late.

I've also had an issue with a conversation choice ending the conversation itself then replaying in full when talking to the character again.

# ¿ May 29, 2022 18:39

Rocket Baby Dolls: Mar 3, 2006; Normally I don't make aesthetic criticisms in other peoples' homes, but that rug looks like a beaver exploded. If meat is murder, then that rug is at least a severe beating.

sb hermit posted:

for some reason, I thought it was pronounced like "huge knots" until now.

I'm surprised with the pronunciation considering that they can't seem to spell Huguenots.

# ¿ May 29, 2022 22:01

Rocket Baby Dolls: Mar 3, 2006; Normally I don't make aesthetic criticisms in other peoples' homes, but that rug looks like a beaver exploded. If meat is murder, then that rug is at least a severe beating.

It's the morning after and Geoffroi is still alive and ready to explore the town of Rouen in the daytime. This video has a lot more content and dialogue as everyone is awake as we explore the town again. I did worry a little about exploring the town so much at night with everything being closed but I'd rather be thorough and show off as much as this game as I can.

# ¿ Jun 1, 2022 22:41

Rocket Baby Dolls: Mar 3, 2006; Normally I don't make aesthetic criticisms in other peoples' homes, but that rug looks like a beaver exploded. If meat is murder, then that rug is at least a severe beating.

In this video, Geoffroi and Henri meet the gang, find a way into Juliette's bedroom and then go on a road trip.

# ¿ Jun 4, 2022 23:45

Rocket Baby Dolls: Mar 3, 2006; Normally I don't make aesthetic criticisms in other peoples' homes, but that rug looks like a beaver exploded. If meat is murder, then that rug is at least a severe beating.

Zaroff posted:

Maybe it�s the lingering stench of Ace Ventura, but I�m actually enjoying this!

It�s reminding me of The Gene Machine (which in fairness I�ve not played in close to 20 years)�

There have been some genuinely enjoyable moments in this game, there's been a couple of times that have made me laugh out loud.

# ¿ Jun 5, 2022 09:30

Rocket Baby Dolls: Mar 3, 2006; Normally I don't make aesthetic criticisms in other peoples' homes, but that rug looks like a beaver exploded. If meat is murder, then that rug is at least a severe beating.

In this video, Geoffroi and Henri visit St Quentin to follow up on de Peuple's request. The melon puzzle almost broke me during the recording, it took fourteen attempts in this session but I had also attempted a recording earlier on that I gave up on after six attempts. I loaded a save file from my test playthrough to bypass the whole thing but it was out of sequence with this playthrough so I had to abandon it. I tested the puzzle out several times yesterday and the attempts ranged from one to five times.

I've done some reading and it seems like the problem is down to playing the game on a system with a fast processor. I'm playing this game using ScummVM but I was originally going to play this using PCem, which I might use for testing this out with a slow processor on Windows 98.

# ¿ Jun 6, 2022 14:47

Rocket Baby Dolls: Mar 3, 2006; Normally I don't make aesthetic criticisms in other peoples' homes, but that rug looks like a beaver exploded. If meat is murder, then that rug is at least a severe beating.

Red Mike posted:

I believe the only reliable way to avoid this bug in ScummVM is to use the fast mode via the keybinds described here.

Also just chiming in that despite being objectively a pretty bad adventure game, this was one of my favourites growing up so I'm happy to see an LP of it finally. I think unlike a lot of the other adventure games of the time it's pretty self-contained in some ways, so there's not so many references to other unrelated things that you might not get, other than british humour and french history. And for the time it both looks surprisingly good and surprisingly bad in action.

Thank you for the advice, I didn't even know that was an option until you told me.

I've found it really enjoyable so far, does it get worse? It is buggy, but it's not too bad once you get around its quirky mechanics. This is my first time playing the game and I've not seen any further than what I've uploaded so far.

# ¿ Jun 6, 2022 19:21

Rocket Baby Dolls: Mar 3, 2006; Normally I don't make aesthetic criticisms in other peoples' homes, but that rug looks like a beaver exploded. If meat is murder, then that rug is at least a severe beating.

I've just finished a test playthrough for the next update. This is my first time playing the game and I just wanted to say that despite some of the frustrations that I've expressed, this is a surprisingly good game. The writing has been really good and the puns have been superb, especially some of the character names.

# ¿ Jun 7, 2022 10:25

Rocket Baby Dolls: Mar 3, 2006; Normally I don't make aesthetic criticisms in other peoples' homes, but that rug looks like a beaver exploded. If meat is murder, then that rug is at least a severe beating.

Zaroff posted:

Is anything else done with Alexandre Dumas, or is he just there to write the poetry? I�m surprised there�s been no attempt to give him any dialogue indicating he�s writing a book about musketeers�

As far as I can tell: No, we do have to return to St Quentin for a later puzzle but it doesn't involve Dumas

# ¿ Jun 7, 2022 19:36

Rocket Baby Dolls: Mar 3, 2006; Normally I don't make aesthetic criticisms in other peoples' homes, but that rug looks like a beaver exploded. If meat is murder, then that rug is at least a severe beating.

Samovar posted:

Ugly guy, tho.

Not so much in his younger days. He did let himself go when he started getting older. Much like myself.

Rocket Baby Dolls fucked around with this message at 11:19 on Jun 8, 2022

# ¿ Jun 8, 2022 11:17

Rocket Baby Dolls: Mar 3, 2006; Normally I don't make aesthetic criticisms in other peoples' homes, but that rug looks like a beaver exploded. If meat is murder, then that rug is at least a severe beating.

In this video, Geoffroi and Henri visit Amiens to track down the killer with the blue cloak. After doing a bit of shopping and trying on some different clothes they eventually have some success, for a few minutes at least...

# ¿ Jun 9, 2022 00:10

Rocket Baby Dolls: Mar 3, 2006; Normally I don't make aesthetic criticisms in other peoples' homes, but that rug looks like a beaver exploded. If meat is murder, then that rug is at least a severe beating.

I had spent a long time writing out a post about a delay in the next update because the game had become softlocked but it turns out that I'm a dumbass that can't read. I've spent so long on this reply screen I felt like not posting something would be an even bigger waste of time but here I am spending time typing out and posting a none-update.

I am planning to record another update tomorrow. Tonight's practise run went way off course (edit: and by an extra half an hour) due to perceived progress issues so it's going to be a fun session.

Rocket Baby Dolls fucked around with this message at 00:02 on Jun 10, 2022

# ¿ Jun 10, 2022 00:00

Rocket Baby Dolls: Mar 3, 2006; Normally I don't make aesthetic criticisms in other peoples' homes, but that rug looks like a beaver exploded. If meat is murder, then that rug is at least a severe beating.

Samovar posted:

Take your time, chief, you're not OBLIGATED to upload at a regular schedule.

I always schedule myself to one video a week but it never works out that way.

I've gone through the original puzzle this morning and it worked out fine. I said that we would be visiting Paris next but that's not where we need to go to advance the plot. But we need to visit Paris at some point any so I'm sticking to what I said originally. We can what needs to be done in Paris now or after the next couple of locations, I'll just be doing it sooner rather than later.

Rocket Baby Dolls fucked around with this message at 11:35 on Jun 10, 2022

# ¿ Jun 10, 2022 09:52

Rocket Baby Dolls: Mar 3, 2006; Normally I don't make aesthetic criticisms in other peoples' homes, but that rug looks like a beaver exploded. If meat is murder, then that rug is at least a severe beating.

In this video, Geoffroi and Henri revisit Rouen to take care of more business and then swing by Paris to engage in some bartering with the market stall owners. I recorded this last night but couldn't publish it as Youtube was having a few issues.

# ¿ Jun 11, 2022 06:43

Rocket Baby Dolls: Mar 3, 2006; Normally I don't make aesthetic criticisms in other peoples' homes, but that rug looks like a beaver exploded. If meat is murder, then that rug is at least a severe beating.

Samovar posted:

Lots and lots and... ugh... lots of background chatter!

I mean, I get what they were trying for, but by God, that was pretty obnoxious - even by my standards!

sb hermit posted:

I can see this as one of those 90s screensavers where it's just a cacophony of vendors and a midi version of Orpheus in the Underworld

I can see what they were going for but it was executed poorly, either that or they intended to make it an obnoxious clusterfuck. We are done with that part of Paris now, thankfully.

anilEhilated posted:

I like how the story hinges on there being exactly one (1) man in a blue cloak and one (1) masked highwayman in the whole of France.

e: I *think* the souvenir puzzle is based on the fact that the practicing musketeers were actually hitting the shop where you bought it so it counts as a success of sorts?

Maybe it's been a slow year for banditry?

It is indeed, it was just convenient that we had already spoken to the shopkeeper and bought the souvenir. He already gave us the hints about the musketeers using his shop as target practise. I don't know how those bullets were ricocheting to actually reach the shop in the first place apart from adventure game logic.

# ¿ Jun 11, 2022 14:33

Rocket Baby Dolls: Mar 3, 2006; Normally I don't make aesthetic criticisms in other peoples' homes, but that rug looks like a beaver exploded. If meat is murder, then that rug is at least a severe beating.

In this video, Geoffroi and Henri pay a visit to the Louvre and then take a trip to Le Mans to meet the local people. This video was a bit of a pain in the arse to record, some of the hitboxes in this game take some liberties and it was causing some issues and a lot of misclicks. After a few attempts trying to record this, I decided to just go ahead with it, even with a few misclicks and starting to lose my voice towards the end.

Crazy Achmed posted:

I'm still catching up with the videos, but this does seem like a remarkably well-made game and I feel like I missed out, having had no idea this existed back when I was a kid.
It's well-written, the art and voice acting is pretty well-done, there's plenty to do and look at, and the puzzle design feels halfway decent. I watched the old 1973 three musketeers film recently, and it feels like the designers were trying to capture a similar brand of comedy.

Is it just me or do some of the sprites look like they're cribbed heavily from monkey island 2 - I haven't checked but the proportions and posture look really familiar, like someone took them as a.

I only found out about this game a few weeks ago and I wish that I had heard it about sooner as it's been a pleasant surprise. I saw comparisons to Monkey Island and Simon The Sorcerer before now and recently Indiana Jones, which I can see a mix of all of them. The writing really is well done and the humour is very old-school English comedy.

I didn't realise until now that the game's writer is also a pseudonym: Susan De Nimes\Sue-de-nym. Most of the people involved in this game didn't do a whole lot else with the exceptions of Ben Daglish and Mark Estdale.

# ¿ Jun 15, 2022 10:47

Rocket Baby Dolls: Mar 3, 2006; Normally I don't make aesthetic criticisms in other peoples' homes, but that rug looks like a beaver exploded. If meat is murder, then that rug is at least a severe beating.

Red Mike posted:

You can blame that on the publisher being absorbed into Eidos Interactive basically immediately after release, but not before asking for a couple more point and click adventure games because of how well received the writing on Touche was. Funnily enough, if you follow the chain of ownership that means that most likely the IP is now owned by Square Enix.

I believe the history is that Graham Lilley basically co-wrote the initial story with someone he'd previously collaborated on a game with (Kingmaker), but by the time the game was actively being developed none of them were happy with the story/plot, so Ben Daglish/Sarah Bradnock collaborated to turn it into a half-decent story but neither wanted to claim credit so they came up with the pseudonym.

e: I should also say, especially considering that the entire game is basically the work of two programmers (one of whom was also primarily audio/music), and a single artist, it's mighty impressive for its time. All the moreso when you consider that it was developed for DOS and thus had super strict requirements technically.

I was reading the credits this morning here: https://www.mobygames.com/game/dos/touch-the-adventures-of-the-fifth-musketeer/credits

The writing has been pretty good so far and some of the puns have been very amusing. I was expecting to see more come out from them in the same vein but it's a shame that the company was absorbed soon after this release.

Now that you've mentioned that the game was developed for DOS I can understand some of the technical issues. The more I read about the game the more that I admire it.

# ¿ Jun 15, 2022 19:48

Rocket Baby Dolls: Mar 3, 2006; Normally I don't make aesthetic criticisms in other peoples' homes, but that rug looks like a beaver exploded. If meat is murder, then that rug is at least a severe beating.

Red Mike posted:

There's a site that has at least an interview with the artist and a bit more info. Although if you try to google for it normally you usually arrive at the flash version of the page which is obviously no longer useful. The main site has a set of links at the bottom about this game and other similar ones (like Legend of Kyrandia, another less well-known point and click adventure game).

Thank you for the link. It was very interesting to read more about the game, especially the interview with Teoman Irmak. It's a shame that they didn't make more adventure games.

The Kyrandia series is another series from my youth that I remember with equal parts fondness and frustration. I think someone LP'd all three games a few years ago.

# ¿ Jun 15, 2022 21:43

Rocket Baby Dolls: Mar 3, 2006; Normally I don't make aesthetic criticisms in other peoples' homes, but that rug looks like a beaver exploded. If meat is murder, then that rug is at least a severe beating.

In this video, Geoffroi and Henri engage with the seedy underworld in Le Mans in order to track down the Highwayman. Things start to go their way, for a short time at least...

We're fairly close to the end now as it's looking like it's only going to be two or three updates until the game is over. I'm always on the lookout for interesting and obscure adventure games and have been picking a few up here and there. I'm most likely going to do an LP of Kingdom O' Magic next. I've lost confidence in attempting an LP of Lula 3D right now, I haven't ruled it out just yet. I did say that I was going to do a couple of old Star Trek action-adventure games so they may be coming up in the near future, I may fit a couple of short adventure games between both of them though.

# ¿ Jun 17, 2022 23:45

Rocket Baby Dolls: Mar 3, 2006; Normally I don't make aesthetic criticisms in other peoples' homes, but that rug looks like a beaver exploded. If meat is murder, then that rug is at least a severe beating.

Zaroff posted:

I mentioned it previously, but I remember The Gene Machine being a fun late 90s point and click which is very much inspired by Jules Verne.

The only time I saw I here was an abandoned attempt, and there�s nothing on the LP archive for it.

I noticed the comparison that you made before, I've heard of the game before but have never played it. I'm getting ahold of a copy now as it sounds interesting as I'm a sucker for Victorian romanticization. I'll add it to the list but I can't make any firm commitments about when it will happen.

# ¿ Jun 18, 2022 00:15

Rocket Baby Dolls: Mar 3, 2006; Normally I don't make aesthetic criticisms in other peoples' homes, but that rug looks like a beaver exploded. If meat is murder, then that rug is at least a severe beating.

In this video, Geoffroi & Henri speak to the chancellor, then they briefly become undercover agents and then Geoffroi steals some of Juliette's undergarments. I believe that this game will be finished in the next update, I haven't completed a test run yet but there seems to be enough content for one more video.

I've just noticed that the guide that I'm using was written by someone who lives in Guernsey :wotwot:

anilEhilated posted:

I am seriously disappointed there are no absurdly long cart races in Le Mans.

That was the first thing that I thought of but I had no idea how they'd work it in. I'm going to assume that the talk of the "cart factory" was a reference to it?

# ¿ Jun 19, 2022 23:26

Rocket Baby Dolls: Mar 3, 2006; Normally I don't make aesthetic criticisms in other peoples' homes, but that rug looks like a beaver exploded. If meat is murder, then that rug is at least a severe beating.

Samovar posted:

Woof, that wax-knife-key puzzle.

That's taking the mickey proper, like.

I could understand the logic of using the wax to make a mould but not with using it to unlock the huge, rusty iron lock.

# ¿ Jun 20, 2022 08:51

Rocket Baby Dolls: Mar 3, 2006; Normally I don't make aesthetic criticisms in other peoples' homes, but that rug looks like a beaver exploded. If meat is murder, then that rug is at least a severe beating.

Red Mike posted:

I think the original plan with the key puzzle probably made sense, in the sense that you had the wax impression and you filed down your dagger to turn it into the key.. except the graphics for it show extra metal on the dagger as a result, somehow. I think this was one spot where I got locked out of completing the game, maybe because I'd put the wax on my dagger before I needed to use it for cutting the boat loose and it no longer let me do that?

Also I appreciated that the way Geoffroi pretended to be English was to speak slower and louder, and to talk about the weather.

I've just gone back in to check this out and you can't cut the moorings with the waxy knife, but you should still have the sword in your inventory at this point and that does cut the moorings. Apparently, there's a bug with one of the puzzles if you leave the Rouen cathedral too early.

# ¿ Jun 20, 2022 09:31

Rocket Baby Dolls: Mar 3, 2006; Normally I don't make aesthetic criticisms in other peoples' homes, but that rug looks like a beaver exploded. If meat is murder, then that rug is at least a severe beating.

Red Mike posted:

I think I'd also lost the sword at that point because of the bug around moving items from Henri to yourself, and that most likely it happened very early on when you're forced to grab an item from Henri. The walkthrough I was following at the time was a bit confusing, especially because it used "the sword" to mean both the dagger and the rapier.

I forgot about the inventory bug. I haven't experienced it yet, thankfully, but the walkthroughs that I find recently have been pretty good at keeping things to the absolute minimum.

# ¿ Jun 20, 2022 10:50

Rocket Baby Dolls: Mar 3, 2006; Normally I don't make aesthetic criticisms in other peoples' homes, but that rug looks like a beaver exploded. If meat is murder, then that rug is at least a severe beating.

Zaroff posted:

I might have missed it, but is there an in-game reason that both Geoffroi and Henri have separate inventories? Given the bugs attached to them it seems needlessly convoluted!

If there is one I also missed it. I have absolutely no idea why a two inventory system was developed. There are a couple of puzzles were Henri picks up inventory we've dropped for some reason but I don't know why he couldn't automatically hand them back to us. There's also the monastery disguise, but once it's done there's no reason to keep the clothes anymore.

There's also William de Peuples body which, as far as I know, doesn't serve any actual purpose apart from inventory space. If you don't pick the body up it just remains there for the rest of the game.

# ¿ Jun 20, 2022 15:43

Rocket Baby Dolls: Mar 3, 2006; Normally I don't make aesthetic criticisms in other peoples' homes, but that rug looks like a beaver exploded. If meat is murder, then that rug is at least a severe beating.

It definitely seems like the game had a bigger scope originally. It was a small team with a big publisher so there are a number of potential reasons why they reduced the scope of the game. There are game testers in the credits but the game was still pushed out with some major bugs.

How easy would it be to remake the game? Would it be something that you would undertake? There's a number of people on GOG who still have an interest in the original game being released so I'm sure there would be interest in it getting some form of release.

# ¿ Jun 20, 2022 19:47

Rocket Baby Dolls: Mar 3, 2006; Normally I don't make aesthetic criticisms in other peoples' homes, but that rug looks like a beaver exploded. If meat is murder, then that rug is at least a severe beating.

That's really impressive work, thank you for sharing. I'm getting ready to prepare and upload the final video now so feel free to share any further findings.

There was a bit at the start of the next update which made me remember the money pouch, we haven't had anything in it since the start of the game. It's definitely a mechanic that was not used at all after finding the franc in to use to purchase the souvenir.

# ¿ Jun 22, 2022 10:01

Rocket Baby Dolls: Mar 3, 2006; Normally I don't make aesthetic criticisms in other peoples' homes, but that rug looks like a beaver exploded. If meat is murder, then that rug is at least a severe beating.

This is the final video of this LP. Geoffroi & Henri find a way to reach the castle, they just need to find a way to storm it, save Juliette, stop the Cardinal and stay alive throughout.

Thank you, everyone, for being a part of this LP. This has been a surprisingly good experience, I've enjoyed the writing and the humour. I appreciate that people have gone out of their way to tell me more about the development of the game, something that makes the game even more extraordinary. Please keep us updated with your progress, Red Mike.

I've been trying to work on starting a Kingdom O' Magic LP and it's going to be a bit of a peculiar one to attempt. It's a really bizarre, sometimes delving into the surreal, fantasy adventure game.

# ¿ Jun 22, 2022 15:58

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# ¿ May 10, 2024 20:54

Rocket Baby Dolls: Mar 3, 2006; Normally I don't make aesthetic criticisms in other peoples' homes, but that rug looks like a beaver exploded. If meat is murder, then that rug is at least a severe beating.

Red Mike posted:

Just to wrap up and say a thank you (and a drat you) for getting my head stuck on this project for a couple weeks, I've now achieved the goal I set out to initially:

https://i.imgur.com/wXhXPoa.gifv

This is running in the actual Touche engine, just by replacing the TOUCHE.DAT file with a new one. In fact, here's a link to my custom one. All it sets up is the background (a modified screenshot from the Princess Bride movie), the two sprites with their stock animations (from the original game for convenience), a couple points for positioning and the strings, and then a program that just makes the sprites act it out about as far as the GIF shows. Honestly even for this little I'm surprised at how little it really took to wire it up, the game engine is honestly not bad. If anything lets it down, it's the animation system being very clearly a last-minute bodge.

The only big outstanding thing I haven't touched is the conversation system, but from a skim it just looks like more of the same, so it's just a matter of working out the right patterns for things. Obviously there's no actual gameplay yet, but that's mostly because putting all the right data in (hitboxes, areas, walk routes, etc) is a lot of manual work at this stage; writing tooling to do it automatically will honestly be less work, but I don't know that I'll take it that far. At the very least I'll clean up what I have and push it up into the repository in the next few days.

So thanks for the nostalgia trip with the LP and then the two weeks of productive procrastination!

Thank you for all of your hard work! I'll give the DAT a test run in the morning.

# ¿ Jul 4, 2022 23:05

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Let's Play! > Let's Play - Touche: The Adventures of the Fifth Musketeer