Stumbling through Uninvited

[davidn]

After two weeks with my parents here and not really working on anything during the evenings in favour of actually going and enjoying life with people, I'm back on my computer again now. I've missed these - have you?

This time, I picked up a game that I'd been aware of for ages, but hadn't ever tried - a game which, as I was to find out during the course of this video, contains three hundred rooms, six thousand inventory items, and a puzzle. It's Uninvited!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bERyeu6_Z0g

I actually did this about a fortnight ago, but it took me this long to finally edit it together. I think I got a few good moments out of it, but the majority of the video is of wandering around hoovering up items from most of the house and not really understanding what to do - the pitfalls of the adventure game genre. By the end I felt like I was just getting started, but the video had already been going on for over twenty minutes, so I felt it best to quit while I was ahead.

I think I'll do something more actiony again next time, that I have a decent chance of grasping entirely instantly - perhaps Marble Madness.

Please don't laugh at the way I say "Gameboy".

Comments

[ravenworks.livejournal.com]

What was wrong with your pronunciation of Gameboy? "Research" sounded stranger to me...

"Uninvited: the game with two towels!"

I will never be able to help but picture adventure game characters as all having wheelbarrows from now on :)

"A mentally challenged chicken who's dead" :D

I am dying to know what those cursewords were, or if you just put in the bleeps for comedic effect ;)

It's strange how generous this game is with popping you back to life just before you died! Is the NES shadowgate the same way?

I am kind of intrigued by this game - I wore out the three MacVentures I had so thoroughly, I'd forgotten how interesting they can be when they're still new... especially with that continue system to take the edge off! :P

Hooray for the stumbling throughs :D

[davidn]

A wheelbarrow and an item-hoover that feeds into it! I really cannot imagine using a tenth of the items that I picked up here - particularly as there's another cupboard-of-stuff just around the corner from where I stopped playing. (Much like Mortal Kombat, it was when the game started becoming weird that I decided I couldn't really take any more.)

The NES Shadowgate does bring you back to life just before you made your fatal mistake (which you do, very often) - so dying doesn't feel as oppressive as it otherwise would, seeing as it lurks around every corner, straight line and obviously intact ladder. (I take it the Mac versions didn't do this?) The Shadowgate character's particular brand of stupidity seemed to be in dying in every way possible... this one seemed to go for the approach of having been told precisely what to do, down to opening a book or bottle as a necessary prerequisite for using it (which I think would have been implied by the fact that you're using it at all).

I thought that I put a bit of a weird Kensingtonian inflection on the word "Gameboy". However, I could see that being very much lost among all the other words that I pronounce more notably transatlantically, now that I think about it.

There was quite a string of shocking muttering there, but I thought it sounded funnier with the bleeps. Also my mum knows about these videos.

[ravenworks.livejournal.com]

In the Mac shadowgate, you had to load a save file when you died! You can imagine how many save files we had, after a while :P

[davidn]

At least, in an unusually generous gesture for the time, I can't think of any places where you can make the game unwinnable. I used to think that you could block your path permanently in the coffin room in Shadowgate, but apparently you can use an unlabelled bottle to dissolve the slime away... if you think like the game designers.

[ravenworks.livejournal.com]

What, in Shadowgate? It's FULL of ways to permanently wreck the game! Admittedly I can't think of a ton off the top of my head, but I think the hammer breaks if you don't use it on the right mirror, and I know you can fail to pick up items, or use them on inconsequential things.... to be fair, I guess the more I think about it, MOST of the situations like that (that I can remember) involve it being obvious that you've done wrong before you can leave the room... I'm almost certain there are some more nefarious ones, though.

This, of course, goes without mentioning the problem of saving after you've left yourself with not enough torches to finish the game...

[davidn]

I see... then in the Gameboy one that I played, they generously "fixed" those points by making them just kill you instead! If you break the mirror on the left, then shards of glass fly at you, and into your brain, and dead, and the one on the right opens a portal into deep space that you're then sucked through.

Torches, though, those are always going to be an unavoidable problem. Particularly as I used to reignite them so much earlier than I needed to to avoid hearing that music...

[kjorteo]

I am kind of intrigued by this game - I wore out the three MacVentures I had so thoroughly, I'd forgotten how interesting they can be when they're still new...

Um, I thought there were only three MacVentures total--Uninvited, Shadowgate, and Deja Vu.

Oh, wait, okay, I just looked it up and there are four--Deja Vu has a sequel. So you played ... the other three?

[ravenworks.livejournal.com]

If those are the only four, then, yes. >.>

[ravenworks.livejournal.com]

by which I mean, yes, those are the three I played. X3 Deja Vu I+II, and Shadowgate.

[kjorteo]

On one hand, attacking the Mysterious Lady with a closed bottle of No Ghost is pretty impressive. (And your reaction was hilarious.)

On the other hand, the Shadowgate guy can fatally stab himself with a sledgehammer.

Tough competition, to be sure!

[davidn]

As touched on above, I've decided that they have slightly different brands of terminal stupidity - Shadowgate Man will find a way to die given pretty much any combination of item and action. Uninvited Man... just needs to be told exactly what to do ,down to not considering opening books or bottle an action implied in using them, remembering to open doors before walking through them, and breathing. Now I'm surprised "Move" is such a relatively automatic procedure, instead of having to manually put one foot in front of the other.

[kjorteo]

To paraphrase:

Shadowgate-Man's problem is that for every bridge over a deep chasm, pointy object, or any situation at all in which his brain can interpret the "Examine" command as "Kill yourself using," it does.

Uninvited-Man's problem is that for any situation at all in which his brain can interpret any command as anything, it doesn't.

[rakarr.livejournal.com]

That is the best, most amazing summary of Shadowgate that I have ever heard.

[rakarr.livejournal.com]

After Shadowgate, can you blame him for being reluctant to move?

[rakarr.livejournal.com]

I'm going to follow Ravenworks' stellar example and respond to this in "live" form, by typing things as I'm watching (and then editing them some so they sound less stupid).

0:03
I'm glad it's a series! This is cause for celebration. I also like the sheer unstumbling eloquence of your introduction.

1:35
For a moment I thought you'd translated "gasoline" to "petrol" without even realising - as with that German fellow who was translating Granstream Saga on the fly, your ability to tread the line between such disaparate languages is truly impressive.
-then-
(on my second watch, to get all the times right) I've just decided that the protagonist of this game is Jeremy Clarkson after a horrific crash.

2:00
"I thought that he might have some sort of Mister Bean-style security measures."
Come on, I know you were going to see if you could stab yourself with the steering wheel.

3:00
Dead already, and accused of laziness! I thought Shadowgate's propensity to kill you simply for walking about was bad, but you didn't even have to do that in this case... this is bastardry of a Sierra magnitude - oh, you've just said something similar.

4:00
That's a very.. ordinary-looking mailbox -sorry, post box - considering the stone monstrosity in the background...

5:25
...and some very odd proportions within the house...

6:25
"It also seems to be a comically inaccurate representation of the Earth."
That's just Tasmania, given proper recognition at last. King Island and Flinder's Island? Screw 'em.

6:45
"If it is not used properly, you will probably die."
Or if you look at it askance or fail to compulsively open and close the book five times every time you enter a new area or something.

7:00
"Actually, I went to a restaurant called Stillini the other week."
Were it not for "the other week" (and the fact that, deceptively, this video was recorded long before it was posted) I'd be compelled to ask if this is where you spilled your magically voluminous drink down your front.

7:35
Oh, the book disappeared. Now I'm guessing you're screwed.

8:11
There's a bit of a lean at the bottom of the screen, and "GET YOU" is terrifyingly italicised.
-then-
Hit her, hit her! Good God, what's wrong with me?

8:50
Kjorteo just killed you. I also suspect it was him that told you about the scare, which is even more criminal. I want to hear some fear!

10:50
I'm.. so glad you turned that light on.

11:30
Theeeere we go! =D
Additionally, I like your skeleton voice.
-then-
"I'm not dead yet" - you were saying? He did warningly foreshadow the "no escape" part! Still, that's terrible.

13:40
Wow, it specifically calls attention to the lack of a toilet? I have a feeling that's not a part of the game but just a developer being silly. Nintendo was notorious for censorship in the NES and SNES eras; did they perhaps censor toilets as well?

14:15
There we go with "hoovering" as a verb again!

14:30
I'm not sure, but I think taking that ruby was a bad idea.

14:55
Take the wheelchair? Yeah, just shove it in your pants, Threepwood style.

16:00
A third towel! You've hit the jackpot, I think.

16:30
You've tried being Guybrush Threepwood. Now you can be Roger Wilco. Your sister is in good hands.
-then-
No Ghost: May contain traces of root beer.

18:05
Take this, you vaporous voodoo vermin! Oh dear...
-then-
I'm sorry, this guy (girl?) might be stupid, but until I've seen you stab yourself with the bottle or take a flying leap out of a window, Shadowgate's protagonist wins.

19:15
Use the amulet, use the amulet! I don't know if will help, but... hmm, or maybe No Ghost yourself?

20:05
"You -imagine- that this is a game room" - because that oddly elongated monstrosity of a chessboard isn't for playing on, obviously.

21:00
"SNAP! You hear something break and the music grinds to a halt."
That was the Shadowgate protagonist's bones. He finally worked out how to best wield a hammer against himself.

21:20
....

[davidn]

What a commentary :) I should tell you that I prepare my introduction in advance and then read it back - no doubt you'll have noticed my fluidity dropping sharply when actually playing the game!

I hadn't made the root beer connection :) (Actually, the first time I played Monkey Island, I had no idea what root beer was, so missed the joke entirely). I didn't try using many items on myself this time - soap, towels, bottles... most of them seem fairly harmless, but I wouldn't be confident of avoiding death through all of them. "Eat... box of dishwasher detergent."

I'd known about the mysterious lady for a very long time, but... in most other places, it really is frightening when something suddenly appears on the otherwise static backgrounds. It's surprising when something that usually only reacts to your actions suddenly... does things on its own. The game was definitely heading into a weird unpredictable territory at the end, especially with Bub and/or Bob.

[lupineangel.livejournal.com]

I'm loving these (although I'm still waiting for your rendition of the Duck Tales theme! ;P )! Some thoughts:

- "You take the pendant and it flashes and the door to the mansion opens! Could your sister have gone inside?" Well, obviously not, since the pendant was still there inside a sealed envelope. Which means the whole plot with the mansion and such is basically a red herring, and your sister actually just hitch-hiked to that garage you saw a couple of miles back to call the AA.
- I believe the cause of all those sudden interruptions with the red skull and the "you feel something curiously non-specific trying to take over your mind"-type messages was the ruby you picked up; if you drop it, or leave it alone, I think you can avoid those.
- You managed to pick up so much stuff, by the time you reached that supply closet with the No-Ghost in I briefly wondered if you were playing as Trilby, then reflected that a) he wouldn't exist for a couple more decades when this game was released, and b) that he was a decently smart protagonist, and wouldn't be so stupid as to fall for the same "attempt to burgle a haunted house" routine twice. :P
- Those are the worst magic words ever. Seriously. "Izzy, wizzy, let's get busy" was an improvement on those, and that was from a protagonist that couldn't even talk aloud.
- Nidoking! What are you doing in this haunted mansion? You should be heading up my Pokémon Red team, not dancing around to a crazy person's music! :P If the game wasn't weirding me out beforehand, it certainly was by this point. :P

D.F.

[davidn]

"Could your sister have gone inside?" Well, obviously not, since the pendant was still there inside a sealed envelope.

...I never thought of that. God, you're right. That makes the game completely pointless, doesn't it. And I'd actually forgotten about the magic, virtually as soon as the mag.book disappeared - some of those might help.

I did get the idea that the ruby was the problem, though it really doesn't make it obvious as it takes so long for its effects to trigger the first time...! In a game where there are so many pointless items to pick up, it's difficult to tell which one might be affecting you. And there's only one place in the game you can drop items, not shown in this video - but at least it outright tells you that you can leave what you don't need there, when you get there. And apart from the ruby, he's not exactly the greatest cat burglar ever, preferring to steal people's laundry, soap and old shoe boxes rather than anything of any value!

The game was becoming... absolutely bizarre, when I stopped. I could just about cope with the things I expected to happen sooner or later, like undead creatures leaping out, but... when I had no idea what it was going to do next, that's somehow a lot more frightening!

[tamakun.livejournal.com]

I think these are brilliant! I really do like how these MacVenture games really do let you wander about, trying to figure out just what you're trying to do... it actually fits with the "Stumbling Through" idea rather well :D

I'd like to see your take on Deja Vu, but I can understand if you don't want to do any more MacVenture games since once you've seen one, you've pretty much Stumbled Through them all. Actually, now that I think about it, I don't think Deja Vu has hammer-death. It may be a nice change of pace. ^^