The Penguin and the trap

[olzen]

*tries*

Well, I was kinda talking to pcj, but okay...

DARGH!

[pcj]

I was kinda talking to pcj

*tries*

[olzen]

Yeah and you failed. Like yo momma...

[Datadog]

OK -yeah. Forget the easy answer thing. I don't know what I was thinking on that one.

Here's some random distractions.

"Hey! A group of girl scouts are looking to give someone a complete makeover!"

"Look out! It's gingivitis!"

"Hey, look! Top Dollar's running a sale on tuxes!"

"Look! A frozen river of feces!"

"Look! An idiot!"
"Where?!"

[Datadog]

Another alternative to this whole puzzle is simply to make getting past him harder in the first place. Kinda like the Knights of Ni - once you get him one thing, he'll want something more bizarre and harder to find. Something that'll force the player to backtrack. Or do we already have a scavenger hunt-style puzzle?

Also, do we need a whole other room for this? Could the cage be dropped right on Roger inside the lair and save Marty the trouble of drawing two screens?

[pcj]

On your random distractions, might throw a couple of Monkey Island insults in there.

And we shouldn't need a whole 'nother room for it, he can just make it a big room.

[olzen]

OK -yeah. Forget the easy answer thing. I don't know what I was thinking on that one.

Here's some random distractions.

"Hey! A group of girl scouts are looking to give someone a complete makeover!"

"Look out! It's gingivitis!"

"Hey, look! Top Dollar's running a sale on tuxes!"

"Look! A frozen river of feces!"

"Look! An idiot!"
"Where?!"

Great! Except the fourth one should probably be changed to "Look! Full frontal nudity!" The last one in particular is very Roger-ish...

[mjomble]

i like the throwing the little penguins idea. but distracting him is another issue altogether.

Well, my idea was to replace that with the aerodynamic little penguin thrown in the penguin's face. But 'three-headed apeman' sounds like an interesting reference. Or some of the other suggested lines as well.

[karmot]

How about "You throw penguin like man disguised as bat." "How apropriate, there is one just behind you."

[olzen]

Heh, that's not too bad actually.

[Datadog]

I heard pcj didn't like the idea, but there's something about chucking tiny penguins at a flip switch that sounds awesome to me

I'll have to go with him on this, actually. While there's not much to do when you're trapped inside a cage, throwing penguins at a switch doesn't sound like the most logical thing to do even though it may be awesome in concept. I'm not trying to back out of extra animation here - I'm just trying to see this from a player's perspective.

Just a thought, but is it really mandatory to kill the Penguin? You just walked through a boot camp full of people who want to kill you. He could actually be a character who gives you information and something useful for later on in exchange for helping him out. Maybe something like a whistle you could use to summon his penguins for a one-time service.

If we were to make getting past him harder, we could just complicate obtaining the umbrella from the drink (switch it with a mushroom?)

[Datadog]

Moving this topic back over here, I've brainstormed a possible structure for the sewers that might work, using a mixture of everyone's ideas.

This idea will work under the premise that the Penguin is not "evil" per se - just an annoying miserable pain in the butt.

I'm also going to ignore everything I've been preaching the last couple of days and try to structurely play this out like it was originally scripted since that one seemed to have the best flow.

So you've got your three traps (obstacles):

GOO ROOM

Some possible ideas for crossing the goo:
-Roger wears clothespin on nose
-Roger uses surgical mask to block the fumes
-Roger puts plugs/medical sponges/bandages/crayons up his nose
-Roger wears the Aluminum Mallard's air freshener as face mask

THE CHASM ROOM

Okay, a bit cliche, but a decent obstacle (since I'm using the original trap for this room over in the next one.) You'd enter from one side, then there'd be a large section of ground missing before the exit to the lair.

The obstacle is changeable if anyone has better idea (shooting darts, rolling boulders, etc.) but I think the premise to work with here is that you could have to mix two items together to make something that could help you cross.

So here's a team challenge: using random things you find, what could you build so you could repeatedly cross a chasm? Extra points to whoever doesn't come up with a type of grappling hook.

The other premise with this room is that the gears to shove the can in are in here, so you can defuse the trap in the other room. But it won't let you do that until you've been in there.


PENGUIN'S LAIR

Can't really explain most of this, so I wrote a short dialogue to sort of explain what I'm thinking. Something along the lines of...
(Roger enters the lair. Penguins block all exits.)
PENGUIN: "Bwark! Who dares enter my lair?!"
ROGER: "I'm Roger Wilco!"
PENGUIN: "No mortal ever gets this far! ... Except for that darn ape with the crowbar... and a couple kids. And my mom on weekends."
ROGER: "Then you won't mind if use that ladder over there to leave?"
PENGUIN: "Heh, heh, heh - of course, you can. Just step a little closer so I get a better look at you."
(Roger steps forward)
PENGUIN: "A little closer."
(Roger steps forward)
PENGUIN: "To your left."
(Roger steps to the left.)
PENGUIN: "Bwahahah!"
(Penguin pulls a lever. A sewage main opens up above and Roger is covered in green stuff.)
ROGER: "Yuck!"
PENGUIN: "I got ya! Bwahahaha! I got ya!"
ROGER: "This is disgusting!"
PENGUIN: "What a dork! A-ha-ha-ha-ha!"
(Fade to black - of course, the finished conversation would be a lot more intelligent if this is okayed)
"You head back to the camp and clean yourself up."
(Roger steps back into the chasm room, clean once again.)
ROGER: "Jerk."

Everytime you go back in the lair, the Penguin will find a different way of tricking you into standing that spot. What you need to do is cram the can into the gears outside his door in the chasm room, under the main sewage line. That way, when you go back in and Penguin tries to coat you, the sewage line will back up and erupt over his head, causing a constant trickle. After this, he'll be sore, so if you try to approach the exit, he'll order his penguins to haul you away and you'll have to walk back through the sewers again. You can barter for free passage using the bar umbrella, which he'll finally accept to keep the trickle off his head.

All the original dialogue from the Wiki would still stand though. There's a lot of good stuff in there.

I just think it might be funny if once you get to Penguin, he doesn't really do anything that kills you (unlike everyone else in the game) - he's just a jerk.

So what does everyone think?

I still like the idea of an Albino Furkunz though. Maybe later on in the game?

[mjomble]

Sounds good!

[olzen]

I agree with Justas for a change. Sounds much better.

[MartyMcFly]

mr negative here again
for the goo scene, i think a gas mask or breathing device may make a bit more sense than a peg on the nose becuase he could simply not smell or hold his nose closed with his hands. so i'd defintly go with the surgical mask in that list