Mattcrampy
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If, like me, you came to DROD through the Underdogs you probably stumbled upon another highly regarded puzzler called the Fool's Errand (available from the creator's website). The followup comes out in about a week: The Fool and His Money.

Like the original, it's a metapuzzle game set in a tarot-themed world. As you solve puzzles, you unlock parts of the narrative which come together to form one giant puzzle. I doubt he's going to release a demo, but the original for Mac (with emulator provided) or DOS is probably a good way to get a feel for the sort of game it's likely to be.

It's taken the creator, Cliff Johnson, much longer than he thought to put it together, and it's been pushed back at least a year now, but it looks like it's finally ready to go.

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[Last edited by Mattcrampy at 11-27-2006 08:27 AM]

Syntax
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Excellent news I just hope it's legit.

I swear this same site used to say "Out in September... pre-order now" a while back. I'll definitely keep an eye out for this as Fool's Errand was an amazing game.

I'm just wary about this paying up-front... "The fool and his money are easily parted"... :/

For those who haven't played the whole suite, I'd also highly recommend his other games (should be on his web-site). "3" is particularly surreal.

Ezlo
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Okay, so I finally got "Fool's Errand" up and running. Now I am trying to figure out where the puzzles are. I just keep reading, and reading, and reading, and reading until I get to the end of the text. Help?

mrimer
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Ooh, I'll be all over that!

Oy...and that reminds me...now that I have this Mac at home for DROD development, I can actually also use it to play those Mac-only games out there I've been dying to try for the longest time. I've been wanting to take a look at "3" (isn't it "3 for Three" or something?).

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Mattcrampy
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3 In Three is Mac only, but because Apple was never one for backwards compatibility it might not work on an iMac or newer. The author helpfully provides a Mac emulator that you could use if you have troubles.

Marathon is probably under the same boat, although like the Fool's Errand it's provided free-as-in-beer by its creators. And if you're going around playing Mac-only games, you are legally obligated to play Marathon.

Now I am trying to figure out where the puzzles are. I just keep reading, and reading, and reading, and reading until I get to the end of the text. Help?

I believe there's a button next to the title of each piece of text that starts the puzzle for that segment.

I swear this same site used to say "Out in September... pre-order now" a while back.

Yes, yes it did. He has kept pushing it back, but it's apparantly done and coming out on the 4th of December, according to the countdown on his main site. (Like I don't have enough to play this December. Well, okay, just Zelda, but still.)

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[Last edited by Mattcrampy at 11-28-2006 05:26 AM : In my defense, I was really drunk, I think.]

Syntax
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mrimer wrote:
I've been wanting to take a look at "3" (isn't it "3 for Three" or something?).

Yeah, you're right... it's "3 in Three" - difficulty is a lot higher than the Fool's Errand. "At the Carnival" is another great one, but relatively easy. "The Minotaur's Labyrinth" is another OK one.

But bring on "The Fool and His Money"

Ezlo wrote something:

Each section of text should unlock a new puzzle. The text does provide hints though so read them carefully (beautiful writing anyway). Be aware that not all puzzles are available right-away (so the story may seemed unordered at first) but you can access the various puzzles/excerpts via the menu's. Also, certain puzzles are attemptable but not actually completeable before you've solved other ones... Enjoy

krammer
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Just in case anyone is interested:

The Fool's Errand website suggests using the trial version of Executor (Mac emulator) to play the games under Windows. However the producers have released Executor for free - go to http://www.ardi.com/win_download.php and use the given registration key. This means you don't have to try and finish all the games in 30 days.

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Mattcrampy
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I believe the Fool's Errand website has a key that lets you use it for a year.

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Hikari
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Mattcrampy wrote:
3 In Three is Mac only, but because Apple was never one for backwards compatibility it might not work on an iMac or newer. The author helpfully provides a Mac emulator that you could use if you have troubles.

I've not tested on my new MacBook Pro yet, but at least when I was on the PowerBook, I was always able to run 3 in Three, At The Carnival, and Fool's Errand under OSX as long as I had an OS9 system folder so that Classic could run. They just kinda required 256-color mode before they'd work right.

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Maurog
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For those of you who are not True Believers and didn't get this by mail - the teaser for The Fool And His Money is up on the official site.

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jdyer
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By the way, the "teaser" is quite substantial and can take a couple hours to complete.

noma
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Believe it or not, in just three days A Fool and his Money will finally be released. (I have to say, the man may be able to make puzzles, but he needs some serious help with his website.)

And here's a recent interview with Cliff Johnson.

TripleM
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I happened to visit his website a month ago to find it was coming out in a few days. And then it didn't. So yeah.

Maurog
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Actually, this time it will.

I'm one of the umm, omegatesters. Right now there is a 100% working version with all the bugs that came up in the omega testing process fixed. So despite how silly it sounds, just wait a bit, it will be released this time.

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jemann
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In fact, it is out now. After all the delays, releasing a day early seems appropriate.

skell
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Downloaded, unpacked, started playing. I am... confused. So much waiting and the game finally, really has been released. It almost seems like a dream .

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skell
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Anyhow, what are the triplets and straights in the Cutthroat Tarot? I keep playing it at random hoping to win but it isn't doing me very good.

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Kallor
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This is great news. Fool's errand was awesome, although the memory of my computer crashing and destroying my save file at the queen-level (probably almost at the end) still pains me

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jemann
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skell wrote:
Anyhow, what are the triplets and straights in the Cutthroat Tarot? I keep playing it at random hoping to win but it isn't doing me very good.

There are a bunch of categories, of which each card may belong to one or more. Getting a set of the same category gets you more points than a bunch of mismatched cards. There are some other gotchas that become evident over time. It seems that methodically noting which cards belong in a category is the only way to learn the game, and to win you need to play smart (i.e. it's a trade-off between building your hand and blocking your opponent).

(All vague enough not to need Secret tags, yes?)

Edit: Oh hang on, I'm describing Imperial Tarot. Is Cutthroat worse? Eek.

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[Last edited by jemann at 10-27-2012 12:24 AM]

skell
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jemann wrote:
Edit: Oh hang on, I'm describing Imperial Tarot. Is Cutthroat worse? Eek.

Yep, much worse it seems. Anyhow I guess that's the only solution, the one you've mentioned - methodically noting everything down.

So far I gave up on tarots and spent 2 hours yesterday trying to break the secret behind he auction game, Agar it seems it is called. I wonder how much me not being a native English speaker makes the game harder .

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jemann
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skell wrote:
So far I gave up on tarots and spent 2 hours yesterday trying to break the secret behind he auction game, Agar it seems it is called. I wonder how much me not being a native English speaker makes the game harder .

Ow. This is hard enough for native speakers...

Playing the second auction game (Argyle) made Agar more obvious for me. As the help says, the answers have something in common, in line with the fragment of story.

I will come back to Cutthroat Tarot when my reservoir of patience is less empty.

Rinaldo
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I'm delighted to find fellow DRODders involved with this. I'm still exploring. I do fine with word puzzles of the various sorts, but I have yet to figure out the card games, and the way an auction works still baffles me. But there's time (two unexpected free days because of university weather-related cancellations), and it's actually out!

Added later: I'm enjoying the challenges I encounter. But there are two that leav me wondering what I'm supposed to do and how they operate at all. Can anyone offer some initial explanation of:

Quintin
Yapp
?

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[Last edited by Rinaldo at 10-29-2012 02:03 AM]

asmussen
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So far, I've played the first two tarot games, and didn't find them to be too hard to figure out, although they are the type of puzzle that I tend to be good at, so I'm sure I'll tear my hair out later over something that other people find easy. I'm really having a hard time trying to figure out Vibbard. I can't find any way at all to even interact with it. No matter where I try to click, or what keys I press, I can't get the game to react in any way to my actions.

Edit: I think I'm starting to figure out what the deal with Vibbard is.

Still trying to figure out Quintin myself, but Yapp wasn't too hard.

*Yapp Partial Spoiler*



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[Last edited by asmussen at 10-29-2012 08:33 AM]

Dimitris
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I tried the demo and I love it, but for a non english speaker it is brutal. I can't justify the price when I'll be using an anagram solver for a good portion of the game.

If it gets cheaper I'll play it for sure at some point though.

skell
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Dimitris wrote:
I can't justify the price when I'll be using an anagram solver for a good portion of the game.

Not really, out of the first column, I was able to solve maybe 3 puzzles using anagram solver. The rest

Dimitris wrote: is brutal

I think the price is all right, considering the time needed to complete the game might get into hundreds of hours if you are not a veteran puzzle hunter like our friendly Tahnan or Panther .

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Rinaldo
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asmussen, thanks for the advice on Yapp! I might have futzed around with it for days without hitting on that initial step. I'm now stuck one-third through the next step there, but this is the sort of thing I can work with. I'll get it.

Still flattened by the card games, but still trying.

I also have the satisfaction of seeing my name scroll by in the Compendium of True Believers.

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[Last edited by Rinaldo at 10-30-2012 03:18 AM]

uhuf
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If anyone has any insight to the mechanics of Quintin I'd be grateful if you share. So far I managed to go as low as 8 coins by brute-forcing it, but then I have to turn two non-matching coins and the coin-count goes back up.

When are you allowed to flip unmatching coins without getting penalized?
Honestly, I can't even say whether each coin actually has specific "sides" to it, it all seems so very random... I think each coin has four sides to it, but it's too hard to follow.

Cheers!

jemann
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Quintin
I think that is relevant. I was able to muddle through, but I certainly don't know the solution with '100% Accuracy'. Is it partly a memory game?

Yapp
I'm kind of glad I broke down and looked up the solution, because it involved one word I didn't know. YMMV. There is a common theme to the answers (more specific than 'flora-related').

Tarot games
The second and third Tarot games turned out to be less random than the first. Read the help, make notes of the successful combinations, read the help again, try to find the patterns, etc.

Vibbard
You can't do anything until the wall is full. The wall can be filled elsewhere.

Rinaldo
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Boy, I'm sure glad I looked up the solution to Quintin. I would never have figured that out in a million years. Even now I don't understand what's supposed to be happening, or why the described method works.

And with Yapp, I was stymied because I created words of appropriate length that elicited relevant reactions (commenting on the words' meanings). And yet when I was done nothing seemed to happen. So they weren't the "right" words after all.

Rinaldo
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Days later: All I have left in the initial menu is the card games -- all of them, which means at least one item in each column -- and the trace-the-path puzzles. The former are still kicking my butt; I have no embarrassment about copying the rules for each game from the hint book (because honestly, we're supposed to deduce stuff this intricate on our own? "x pairs with y unless z is present"?), especially because knowing all that isn't helping me win at all. But I'll keep at it, of course. The latter category is, I'm afraid, a matter of marking up a printout; my memory is pretty good, but not to this level of visual detail. Oh, and one last Auction, but I know slow and steady, plus Undo when needed, will finish that one.

I love this game! The feeling of vast space in it, and interconnectedness, and surprises yet to come, makes it very enticing to me.