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A flaw in 302 [spoilers]

doodinthemooddoodinthemood
edited May 2010 in Sam & Max
I got the three blocks in the burial chamber and placed them in the spell cue card thing and stopped the protection spell.
Quite a bit later I asked (I think) the molewoman what three hands meant and she told me it reversed the spell before, but somehow sam had known to put in three hands.

I felt like I'd taken an accidental shortcut somehow. Am guessing there were a few of these, given the difficulty in working in all possible pathways through the 3 reels. Was a bit disappointed with that though.

Anyone else come across any?
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Comments

  • VainamoinenVainamoinen Moderator
    edited May 2010
    Well, apart from Maximus not knowing about his children... ;)

    Really, it's not that much of a flaw. Sam gets three blocks and just assumes that he can jinx the mechanism by adding them. The episode's riddles were dialogue-based more than enough.
  • doodinthemooddoodinthemood
    edited May 2010
    The chance of him getting the right combo would have been 1 in 216. He should have put them in any old way and got a duff spell. While there was the standard handful of times I saw a graphical error and thought 'feh', this was the first time in a telltale game when I thought "that's a writing error", and I found it a bit of a shame, in an episode with such great writing.
  • adventureaddictadventureaddict
    edited May 2010
    I don't think I asked the molewoman about it, but I saw on the vampire-protect spell thingy in the molepeoples carriage on the train it had the three hands on it.
  • FoolmanFoolman
    edited May 2010
    I just assumed adding 3 more blocks in the thing, no matter what was on the outside, would mess up the spell. I didn't talk to the molewoman about it. I did see the vampire-protect spell thingy in the molepeoples carriage on the train, and I guess if it had given me a choice on what to display I would have put the hands out front, but it didn't.
  • aHartzellaHartzell Telltale Alumni
    edited May 2010
    doodinthemood:

    Good catch. In the original design for this game there WAS a puzzle that required you to learn the "undo code" and arrange the blocks accordingly. It was trimmed out after the first playtest.
  • lagamorphlagamorph
    edited May 2010
    I get what you're talking about with the multiple pathways causing a few problems. I went to the train reel first, and had a couple of minutes of gameplay before going to the first reel, and seeing the opening credits.
  • AvistewAvistew
    edited May 2010
    I'm not sure it's an error. I mean, you still talked to the molewoman in reel one, so technically before you added the hands, so Sam knew what it did.
    There were plenty of times Sam talked about things that "had happened" that I hadn't done yet after all.

    As for me, I saw the anti-vampire thing and figured adding the hands would cancel the spell. Didn't realise you could ask the molewoman about it, and now that you tell me it sounds more like a hint than something necessary. It's not like you need to know that in order to put the three blocks you have in the three holes there are.
  • Epic KiwiEpic Kiwi
    edited May 2010
    aHartzell wrote: »
    doodinthemood:

    Good catch. In the original design for this game there WAS a puzzle that required you to learn the "undo code" and arrange the blocks accordingly. It was trimmed out after the first playtest.
    Wouldn't it have been enough to have Sam put the blocks in wrong and say something like "I should probably learn more about moleman magic before trying this" if he hasn't seen the three hand spell in the train yet? Why leave it out entirely?
  • splash1splash1
    edited May 2010
    I sort of figured this flaw out, usually whenever I found a new spell or something; I asked the Mole Woman.
    So when I first saw the
    Vampire Reverse Curse
    , I asked her and she told me what the three hands meant.

    I really don't see any flaws in this game, actually it's all perfect.
  • Gman5852Gman5852
    edited May 2010
    splash1 wrote: »
    I sort of figured this flaw out, usually whenever I found a new spell or something; I asked the Mole Woman.
    So when I first saw the
    Vampire Reverse Curse
    , I asked her and she told me what the three hands meant.

    I really don't see any flaws in this game, actually it's all perfect.

    I am not to sure if you are saying you dont get the flaw or not but i will point it out just in case. I didnt even see the reverse curse before I got the code broken, yes I also thought that it naturally would screw it up. That in reality was the only flaw everything else perfect.
  • AvistewAvistew
    edited May 2010
    So do the blocks have other stuff on them? You only ever see the hand side, so I assumed it was the only drawing on them, to identify what each block did (kind of like a label).
  • puzzleboxpuzzlebox Telltale Alumni
    edited May 2010
    There were other images on the blocks - you could see the different faces when they were still in the burial chamber. I assumed you'd have to rotate them into the correct position too.
  • AvistewAvistew
    edited May 2010
    Weird... I also remember when the molewoman talked about adding hands to cancel spells I was like "we know that already!" so I assumed she had said that so I'd learn the words and therefore be able to cancel curses put on me by the mole people. I didn't realise they just went away with time (well, apart from the cow hex which vanished the second I tried to do something).

    Hey, out of curiosity, is it possible to make Max move as a cow? Both times he turned back into a human the first thing I did (click on max icon in reel 2, use glass on him in reel 3).
  • tredlowtredlow
    edited May 2010
    The flaw in 302: WHO THE HELL WAS FILMING ALL THIS?! I mean, someone had to, right? How else would Sameth and Maximus' adventure get recorded in the reels.
  • Harald BHarald B
    edited May 2010
    tredlow wrote: »
    The flaw in 302: WHO THE HELL WAS FILMING ALL THIS?! I mean, someone had to, right? How else would Sameth and Maximus' adventure get recorded in the reels.
    It's magic! Seriously though, that's the answer.
  • NeatNitNeatNit
    edited May 2010
    Avistew wrote: »
    Hey, out of curiosity, is it possible to make Max move as a cow? Both times he turned back into a human the first thing I did (click on max icon in reel 2, use glass on him in reel 3).
    Woah, how did you get Maximus to turn into a human? And... Did he have any clothes on? O_o

    And no. You can't make him move as a cow.
  • AvistewAvistew
    edited May 2010
    I meant a rabbity-thing, sorry.
  • tredlowtredlow
    edited May 2010
    Harald B wrote: »
    It's magic! Seriously though, that's the answer.

    Oh, and WHO WROTE THE NOTE ON THE SKELETONS?!!
  • Harald BHarald B
    edited May 2010
    tredlow wrote: »
    Oh, and WHO WROTE THE NOTE ON THE SKELETONS?!!
    I'm guessing the mole people. They've held on to the chest for the past century, so they must have set up the projector to begin with. After they built a wall around it their descendants must have just forgot about it.
  • ThespisThespis
    edited May 2010
    I actually talked to the Molewoman about the three hands before I even got the blocks, so it was perfectly logical to me.
  • NeeloNeelo
    edited May 2010
    Like Avistew already said, Sameth had already asked the molewoman about the spell, even if you hadn't. You watched the whole movie out of order, Sameth and Maximus played it in order, so they already knew it.
  • The CommissionerThe Commissioner
    edited May 2010
    Harald B wrote: »
    tredlow wrote: »
    The flaw in 302: WHO THE HELL WAS FILMING ALL THIS?! I mean, someone had to, right? How else would Sameth and Maximus' adventure get recorded in the reels.

    It's magic! Seriously though, that's the answer.

    If you listen to the random things the newspaper elf says in Little Arctic Circle, he says something about some random person filmling everything with a camera in the shadows.
    Neelo wrote: »
    Like Avistew already said, Sameth had already asked the molewoman about the spell, even if you hadn't. You watched the whole movie out of order, Sameth and Maximus played it in order, so they already knew it.

    This. Non-linear stotytelling with a little psychic astral projection help/influence from Sam and Max in the future.

    I also never asked the
    mole woman about curses
    until the end of the game, but for Sameth and Maximus it is the beginning of the game before they ever get to
    Egypt
    . I didn't think it was strange that Sameth put the
    blocks in order with the undo code
    , because after seeing it
    on the train
    I just automatically assumed that was how
    undo spells
    worked.

    Edit: But even if I hadn't discovered the
    vampire-reverse curse
    until after the tomb reel, the train reel is still set in the past before the tomb and the puzzle requires you to find the curse in order to progress the
    Jurgen storyline
    , meaning it is an established part of events in the timeline.
  • NeatNitNeatNit
    edited May 2010
    That would be both inconsistent and possibly impossible.
    Inconsistent - the very first puzzle (shown in the beginning of Reel 3, when Sam starts it before the player gets to do anything) was to read the writing above the gate. Sam & Max don't remember it unless you go to reel 1 and find out.
    Possibly impossible - if you finish Reel 1 and never asked her (like I did), how would they have found out?
  • DangeresqueDangeresque
    edited May 2010
    You didn't have to put a spell or anything just cancel it. so the way i see it if the spell required say 17 boxes (i don't remember how many they were) and you added any 3 at random, then the spell wouldn't work. rotating the blocks might even cast a different spell which you dont want. its not a flaw.
    say a bats head and a goblins tooth and a rats tail creats a life potion or something like that, adding anything else in the mix and the potion wouldn't work and the chances of creating another potion at random would probably be somewhere in the millions
  • NeatNitNeatNit
    edited May 2010
    Dangeresque wrote: »
    and the chances of creating another potion at random would probably be somewhere in the millions
    You are clearly new to Sam & Max ;)

    But yeah, I agree with your post.
  • Hassat HunterHassat Hunter
    edited May 2010
    Yeah, I just assumed it was like a formula.

    Add in some gibberish, and the result will surely will not be what the original formula intended...
  • DangeresqueDangeresque
    edited May 2010
    NeatNit wrote: »
    You are clearly new to Sam & Max ;)

    But yeah, I agree with your post.

    No im not new to sam and max at all. just saying those are the odds. you could have casted a different spell but that just didn't happen
  • NeeloNeelo
    edited May 2010
    NeatNit wrote: »
    Inconsistent - the very first puzzle (shown in the beginning of Reel 3, when Sam starts it before the player gets to do anything) was to read the writing above the gate. Sam & Max don't remember it unless you go to reel 1 and find out.

    Equipment malfunction?
    Possibly impossible - if you finish Reel 1 and never asked her (like I did), how would they have found out?

    It is required to learn the Reverse Wumpire Curse spell to complete reel 2, so Sameth could have just assumed the three hands are what reverses the spell.
  • doodinthemooddoodinthemood
    edited May 2010
    I think this has been cleared up by aHartzell (PhD, member of telltale team, official mascott of the 1964 olympics) on the first page. It was going to a puzzle, and Sam would put in any old rubbish and the spell would be cast as rubbish, possibly with humerous consequences, until you asked the molewoman what 3 hands meant, but they decided to cut it. The end result is a sequence that sometimes makes perfect sense (speak to the molewoman first, then try the blocks,) sometimes can be explained away, in a way inconsistent with much of the other logic in the game (try the blocks, then speak to the molewoman) and sometimes is just an error (try the blocks, never bother talking to the molewoman).
    I'm cool with accepting that. It was an awesome game.

    Dangeresque, the probability of doing it right would be 1 in 216. 3 blocks. 6 faces. =(1/6)^3
  • Gman5852Gman5852
    edited May 2010
    I found 2 more errors.
    When you can trick
    Jurgeon
    to look for
    the reverse curse in the tomb
    You can say to look in the steamer trunk, where it is, but
    Jurgeon
    will say its not there.

    Another involves the fight in slide 3.
    You defeat`
    amelia
    by using the sexo rejecto curse, BUT I didnt have the curse on me at all. I got the curse removed from me(yes it is possible talk to the dad and he can remove it in one of the dialog choices.
    So in reality that last part shouldent have happened to me.
  • ATMachineATMachine
    edited May 2010
    Well I for one am glad the "ask the molewoman about the meaning of the 3 hands" puzzle was cut. In theory I like it, as it requires you to know what you're doing and ensures that Sam's foiling the protection spell wasn't a mere incredibly lucky guess.

    However, when I first played 302 I had finished Reel 1 long before I got the blocks in Reel 2 and tried to thwart the tomb's protection spell. So I couldn't have gone back to Reel 1 and asked the Mole Woman what to do, even if I'd wanted to. This is probably why the puzzle was removed, as it would've made for a nasty dead end in that case.
  • Power46Power46
    edited May 2010
    tredlow wrote: »
    Oh, and WHO WROTE THE NOTE ON THE SKELETONS?!!

    That is one of the story-based mysteries that we are not supposed to know about. If I had to guess, I would guess that it was put there by Papier Waite. He escaped The Devil's Toybox, and is trying to bring Yog Soggoth back to this dimension, and a distracted Max is a Max that is safe(er) to mess with. At this point, Max seems to be the only one with the power to control the Toys of Power and The Devil's Toybox.
  • guitarsareboringguitarsareboring
    edited May 2010
    aHartzell wrote: »
    doodinthemood:

    Good catch. In the original design for this game there WAS a puzzle that required you to learn the "undo code" and arrange the blocks accordingly. It was trimmed out after the first playtest.

    I was disappointed that Sameth just put the blocks in the right way, would have been nice to have to remember what you'd been told earlier in the game. Also there was potential hilarity to be had with other spell combinations.
  • DangeresqueDangeresque
    edited May 2010
    doodinthemood wrote: »

    Dangeresque, the probability of doing it right would be 1 in 216. 3 blocks. 6 faces. =(1/6)^3

    No i wasn't stating the odds of it happening to this case with the cubes. it was with the satement i made later with the potion thing
  • serializerserializer
    edited May 2010
    There were to be honest an unusually high number of glitches, inconsistencies, and things that generally seemed missing in this episode compared to pretty much all the others.

    (Not seen anyone mention it, but what about the news elf on straight & narrow? Was there originally supposed to be another puzzle there?)

    But, I found myself not caring in the slightest because the episode was overall just too awesome to worry about it ;)
  • kanekane
    edited May 2010
    or sam and max die it dum dummm dummmmmmmmmm ps page 1 last bit
  • NagaokaNagaoka
    edited May 2010
    How do you ask the molewoman about the three hands? Or is this Nefertiti we're talking about?


    I thought it was just because of what you see on reel 3, but I guess not. The timeline also doesn't work on its own that way, since the tomb is reel 2. Huh. Oh well. Makes sense in my game at least :D. I still figured any combination would work.
  • light_riseslight_rises
    edited May 2010
    serializer wrote: »
    (Not seen anyone mention it, but what about the news elf on straight & narrow? Was there originally supposed to be another puzzle there?)

    For a good while, I was convinced I had to buy (or otherwise acquire) a newspaper so I could use it on the giant snowballs. At least one of the other snowmen was using one as a hat after all, and Sameth's interactions with them left me thinking that I needed to build one to act as a distraction for the elves.
  • Hassat HunterHassat Hunter
    edited May 2010
    Hmmm... I thought I had to somehow destroy or atleast do SOMETHING with the snowmen as well, due to Sameths "unusually large elves" comment, and the Molewomans attempt to hex the leader elf (but possibly targeting a snowman, so I had to point out she was targeting the wrong 'being').

    Sure glad I didn't put too much time in that now :D.
  • nolangenolange
    edited May 2010
    I wondered why Sam & Max (ancestors) were "unstickied" from the wall merely by walking far enough to the right.
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