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Did "The City that Dares not sleep" feel rushed to you? Spoilers

MysticMystic
edited September 2010 in Sam & Max
It was okay up until the near end where the writers committed a plothole drive by and hit and run on the audience. There you are underground trying to find the Deux Ex Machina to continue the story and then Flint fills you in on matters you either didn't care about or forgot about. " I didn't care about Girl Stinky's evil plan but since they brought it up...what was her motivation?" What about Sal being her accomplice for two decades? What took so long? Oh, She a mermaid? How did you find that out...not going to tell us okay bye got the plot device now going back to the story. Maybe it's just me but did anyone else feel the same?

Comments

  • der_ketzerder_ketzer
    edited September 2010
    YES I do.
  • SpamkingSpamking
    edited September 2010
    I always thought that was part of the joke. The whole point is to say that Flint Paper is the ultimate detective, and went and uncovered the whole Stinky plot. I think the writers were going for complete confusion of Sam and the player.
  • Unknown
    edited September 2010
    a little
  • Pantagruel's FriendPantagruel's Friend
    edited September 2010
    Don't know if it was rushed or not, but the scene in the cloning room did feel out of place. At that point, like you, I wasn't too interested in Skunkape and the Stinky family affairs, and it felt a bit forced to go through all that to get the
    chtonic destroyer
    . Luckily, the conclusion was much better.
  • JakeJake Telltale Alumni
    edited September 2010
    For those who want all details of the Stinky plot (which has spent two seasons being an increasingly-deliberate fractal knot of overwrought backstory), Chuck Jordan has written it up in full on his blog.
  • Ash735Ash735
    edited September 2010
    Jake wrote: »
    For those who want all details of the Stinky plot (which has spent two seasons being an increasingly-deliberate fractal knot of overwrought backstory), Chuck Jordan has written it up in full on his blog.

    Please tell me that article is going to be on the DVD, soo many little plot details in that, some which people didn't even think about connecting. Great move Chuck, it makes the plan feel much bigger now.
  • NintomsterNintomster
    edited September 2010
    Ahh, that makes more sense. I just went along with it when I played the episode. Then I thought about it more after readung some forums. Thanks Chuck (and Jake for posting the link)!
  • jeeno0142jeeno0142
    edited September 2010
    That certainly filled a few plot holes that just didn't connect in my mind. Thanks!
  • IryonIryon
    edited September 2010
    Whooop! Everything makes sense now!
  • GohakuGohaku
    edited September 2010
    Wow that was a wild ride. I wonder if you guys got headaches while writing out these intricate sub plots!
  • FalancaFalanca
    edited September 2010
    Jake wrote: »
    For those who want all details of the Stinky plot (which has spent two seasons being an increasingly-deliberate fractal knot of overwrought backstory), Chuck Jordan has written it up in full on his blog.


    I have to say.... I'm pretty sorry for you guys over there because you clearly couldn't implement most of those details about this Stinky incident in those episodes so that it got pretty rushed in the final product.

    I think you should make a machinima about it, explaining the situation or something, you know, something that's important (plot-wise) has to be a "product"; not only a blog text.
  • SunnyGuySunnyGuy
    edited September 2010
    But the thing is, Stinky's subplot is not important for the overall plot. I think I'm in a minority that liked how it was done.

    I just have a question, how much of all that was planned from the beginning and how much was made up as you went? :P
  • morzaxmorzax
    edited September 2010
    SunnyGuy wrote: »
    I just have a question, how much of all that was planned from the beginning and how much was made up as you went? :P

    I'm guessing most of it was made up after Season 3 had been completed. He seems to just be mucking around, arbitrarily tying all the plot points together to make the point that it was never supposed to make sense.

    My only gripe is with the cake trick. The fact that you make it happen in Season 2 to solve a puzzle just stretches the internal (il)logic too far, even by Sam and Max's standards. Even imagining that she was replicating the trick to throw off further investigation, it just doesn't feel right that it also happened to solve the puzzle for what now seems to be no reason whatsoever.
  • NagaokaNagaoka
    edited September 2010
    Yeah, it definitely felt rushed, particularly the cloning chamber area. It was, as you say, just a massive info dump that came out of nowhere (and part of it, like Stinky's brain swap plan, was only if you found the right things to click).
    Jake wrote: »
    For those who want all details of the Stinky plot (which has spent two seasons being an increasingly-deliberate fractal knot of overwrought backstory), Chuck Jordan has written it up in full on his blog.

    Oh, wow. That's pretty awesome. It's a shame it never got through in the game. That's pretty in depth.

    After episode 4 I was left thinking that Stinky's deal was the same as with the second season. She acts ridiculously suspicious and everyone KNOWS she's up to something (killed Grandpa Stinky/working with Skunkape) then you find out yeah-no, she was telling the truth for once/conducting a mad love affair with a giant cockroach, duh. She just seemed to be that person who you're supposed to believe is a villain, but really she's just bad at telling the truth. I was honestly really confused and a bit disappointed when she was acting like a villain again at the end. It makes some sense now, and I can stretch my disbelief about the whole cake thing. Mermaid's more her thing.
  • TilanTilan
    edited September 2010
    But... how can she be a mermaid? Aren't mermaids supposed to have fish tails?
  • NagaokaNagaoka
    edited September 2010
    Tilan wrote: »
    But... how can she be a mermaid? Aren't mermaids supposed to have fish tails?

    She does. It's on her apron! In all seriousness though she can probably transform at will. I don't think that's uncommon in mermaid stories. Probably explains why her feet were killing her at the beginning of season 2 though.
  • Hassat HunterHassat Hunter
    edited September 2010
    Yeah, it does look like an "after-thought" post made up to make sense of the stuff rather than something pre-designed since season 2.

    Still, it would have been nice if it somehow was worked into the game instead of leaving us "WTF?" in the game as has happened now.
  • der_ketzerder_ketzer
    edited September 2010
    Sorry I'd rather believe Stinky is a cake.
    Mermaids. Nahh.
  • JakeJake Telltale Alumni
    edited September 2010
    I wasn't around during the early plot meetings, but I think most of that was made up at the beginning of Season 3, while little scraps of it were added either way later at the end of the season, or are older, fragments from the season 2 B or C story threads which never got picked up.
  • BunnymanBunnyman
    edited September 2010
    The blog post made a lot of sense. I wish it was all understood by playing the past two seasons alone. I didn't mind the big information dump near the end but it would have been better if it was told a bit clearer, and if Girl Stinky had a motive for wanting the diner. I know not everything makes sense when it comes to Sam & Max but without clear reveals by the end of the season, it's being mean to adventure gamers.;) Especially how story and character driven this season is.

    Before I read the post, I didn't get know what Charlie Ho-Tep, mole people, and Sal were all doing before the start of the season. I had not even considered the Maim-Tron for revealing the Future Vision toy. The Blog does explain the reason why Girl Stinky would try and kill Flint Paper in 301 which I thought would be anyone but Girl Stinky.
    "Sometimes the simplest answer is the correct one."

    And Chuck no longer works at Telltale? That's news to me.
  • russell19831983russell19831983
    edited September 2010
    It makes sense if you don't count the fact that you stick a bone in stinky as a cake. If it was an illusion where did the bone go and why did her attitude to wheezer change? I thought sticking a rib in her gave her a back bone that made her tell him to get lost.
  • Bertan1311Bertan1311
    edited September 2010
    I was mostly disappointed because there was no big boss fight in this episode... It would have been cool if you fought Max's superego
  • ChuckChuck
    edited September 2010
    SunnyGuy wrote: »
    But the thing is, Stinky's subplot is not important for the overall plot. I think I'm in a minority that liked how it was done.

    I just have a question, how much of all that was planned from the beginning and how much was made up as you went? :P
    It was planned during the season-wide plotting session where we figured out what story moments and cliffhangers would go into each episode, before design and production on episode 1 started.

    And you're right. Again, it's not important to the overall plot. It definitely wasn't a case of running out of time or budget; the only story the player needs to care about is the one about the Toybox. The case that Flint was working on was always intended to be something that was simmering in the background.

    And the finale was pretty much always intended to be a big nonsensical information dump, a kind of parody of every epic story finale that has all the pieces fit neatly together. Except of course, it's Sam & Max, so the pieces don't fit neatly together. Whether it works for you or not is for each player to decide for himself, but to my mind, worrying about Stinky's whole back story is a lot like devising scenarios to explain how Sam & Max got to the moon.
  • Ash735Ash735
    edited September 2010
    To be fair though Chuck, you did a good job of retconning a lot of things during Season 2, like how you explained why the moles were digging tunnels, I always thought during 205 what the hell are they doing that for? To have that section used in Season 3 was a very cool touch.
  • lombrelombre
    edited September 2010
    I think my only problem with the Stinky subplot was that, with all the lead-ups to it in episodes 301-304, there was no lead-up to the cloning chamber reveal in 305. I know that last sentence probably made no sense, but I'm not sure how to word it best. It's kinda like if the third act of What's New, Beelzebub had still been about annoying Satan, and then the
    Soda Popper
    reveal happened just before the final puzzle. We got to the cloning chamber and realized Oh! Here's where we find out what's up with Stinky! ...Oh, okay, that's over now..

    I think just minor mentions of it could have made it seem a little more climatic. Maybe have Momma Bosco mention that a weird blue-haired girl had been sighted snooping around the cloning chamber when you're at her lab in Sam clone mode. Or maybe they could cut to Skun-ka'pe's Ship after you exit Max mode for the first time after the Narrator's reveal, and let you hear some vague conversation between Skun-ka'pe and Stinky about the plan. I loved everything about the cloning chamber fight and how Stinky's plot was revealed, but I just wish that the best scene of the episode had been given a bit more lead-up.
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