Santa/Elf hell

tiger97882

I will try to refrain from spoilers, but how in the heck was anyone stupposed to guess this solution, which references an extremely obscure event from two episodes ago without using the hints? Heck, I used the hints and I still had no idea what to do. I really enjoy the more logical, empirical puzzles that S&M have to deal with, but this one simply could not have been solved by anyone who didn't either cheat, get lucky, or have an extremely good memory that permitted them to remember back to an unremarkable even in 203.

Did anyone else have this feeling about this particular puzzle?

LuigiHann

What did these have to do with 203? It took me a while to figure this one out, but I didn't get the impression it was unfair.

Jai

Eh, I didn't have a huge problem with it. Have you tried using the "Max gives hints" setting? I think he blurts something about what he wants the doll to be like, but I could be mistaken.

In hindsight, it seemed like a pretty logical puzzle. Maybe it doesn't, so much, if you don't spend time doing everything wrong first like I usually do (Sometimes even on purpose!). But at first, I rather DID think I was just trying to

design a toy that Santa would approve of.

Chuck

Yeah, I'm curious what it has to do with 203 as well...?

Ashton

I only figured it out by luck, even with max's hints set to maximum

I still had no clue I was supposed to shoot the box, it was a random action as I vented and tried to shoot everyone/thing in sight, including santa and the demon babies!

though in retrospect it makes sence, it's still very obscure unless you use true max logic

shoot it! shoot it! shoot it!

MaxFan

There are people that play Sam & Max who don't try to shoot everything in sight?

Randulf

I think it is a fair and logical puzzle, and does not depend on knowing what happened in previous episodes. The only insight you need is that the two places are connected.

Ashton

MaxFan wrote: »

There are people that play Sam & Max who don't try to shoot everything in sight?

ultimately I do too... so I guess the answer to your question is "no" lol

mre

Actually, this puzzle is the one I probably had the least difficulty with in this episode. It seemed immediately obvious to me

that I should try to shoot at a Rambo-esque action figure. From this you get the info that he's wearing body armor, and then you get the possibility to remove his armor and make him bleed acid.

It's logic.

Avel

Logic of the Highest is king.

tiger97882

It relates to 203, or so says the walkthrough, because in that episode when you try to shoot the package your bullets bounce off the package, but in 205

you have the option to remove the armor, thus allowing your bullets to pass through the doll.

"Remember that in Santa's hell, when you shot a present, the bullet bounced off. That was due to the toy's armor. You need to help the elf create a toy that behave differently when Sam shoots it. '
http://www.telltalegames.com/samandmax/whatsnewbeelzebub

Knowing that the two places are connected has nothing to do with

making the action figure bleed a hole in the toy dumper.

I simply can't see the logic. Sam mentions that babies and toys come out of the chute, so my attention was focused on getting the baby to go down the chute while it was open by shooting the babies after Santa pulled the lever.

LuigiHann

MaxFan wrote: »

There are people that play Sam & Max who don't try to shoot everything in sight?

Well, after the thousandth thing that doesn't react at all, it gets a bit tiresome, and one may forget about the gun.

tiger97882

LuigiHann wrote: »

Well, after the thousandth thing that doesn't react at all, it gets a bit tiresome, and one may forget about the gun.

Precisely. In fact part of the comedy of Sam and Max is that they carry around massive weapons that they can hardly ever use. I would be more inclined to attempt to shoot at everything if there was a different reason why Sam couldn't shoot them for each one. Hearing "Nah, I don't want to shoot that" or something close to it for every object says "no, you can't use your gun", not "keep clicking on everything with your gun out!".

Ashton

I'd also love more characters like yurgen --- yes, you can shoot him, but it doesnt affect gameplay. Have verious reactions that make the dodge the bullets possibly even accidentally

like in 103 when you have to "whack" sybil and she always raises her coffee cup jsut in time

MaxFan

I was being somewhat facetious in what I said. I know that I hardly ever think to use the gun, myself.

InvaderJim42

It never occured to me that the dioramas were able to interact with each other. I'd originally thought that each personal hell diorama was its own little world, and you could not interact with anything outside the diorama. I first found I was wrong when I solved the puzzle to stop the demons from staring at Bosco (without knowing I was about to solve it, either.) But after that I'd forgotten that the dioramas were basically miniature worlds that existed next to each other. I figured that the Elf and Santa hell were linked in that the Elf kept sending the toys to Santa, and Santa would keep sending them back. It didn't occur to me to try and fiddle with the gift dispenser. My first thought was to try and make a toy Santa wouldn't recall. After trying every possible combination and finding nothing that worked, I put on the hints and heard the 'acid for blood' tip. I set it up so the toy had acid for blood, but it still didn't occur to me to shoot the present. The only reason I managed to solve the puzzle was because I was shooting things at random out of frustration and managed to actually find another puzzle that required the gun to solve.

That's the only thing I hate about the gun. It's there to be used in every game, but you only end up using it one to three times to solve puzzles... and after seeing virtually everything else not react to being shot... it begins to narrow my view of what can be shot to produce a reaction.

tiger97882

That's exactly how it went for me, Jim. Thus far I'm enjoying this episode much less than the others, not because the comedy isn't there but because the puzzles are impeding me from enjoying the comedy.

Bagge

As much as I hate to admit it, I had to turn on Max's hints to solve that puzzle. It made sense once Max said he wanted it to have acid blood.

tiger97882

Grrrrr... I hate to be an old stick in the mud but the puzzle where you

have to use the paper clip chain to get the video cartridge out of the crack is just bad.

I clicked on the crack and Sam just noted that it was where the Esperanto bookstore went, mentioning nothing about

the video game cartridge

How in the heck were we supposed to know that the crack which has been there and been unimportant for FIVE episodes was important? Did I not get a hint that I should have seen?

Mirko

Well... if you go to the Subwaystation beneath the street, and look around you can see the bookstore or at least some of it's parts there,

and on top of it is a huge pile of Mimesweeper game-cartridges. And I think you can even click on the pile. So this one seemed pretty obvious to me, after i realized i needed another game for Chippy.

Shooting the present with the action figure

one the other hand was not that obvious, but i finally figured that out accidentally.

Ashton

The minsweeper one was hard but I got it on my own once I finally figured out waht max meant by wanting to go fishing. (and piecing together the crack over the bookstore, where all teh cartridges were...)

Ironic how the mroe complex problem peopel puzzzled out, but the simpler and more S+M logic one everyone figured out accidentally...