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Leisure Suit Larry: Wet Dreams Don't Dry - Larry's trip to the 21st century

Darth Canoli

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That's Jan Rabson The same guy who voiced Larry in LSL 6 and 7.

Really ? I don't remember being bothered by it in LSL 6 but it wasn't yesterday.

Or maybe the compilation of terrible elements makes it worse.


You're going to have so much fun, i almost envy you. :bounce:
 
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Unkillable Cat

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Has anyone who isn't a shitposter actually played it and can offer impreshuns?

Depends on whether you consider me a shitposter or not.

# Theme song is obviously not the Larry theme, but does its best to try to sound like it. Probably done to skip out on royalty checks to Lowe.
# Available languages: English, Deutsch, Polska (text only).
# The 'verify-your-age'-questions are a nice throwback to the original, right down to the trick questions where there's only one wrong answer and such.
# Artstyle is better than LSL: Reloaded, but the animation is on a similiar Flash-esque level so that Larry sorta slide-walks. Fortunately the writing is better than Reloaded as well.
# There are very few hot-spots of interest, so the backgrounds are instead made to have a "show, don't tell" way of describing themselves.
# That may be the same voice actor for Larry, but he sounds like he's forcing himself to get the voice right.
# There may still be some (major) bugs in the game. I did a "look" command on a door, and there was a 20-second pause where I couldn't do anything for no discernible reason.
# Red Flag #1: Larry is about to say something that could be considered naughty, when he's cut off by a "This is a family-friendly establishment!"-line and he corrects himself to say something harmless. This is that early in the game that it makes me worry about the overall tone of the game. But then again, this is a German game and it probably took some effort to get the game past the censors.
# If there's one game this one reminds me of, it's the Duckman adventure game from 20 years ago.
# When Larry asks about what he's missed while he was away, the replies have a 'person-from-the-internet-talking' feel to them... which is all wrong considering who's giving the answers.
# The intro+credits roll only once Larry leaves the original location... and Lowe isn't even mentioned. In fact, some German guy gets a "Based on an original idea by"-credit. Wow.
# Some really clever and creative touches can be found in this game. The interface starts out as a notepad with scribbles on it, but is later 'upgraded' once Larry starts to adjust to the times.
# How does Larry behave? Like Rufus when he's around Goal... but all the time. Makes one wonder who's imitating who.
# My biggest gripe with the game is also the game's main gimmick: Larry is a man out of time brought into modern times. I get what they're trying, but the problem is that it's written by someone who can't distance themselves from the modern day. If they had someone old with the proper experience co-writing this game... someone who's perhaps familiar with Larry as a character... then they might have a winning formula here.
# Impression so far? It doesn't start out bad, but yet I have this lingering feeling that it's gonna go down the drain any moment now.

More later.
 
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Haba

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It is the Larry game I've liked the most since Larry 1. BUT I have to admit that I am not a huge Larry fan in the first place.

And like UC, I've no idea yet if the theme can carry it all the way through the game.

20€ would be a better price point. At that rate it'd be a no-brainer. I applaud the idea of making a game like this.

The artist (female) would love to draw more nudity if there were to be more Larry games. Women are l-lewd.
 

Unkillable Cat

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I'm having such a bad case of the flu I can barely even sleep. Fortunately I have this game to keep me focused, so that's something.

More impressions:

# If you wanted Sierra's iconic interface (pun intended) you're out of luck. It's actually quite slick. Left-click interacts with items, right-click Looks at them, the middle mouse button shows all the hot spots on the screen and scrolling either way enters/exits the inventory screen.
# The game is doing a much better job of satirizing modern-day things than the retro things Larry is supposed to bring with him. Social media personalities, hipsters, vegans, camwhores 'streamers' and the iCulture are some of the more noticeable examples.
# Unfortunately this also means the SJW elements are present as well, but even they are put in there as self-reflective humor. Talk to the redskin at the pier to know what I mean.
# The only thing more bothersome than the SJW crap is the emphasis placed on the 'social media' aspect of the game. Larry gets a smartphone that has a sexy female AI. That AI is literally Tumblerina. She'll groan and "Ugh!" almost on cue.
# Illogical, convoluted puzzles are starting to appear. Catching the rat in the alley is way more complicated than it should be... but amazingly the game retains its self-awareness and makes a joke about it afterwards.
# Game-related references can be found here and there. The naked woman portrait from Lefty's bar in the original LSL1 makes a reappearance in pure, pixellated form (and even the hot-spot icon for it is pixellated). One of those Waldo-Dildos from LSL7 can be found on a top shelf, but that's not where it stops. Easter Eggs related to other game series pop up as well, like Purple Tentacle from DoTT and everyone's psychotic little rabbit Max squeezes in an appearance.
# But the most amount of pop-culture related references can be found in the Tinder Timber profiles. There are plenty of game-related profiles in there, and at least a couple of them made me laugh. Try to guess which games the profiles "#GamerGurl #Depponia #PolyBoob #NotMarios and #KingsQuester" belong to.
# The writing is consistently above average. This is the biggest surprise for me. Nothing super-funny, but enough to make me smile and chuckle once in awhile.
# But one thing that's starting to drag the game down are the animations... or more precisely the lack of them. There's a generic 'outstretched_hand' animation for picking up, using, dropping, giving and receiving items - the items themselves are never shown. Compare this to LSL2 for example, where we get a unique animation for when Larry pockets the 32-gallon soda cup. Also, when a character faces in the other direction it's clearly just a reversal of a stock image - the devs should be ashamed of themselves for this.

I have to agree with Haba - it's turning out to be a better Larry game than some of the others, but $30 is asking too much... for the digital version at least. I hear the physical box copy is awesome and full of little extras.
 

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I thought this was decent, it exceeded my expectations and then the thin-ness of the design really started showing in the 2nd half. Low amount of hotspots, no narrator, very few item-on-item responses, mostly linear (but with many locations at least), more-polish-needed stuff. It did have puzzles and a big inventory though, and some charm. Jan seemed to get better at the Larry voice after a rough first 20 minutes.
 
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Boleskine

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https://adventuregamers.com/articles/view/36482

Leisure Suit Larry: Wet Dreams Don’t Dry review
Written by Jason Smith — November 16, 2018
lsl-fprev1__huge.jpg


The Good:
  • Faithful to the spirit of the original Larry games
  • Many inventory-based puzzles to solve
  • Lots of amusing jokes and sexual innuendo
  • Excellent voice acting and charming cartoon graphics
The Bad:
  • Pixel hunting makes it easy to miss important items
  • Amount of backtracking can lead to frustration
Very good

Scoring System - Editorial Policies
Our Verdict:

Wet Dreams Don’t Dry is an excellent addition to the Larry brand. Fans of the original games will not be disappointed, and newcomers will find a solid series introduction playing the lovable loser updated to present day.

Being a huge Leisure Suit Larry fan (the very first computer game I ever played was the original LSL in the Land of the Lounge Lizards back in 1988), I was skeptical about a group of young German developers (CrazyBunch) taking on such a beloved franchise without the involvement of Al Lowe and moving it to present day. After all, most of the new team wasn’t even born when the first Larry game was released! My fears were quickly put to rest when the first thing I had to do was prove I was old enough to play the game. This took me right back to LSL3 with the same style of age verification system – only this time based on current events. Although it is possible to bypass the quiz (if you know where to click), it is still a lot of fun. The questions and answers are very funny and will likely require some Google searches. This promising start left me eager to see how faithful the rest of the game would be to the spirit of Sierra’s classic series. And to my relief, it is not only a worthy successor, but an entertaining and surprisingly substantial point-and-click adventure in its own right.

Gameplay starts in a dark underground chamber with a calendar showing the year 1987. You think Larry is waking up after a one-night stand (how Larry!), but after some exploration you realize you are in a strange room. With a bit of object interaction you get a lift working that takes you to street level in front of Lefty’s Bar. Things look strangely different, and as you make your way into the bar and talk to Lefty, who recognizes you from the “old days,” you realize you have somehow been transported to the year 2018. (How is explained later on).

This premise forms the basis of the game, as Larry needs to reconcile his 1980s sensibilities with 2018 culture and technology. The developers have done a great job with this plot device, and you will experience elements both past and present as you progress. For example, the pixelated picture of the beautiful woman still hangs over the bar, and there are several cinematics and situations rendered in glorious 8-bit graphics (including death scenes – yes you can die!).




You will soon find yourself in the bathroom (where else?) and discover a PiPhone that will lead you to the company’s HQ. To return the device you need to book a Uunter ride, which will be your main form of transportation around the city of New Lost Wages. Once you get to Prune Inc. (which looks like a giant penis complete with a spurting fountain on the roof), you will meet Faith Less, the hottest woman in the game and assistant to BJ Prune, the head of the corporation. Larry learns that Faith does not date anyone without a minimum score of 90 on the Timber app, and his lust for her means he must go on other dates first and get each of them to give him the highest possible score.

This objective represents the bulk of the game and will lead you to all kinds of interesting obstacles and encounters. There are many locations to visit and tasks to accomplish to win over the various babes and complete major goals. But things can get a little…complicated. There are many puzzles to solve, almost all of which are inventory-based. And there are a LOT of items to collect. Many have an erotic tone, in true Larry style, and include sexual connotations (XL Condom, Plug-like chess piece, Cheese Flavored Dildo, etc.), which adds to the humor and nostalgia for original series players.

Some necessary objects are very small and well-hidden, so you need to scan every scene carefully to make sure you don’t miss anything, though a hotspot highlighter can be activated by the space bar to help. Compounding matters further, new items appear at previously visited locations after completing certain tasks, so there is a fair bit of backtracking needed. Items can be combined easily by simply dragging one onto another, but the sheer volume of them precludes the brute force method of trying everything with everything else. You need to pay special attention to item descriptions (by right-clicking on them in inventory) to figure out how to use them. The clues are there – you just need to properly interpret them to progress.




There are many spoofs on current technology: you will use Timber as your dating app, Instacrap to capture your experiences, and PrunePal to pay for your purchases. Needless to say, Larry is baffled by these apps and has very humorous interactions with them. In particular, Instacrap is used to record your romantic encounters and other events. There are 20 slots that get unlocked as you progress and are presented as a series of GIFs. These are very funny (especially the Screwnicorn) and are quite different from earlier Larry games that used standard cut scenes. Traditional cinematics are still present to advance the story here, but I found the mobile videos to be a fresh approach.

After you complete each date, you will be notified that there are new connections on Timber to review. The contacts are very funny, and in true LSL style. For example: “Anita Dickinme, 31 – Subtlety is not my middle name; Maxime Paine, 25 – I like it hard!; Sara Soft, 21 – Raid my Tomb.” You get the idea. Another departure from some of the earlier Larry games is the lack of narration, which added a lot of off-color humor. This has been replaced with equally off-color descriptions of inventory items, Larry’s surroundings and dialog choices. The result is the same: lots of chuckles at the jokes.

At first the interface is very basic, with a slide-up notepad containing home (menu) and inventory icons at the bottom right of the screen, but once you get the PiPhone, this converts to a smartphone with access to the various apps available. You left-click to move Larry around and interact with items and right-click for a description. To travel greater distances you can double-click to immediately move to locations within your Uunter stop.

A manual save game system is used to keep track of your progress. You are limited to 12 slots and due to the length of the game you will probably need to overwrite them at least once. Each slot includes the date and time of the save as well as your current Timber score. When you place your cursor over a slot, both the Load and Save options appear. There is no warning if you try to overwrite a saved game so you need to be careful. You are warned if you try to load a saved game that you will lose any progress you have made, which is useful since a few times I accidentally hit the load option when I meant to save. Death doesn’t depend on your saves, fortunately, so if you happen to die, you will get a humorous graphic and message (like in earlier games) and be returned to the moment you made your mistake.

Graphically the game uses colorful hi-resolution hand-drawn backgrounds that are full of details with stylized items and animations. Many locations show grunge and decay (especially Lefty’s) and often have suggestive items (like the Leisure Suite with all kinds of kinky objects) and names like Pier69 and Quicki-Mart. There is no nudity (unless you count statues and blow-up dolls) but that does not mean Wet Dreams Don’t Dry isn’t raunchy, as sexual innuendo is everywhere and often isn’t particularly subtle. The Instacrap captures stand out in this regard with some pretty racy scenes, though there is nothing vulgar.

Character models are equally cartoonish and nicely varied. For those familiar with the early Larry games (in particular 6 and 7), Larry is still wearing his signature white leisure suit and gold chain but he is not as dorky looking. He is taller now, and a bit thinner with more hair. He is still a loser, of course, but looks (a little) less so. If you stand around too long Larry may strike a pose, use breath freshener or perform some other amusing action. Again a nice touch, and in keeping with previous installments.

You will visit many locations throughout your adventure, including the New Lost Wages Strip (with its sex shop, Mini Mart, gym and Salon du Lezard), Pier69 (with wedding chapel and casino) and finally Cancum (not a typo) late in the game. The upper room at Lefty’s in particular has a lot of references to the original Larry game – the bed in particular – and these little references really endear you to the legacy of the franchise. There are a number of non-LSL Easter Eggs as well, such as King Graham in the underground lab and Purple Tentacle in the Leisure Suite. You can even see a silhouette of the Sierra logo in one scene.




The voice acting is solid with one exception, but that is a minor character with not a lot of dialog. Jan Rabson once again voices Larry and is as sharp and funny as ever. Although the original theme music is not here (I assume due to copyright issues), a suitably catchy tune is used for the main menu. Each place you visit also has appropriate looping background music. For example, a mariachi tune plays when you visit Cancum, while a romantic piece accompanies Larry’s date with Erin. There are also great sound effects, such as a zipper opening when you continue from the main menu and sensuous moans in the background. These, too, are very much in the vein of the original series.

The characters you meet along the way are as varied as they are funny. Lefty is a bit older but still wise and provides useful information; a pair of nerds at Prune Inc. are very helpful as long as you give them their nerdy items (like the Sleaze Wars Figurine with removable bra); and Dick Ryder wants Larry to arrange his same-sex wedding to Lance. There are others as well: Erin is an online video performer, Lemma Tallica is a rock star, Tuck is a drag queen you meet in prison, and Cebe is a bouncer you encounter at Hell’s Pawn (just outside the local police station). All these folks are engaging and fun to interact with and are reminiscent of previous series characters.

Since the last “true” Larry game (Love for Sail) was released in 1996, a lot has changed in society with regards to the way men and women interact. While Larry still has 1980s-era views towards the women he objectifies, and is hoping to score with each of his dates, in all cases sex is consensual, and as always the women have far more power than the protagonist. While it would not be a Larry game without his constant hitting on female characters, the developers recognize the difference in modern attitudes and address it in a very topical and funny way.




At one point you find yourself in the Oval Office (depicted in great retro-styled graphics with MIDI music in the background), where the president (a blatant riff on Trump) is honouring Larry for his services in educating the American youth. A young boy named Bill is there and tells Larry his adventures have taught him a lot about how to behave. When Larry is asked to explain to Bill how to speak to a woman, where to touch a woman first, and finally where women belong, in each case the choices are blatantly sexist but no matter what you pick, Larry’s real answer is very respectful. Larry doesn’t understand what has happened to him, but young Bill takes this advice to heart. The president, of course, is obviously pissed off and goes off on a tangent – very funny! Clearly Larry has adopted the 21st century values of gender equality and decency, whether he wants to or not.

You can expect between 15-20 hours of gameplay due to the many conversations, puzzles and backtracking required to solve them. If you pay particular attention to the tasks at hand you can reduce the amount of travel, but expect to still do a lot of toing and froing. Although the experience is fairly linear, some objectives can be worked on simultaneously to save time. In fact, there are so many goals that need to be completed, a system to keep track of them would have been welcome, especially since there’s no hint system either. Adding a to-do list of some kind as a new app in the PiPhone display would be very simple.

Whether you’re a fan of the franchise concerned about the newer games damaging its legacy, or a series newcomer wondering what all the fuss is about, Wet Dreams Don’t Dry is a great game. It’s not quite as user-friendly as it could be, but not only does it faithfully represent Sierra’s first six Leisure Suit Larry games, it is a fun, beautiful point-and-click adventure with plenty of laughs on its own. There is a twist at the end that I did not see coming and sets up the series for a sequel. If that happens, I can hardly wait.
 

Unkillable Cat

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When I was 8 or 9 nine years old, I got very sick with some flu or illness. Bedridden for about a week. During that time I watched a film for the very first time, Flash Gordon (cue Queen music). For decades afterwards I could not watch the film without becoming sick, or at least vividly recalling how I felt when I first watched the film. Memory plays upon all the senses, you know. (I think it's a cool film, mind you.)

Why is this relevant? Because I re-experienced that while playing this game. As I had a pretty bad flu while first playing it, every subsequent attempt to continue and finish the game has been met with sickening nausea. (Good thing I'm not an Official Game Reviewer somewhere, or someone would slap that quote onto the game box.)

Well, it's only today that I could finally stomach going through the rest of the game... and things get pretty interesting, to say the least.

# The most entertaining 'date' Larry has in this game is with Nari, the Prune [Apple rip-off] developer. She's cute, she's sexy, she's a nerd, she has the best joke in the game and she's really into rainbow-haired unicorns. Of course things are gonna get weird.
# Like in Deponia: Doomsday, there's a 'retro' sequence in this game. It kinda falls flat because they couldn't get the graphics right and there's no parser input.
# Seriously, how hard must you try to screw up something like EGA graphics? If you die in this game (possible, but not as easy as you'd think) you get a recreation of the 'assembly line'-screen from the original LSL1... except it looks like it was done on an Amstrad CPC instead of a PC with EGA graphics. The resolution is too low, the color bleed is too great.
# Then consider the fact that there's an entire flashback sequence in that same horribad EGA-wannabe resolution...
# Donald Trump makes an appearance in this 'glorious EGA' flashback. Sadly the joke factor of that is virtually non-existent due to Leftards/Germany being unable to meme, but at least they got his speech manners down to a tee.
# As for Leftards and SJW-ism in general, there's a gay wedding in the game (complete with sloppy kiss) being presided over by a transvestite. The ceremony is attended by four males and an animatronic bear. It doesn't really get more incloosive than this!
# Did you wonder what the deal was with Larry waking up in that dark structure under the street at the start of the game, and the backstory behind it that might shed some light on why Larry is back in Lost Wages all of a sudden with no recollection of his past (except for events from the first game)? Yeah, forget all that, the game never addresses any of it. :(
# As for plot twists, one moment Larry was trying to boost his Timber score to go on a date with some uppity bitch, the next thing you know Larry's in Mexico surrounded by alpacas, making guacamolé, having vision quests and I'm going ThatsItI'mGettingOutOfHere...
# I'm fairly certain that the actor who voiced Diego in the Gothic games (English version) also voices Lefty in this game.
# Speaking of Gothic, the music in LSL WDDD is done by none other than Kai Rosenkranz. Well, at least that's one positive for this game.
# The end credits has an OK-ish track to round out the soundtrack.
# Al Lowe's name finally appears in the game in the end credits, under "Special Thanks to". Well, at least it's something.

Overall? It's not the worst Larry game out there (Box Office Bust sits firmly at the bottom) but it's not one of the best ones either. It ranks somewhere around Larry 5 in terms of quality and gameplay. It's most definetely not worth $30, but it might be a good buy on a sale... oh, and if you play this game and then later meet Al Lowe in person, you're obligated to slip him at least $20 for his efforts.
 

troupeg

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Your points are all subjective and I can't really respond to any, but one of them I do wanna comment on.

# Did you wonder what the deal was with Larry waking up in that dark structure under the street at the start of the game, and the backstory behind it that might shed some light on why Larry is back in Lost Wages all of a sudden with no recollection of his past (except for events from the first game)? Yeah, forget all that, the game never addresses any of it. :(

The reason it isn't addressed is because it doesn't NEED to be addressed due to it not mattering in the long run; in fact it's literally lamp shaded over when Larry is in the prison, when the policewoman lists off his crimes, she straight up states "and for the crime of ignoring the canon of all the previous games..." which implies that
It matters just as much as the reason Larry and Patty divorcing and Larry working at a porn studio matters, which is to say, not at all. It happened because it needed to for the game to be set in the future.
 

Haba

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# Did you wonder what the deal was with Larry waking up in that dark structure under the street at the start of the game, and the backstory behind it that might shed some light on why Larry is back in Lost Wages all of a sudden with no recollection of his past (except for events from the first game)? Yeah, forget all that, the game never addresses any of it. :(

The reason it isn't addressed is because it doesn't NEED to be addressed due to it not mattering in the long run; in fact it's literally lamp shaded over when Larry is in the prison, when the policewoman lists off his crimes, she straight up states "and for the crime of ignoring the canon of all the previous games..." which implies that
It matters just as much as the reason Larry and Patty divorcing and Larry working at a porn studio matters, which is to say, not at all. It happened because it needed to for the game to be set in the future.

This will be answered in a future game featuring the Sierra adventure team. Also known as "Half-Life 3"

 

Unkillable Cat

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The reason it isn't addressed is because it doesn't NEED to be addressed due to it not mattering in the long run; in fact it's literally lamp shaded over when Larry is in the prison, when the policewoman lists off his crimes, she straight up states "and for the crime of ignoring the canon of all the previous games..." which implies that
It matters just as much as the reason Larry and Patty divorcing and Larry working at a porn studio matters, which is to say, not at all. It happened because it needed to for the game to be set in the future.

Uh-huh. No.

There are several ways they could have done the "man out of time finds himself in a familiar place without knowing how he got there"-trope to set the scene for this game. They could have had Larry been beamed down by those same aliens that abducted him at the end of LSL7, for example. That would both tie a line between the old series and this new game and leave a blank space for people to do the "Lust in Space"-game Lowe wanted to do.

The other examples you name that are left unexplained are also left purposefully vague, to allow for people to fill in the blanks whatever way they want. The underground lab thing, however, is too specific. There is intent at work here.

You don't show Chekov's Gun unless you intend to fire it.
 

DalekFlay

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This is, for the first time I've seen, under $20 on GOG. Thinking of getting it since everyone not complaining about SJW stuff seems to like it.
 

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It's a surprisingly good game with some good puzzles and nice production value.
And a good Larry.
 

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