DAY ONE: HONG KONG
Welcome to Hong Kong. We're back at the start of the game, and our goal is to find Zhao Chi and get his help in finding Lomax's daughter, Nurse Kate.
But first, let's pay a quick visit to E.A.
He's obviously not terribly happy to see us.
Relax, E.A., I just...
RELAX?!!! You good for nothing, bum!!!!
My daughter's life is at stake, and you piddle around town doing God knows what, then you come here and tell me to relax?!!!
Come back again without Kate, and I'll have you swabbing decks on the junkiest junk in the Far East! Now hit the road!!!
He means it too. Coming back will result in a game over. However, you can get the same one in a funnier way later on, so for now we'll just push on.
The icon is pointing to a little piece of paper that floats by before resting on this spot. Picking it up makes Lucky comment on it.
These speech bubbles appear whenever is thinking something. For the sake of the LP, I will represent them as a bubble around the character's portrait, as seen on the next line.
This is one of my fliers that I put out last week.
Wait a second. Is someone taking them down? If I catch the idiot, WHAM, turn out the lights!
Let's have a closer look at the flier.
Once you reach the point where you need to use the flier, the description will pretty much give away the solution.
While we're here let's have a look at Lucky's inventory.
Lucky is American. The epitome of the stereotypical loud-mouthed American, as you will come to see in a minute. In the developers' defense, they're all Americans too.
There are two doors here. Since Lucky can't read Chinese, we'll just enter the first one and see what we find.
Let's talk to the lady and see Lucky's charisma and diplomacy in action.
Ahem... ahem...
Hello, hello? How about some service?!
I would've liked to use different fonts but I couldn't see any way to do this on the 'dex, so instead, whenever someone talks in this script, I'll use italics. This is meant to denote they are speaking/thinking in Chinese, which Lucky doesn't understand but you do (there will be a good explanation for why the player should understand it later on).
What's the problem here?
You.
Let's get with the program, lady. I mean, are you open for business or not?
Gee, I hope I'm not disturbing you.
Diplomacy roll: critical fail.
Flying ace in the Great War... successful businessman... one of the most eligible bachelors in Hong Kong...
Don't you read the paper?
Huh?
Do I look Chinese to you? How about in American this time?
Diplomacy roll: you roll even less than a 1.
American? Know eggplant brighter than this one.
That's it. I'm out of here!
(BTW if anyone here reads Chinese, I'm curious whether they just strung together a bunch of characters, or whether there's some inside joke that only Chinese readers would get)
Well I was kinda out of line...
maybe even rude... Do I look Chinese to you? Why did I say that?
Of course, she didn't help the situation...
Well that went well. Let's try the other door.
Seems like a quiet enough pub. Let's go see who's at the bar.
Let's try the man in the back first.
OK never mind. Try the
lady "lady" then.
I already am Lucky.
Rose mean REAL lucky!
Sure, why not. After all, as anyone who played Rise of the Dragon knows, saying yes to prostitutes is totally a good idea in Dynamix games.
That's the same ending (with different wording) you get for harrassing Lomax. Do note that it takes about half a dozen clicks to get this game over - in others, twice more than the first one you can get in Rise of the Dragon.
Anyway we reload and pick the other option.
Sure, Rose understand. You not man enough for Rose.
Yeah, you'll never know, babe!
Well, we've only got the barman left.
Lucky. Been long time. What Ho can do for you?
Now here's how things go. There are 3 back-to-back conversations coming up, and in each one you can mess up, get beaten up, and lose a day (which I outlined in the previous update). Losing a day lets you "bypass" the conversation you were having and skips you to the next one. There's not much point though, so I'll be doing a clean progression through the whole thing. Because it's much more fun, too.
In Ho's case, being threatening or evasive is pointless, so might as well get straight to the point.
You ask right man. Ho know everybody. Who you look for?
No. No see.
Yes, but...
Where can I find him?
Do not know. No see for long time.
Maybe, but not think so.
Does he...
No know where he is. No talk make me know, either.
Amazing. Everywhere you turn, somebody's hotting you up for some moola. So what's your price?
No understand.
What do you want, a Benjamin Franklin?
Benjalin Frankmin?
Yeah, a hundred bucks.
Money make no difference. No see. Understand?
Let me get this straight. You're going to turn down this money...
No see Zhao Chi!
And you're going to refuse to help me.
Please, I say no see!
Someone else intervenes into the conversation...
Problem?
Yeah, a problem. Want me to spell it out for you?
Spell it out?
This conversation is a bit trickier. If you're
too insulting, Lucky just gets beaten up, so the trick is to skirt as close to acceptable as possible.
Small white dog calls us baboons.
White dog apologize or baboons dismember!
Zhao Chi friend of mine. You not see Zhao Chi unless I say you see. That my business.
Cut the strong-arm crap.
You don't want to let me see Zhao Chi, that's your PROBLEM!
But finding Zhao Chi, that's my BUSINESS! Now listen real close.
Tell Zhao Chi I need his help and that it's worth the balance of his debt to Lomax.
I get around to it eventually.
Oh, that reminds me,there is one other thing...
I'll say when it's enough! So, you want to start with me or something?
Oh, sorry, uh, please to finally meet you. Boy you're a hard me to see.
A Ninja may make himself invisible.
That wasn't what I meant... oh, yeah, right.
Right.
Right. Anyway, the name's Jake Masters. Everyone calls me Lucky.
What you want Jake Masters?
Lucky.
We see about that.
Now, we've gone through all this trouble to find Chi, there's not much point in being insulting is there. So you just have to tell him about the situation, and convince him that Lucky is worth helping.
You not talk about Nurse Kate?
Yeah, she's a nurse. Kate Lomax.
Nurse Kate very good to my people. Like to help. What is wrong?
Well, she was kidnapped by some warlord, uh, Li Dink... Di Lenk... something like that.
Li Deng.
Yeah, that's the clown we're dealing with.
Against so-called clown, you need army not Chi.
You prove courage to Chi not once but twice. But also you reckless.
It has its place.
Yes, but you know when and where?
Chi's previous lines make it pretty obvious he doesn't like reckless, so this one's a no-brainer.
Yes, but so too man who die tomorrow.
Look, you either believe in me or you don't. If you do, great, I could use your help.
If you don't, I don't want you around anyhow.
Lucky prove understand more than just good sucker punch. Chi help.
Great. Well, uh, do you need to go home and get your toothbrush or something?
Actually, Ninja always ready for action.
By the way, what wages for this job?
How about five grand?
And all Chi can eat?
Yeah, sure. A scrawny guy like you probably only eats birdseed.
You be surprised. So, anyway, how we get all the way to Chengdu?
No problem. I've got my own plane.
You mean ARROW-PLANE?
Yeah, why?
That big problem! I not travel in ARROW-PLANE. Only birds can fly.
Nonsense! Come on, be serious, airplanes have been around since... uh...
Well, tell me you haven't seen one in the sky before.
Maybe yes, but sometimes eyes play tricks on rest of Chi.
Good grief, are you going to tell me you're backing out now?!
Chi not back out. Chi just no get in ARROW-PLANE.
Oh, for crying in the beer!
Hmmm. If I could figure out a way to show him...
At this point the game automatically opens up the inventory. Remember the flier and its description? We can equip it to fold it into the right shape...
... then press right-click to change the cursor to it, followed by left-clicking on Chi to use it.
Alright, Chi, get a load of this!
This is a very, very special, scientifically designed dynamic 3-D flight simulator.
Look like ordinary paper formed into ARROW-PLANE to Chi.
Yeah, pal, well, there's alot going on here beneath the surface. Now pay attention. Anyway, as I was saying...
This is very special. Probably would sell like mu-shu pancakes over here.
Now, I'm going to use the 3-D flight sim to show how flight is possible.
It's all a simple matter of physics, Chi ol' buddy. You see... uh... well...
It's like this. You take the inverse cosine of air and that causes... uh...
the earth to expel these gases which rise and then you can fly.
Lucky knows his physics even better than nomask did.
What if inverse cosine of air not taken?
Uh... well, it always is.
Then why do ARROW-PLANES also crash? Was then cosine of air taken to wrong place?
Look, this physics stuff is very complex.
I mean, I was in undergraduate school for seven years trying to figure it out. Here, just watch.
Eyes see, mind understand. Okay, Chi go with Lucky in arrow-plane.
And we've now got two people in the party! Just like a real RPG! Clicking on the portrait on the left switches the active character. There are some things that only Lucky can do, others that only Chi can do.
Let's have a look at what Chi is carrying.
Checking with Ho again, he makes a comment.
With Chi in tow, let's get back on the road... in the next update.