What I've Been Playing This Week (aka Pile of Shame Sunday)

Is that shark standing up vertically?

The following post is part of a series of posts that are published every Sunday to update readers on what Mark G has been up to with respect to finishing off games on his "Pile of Shame". The games to target are picked by Choicest Games contributors Choona, Luke and myself. As I'll be talking about my progress through these games, there may be spoilers ahead, especially for games containing a narrative. Consider yourself warned.

Star Trek: Bridge Crew

• Picked by Me
• Percentage Complete = 16%

Didn't get to play Star Trek: Bridge Crew this week but didn't find the time to play it with Lanna. Will try it again next week 😊

Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag

• Picked by Luke
• Percentage Complete = 71%

After diving for some treasure, hunting a humpback whale and finding an island called Île-à-Vache, I fumbled my way through the main mission (since once again, I had to employ stealth which I am terrible at doing). It turns out that Hornigold is actually working for the Templars (dun dun DUUUUUN – but really, is anyone that shocked to discover this?).

King's Quest IV

• Picked by Choona
• Percentage Complete = 0%

Yes, I've reset the Percentage Complete to 0% because I've decided I'm going to have to start the game again, from the beginning, as I've reached a dead-end and I'm not even aware of it (old Sierra adventure games were infamous for dead-ends). After recovering a bag of gems off a table in the Dwarves house, I tried giving them to one of the Dwarves in the mine only for them to not accept it. “Fair enough," I thought. “Maybe I can use these gems elsewhere." Eventually, I discovered you could give the gems to the fisherman who would give his fishing pole in exchange (seems like he got the better deal). Anyway, it turns out this course of action has led me into a dead-end, because that bag of gems was meant to be given to one of the dwarves who rewards you with a lamp prior to him letting you keep the bag of gems which you can exchange with the fisherman later: failure to give this bag of gems to him means you'll never get that lamp (which is a critical piece of equipment you'll need later in the game)!

I also discovered that in order to go into the waterfall, you need to wear a crown given to you by a frog prince in order to make your way through. There was no hint before this that you needed to go in the waterfall nor that the crown did anything useful (if you try to use it in any other screen it doesn't allow you to do anything).

So, I'm finding that my initial impressions of King's Quest IV being a more reasonable game than its predecessors, was probably a bit premature. I'm going to restart the game but with the help of a walkthrough (again).

LINK:
[ The Pile of Shame ]