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Topic: The Pearl Shell, On the Island< Next Oldest | Next Newest >
nightspore Offline




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Posted: April 19 2010, 09:51

If you avoid the snakes on the island, I notice there's a clam that opens and closes with pearls inside. Is there any particular game that is supposed to be played with this? I fired at the clam, but all that happened was that the dolphins put in their two cents' worth, as usual.

Also, that ring under the piano avatar - is it purely for decoration, or can it be got in some particular way?
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Ugo Offline




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Posted: April 19 2010, 18:58

As far as I remember (it's been quite a long time since I last played 3L), shooting the pearl is just one of several ways to jump directly to the dolphins game - in other words, if you are on Turtle Island and you hit the pearl, you miss the ray's journey from the island to the dolphins' bay. I'm not sure whether this was really Mike's (and Nick Catcheside's) intention, but it's really what it happens. :) By the way, if you hit one of the floating turtles with a pearl, you will hear "Turtle Island" (the song), but I guess you already know this...

I also am not sure about the piano avatar's ring. Usually everything that's around the avatars isn't there for any particular use, because the players' attention, when seeing an avatar, is generally caught by the avatar itself, not by what's around it. But yes, it may very well be one of the rings that are scattered all through the game for purely decorative purposes, such as the big ring behind the cats in the temple.


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nightspore Offline




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Posted: April 19 2010, 21:39

Quote (Ugo @ April 19 2010, 18:58)
By the way, if you hit one of the floating turtles with a pearl, you will hear "Turtle Island" (the song), but I guess you already know this...

Hi Ugo, no, I didn't know this - thanks! I'm in the mood for 3L at the moment (I played it for ages last night, before getting stuck in a void with a ring of spiky balls that wouldn't provide a means of escape no matter what I tried!;).
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a_r_schulz Offline




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Posted: April 20 2010, 10:04

Quote (nightspore @ April 20 2010, 03:39)
I played it for ages last night, before getting stuck in a void with a ring of spiky balls that wouldn't provide a means of escape no matter what I tried!

You would have been saved by the bell...
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Ugo Offline




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Posted: April 20 2010, 18:56

@ nightspore: that sounds like the so-called Moon Game - were you on the Moon when it happened? To play that one, you simply have to hit all the balls one by one - literally rushing against them, not hitting them with anything. Each ball plays a little piece of music. Then, when all ten (or twelve, I don't remember) of them are gone, another nice little piece of music which-is-not-included-in-the-Tres Lunas album :) brings you back to Earth, or whatever the cactus place is :D, and you get a ring.

By the way, if you end up in the dolphins game and you don't really want to play it, the quickest escape way is shooting a ring at the static dolphin avatar (you can easily recognize it) and the ray will bring you out of there in a whizz... as quick as you can say "Bob's your uncle". [This is a quote - I never knew exactly what it means, but it has always sounded very funny to me. I don't know whether it does to you... :D]


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nightspore Offline




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Posted: April 20 2010, 21:20

Quote (Ugo @ April 20 2010, 18:56)
@ nightspore: that sounds like the so-called Moon Game - were you on the Moon when it happened? To play that one, you simply have to hit all the balls one by one - literally rushing against them, not hitting them with anything. Each ball plays a little piece of music. Then, when all ten (or twelve, I don't remember) of them are gone, another nice little piece of music which-is-not-included-in-the-Tres Lunas album :) brings you back to Earth, or whatever the cactus place is :D, and you get a ring.

By the way, if you end up in the dolphins game and you don't really want to play it, the quickest escape way is shooting a ring at the static dolphin avatar (you can easily recognize it) and the ray will bring you out of there in a whizz... as quick as you can say "Bob's your uncle". [This is a quote - I never knew exactly what it means, but it has always sounded very funny to me. I don't know whether it does to you... :D]

Hi Ugo, no, it's not the Moon Game, which I never have trouble with. The spiked balls are the same, though: there's a ring of them suspended in a multi-coloured, swirling void, and no matter what I do I can't escape. I've been trapped there before. There's a very nice snippet of music from TL II playing in the background.

Yes, sometimes I get tired of the dolphins game, particularly as I usually end up near the giant jellyfish and have trouble getting back to ring any remaining dolphins.

I agree with you that the turtle/pearl sequence of the game is particularly nice - although throwing pearls at a turtle seems ostentatious, if not politically incorrect!
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nightspore Offline




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Posted: April 20 2010, 21:22

Quote (Ugo @ April 20 2010, 18:56)
"Bob's your uncle". [This is a quote - I never knew exactly what it means, but it has always sounded very funny to me. I don't know whether it does to you... :D]

Over here, we say "Roberto is your zio!"  :D
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Ugo Offline




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Posted: April 21 2010, 08:11

Ah, now I get it. You ended up in the so-called Good World, which is supposed to be Mike's home within 3L. The exit point is Mike's red (or rather pink) Fender Strat: when you see it floating somewhere, touch it and you're out. All the worlds within 3L are meant to have an exit - only the so-called "unofficial worlds" (i.e. the ones that are artificially created because of bugs in the programming) have none, and to move out of one of those you have to re-start the game. But all others do have a way out.
Yes, hitting turtles with pearls is not exactly what I'd call showing your respect towards animals, and Mike himself, in his interview about the game, said that there was no violence in it. But I guess that Mike intended the turtle to be more like a kind-of trigger for the song than an actual, fully developed animal presence (there are other such animals in the game). And, anyway ,if you hit a turtle's shell with a pearl, he feels nothing at all. :)

"Bob's your uncle" is something that Dick Van Dyke says as Bert in Disney's Mary Poppins film. He means that Mary can make magical things happen in an extremely quick way. I've never heard the phrase, with that meaning, outside of that film's context.


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nightspore Offline




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Posted: April 21 2010, 09:01

Quote (Ugo @ April 21 2010, 08:11)
Ah, now I get it. You ended up in the so-called Good World, which is supposed to be Mike's home within 3L. The exit point is Mike's red (or rather pink) Fender Strat: when you see it floating somewhere, touch it and you're out. All the worlds within 3L are meant to have an exit - only the so-called "unofficial worlds" (i.e. the ones that are artificially created because of bugs in the programming) have none, and to move out of one of those you have to re-start the game. But all others do have a way out.
Yes, hitting turtles with pearls is not exactly what I'd call showing your respect towards animals, and Mike himself, in his interview about the game, said that there was no violence in it. But I guess that Mike intended the turtle to be more like a kind-of trigger for the song than an actual, fully developed animal presence (there are other such animals in the game). And, anyway ,if you hit a turtle's shell with a pearl, he feels nothing at all. :)

"Bob's your uncle" is something that Dick Van Dyke says as Bert in Disney's Mary Poppins film. He means that Mary can make magical things happen in an extremely quick way. I've never heard the phrase, with that meaning, outside of that film's context.

Thanks, Ugo. I don't remember seeing a red Fender Strat in the "Good" World, but next time I'm trapped there I'll look for it!

One further TL question: where, in the game, do you get to hear "Firefly"?

"Bob's your uncle" is a very common expression; I was just being silly when I referred to "Roberto". It was used, for example, in the [I]Yes Minister[I] episode where the minister is led to believe that he's on a terrorist list.
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a_r_schulz Offline




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Posted: April 21 2010, 16:10

Ok, a few remarks:
1. Ugo, the pink Strat will not help you out of 'Good World' - as I mentioned above, you have to be 'saved by the bell' (need I say more?)
2. You don't have to shoot the swimming turtle to play 'Turtle Island' - just get close to it.
3. If you pick the 'bad snake', it will swallow up the turle on the beach - so much for Mike's non-violence rule.
4. A part of 'Firefly' can be heard at the golden trees.
5. The piano ring indeed does not seem to do anything useful. OTOH, there is a similar rock at the lake end of the canyon, which will let you repeat the ride with the horses.
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Ugo Offline




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Posted: April 21 2010, 17:55

@ Alexander: oh, you're right. The Flying Bell. [This reminds me of a Spanish guy in here - José Miguel Serrano - whose nickname I don't recall right now. :)] Yes, I do remember that. And I do remember it being quite hard to find, while the guitar is relatively easy to spot. About the turtle, I remember reading in the "TL Guide" topic, within this board, that you had to shoot it to play the song, and I always did it that way. The only time I wandered close to it and actually touched it without really meaning to, the song did start playing, but the little turtles around the main one didn't emerge from the water - something which regularily happens when you shoot it. So I guess Mike actually meant the turtle to be hit to get the full effect. :) Regarding the "evil snake" and the turtle, well, as far as I know, in real life, snakes do sometimes swallow turtles, or at least they're able to. So I guess that Mike (or Nick Catcheside?) was just trying to imitate nature. Anyway, I never saw that happen within the game. On the few occasions I intentionally picked the red snake (just to see what happened) and on the several other occasions when some friends of mine, who couldn't really play, picked it, the snake just crawled to ominous music and let me (or my friends) directly into the "Bad World". Nothing ever happened to the turtle. I guess you have to activate/hit/touch/trigger it to make it actually come into play. :)

@ nightspore (OT): what is the actual meaning of "Bob's your uncle" ? I guess it's one of those things that are typical of the English (British) cultural environment, of which I, being Italian, obviously know nothing at all... :D


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Ugo C. - a devoted Amarokian
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nightspore Offline




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Posted: April 21 2010, 21:20

Quote (Ugo @ April 21 2010, 17:55)
@ Alexander: oh, you're right. The Flying Bell. [This reminds me of a Spanish guy in here - José Miguel Serrano - whose nickname I don't recall right now. :)] Yes, I do remember that. And I do remember it being quite hard to find, while the guitar is relatively easy to spot. About the turtle, I remember reading in the "TL Guide" topic, within this board, that you had to shoot it to play the song, and I always did it that way. The only time I wandered close to it and actually touched it without really meaning to, the song did start playing, but the little turtles around the main one didn't emerge from the water - something which regularily happens when you shoot it. So I guess Mike actually meant the turtle to be hit to get the full effect. :) Regarding the "evil snake" and the turtle, well, as far as I know, in real life, snakes do sometimes swallow turtles, or at least they're able to. So I guess that Mike (or Nick Catcheside?) was just trying to imitate nature. Anyway, I never saw that happen within the game. On the few occasions I intentionally picked the red snake (just to see what happened) and on the several other occasions when some friends of mine, who couldn't really play, picked it, the snake just crawled to ominous music and let me (or my friends) directly into the "Bad World". Nothing ever happened to the turtle. I guess you have to activate/hit/touch/trigger it to make it actually come into play. :)

@ nightspore (OT): what is the actual meaning of "Bob's your uncle" ? I guess it's one of those things that are typical of the English (British) cultural environment, of which I, being Italian, obviously know nothing at all... :D

Hi Ugo, AR Schultz - thanks for your comments.

First, I propose that the "Good World" be renamed the "Tiresome World", as I was trapped there again last night, with nary a bell in sight! I consoled myself by restarting the game and flying out to Obelisk Island instead!

Ugo, "Bob's your uncle" just means "very easily accomplished". Presumably Bob is a common name for uncles (well, I guess it is - I had one!;), and so is something very easy to have.
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Ugo Offline




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Posted: April 22 2010, 19:10

@ nightspore: thanks for the explanation. That's exactly the sense it has in the Mary Poppins movie, as Bert says it's extremely easy for Mary to do magic. :)

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nightspore Offline




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Posted: April 22 2010, 20:25

Quote (Ugo @ April 22 2010, 19:10)
@ nightspore: thanks for the explanation. That's exactly the sense it has in the Mary Poppins movie, as Bert says it's extremely easy for Mary to do magic. :)

You're welcome, Ugo. I hope we can now expect to find the phrase peppering your future contributions to tubular.net!

Thanks for your comments about program stability on the other thread. I think there was a conscious effort with Maestro to make things more robust - although I know with the Gravitar quest sometimes gravitars will mysteriously go AWOL from their pen!
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