My Shivers 2 playthough

[notbobsmith]

So I ended up having to resort to getting a hint. I peaked at your clues, BBP, but they didn't make sense to me at first. What I was missing was that I needed to place the gum on the red dot on the TVs to watch the videos. Kind of frustrating, but it did open things up for me.

[BBP]

Wow! It's the main point of the game - that the hints are in the music videos.

Before you first leave the motel and encounter the ghost (since you already entered the bakery I assume you got the music box and know now it's Norah's ghost, there are 8 videos available. Number 9 you get after you solve the first bahos The music videos are:
Candy Cane Dragon / needed to get a clue from the barbershop pole
Warm Place To Hide / hints to enemy
Get A Grip / hints to get token in shop
Was I Even There / hints to clue to mausoleum in the cafe
Spell It Out / needed to get in the computer at the bank
Ianyi / hint to getting Ianyi
Alone Inside / needed to get something from the cemetery
Move Without Thought / needed to get into the bank
Know Your Enemy / needed to solve gas station puzzle

Cool that you managed to get so far without any video!

[notbobsmith]

It didn't seem all that obvious of a thing to do, and I was able to progress pretty far without the videos so I didn't notice until I got stuck. What bugs me is that some locations (like the statue in the cemetery) don't become "active" until the video is viewed, so I spent a lot of time clicking on things and have nothing happen.

[BBP]

It makes sense to me. Would you randomly press statues in a cemetery when you find yourself in a ghost town?

[notbobsmith]

Still working my way through. Things have opened up since I figured out the thing with the videos. I was still having trouble with the bank, but it turned out there was one I hadn't seen. I did end up cheating with the puzzle in the warehouse (moving the marbles into the correct colored squares in a fixed number of moves). That one seemed too difficult and time consuming to figure out on my own. The first Shivers had one like that too.

[BBP]

That one's improbably hard, I wouldn't even know where to begin...
Since you got in the warehouse I presume you "offered her a flower and placed it just right". Did that activate a certain other thing happening at the cemetery?

[notbobsmith]

I'm down to my last bahos. So far the only puzzles I need to do (I think) are to get in Max's place and to access the computer. I did watch the video which gives the clue (Spell It Out), but I need a user name and a password. Still working on it.

Overall the game is okay. I'm still a bit miffed about needing to watch the videos before a puzzle location becomes active or an item appears. But the puzzles (except the on in the warehouse) are pretty good and challenging. We'll see how the game finishes up. Hopefully soon.

[BBP]

In case you're done working: They're both in Spell It Out video

[notbobsmith]

Got the last Bahos (Burt's). I was having trouble with getting the login and password for the bank computer, but finally accessed it. I read your hint, but the mistake I was making was focusing on the lyrics of the song (ONE, TWO, THREE, etc. in caps in the subtitles) than the people making letters in the video. That may have been a bit too subtle when the password is shown very clearly. So right now I am in Max's cave figuring out what to do next.

[BBP]

Good job but I'm really wondering how this game works now. Yeah I was looking for secret passwords in those lyrics but I guess it was too obvious.

Is Darkcloud calling you in absolutely every building now? that's so annoying!

There are 2 basic important things at Max's: one key item and of course you need to do what Norah tells you to do.

[notbobsmith]

Still working on it. I've been otherwise occupied this past week.

[notbobsmith]

Finally. I just finished Shivers 2. GOG says I clocked 27 hrs but I finally made it with a minimum amount of help. So, it was okay I guess.

First: the story. I'm not sure it worked for me. So we get a lot of clues as to what is going on in town and why this "Darkcloud" is doing what he is doing. This is all fine. It establishes mood and motivations for the characters. One problem I had was trying to keep track of everyone when all you get is to hear their voice on the phone. You also don't get much insight into some of the characters. The plot concerning the city council is fine. You get enough information as to what they are up to. Burt, however, is more of a cipher. Pearl and most of the shop owners are also not very well fleshed out. There's also the matter of the ending (I did see all 3 variations). I thought for all of the stuff that was going on with the townspeople that the game keeps throwing at you, there would be some sort of resolution for them. The council goes to jail. The innocent people are rescued. Something. But they are never mentioned in the ending.

Shivers 2 takes a more adventure game like approach versus the original Shivers. I thought this would make the game more interesting, but instead I just found myself hunting around for a key that I had missed. I think just having puzzle like in the first Shivers worked better. The puzzles themselves were pretty good. One or two were easy. The one in the warehouse was way too difficult and I ended up cheating. The rest were nicely challenging. I still take issue with the thing with the gum and the TVs. I watched part of MetalJesusRocks' video mentioned in the thread below and he also took issue with it. There is no hint as to what the solution is. There's no indication that something needs to be solved. And yet it is required to "unlock" most of the game.

Like Shivers, I did like the music in Shivers 2. Different and interesting to listen to and helped establish the mood. I wasn't really a fan of the art design. All the locations have these odd "themes". A Chinese barber shop. An aquarium bakery. A safari bank. It all looks odd and it doesn't really serve much of a purpose. The design is similar to the first Shivers, but at least that was a museum designed by an eccentric. Here, all of the townspeople have very odd taste. The game also came out the same time as Riven. The environments in Riven are very clean and easy to navigate. Here, all of the colors are garish and I found it hard to know where I was going in the canyon. I also almost missed Max's cave altogether.

So that's about it. I think I liked the first Shivers more. The puzzles-only approach kept things simple.

Other thoughts:

So Max had the other half of Ianyi in his cave the whole time?! Seriously?

Funny little audio editing error: in one of the final videos, you can hear the actor playing Darkcloud say "What have you done?" a few seconds before you hear the booming voice start speaking saying the same thing. I think someone forgot to remove the audio from the actor.

[notbobsmith]

Just gave another playthrough using a guide. Not too much to add. Now that I have a better understanding of who the characters are, it was easier to keep track of people through the phone messages. It still seems like things are left unresolved at the end and plot points that seem relevant go nowhere.

I think this might be the only adventure game where you can fill up your inventory. I tried to pick up something with a full inventory bar, and it wouldn't let me do it. Not a big deal. I just had to use some of the inventory items like the chess pieces. I thought it was, well, different.

[BBP]

After playing Shivers 2 I found I had missed so much from the plot that I checked upon SierraChest - and found lots of intricate details about the plot.

I found the TV and gum making sense - that the gum is a usable object is hilariously illustrated by Charles's gum chewing habit and the flashing light during the playing videos was to me clear. It is odd sometimes how puzzles that take you little time can frustrate other people to no end (there's a hilarious video of Toegoff trying for 45 minutes to figure out the hell gate riddle in KQ6).

One plot point that took me way too long to get is the corpse of the hitchhiker with the bracelet - why is it but a skeleton when there's barely a week or two since her death and why is it in the supermarket fridge? It's alluded to in the diary from the oven - in it Wendy mentions that he claims to have fresh meat although the road was blocked by the avalanche, and his dog is missing, "I think I'll pass."

We learn absolutely nothing of the baker and Pearl's OK but for the rest it's a town of Very Unpleasant People (including Norah for that bitch move in the cemetery). I don't know what happens to them - I assume that what happened to them is the same as what happens to the band.

I mentioned several times that I think the second-best ending, where you give Ianyi to Norah, Max sees the spirit of his late wife and she tells him off for turning the town into a ghost town.

Yeah I noticed the error on the video, hilarious!

I remember the inventory issues - I hated the chewing gum especially since it looked like the cash, heehee.

Warehouse Puzzle - I should try to really sit for that one sometime...

[BBP]

Ooh, and for more adventures with a finite inventory:
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/ ... mentPuzzle

My "favourite" of these was Alice in Wonderland for CD-i. But that's another story.