My playthrough

[notbobsmith]

I pretty much just started on Friday so I don't consider myself stuck on anything yet. I'm in the other world in the tower. I just wanted to make a few quick observations. The game is supposed to be Myst-like so I am of course going to draw comparisons between the two. For one thing, the controls seem to be a bit more cumbersome in Lighthouse. The cursor seems to change into a "move" cursor add odd locations when I don't want it to (like when I am exploring a screen for items) and I end up moving back and forth between screens unintentionally. Screen transitions also don't seem to be quite as effective. I sometimes lose my sense of place.

One odd thing in the beginning. In the house, I heard a baby crying. I'm not sure where it is coming from and it eventually stops. I figure it out where it was probably coming from and restore to an earlier save. This time, I find the baby crying and see a cutscene. So what would have happened if I had continued playing from before? Would I have been stuck?

[BBP]

No, there are two possible paths...

[notbobsmith]

I've been stuck for a few days now. I'm in the tower and there are three places that I can go: the submarine dock, a room with a robot bird-man that's barred off, and the top room. There's an attic that I can't access because I can't lower the ladder. I don't think I can do much in the dock or the barred off room yet, which leaves the top room. I have a key that can lock the window. I get the feeling that I'm supposed to lock the bird-man inside, but I can't lure him in. I think I've tried everything but I haven't been able to lower the ladder. So this is where I am. Am I close? I think I found everything in the room.

So far I have issues with the game. Again, due to the similarities, I'll be comparing this to Myst. As I mentioned before, the cursor is really bothersome. It's this huge arrow that seems to do what it wants> It changes to a "turn" cursor when you don't want it to and you have to hunt for the sweet spot when you want to move. I set the cursor to highlight when you can interact with something, but that just makes it go from gray to slightly brighter gray. The graphics just don't seem as sharp as Myst. Everything seems to lack detail, or is not as sharp as in Myst. I often have a hard time figuring out what I am looking at and determining what is important and what is not. There are also times when it seems like you should be able to zoom in on things. There was a bookshelf in the beginning where I picked up a bunch of stuff, but I couldn't really see any of it. I just floated the cursor around until I picked something up. Speaking of inventory, I'm not even sure what some of the thing I am carrying are supposed to be. One of my items is actually four different... things. One looks like a turquoise yo-yo, but I have no idea about the others. I know the game is supposed to be "mysterious" but it doesn't help when I can't even see what some of my items are. I think the Myst style of gameplay works better. It's just the one thing: figure out how the levers etc. work in an abstract environment. Adding inventory items just complicates things especially when the logic behind the world is unknown. It doesn't help that the inventory window is cumbersome too.

[notbobsmith]

I've found that it sometimes helps to start from scratch when stuck, so that's what I did. It actually helped me find a few missing things. A letter opener! That did at least open a new path for me to explore. The other thing I noticed was that you can go through the portal while missing a few key items. So either the game dead-ends (which is uncommon at this point for Sierra) or there is a way back to the lighthouse to get them. Hmmmm.

[Tawmis]

I've found that it sometimes helps to start from scratch when stuck, so that's what I did. It actually helped me find a few missing things. A letter opener! That did at least open a new path for me to explore. The other thing I noticed was that you can go through the portal while missing a few key items. So either the game dead-ends (which is uncommon at this point for Sierra) or there is a way back to the lighthouse to get them. Hmmmm.

You may now be further (than I remember) ever getting!

[notbobsmith]

I've found that it sometimes helps to start from scratch when stuck, so that's what I did. It actually helped me find a few missing things. A letter opener! That did at least open a new path for me to explore. The other thing I noticed was that you can go through the portal while missing a few key items. So either the game dead-ends (which is uncommon at this point for Sierra) or there is a way back to the lighthouse to get them. Hmmmm.

You may now be further (than I remember) ever getting!

I'm pretty sure I'm still at the beginning.

And what is it with submarines being difficult in Sierra games anyway?

[Collector]

What version of the game do you have? Is it patched? The original release had scripting bugs with the sub that were addressed in the patches.

[notbobsmith]

What version of the game do you have? Is it patched? The original release had scripting bugs with the sub that were addressed in the patches.

It's the version from GOG running on ScummVM. The VERSION file says 1.0C.

[Collector]

That would explain the glitchy sub. Wonder why they didn't use v 2.0? You could try the LITEPT2A patch from the main site. http://www.sierrahelp.com/Patches-Updat ... dates.html

[notbobsmith]

Okay, I will install the patch. But I only meant that the sub is a little frustrating (like Codename: Iceman). It took me a while just to figure out how to flood the ballast tanks. I don't know that it's glitchy. It's possible that I'm just missing something.

[notbobsmith]

It looks like the game has already been patched. All the patch files are already there.

[Collector]

It is still curious as to why they did not start with v2.0

[Tawmis]

And what is it with submarines being difficult in Sierra games anyway?

A question for the ages.

Or perhaps, submarines in general, are actually difficult to use in real life too.

[Collector]

And what is it with submarines being difficult in Sierra games anyway?

A question for the ages.

Or perhaps, submarines in general, are actually difficult to use in real life too.

This goes back to the Civil war submarine Hunley, the first combat sub, which only survived long enough for one mission.

The fate of the crew of the 40-foot Hunley, however, remained a mystery until 1995, when the submarine was discovered about 300 meters away from the Housatonic’s resting place. Raised in 2000, the submarine is currently undergoing study and conservation in Charleston by a team of Clemson University scientists.

Initially, the discovery of the submarine only seemed to deepen the mystery. The crewmen’s skeletons were found still at their stations along a hand-crank that drove the cigar-shaped craft. They suffered no broken bones, the bilge pumps hadn’t been used and the air hatches were closed. Except for a hole in one conning tower and a small window that may have been broken, the sub was remarkably intact.

Speculation about their deaths has included suffocation and drowning.

A graphic reconstruction of the submarine H.L. Hunley as appeared just before its encounter with the Union ship Housatonic, which it sunk. (Copyright 2017, Michael Crisafulli, used with permission. http://www.vernianera.com/Hunley)
A graphic reconstruction of the submarine H.L. Hunley as appeared just before its encounter with the Union ship Housatonic, which it sunk. (Copyright 2017, Michael Crisafulli, used with permission. http://www.vernianera.com/Hunley)

But after an exhaustive three-year Duke study that involved repeatedly setting blasts near a scale model, shooting authentic weapons at historically accurate iron plate and doing a lot of math on human respiration and the transmission of blast energy, researcher Rachel Lance, a 2016 Ph.D. graduate of Duke Engineering, says it was a powerful shockwave from the Hunley’s weapon that killed the crew.

https://today.duke.edu/2017/08/confeder ... own-weapon

[notbobsmith]

So, I'm still kind of stuck. I made a little more progress from my restart but I'm still more or less in the same place. II'm still convinced that I have to do something with the sub. Since I can go through the portal without some items needed to advance in other locations, that leaves only the sub. So I've got it powered. Since my previous run I've opened the gate and flooded the ballast tanks so the sub is now submerged. But now I'm not sure what to do. I can't get the sub to move. It seems like there are levers and valves that I should be able to interact with but can't. Unfortunately, the game tends not to make a distinction between something that needs to be activated and something that you can't interact with at all. So I think I need a little nudge. At least tell me if I'm barking up the wrong tree with the sub.