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Description

Set in a world made famous by keystone cops, theater organs and pie-in-the-face slapstick, The Misadventures of P.B. Winterbottom presents the comical escapades of the portly pie thief P.B. Winterbottom and his villainous pursuit of the preposterous Chronoberry Pie. Puzzle solvers face each scrumptious brainteaser armed with the portly P.B. Winterbottom’s blessed and cursed supernatural pie-snatching abilities: time manipulation, self-replication and a hankering for sugar euphoria.

With five movie levels and five bonus levels, players must devour more than 70 brainteasers to help P.B. Winterbottom capture the Chronoberry pie, return home and undo all the trouble his single-minded pursuits have created. By applying the proper cloning etiquette, sleuths must crack the enigmas by any means necessary using wit, time control and the ability to clone up to 20 chubby carbon copies.

Create Your Own Paradox for the Love of Pie!

Enter a macabre and comical silent film world filled with mischief, time travel, and delicious pie. Record yourself and harness your time bending abilities to cooperate, compete against, and disrupt your past, present, and future selves. Winterbottoms debut misadventures present whimsical spin on the notions of time, space, and play.

Mr. P.B. Winterbottom is a villainous gentleman with a predilection for pies. Swiping the mysterious Cherry Chronoberry pie changed everything for our beloved Winterbottom… one bite made him more than an ordinary pie-grabbing humbug. That first taste changed him into something quite extraordinary, granting him the ability to break the rules of time. With these newfound time recording tricks up his cufflink, and with the help of his time clones, Winterbottom can now snatch pies with the greatest of ease. But on his journey to devour every pie, Winterbottom must mind the signs… the perils of being unstuck in time.

 

We started digging into this episodic adventure series a few weeks back, and this week were tackling Season 1, Episode 2 -- or as Telltale Games official numbering has it, Sam & Max 102: Situation: Comedy.  These early stories werent nearly as intertwined as they would become later on, but they were coming out on schedule, and Steve Purcells crime-fighting dog and rabbit duo and Telltale Games were on a roll as this second game arrived in 2006.


Telltales business model was based in large part on the episodic concept -- the development investment made in Episode 1 was expected to reduce costs for subsequent episodes, as most sets and character models were already built.  This episode solidified the voice casting, with William Kasten taking over as Max for the first time and David Nowlin continuing as Sam, and the writing is stronger than in the first episode; it sounds more like Purcells Sam & Max, and the story and gags work well together.

As always, I encourage interested readers to sample Sam & Max 102 before proceeding here.  The game is great fun and not really difficult, and the humor should really be experienced firsthand.  Its still commercially available from Telltale Games, so Ill try to avoid giving away the best lines and focus on the plot and puzzles here, but be forewarned that there are indubitably...

***** SPOILERS AHEAD! *****

The opening office scene reuses incidental object descriptions from the first game, though Maxs lines are re-voiced by the new actor.  The only significant new item in the office closet is Brady Cultures hair, the blonde afro wig (scalp?) being the first in what will be a growing collection of mementos from the Season 1 cases.

The plot is mentioned at the beginning of the game -- foreshadowed by the conclusion of the previous episode, something bears investigation at a local TV station -- but we dont necessarily have to get the story underway right away.  Sam and Max are free to wander around and see whats going on in the neighborhood.



Down the street, we discover that Sybil has given up psychoanalysis, and is now publisher of the tabloid "Alien Love Triangle Times."  She will change jobs every episode for the first two seasons; this one is very much in keeping with Steve Purcells original comics, and the episode benefits from good, funny dialogue.  It feels like Telltales series is starting to find its footing as Sybil and Sam talk about her new project, and Max jokes about the Indie-Angst Film Festival advertised on a poster outside.  We learn that Sybil is looking for a front-page, local-interest photo of an alien for her next issue.

Up the street, we find Bosco, of Boscos Inconvenience store, dressed up as a British gentleman, sporting a tiny derby hat and monocle. 



Why the disguise?  It seems the local gang of skinbodies (undoubtedly worse than skinheads) are stealing his shaving cream, so hes trying to throw them off his scent.  Its Bosco-brand paranoid conspiracy theorizing at its best.  And in this game, the Lucasarts in-joke as Sam attempts to shop is: "Do you have any fine leather jackets?"

The skinheads, we soon discover, are shaven-bodied rats with Jimmy Two-Teeth in a leadership role -- as Sam tries to grab Boscos last can of shaving cream, they steal it and drive off, firing a gun from their toy car.  We can try to chase them down with the DeSoto, but we cant easily shoot them or run them off the road.  But we can shoot them at the right time to get them to fall into an open manhole.  Max snatches the shaving cream out of the air; as a reward for returning it to Bosco, he gives us... the shaving cream.  Which is what we wanted in the first place, of course, but it somehow seems like a letdown after all of the gunplay.  We do learn that Bosco has a chemically-based voice modulator available... for sale, that is... for one million dollars.  Our dog-and-bunny team are usually broke, so well have to come back to this later.

So its off to the TV station where the trouble reportedly lies; theres a little in-joke here poking fun at the economics of asset reuse -- the Barrelhaven set from Telltales Bone games is stored here (and Fone Bone himself shows up in the official blooper reel.)

We find a TV director standing backstage -- she has a beef with talk show host Myra, and needs new actors for the sitcom "Midtown Cowboys" -- it seems the programs stars appeared on Myras show and havent been seen since.  Sam and Max need to spend some time poking around the studio, so they audition for the roles, leading into a couple of funny and entertaining puzzles. 

The audition is a scene from Old Yeller, so Sam needs to play a rabid dog; the shaving cream should be handy for creating that certain frothiness, it seems... yep.  And the tear gas grenade gun, still in inventory from episode 101, lets Max weep convincingly.  And Max is completely comfortable with shooting Sam (not fatally) to put him down.  Thats that -- Sam and Max are the new stars of "Midtown Cowboys."  We soon learn that its a show about two cowboys trying to raise a herd -- actually just a single cow -- in a Manhattan apartment, while hiding the fact from their landlord, Mr. Featherly, played by a chicken.  (We note here that the cow model is also reused from the Bone games, and that the poker table from Telltale Texas Holdem is seen leaning against a wall behind the Midnight Cowboys set.)


The TV shows taping provides for a really fun puzzle -- we have to find appropriate dialogue options and use available props to "ad-lib" a situation comedy, meeting certain parameters.  Its the type of puzzle that could really only be rendered in the modern animated adventure; doing this in a text adventure would have seemed cumbersome, but with quality voice acting and animation it makes for a very entertaining sequence.  Were permitted to explore the set and discover the available props, by way of preparation, but we cant actually touch anything until taping starts.

If we need some time to ready our improv skills, were free to visit the set next door, where a talent contest show called "Embarrassing Idol" is in production.  The Soda Poppers (aging child stars from Episode 101) return as the shows judges, but big-eyed Peepers wants to compete, so Max agrees to step in as a judge.  There are no other contestants, so it seems like we should see if we can arrange for Sam to win the contest.  Specs likes to hear singers hit high notes, and Whizzer is voting for his brother Peepers no matter what; but we learn he has certain, um, digestive vulnerabilities to tomatoes, so we should look for a way to remove him from the judging lineup.

We can also visit the local Cooking Show, "Cooking Without Looking," and take to the airwaves, assembling random dishes into casserole or cake form, and taking the results with us.  The ingredients on the rack -- Red Dye #2, MSG, Uranium Pellets and many more -- definitely call Steve Purcells original comics to mind, where the backgrounds are always full of bizarre and funny breakfast cereals and such.



And theres also a game show, "Whos Never Going to Be a Millionaire," which is not currently taping.  But we do run into one Hugh Bliss, a Doug Henning-style magician and New Age guru currently scamming people with his Prismatology belief system; hes waiting to appear on Myras show to promote his new book, Emetics.  Bliss demonstrates that he can actually read Sams mind, unlike these kinds of people in the real world, and will turn himself any color Sam thinks of as a fairly impressive magic trick.

We can take advantage of this to get Hugh Bliss to turn himself green, and get our picture taken with him, for Sybils tabloid.  The Director returns to say that the game shows host is stuck in Myras studio, and asks Hugh Bliss to host in his place; Hugh will have to read insults from the cue cards, which he doesnt like, but thats show biz.  The questions are incredibly hard, but we only have to answer one successfully, and while thats pretty much impossible, the questions are not guarded or anything.  We can switch in Peepers lyrics cards from the "Embarrassing Idol" set, making the million-dollar question "Am I blue?"  This is not hard to answer, based on whatever Hugh Bliss current coloration happens to be, leaving our detectives one million dollars richer.



Weve explored most of the TV station now, but while we can try to enter Myras studio, Myra herself tells us the studio is full and only famous people appearing ON the show are getting in now.  She demands we establish an appropriate degree of fame by providing evidence of a recording contract, a clip from our hit TV show, and a scandal.

So: Sybil can go to print with the picture of Sam, Max and a green Hugh Bliss; this gives us the scandal evidence we need for Myra.  (I live in Michigan, USA, so I got an extra kick out of the certificate on Sybils wall -- Max: "Wheres Diploma Mill College?" Sybil: "Its in Battle Creek.") And with our game show winnings we can buy Boscos million-dollar voice modulator -- which turns out be a helium-filled balloon.

Back on "Embarrassing Idol", we can converse with Specs to learn that he will vote for us if we use the helium to hit a high note.  We can give Whizzer a cake for his birthday, but even then he still votes for Peepers.  Hmmmm.  Somethings missing here.  We need to take him out of commission as a judge, it seems.  So where can we get a tomato?  Boscos condiment dispenser has some ketchup, we just need to bring the cake there to dispense it.  Eliminating Whizzer as a judge allows Sam to win the recording contract, as Peepers vows revenge on his turncoat sibling.

Now we need to wrap up the improv on "Midtown Cowboys" so we can get into Myras studio.  This sequence is a lot of fun because the options are non-obvious... most players will have to try some different things, most of which are funny if not completely successful, before hitting on the right bit of "improv."  And Mr. Featherly is a great character -- I should say, Philo Pennyworth, the chicken actor playing him.  Pennyworth clearly has Shakespearean training, a fine sense of comic timing, and little patience with our amateur dog and rabbit heroes.

Max has to find a logical reason to insert the sponsors line, "Better get the serious toothpaste!", and of course we must stick with the shows premise by keeping the landlord from discovering a cow on the premises.  Accordingly, as Mr. Featherly enters, we have to find some way to disguise the cow.  We can put the lampshade on the cows head to pass her off as a french chef, and put the plate under the cowpie shes deposited on the floor.  But Featherly gets distracted by the cows tail, and she moos when he pulls it.  We then have to tell him that she said "Moo Goo Gai Pan," and convince him to sample the plate of cow dung, giving the audience some good old-fashioned gross-out humor (yes, I know birds do this sort of thing in real life, but still!)  Max delivers the key sponsorship line as the capper to this segment, and we have our TV clip. 

Now we can get into Myras studio and onto her show -- once were here, we wont be able to leave, but Telltales design adopts the Lucasarts approach and we cant really get ourselves into a dead-end situation.  So we will just have to work with whatevers available.  It soon becames apparent that Myra herself is being held captive, by a little toy teddy bear with weird hypnotic powers. 



Sam cant shoot the bear, as Myra orders him to put his gun away.  Nor can we do anything with the shaving cream, so we will have to rely mostly on dialogue to find a solution.  We can try to convince Myra that someone else was involved in the "Alien Love Triangle Times" scandal -- if we accuse one of the Soda Poppers, she brings each of them out to deny any involvement.  Peepers is no help, and neither are Whizzer and Specs.  We can summon Bessy the Cow, and Philo Pennyworth advertises his other... predilections... to no major audience reaction.  But we might notice that Myra moves the microphone to different spots on her desk, depending on whos onstage.

Further experimentation establishes that what we have to do is use the vocal modulator to let Sam sing at a high pitch, shattering the water glass on Myras desk, and then call Bessy the Cow in to address the scandal topic.  Myra places the microphone, sparking from overuse, in the puddle on her desk, zapping herself and the teddy bear.  Myras okay and her audience is freed at last -- again, we see some reuse of character models from the Bone games in the crowd.

Im a big fan of Sam & Max, and the adventure games (both the 1990s Lucasarts title and the Telltale series, with 3 seasons under its belt) have been consistently entertaining.  As this episode concludes, the camera cranes down behind Myras desk, and we learn that the teddy bear came from the Toy Mafia... and isnt it suspicious that Sam and Maxs last two cases have involved hypnotic mind control?  The plot thickens in Sam & Max 103: The Mole, The Mob and The Meatball... which well get around to playing sometime soon, Im sure.

Manhunter Journal Entry 3: "I know who the killer is! My third day on the job has been just as action packed as the first two, starting with a visit to Greenwood Cemetery where I discovered a murdered orb. I tracked the suspect firstly to the Times Square Cinema where I found a locked safe, and then later to Abduls Pawn Shop. I managed to gain entrance to the underground from the shop, where I passed numerous tests and discovered yet another body with a P carved into its forehead. Fortunately I was able to get a name for the victim this time, which was Harry, and using information gathered from the cinema and the cemetery, was also able to figure out that his surname was Jones. Before I could go to Harrys address, I was confronted by the murderer himself and forced to fight one on one. I managed to get in a good hit, which forced him to flee, leaving behind the code I needed to open the safe in the cinema. Opening the safe gave me another code, while searching Harrys house revealed another module. I ended the day by going over all the information Ive collected in the last three days, and finally finding the answer Ive been looking for all along. The murderers name in Phil Cook! I quickly searched his house and used his computer, before the orbs sent me home to await further instructions."


Once again, day three started with me waking up and being given an incident to investigate. An orb had been found dead in Greenwood Cemetery. Watching the tracker revealed that whoever killed the orb then made their way to Times Square Cinema for a brief stop before visiting a pawn shop where they disappeared. I closed the MAD and went straight to the cemetery to check out the gory scene. The orb had been skewered on a large metal spike, but despite some significant pixel hunting, I couldn’t find anything at the scene to investigate. I thought perhaps the names on the gravestones might be important, but when I looked up Tim Jones, Joe Green and Olive Cole on the MAD, they all came back with nothing. I decided to move onto the suspect’s next location, the Times Square Cinema.


The cinema also didn’t bring much in the way of information or items. I could see from the tracker recording that the suspect entered an office and stood in front of a particular part of the room, before leaving. That particular part of the room turned out to be a safe hidden behind a painting on the wall, but since I didn’t have any idea what the code might be to open it, I stored it to memory to come back to later. It was at this point that I remembered the tattoo I witnessed at the end of day two that clearly represented the candles in the church I visited on day one. I decided my next location would be the church, where I would finally find out what the fifteen candle setup was all about. Who knows, perhaps I would retrieve the safe code from there somehow?


I made my way over to the Trinity Church, lit the three candles as represented on the dead man’s tattoo, and was rewarded with a small compartment opening up. This revealed Module A, which I immediately added to my inventory (I’d already recovered Module B from the National Museum). At this point I had no idea what the modules might be for, and since they were unlikely to help me open the safe in the cinema, I located and travelled to Abdul’s Pawn Shop, the third and last place the suspect visited before somehow avoiding the tracker’s radar. It’s here things got a little strange for me, and I have to admit that the pawn shop represents the part of the game where I started to solve puzzles through trial and error rather than actual logic.


Abdul displayed a board containing numerous badges, many of which took on fairly recognisable shapes and symbols. At first I wasn’t sure whether he was trying to sell me something, which would have been awkward since I had no money, or whether it was some sort of test. The latter turned out to be true, as choosing the incorrect symbol resulted in Abdul pulling out a sword and cutting my head off! The handy thing was that if I selected a wrong badge, I was immediately decapitated, meaning I could easily figure out which of the three badges I was supposed to choose through trial and error. I guessed the first two very quickly, as they were both religious symbols (the cross and the pentagram), but the third one took a few goes. Later on when looking at screenshots, I noticed two of the correct symbols above the candles in the church, so I’d like to think that I might have found this clue if guessing hadn’t been so straight forward.


Once I’d chosen the correct badges, I was allowed access to an underground area. Down there I found a sign saying “Danger is here, death is near. The buttons to choose? It’s easy to lose. The picture will tell, if you check it well.” Next to this sign were a locked door and a picture with ten numerical buttons at the bottom. It was pretty clear that I would need to figure out which numbers to press by studying the picture, which would in turn unlock the door. As soon as I looked at the picture, I saw an upside down four in the shadows. Taking this as a cue, I looked at the rest of the shadows and found what could be a considered to be a one. I pressed the number 1 button, as that was the first of the two shadows, only to have a large rock crush me and the Murry family tell me that obviously wasn’t the right button. I tried again, this time pressing the 4 button. Nothing happened, so I figured that must be correct. I then pressed the 1 button, and the door opened!


Through the door was an identical scenario, but with a different picture. This time it was a witch with skulls, spiders and other creepy Halloween stuff. I looked and looked, but couldn’t find any numbers anywhere in the picture, nor could I see any sort of patterns that might assist. I therefore set about clicking buttons from left to right, figuring it would only be a matter of time before I got the combination. Many, many deaths occurred, but I eventually unlocked the door with the numbers 1031. In hindsight, this is obviously a reference to the date of Halloween, being the 31st of October. Unfortunately, over here in Australia, we don’t use that date format and instead would represent this as 3110, so it’s not surprising that I didn’t clue on to the answer after the first couple of numbers. I wasn’t at all surprised to find yet another room with a locked door and picture on the other side!


This third picture seemed to be a mathematical equation of sorts. Given that maths is something I pride myself on, I was determined to try to figure this one out before playing the trial and error game. I tried. I really did! I could see that there were two threes on the screen and that the crucifix symbol behind them could function as a minus and plus sign. Yet somehow, despite seeing that, I couldn’t find anything that worked. In the end I had to resort to trial and error, and the result was 264. Straight away I can see that this number is made up of 2 (3-1), 6 (3+3) and 4 (3+1), but I still can’t see how anyone could deduce that from the picture. I’ll give 10 CAPs to anyone that can explain to me how you get 264 from that picture.


There was yet another picture in another identical room once I got past the maths equation. This fourth picture was a vase containing a plant. To be honest, given my failure to figure out the last two pictures, I didn’t even try on the fourth one. I now know the answer is 425 through trial and error, but can’t see an obvious way to get that number. Thankfully, this was the last of the picture tests, and through the door was another dead body with a P engraved into its head. There was one difference with this body though. His cloak had the word Harry written on it. Just around the corner from dead Harry I was confronted by a man with a knife. I assume this is the guy that killed the suspect along with the others that I’ve come across so far. He immediately attacked me and I was forced to duck and jump his attacks, similar to the knife throwing gang members in the alley behind the nightclub. This time however I only had to successfully punch him once to win the fight. I succeeded on my second try, which caused him to run away, leaving an item behind. Picking it up, I was excited to find that it was a code!


There was only one place where I knew I needed a code. The safe in the cinema! I raced back there and entered the code, fully expecting that whatever I found there would open up the second half of day three. Inside the safe was…another code. UCUCC. What the hell was I supposed to do with that? I wracked my brain, but couldn’t come up with anywhere else that UCUCC might be useful. I watched the tracker recording over and over, but couldn’t come up with any other leads at all. It suddenly dawned on me that the name Harry must be somehow involved in my next step. Just like when I figured out the Anna Osborne name on day two, there must somewhere be a hint that would let me know what Harry’s surname was. But where? I revisited several locations but came up empty handed. Eventually I was forced to put in a Request For Assistance for the first time while playing Manhunter.


As is often the case, it was Lars-Erik that responded to my request. His first hint was “where have you been that may contain names?” I looked over all of the locations on the map and the most obvious place was the cemetery. I paid it another visit to see if I missed something the first time around. There were three names there, all of which I’d looked up previously on the MAD with no results. Tim Jones, Joe Green and Olive Cole. For the first time I noticed that the orb on a stick was actually stuck directly into the grave of Tim Jones, a detail that had avoided me previously. I had no idea why it would work, but I tried typing Harry Jones into the MAD. It did work, and I was given an address to visit! Confused, I tried to make sense of it. “Here lies Tim Jones, 1988 – 2004, he died for his father” Hang on a second…what were those photos in the cinema all about? They were described as “a picture of a boy dated 1988” and “a picture of a 14 year old boy dated 2004”. So Tim Jones was Harry Jones’ son!


In hindsight I can see what I was supposed to think here. I was supposed to make the connection between Harry collecting something from the safe in the cinema to the photos on the wall. Then I was supposed deduce that Harry had killed the orb out of revenge and stuck it on a spit right in front of his dead son’s grave. I totally get it, but man, that’s not very obvious when you dont already know it, especially when you consider that it’s not certain that Harry was the man that left the murder scene and went to the cinema in the first place. How are we to know that it wasn’t the murderer himself? I think the main reason I’d started to have trouble at this point of the game was because I hadn’t really understood the motives of any of the characters so far. There had often been multiple figures showing up on the tracker and it wasn’t always clear which one it was that ended up dead. Was it the suspect I was following that ended up dead, or did they commit another crime during their escape? I was starting to figure out that the suspects were indeed rebels against the orbs, and they were being picked off one by one by a human murderer.


So…if the human murderer was working with the orbs, perhaps the message I received on the data stick earlier in the game might be the key to figuring out his identity! I re-read the message from the stick: “Phil is trouble, he’s a double. He’s an eye, that’s no lie!” Is the murderer’s name Phil? If so, what’s his last name? Now that I had the address of Harry Jones, I figured the answer to the question might very well be at his house. I made my way there, but was surprised to find the only item in the room I could investigate was a radio. Turning the radio on very cutely played the Manhunter theme song, but I figured there must be more to it than that! I looked at my inventory and thought I would just try using the crowbar on it. It worked! Feeling pretty happy with myself, I eagerly picked up the item hidden within the radio. Unfortunately, it was just another module!


So now I had modules A,B and C in my inventory, but I had no idea what they were for. I also had no further leads, so was forced to hunt through screenshots to try to figure out what the last name of Phil might be. I did notice the screenshot where the dead man had written the word “cool” on the rock, but when Phil Cool didn’t come back with anything on the MAD, I let it go. I already knew from the comments on my last post that Charles had majorly struggled to complete day three, and I assumed I was now at the exact same point he was when he requested assistance. I dejectedly decided to read the hints that he used. One of Ilmari’s hints was “the guy has "signed" his victims with the letter P. Have you seen any names beginning with P?” So I knew I was on the right track, but I needed more than that. One of his other hints was “it is a common trope to write the name of your killer with your blood. Could the last letter be somehow incomplete?”


This was all I needed to figure out the answer. In fact the first name I tried was Phil Cook and it was successful. But…well…does anyone else think that’s ridiculously difficult? From what I understand (and correct me if I’m wrong Charles), but both Charles and I failed to figure this out. If the word on the rock hadn’t actually formed a word, it might have been more obvious that it was simply incomplete. Since it was not certain that the game could only be progressed at this stage by figuring out the murderer’s full name, the fact that I was even trying to was lucky in itself. I’ve since read Ilmari’s spoiler which mentions a comment made by the Murry’s as the player arrives at Prospect Park (“dont get your goose cooked”), but surely that’s not enough for anyone to figure it out by that alone. Anyway, I’m sure I’ll talk more about this after I complete the game, so I’ll move on for now.


With Phil’s address discovered, I travelled there with great anticipation. I already knew the game would go into a fourth day, but surely I was close to finding out something important. It turned out that Phil lives in the Empire State Building. He wasn’t home, but I was able to use his computer to connect to several sites in the city. From there I could turn on or off certain security measures, but since I didn’t recognise the majority of the images, I really wasn’t sure what I was supposed to be doing. One thing I did recognise is the guard droid in the hospital, which I could force to go elsewhere. That would allow me to access more of the hospital, so that seemed to be my next location. It was here though that the orbs once again intervened and demanded that I go back to my apartment and await further instructions. They also asked me for a name again and this time I was able to give them Phil Cook. No idea what that achieved, but I guess I’ll find out on day four!