Congrats, Josh - that $153,334 total is super impressive! My new high score, $152,588, is slightly less than yours but I’ll take it, especially since I STILL hadn’t figured out how to deal with the protestors until I looked at your spreadsheet after my playthrough. In fact, I had totally forgotten that item to use on them even existed!
My playthrough was actually different from yours in multiple ways — I didn’t go outside at all except to wear the boa and drop the iris, and I didn’t hop between areas and instead stuck to finishing one area at a time to minimize backtracking (south wing -> north wing -> outside very briefly -> second and third floors -> final moves spent getting the bowl, recipe, and sampler to the right places). Also, I managed to get 27 items properly placed, but several of my items weren’t worth that much by themselves. These make me wonder if another player can get about the same or even more than us in a completely different way from ours.
Also, after reading Avonyel’s spoiler, I have to ask: …There’s a candelabra? Where?!
Ah, cool, thanks. I also found a sauce recipe for Antoine’s Oysters Rockefeller, which is worth $4000, so now I’m up to 48 items. That was similar to the candelabra in that you did a normal action and there was an easy-to-miss message. I also have the clock winder and Confederate bills thanks to earlier hints. Has anyone found the other two hidden items (i.e. all 50 items)?
@JanetLin Yeah, I bet there are several ways to get pretty similar scores. I was trying to route to the higher-value items that I could place relatively easily, hoping that it would make up for placing slightly fewer items: you would have gotten $5600 more than me for placing that one extra. For instance, if you could place two more, it would just about make up for skipping the diamond ring.
Done. Sorry, I was assuming they would be things like the oysters or candelabra or Confederate bills in that they were obviously hidden: I think everything else I’ve seen was right out in the open (or in some kind of obvious container like the safe).
Oh, of course you can get the basketball too. Thanks. And just to be perfectly sure, it reveals a second item? Something other than the silver candelabra?
I woke up this morning from a dream that there were more hidden puzzles giving an ordering, and that any time you placed two items consecutively from that list, the placement bonus rose geometrically instead of arithmetically…it is definitely time to stop playing this game…
Thanks, @Spike! Thanks to everybody else for the camraderie and hints!
Wow, this was a long thread for a week-old game! I just played it through for the first time and truly loved it, so I understand fully. I might start reading some of the spoilers here after playing it a few more times on my own first
Sooo… I couldn’t resist trying to optimize my playthrough just a little bit more and I managed to find a way to get the candelabra (thanks to StJohnLimbo’s hint) and up my total of correctly-placed items to 28 and my final payout to $161,819. Anyone else manage to exceed that amount?
I do love this game, it is extremely addictive! After numerous playthroughs I have the codes for the storage cupboard, pantry and back door, I’ve figured out how to evade the protestors, follow the basketball, open the library case, find the confederate bills, open the front door and a few other puzzles that were proving elusive. However, try as I might I can neither find the North and South door codes or figure out where to go in my Mardi Gras finery. I know I have the full regalia because I have been told I look like ‘an explosion in a paint factory’, but repeatedly wandering from room to room doesn’t seem to have placed me in the correct location. I thought that walking past the protestors or climbing the oak to make me more visible while in costume might do the trick, but neither seemed to be right. If anyone could help me with the costume or door codes please I would be extremely grateful!
I think all of us just brute-forced the Mardi Gras location (save and then restore to try all the rooms). It does immediately tell you when you get it: you don’t have to wait or anything. I have a tentative idea of why it makes sense, but I’m not at all sure I’m right or have a good idea of how to hint it without just giving it away, so…the room you want is the front balcony.
As for the other door codes, have you been to the attic and found and solved the puzzle there? And those took me a while, so I’ll just drop the full solutions here as well: Earl is Earl Long in the Long Room and you have to push him. And you can find Natchitoches on the map in the Colonial Room.
Thank you so much for your help! I had no idea where to find Earl so I would probably never have worked this out on my own! I’m off to try another play through now with my new found information! Thanks so very much again!
