Raising the Flag on Mount Yo Momma by Juhana Leinonen, A3 on the grid.
Raising the Flag has a great title and a solid premise: you’ve just been trounced in a Yo Momma insult battle by reigning champion Gus and a mysterious stranger flags you over. He proves to be Joe Mahma, “a living legend, the infamous grandmaster of Yo Momma insult battles” and he shares the secret to success: digging up dirt on your opponent so you can make it personal.
An excerpt from Joe's introduction...
An eyepatch covers the old man’s right eye and a wide scar runs below it, from the right temple to the left side of his neck.
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x eyepatch
“I can see you looking at the battle wounds,” Joe says. “Let them be a warning to you of the dangers of the trade.”He stays silent for a long time, looking into the distance as if lost in memories. Then suddenly he continues.
“It was my final and most challenging battle. The opponent was good, really good. The best one I’ve ever met and that’s saying a lot. I had battled them all and won them all. I had my reputation at stake and I couldn’t afford to lose.”
“So I took out the big gun. The perfect insult, the momma of all Yo Momma insults. The power of it was beautiful and terrifying at the same time. I had crafted it and studied it, but I wasn’t strong enough to control it.”
“I’m lucky to have only this to remind me of that day,” he says pointing at his scar, “many others were not as lucky.”
You were just a toddler when it happened, but you remember the news footage of the carnage. Buildings from two blocks in ruins, injured people being rushed to hospitals. The UN classified the insult as a weapon of mass destruction and some countries even reinstated capital punishment to keep it off wrong hands in the future.
That’s some funny stuff.
The game is set in a club that’s a simple 3x3 grid, as seen by its map command:
Vip STAGE Hangout
Bar Floor Hall of Fame
Arcade Entrance Dark corner
The Stage is where to go when you’re ready to square off against Gus again, and every other location has an NPC or two. You can get somewhere by entering its name or the name of an NPC who’s there, thus heading off the death slog of marching across the map[1]. Permissible interactions with NPCs are restricted to: give/show them something (which are considered the same), talk to them, or insult them.
The game originated as a entry to Newer New Year’s Speed IF way back in December 2009, but it was withdrawn so it could be polished; the current version was released at the end of February 2010. But some bits felt somewhat under-implemented to me…
Here be spoilers...
After you’ve done the usual rounds of wandering and examining things, you’ll probably be pretty clear that the solutions involve getting past a guard into the VIP area to talk to Gus’ girlfriend, probably requiring a VIP pass or getting rid of the guard; getting into the satchel being minded by Ralph, one of Gus’ goons, probably involving screwing with the jukebox to prompt a response from him; reading the tag on the sweater Gus is wearing that you can’t get close enough to, probably involving adjusting the club’s thermostat, which the bouncer won’t let you near, so they’ll need distracting.
We’re told Ralph is sitting with the satchel. When you mess with the jukebox and he gets up to respond, you can examine him, you can examine the satchel, but nothing indicates he leaves it behind. You can’t examine the chair because it doesn’t really exist. The failure message if you try to take the satchel is the same whether Ralph has gotten up or not. You need to just take a leap of faith and try opening the satchel that Ralph might still be carrying.
I accidentally discovered a table existed when I dropped my drink but instead was told I put it on a table. It wasn’t in the room description. Looking under that table, I found the chewing gum that is, of course, a needed item. Eventually, an NPC loses an item and then wanders around the club searching for it. I think the intent is that you’d discover the table by being in the location at the same time as the NPC and thus you’d see him looking under the table, but it seems to rely on chance: you need to be revisiting a location at the right time when you don’t know there’s a reason to go there again.
I ended up resorting to the Club Floyd transcript of Yo Momma for hints (note that this was with the original version).
It’s nothing new that IF player characters are terrible visitors. They’re always opening everything and looking under things and stealing everything not locked down. They never met an authorized personnel only sign that they didn’t view as an invitation. They’ll push and turn and put things inside other things just to try to feel anything at all see if they can.
The characters in this game are pretty awful. One NPC stands out as truly monstrous, but our protagonist, Jen, is a solid choice for second place, conspicuously worse than a typical IF player character. The only attendee who seems decent is Norbert. You insult a bully and pin the blame on Norbert so the bully gives him a beating. And the staff seems fine. You’ll roofie one of them before the night is over.
Ultimately, the setting and these characters were sufficiently ugly that I didn’t really enjoy spending time with them. I didn’t feel good about bringing Jen to victory. And the game’s humor peaked with Joe’s introduction at the beginning.
It seems like you can get into an unwinnable state without an indication thereof, specifically, by losing access to the jukebox before you’ve done all you need with it, but I’m not sure: maybe there’s a way to get out of the situation. I don’t view this as some crime, but with a puzzler I prefer it if the about section gives a warning if it’s the case.
kidding, these are convenient and a kindness to the player. ↩︎