The Let's Play Archive

Laura Bow: The Colonel's Bequest

by Bacter

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Original Thread: Thank Goodness We Brought A Voyeur - Let's Play The Colonel's Bequest!

 

Introduction



Yeah, let's!

So What is the Colonel's Bequest?

I'd recommend watching the intro for the answer to that! If you don't WANNA, here is the short version:

The Colonel's Bequest is a graphical adventure game released in 1989 by Sierra On-Line, later Sierra entertainment.

If you're familiar with adventure games from this era, you know very well the basic format. You pick up everything that isn't nailed down, and you combine inventory items in bizarre ways until you jury-rig exactly the solution the developer was thinking of to advance the plot.

Well, The Colonel's Bequest tried to do things differently. It wanted a character-driven, atmospheric murder mystery. Not to say it always worked, or that everything made sense. Some things they tried there wasn't good software support for, and some others... well, the game requires a lot of patience.

That said, it really does try new things. The atmosphere was great, the characters were fun (if not terrifically deep), and the intensity really does ratchet up towards the end. Until the VERY end, but about that...

Well, what's going to happen in this Let's Play then?

No spoilers: This is a mystery game, so please no ruining the ending. The final video, which is the last one left to do, is going to feature the reactions and decisions of anybody who wants to record them and send them in, so it's especially important right now to have no spoilers.

Other than that, three things.

First: This is, after all, a let's play. The game is divided into 8 chapters, and each of them gets a video with commentary, on youtube and blip. There is also after hours , which is a bonus section that has things like ways to die, influences from the game, interviews with some people, etc. Also, I keep track of the deaths and possible motivations in Laura's Notebook. Finally, since the music in the game is very sparse, I have spliced in some tracks. I keep track of what songs I used in Songs to murder by .

But as I mentioned, I don't like the canon ending to this game. So we're going to make our own. In fact, we're going to make two.

Second: I prompted the thread for theories as to the happenings of the evening, which they gave me in Thread Theories From those, I have made little sneak peeks into the psyches of the characters in What's Eating...?. Those two features will culminate in a custom-designed murder mystery, which uses the canon events from the game, but changes all the villains, motivations, and emotions to be those that the thread collectively created.

Third : I have a story I want to tell all of you. It fits the events of the evening, and I personally like the way it ties up the night better than the canon ending. Lost Documents has to do with this ending, and the very end of after hours does too.

So: a brief review

My ending -> (unrelenting horror)

Your ending -> (a kickass story with motivated characters)

The Game's Ending -> (it's... Canon. It comes in non-commentary (silent canons) and commentary (Bacter's Cut) flavors)

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