Part 17: Bonus: Secrets!

Bonus: Secrets!

The main LP is over, and the world has been saved from the Hand's evil influence. Now, it's time to look at a weird little secret hidden in the game. Unlike the first Kyrandia, Hand of Fate does not have any dummied-out items. Everything in the datafiles is accessible somewhere in the game, even if it's just a red herring. There is a secret, though.

Unfortunately, the secret is not functional in the ScummVM/GOG version of the game. I tried, and though I managed to unlock the secret, it doesn't actually work - I suspect the ScummVM developers might not have been aware of it and thus never bothered to emulate it. Instead, I went back and played the original DOS CD version through DOSBox. The two versions are almost the same, but there are a few differences, although they're minor.



Okay, so, remember this place? We made rainbow potions here. I said that we had tried every potion we could make, but that's not actually true. There is one additional potion you can make in this location, and only in this location, because this is the only place in the game where we can find the ingredients for it.



This one - the Party Favors Potion. Those ingredients can only be found here. I suspect that the inclusion of a Silver Statuette and Rainbowstone are a callback to the first game, where you could find a Rainbowstone in the stump behind Zanthia's cottage, and convert it into a statuette by throwing it into a waterfall. The statuette served no purpose in that game, but in this one we get to combine it with the stone and a domino to make a potion.



You can't tell from the screenshot, but the potion slowly animates between the colors of the rainbow. Drinking it results in...



As the spellbook indicates, you can blow the whistle to make something happen. But before we do that, let's read that sign that we conveniently ignored last time.

"Nothing may be removed from this room! Nothing may be put on the floor! Do not reorganize the shelves! Absolutely no confetti allowed?"

The first is a hint that leaving the cottage causes your inventory to disintegrate, and Zanthia just plain won't let you put stuff on the floor. As for the confetti rule...



That was fun! I guess the rule on the sign isn't strictly enforced.

Oh, but it is. We just dodged the punishment by not having put anything in the glass globes. If we had, they would all have drained and forced us to restart the puzzle. Kind of a drag, but the sign did warn us...

The confetti thing is cute, but it's not the secret we're here for. We're only halfway done. You see, there is a potion in the game for which there are no hints whatsoever. Zero. I'm not sure how you're supposed to learn how to do it - I suspect it must've been a magazine promo or a support hotline thing. The first ingredient for that potion is the party favors whistle. There are three more.



These crystal seeds...



... a lollipop...



... and a quill. As far as I can tell, these are just random ingredients. If anyone sees a pattern here, I'd love to hear it. Either way, these four ingredients go in the cauldron. The result is...



The "Secret Potion". It sparkles in our inventory. What happens when we drink it? It's easier to just see for yourself:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_7eECgeYBNE

Addendum: Zeniel pointed out that there's another easter egg I'd forgotten all about. So here it is! You access it from the same room as the Secret Potion.



This item, the Tinker's Bell, also appears nowhere else in the game. It's not part of any potions, but you can use it on Zanthia.



... the Maria del Mar, Lynda Waskom, Tammy Okahara, Patrick Stewart, Seth Mendelsohn & Erik Yeo, Ty & Judy Coon, Lyle Man, Virtual Ted, M.C. Crammer, Entropy & Shady Lady, T.H.E.R.D. Base Gang, Rusty at the Garden, Malcolm the Jester, and Scotia.

It's a bunch of shoutouts! As far as I can tell, these are all people related to Westwood in some way or another. Maria del Mar and Lynda Waskom worked at Westwood in the 90s on other games. Patrick Stewart is a well-known actor who also did some voice acting for Lands of Lore, another Westwood title. Seth Mendelsohn and Erik Yeo were game designers on The Lion King, another Westwood game that came out later the same year.

I have no idea who Tammy Okahara, Ty & Judy Coon, Lyle Man, or Virtual Ted are. Probably friends of the developers. The next few sound like local bands, but they too have been lost to time and Google. Malcolm the Jester and Scotia are references to the first game in this series and Lands of Lore, respectively.