Part 2: The Slippery Pig

Today's update will probably be somewhat longer than most of them, since we will be setting the scene and the style of the game. In the previous update, we saw the introduction video in which (for those who didn't make it through all ten minutes) our intrepid protagonist, Rex Nebular, was explaining to Colonel Stone about how he recovered the priceless vase from a hidden planet. Upon arriving, a ship full of women shot Rex down, and his beloved ship, the Slippery Pig, sunk to the bottom of a large lake. We rejoin our hero as he regains consciousness on the bridge, and decides to look around the Pig to make sure everything is still intact, or at least no less intact than before.




Rex's log actually physically came with the game and acts as a backstory/manual. Rex will add to it periodically as the game progesses.



Welcome to the bridge, Captain Rex!



First things first, Rex heads to the monitor to see if he can figure out where he is.



And this brings us to the first miniclip of this LP.

View Screen (0:47) - I imagine this clip probably isn't in the clean version. Which is my way of saying that this is very lightly Nothing like a bit of a cheap hook to keep the players interested from the very start.



Rex decides to take a look around the bridge a bit. Those fuzzy dice are pretty sweet! I'll summarise what's written about them (and alot of other things in this LP) to save space and bandwidth. Note that these are unaltered from the way they are written in-game, spelling errors included.

Possibly the only thing your ex-interior decorator did that doesn't cause you to double over and violently heave your guts out. YOU are the fuzzy dice man.



Satisfied that the dice are unharmed, Rex turns his attention to the target computer.

The target computer reports that it has calculated firm firing solutions on three nearby belligerent guppies and is now running a full threat assessment on the suspicious-looking seaweed bank up ahead.

Ahh, yes. The smart-ass narrative, an adventure game staple.



Imagine that. After plummeting 40,000 feet at an extremely high velocity and landing with the force of a 5,000 metaon neutron bomb, the control panel is damaged. Worst of all, the warranty expired last week.

I'll bet the target computer is still in warranty



Oh god, don't tell me the video game is broken too

In all the time this machine has been here, you have yet to figure out what "Insert Quarter" means.



While observing that your nostril hairs need a good clipping, you notice a green glob of spinach between your teeth. The odd thing is you haven't eaten spinach in two weeks. If only there was a 20-guage high tension wire lying around that you could use as a flossing utensil.

It's somewhat refreshing to see a game give as much narrative about random objects as this one does. It loses pace a little bit later on but for the most part manages to provide a relatively entertaining description of most things in the game.



Each item has it's own set of action(s) that you can perform on that action. Almost all of them are either useless or comically useless.

You quickly read a random page from your log. Wow! You really recorded some neat stuff in here.

I presume Rex didn't read his most recent update then.



That's the emergency escape hatch (EMERGENCY being the key word here). It is activated by explosive bolts and opening it under present circumstances would flood this cockpit in seconds flat. No oxygen mask pops out of the ceiling and you can't use your seat as a flotation device so your best bet is to try the main airlock, since it is apparently still clear of mud.

Apparently the airlock is clear of mud. Rex must have figured this out sometime between fondling his fuzzy dice and staring at the pinball machine.



Being a man of action, Rex decides to blow this joint and head out to the main area!



Welcome to Rex's living room. Again, I have to wonder if that poster exists in the clean version. Considering the game goes to great pains to point out what a disgustingly stereotypical bachelor Rex is, this place is sparkling clean.



Let's not act coy. What are you really looking at?

Cheap throwaway line aside, why did Rex hang his binoculars over his naked girl poster in the first place? Naked posters really only have one purpose.



Rex is one smooth mover, with an eye for the prize!!!



Realising his folly, Rex decides to uncover his nudie poster and takes the binoculars.



This is something pretty cool that this game does whenever you pick up an object, giving you a quick (and usually smart-assed) description and a pretty picture. Light years better than the SCUMM system in this one regard.



The window leads to your bedroom. In fact, it provides the most convenient egress from your bed, and you come stumbling through it every morning with a sincere promise that you are now officially on the wagon. The bedroom is mostly filled with your dirty underwear, so there's not much point in going in there unless you're curious about the origins of the bubonic plague.

Which is adventure game language for "we didn't bother to create artwork for that room so you're not going in there". Rex next decides he's hungry so he cracks open the refridgerator.



Finally, Rex starts to live up to his bachelor image!



Even a veteran bacteriologist would get down on his knees and retch if he had to look at the contents of this refridgerator for very long. The county coroner himself couldn't bear the sight of that festering mess of congealed fungus you call a sandwich. The burger in the front appears to be moving under it's own power, and the cure for something is growing on the back wall.



This is a festering mass of congealed fungus that you knew in former times as a hamburger.



Rex has seen enough. It's time to take the fungusburger!



I dunno Rex, they look pretty disturbed to me.



You're still incapable of using most of this thing's features. You pretty much gave up after taking two days to figure out how to prepare "baked water".

I guess that explains the fridge.



This is where you keep your "wardrobe". A few old shirts you never wear are silently decomposing on the hangers. At one point, the closet comtained several dozen moth balls, but they disappeared one night when you were severely intoxicated and had the "munchies". Leave everything where it is because it would just disintegrate in your hands.

But apparently not in a crash with the force of a 5,000 megaton neutron bomb.



The sum total of all of your clean clothes at any given moment can generally be found crammed into this drawer. They are jammed in so tightly in fact, that they have achieved a new state of matter, and have their own gravitation field. Don't even try to close this thing.

So basically Rex hasn't changed clothes in years.



Being the man that you are you can't help but to briefly pause and admire yourself in the medicine cabinet mirror. You are elated to see that the hideous cold sore you "earned" last month has finally cleared up.



We won't be allowed in here but let's check it out anyway.

This doorway leads to what you loosely call a "bedroom". The term "large festering pit of diry undergarments" is more to the point. You haven't been able to clean it since your snow shovel broke, so you have decided to use the window to get in and out of bed. You have given up on the idea of actually 'walking' in the room.



Deciding to make use of his new-found possession, Rex decides see what he can do with these binoculars. Rex's first instinct is, of course, to break them.

Don't disassemble the binoculars! You might need them!

This classifies as one of the useless functions an item can have.



This classifies as one of the comically useless functions an item can have.

You open your mouth, give the burger a squeeze, get it at just the write angle, start your approach . . . . WAIT! One of the worms in the burger just gave you the saddest look. You just don't have the heart to gobble him up.

Not worm, "indigenous life form" dammit.



Surely Rex can just enjoy the meaty aroma of the burger instead then.

You take a good strong whiff of the burger and almost pass out. This thing is probably flammable by now.

As opposed to, you know, bread.



Time to head to that mud-free airlock!



Exit Ship (0:53) - Rex foolishly forgets to take with him any form of breathing apparatus before leaving the ship. In most adventure games, this would spell death. In Rex Nebular, it spells death and then just lets you live anyway. It just wants you to know that it could off you, any time it wanted. Any fucking time it wanted.



Maybe if you stare at it long enough, something really important will happen that will help you escape from this planet - NOT!

Okay, I think we're scraping the bottom of the barrel here. Let's check out engineering.



Rex climbs downstairs...



Engineering appears to comprise of a fireplace, a roast turkey, some closed red curtains and a hamster in a wheel.



Apparently those curtains are the "Hyperdrive Jump Unit". Yep.

This is the infamous RICHARDS 421-K Turbocharged Ten Cell Hyperdrive Accelerating Jump Unit, with a special child-resistant anti-matter access module. You bought this one from the universal cable shopping channel (Channel TT412).



Not a fireplace, but a "furnace"!

Yes, it's a furnace, all right--a StarTech Model 8 Hyperdrive Blast Furnace to be precise. It is capable of reaching temperatures similar to, to... well you know - the hot place where snowballs don't stand a chance. Right now the door is hanging open, so things are nice and toasty around here.

I guess that explains the roast turkey.



Gosh, that turkey sure does look tasty! Maybe now would be a good time to eat it...?

Nothing says hygiene like cooking your food above a hamster.





OOPS. Oh my! The turkey just EXPLODED! It looks like that bedistor board you salvaged isn't up to snuff.



Hahaha, "auxiliary power", that's great.

Auxiliary Power Module (a.k.a. "Binky"). Cute little guy, isn't he? He may not look it, but Binky is actually a fully equipped STELLARTRON XJ-6481Q4 Mark 12 Bionic Hamsteroid, complete with QR3 fusion-pack whiskers and a peanut-sized positronic brain. Believe it or not, Binky is quite capable of maintaining life support levels in this craft indefinitely.

Better hope that turkey grease didn't get in his circuits then.



The RQ-11 Kagasaki Warp Coil is ordinarily found at the base of the Dimensional Rift Engines mount, and is the primary catalyst for translating the ship into hyperspace. This particular unit, however, now occupies the engineering room floor, and has obviously seen better days having recently been rather abruptly belched through a five-food bulkhead by the Quantum Shunt. It looks like you're going to have to find another ride off this rock, since this baby ain't goin' nowhere.

Also, this place is a shitheap.



Rex finally finds something worthwhile in this piece of junk ship.

On the workbench is a timing device that you recently repaired. Although it was designed to fire retro-burners at fixed intervals, you found a better use for it--to let you know when the turkey was done.

IT DIDN'T WORK BY THE WAY.



Despite his failed meal, Rex decides to take the timing module anyway.





The timer module is not attached to anything, so there is no reason to set it.



This tiny little group of pixels on the floor is a rebreather, which prevents the drowning clip from earlier.

This is an emergency rebreather which seems to have falled off its safety mount. It allows the wearer to breathe in a inhospitable environment such as underwater or in a men's locker room.

Or around your fridge.



In pretty much his only smart move of the day, Rex takes the rebreather.



"Classiest" is a relative term in this game.



Not just yet. You shouldn't use the rebreather until you're underwater.

Even the narrative doesn't bother to give you sass here. We all know Rex would do it.



Time to head back to the airlock then!





And out into the briny deep!



That's all for today. The next few updates should be a bit shorter but contain a bit more than just looking at items, as we begin to explore this hidden planet in search of the vase, and a new ship.