Anachronox #3 - Made a New Friend

I felt quite stuck in Anachronox and had to shame myself by looking at a walkthrough. It was even more shameful when I realized that the only reason I was stuck wasn't because of some impossible-to-figure-out set of events that I hadn't managed to complete, but that I had simply forgotten that I could lock pick. Although the game literally told me just an hour earlier. Oh well, that little reminder quickly set me on the right path, so let's hope I won't have any more horrible short term memory and can now go on my merry way. You can't really blame the game design when it's simply the gamer literally being an idiot.

As with any good RPG, you can help yourself into other people's homes.

There is a function in the game I hadn't forgotten about though but have still no idea what to do with - the camera. I even checked through the entire manual without finding anything about it. When I got stuck I was sure there was something I had to take a picture of to continue the story, but just couldn't figure out what that would be. Well, I was wrong. So far I have found no use for the camera other than maybe to remember certain areas, for which it is actually quite handy. And maybe that is all it is for? A notebook of sorts? I would be ok with that.

I think you need a doctor more than you need that whiskey.

Anyway, I lockpick my way into Deanamo's room - she's the woman I was supposed to talk to about a job - and when I find her she is missing two limbs, but doesn't seem too angry about it. That does explain why she couldn't open the door for me though. She helps me along the way to find my new party member, whom I think is named Grummas or something. Grummas is indirectly the reason Deanamo was missing some limbs and at first I thought I was going to smack him a bit for it, but turns out that I am more interested in earning money than setting other people's revenges. 

Like I mentioned before the place is huge, and they've gated some sections off. There are plenty of doors that look like they could be entered but that are simply closed and guards guard some paths that you can't walk to yet. They've got some inventive ways to explain these closures though, one guard kindly told me that I had to wait for a guy who was on fire to "put himself out" before I could go down that path. In the background I could see the guy running screaming back and forth. Ok then.

Promised you a picture of a Time Minder. It's to the left.

Anachronox also seems to be shifting. You get to see a bit of this in a short cut scene right at the beginning, and throughout when you're playing they will announce these shifts. While it's not anything that I've physically seen happen, they do explain some cut off sections with being unsafe to traverse at the moment because of the shifts. We'll see if that is the only part these shifts will play in the story.

You can choose to control any character, and they interact differently with the world.

Me and Grummas are heading down into some corridors or vaults or something to find some "Mystech", left behind by the mysterious alien race that built Anachronox before they were all killed by an even more mysterious plague. Whatever messed up Deanamo is also down there, so wish me luck.