[1227] Under A Killer Balloon: Into Darkness, Page 8
└ posted on Monday, 16 November 2020, by Novil
- Sandy South: I am sick and tired of these little games! I don’t need your stupid map anyway! I’ve been almost everywhere, so the village must be in this direction!
- Tourist info guy: That may be true, but without a map…
- Sandy South: Come on, Qoo. Let’s go!
- Tourist info guy: … you’ll inevitably fall into one of the countless quicksand pits…
- Sandy South: WHOA!
- Tourist info guy: … that are teeming with murderous sand piranhas!
- Sandy South: AUGH!
- Sandy South: I thought you can’t die in adventure games!!
- Caption: GAME OVER | SANDY’S QUEST
![[1227] Under A Killer Balloon: Into Darkness, Page 8](/comics/2020-11-16-1227-under-a-killer-balloon-into-darkness-page-8.png "[1227] Under A Killer Balloon: Into Darkness, Page 8")
Not if it’s not Lucasarts.
And even it that case, you could die in the first ones.
Laughs in Sierra Online.
@ gt7h1:
You live in Sierra Leone? I remember doing things for your country in highschool!
Eeeeeps! O_O Watch out for the Game Overs! Oh well, better luck next time, Sandra! Or not.
Clearly Sandra has never played Oregon Trail
That Sierra logo was a nice touch!
Also, there was a game I saw years ago, where one way to die involved a snake biting you when you clicked to pick an apple. The catch is, it didn’t bite the character, it bit the cursor. Anyone know which one it was?
Not a very realistic game. Humans can only sink about to their waist in quicksand.
@ Dan:
Wait, that’s the unrealistic part, and not the sand piranhas?
The tribe IS uncontacted, because of this guy.
…seriously?
Oh, hey, Sierra!
TimesNewLogan wrote:
You wouldn’t happen to be talking about Legend of Kyrandia, would you? There definitely was picking up an apple, getting bitten and poisoned and dying if you don’t quickly use a couple of topazes or something… don’t judge my memory, that was at least a decade and a half ago.
Sandra, quicksandra. Sounds about right. This was funny.
Laughs in Nethack.
Come to think of it, her father is a programmer. Would he be pleased at the retro or disappointed at her not succeeding?
@ Ichneumon:
Of course. We don’t know for sure that such piranhas don’t exist. Whereas there are compelling scientific arguments why sinking neck-deep in quicksand is impossible.
Dan wrote:
I thought I was the only one to see that in mythbusters… LoL
@ Klekowskii:
I think you read it wrong?
@ Nikary Flare:
Many of Sierra adventure games had these deathtraps everywhere. The worst may have been the chasm you had to find & lay a plank down to cross in a PITCH BLACK CAVE as Rosella in Kings Quest IV. Actually the worst was the fact that they had interactions or items you needed to have to survive something MUCH later in the game. Seriously I don’t know how anyone made it through those games without hints. Lookup the many deaths of Graham or Roger Wilco and you’ll find something.
?
You die a lot …sometimes its the best park when dealing with the moon logic
This looks a bit like Dragon’s Lair (a.
“Tickets only! Next!”
Game over for Sandra? The end of this comic? 🙁
@ Hegel Marx:
That was what I was thinking. I guess this is going to be a very different comic from now on!
Will this be the end of Sandy South?
Will she find a way out using her sharp detective skills?
Stay tooned!
Well, time to reload. Hope her last save wasn’t TOO long ago. Also, can’t die in adventure games? Someone’s never heard of Shadowgate.
The Sierra logo legit made me laugh
Yep. Remember, Al says: “save early, save often”. And then there are those parts where you are not allowed to save.
Hopefully her last save point isn’t back at the merchant’s booth.
Sorry but there are mistakes in some of the comments (or i understad very wrong, It’s a lot of possible) and in the idea of the strip.
From monkeyisland.fandom.com
Non Canon Deaths
Due to the nature of adventure games it is rare for the protagonist to be able to die. However, there are a few rare occasions where Guybrush can be killed.
SoMI
When Threepwood is tossed into the sea at the docks by Fester Shinetop he has ten minutes to find a way to save himself before he turns green and drowns.
MI2
In LeChuck’s Torture Chamber, if Guybrush takes too long to work out how to escape he and Wally will fall into the acid and be killed. However the scene changes to Threepwood and Marley in the pit and he realises that he must have told the story incorrectly.
EfMI
In the Mysts o’Tyme Marshe, if future Guybrush gives present Guybrush a revolver, he can use it to shoot and kill future Guybrush. When present Guybrush becomes future Guybrush, he is shot causing a time paradox.
Threepwood can also once again drown after spending more than ten minutes underwater.
This seems to be quite the Cursed Adventure that Sandra and Woo are in…
@ DoublyNegative:
You have read the comic for past couple of years? It’s amazing Novil remembered he had these girl and raccoon characters still lying around. XD
Originally dying is how you played adventure games. That’s how you learned what NOT to do. “You have been eaten by a Grue!”
@ Alan Richmon:
Also, in the game where there is this starting town with the sharks swimming in the bay, you can click to go into the water. About fifty times Guybrush will say something about not being stupid enough to go in there, but if you continue clicking, he just shruggs, goes into the water and is eaten by sharks.
“You can’t die in adventure games”
Since when? Have I really been out of the adventure scene that long?
Dan wrote:
But tar pits are a different story . . .
While piranha often live in muddy water (they prefer clear water), they can not survive in water that is mostly mud, like quicksand. At least Woo has the correct idea: extend a reaching assist to let the person grab on an pull themselves out.
Bah, Sierra. Get on Zork’s level. Just the way grues like it.
@ TimesNewLogan:
King’s Quest IV?
A lot of people are mentioning Sierra, but let’s also give a shoutout to this comic’s title, referencing the Tex Avery adventure, Under a Killing Moon. 😀
I love the Sierra logo. They made my childhood.
@ Nikary Flare:
“I always took her for granite.” Classic line.
Trouble is, Sandy didn’t realize WHICH game she was playing. Some of those games were almost trivially easy to die in. I seem to recall it being almost fun to see all the hilarious ways Roberta Williams had contrived to kill off a character. If I recall correctly, at the outset of King’s Quest, all you had to do was walk into the moat and die within a few seconds of starting the game.
In fact, a quick search turned up YouTube compilations of ways to die in these games. Clearly, Sandy South could have benefited from watching those before going off on her ill-fated quest. Happily, I think she can just load a save-game, (you DID save the game from time to time, didn’t you?!?) or if not, press “r” to restart. Or something like that.
Swedish Chef wrote:
wow, THAT is/was a old game.
one dies a lot in it, too.
Eh? I died a lot in some of my adventure games so simmer in the bottom of that quicksand pit, Sandra!
@ MaxArt:
Yes, clearly she’s never played “Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis.”
Well, it’s been fun. Woo kept himself from talking in front of strangers for 12 years (slipped up in the last strip) and Sandra almost graduated top of the class
…what do you mean there’s another strip on Thursday?
@ myth buster:
“Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade” also had several places where you could die. (Castle Brunwald, the trials before the grail).
I died once in Zack McKracken, when I put on the goldfish bowl (as helmet) without the oxygen tank.:P
I like how the tourist info guy and the piranhas have the same facial expression. 🙂
@ Nikary Flare:
That’s the one! Thanks!
@ TimesNewLogan:
I immediately thought of Kyrandia when I heard the description, but I never noticed that the snake bites the cursor. Now I wonder if you can avoid being bitten by moving the cursor away fast enough…
Can’t die in adventure games?? THAT’S why I can’t play adventure games! I feel too sad when I get my character killed!!! 🙂
someone’s never played king’s quest. or space quest. or literally any adventure game, ever. death is very, very common. also, vastly entertaining.