9 : The Last Resort (aka NINE)

An adventure game from 1996, based on artwork by Mark Ryden

 See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/9:_The_Last_Resort

This game was lying around in some discount box ages ago (imagine how old it
is! '96!). I bought it really cheap because the monkey on the cover got my
attention. I didn't get it to run, and completely forgot about it. Recently i
rediscovered the box and decided to give it another go.

Getting the game to run is the first real puzzle. I had to reinstall a couple
of versions of Quick Time, and do some trial and error with the Run settings
(right-click the shortcut, properties, 3rd tab compatibility). I did get it to
run this time, but not very stable. Especially towards the end, the game
crashed a lot. Remember to save often and prepare for some frustration.

That being said, i loved the shit out of this game!! The atmosphere, sound,
story and puzzles are all great. The voices are a bit goofy at times (there
wasn't a lot of speech in games back then!) but the dialog is very good. The
puzzles are insanely challenging, there's hints everywhere, and they merge
seamlessly with all the artwork, which made me inspect every centimeter of the
entire mansion! Eventually, i just got my camera and made a picture of
everything i saw, which saved me lots of in-game walking around and probably
quite some crashes.

I intend to throw the box away because it takes too much space, but i do wish
to keep a backup of this game and all the stuff (a lot!) that came with it.
Since it wasn't on TPB yet, here seems like the right place to keep my copy. 

* The iso file 
* Some screenshots 
* Scans of the stuff that came with it

Note i did not mess up the scan of the letter, it 's really that badly
written. You do need it however, because it contains the combination of the
lock on the front door. Or use the AutoHotKey script (press F12) i made when i
got tired of manually clicking through the entire code every time. It still
takes long, but at least you can get a cup of coffee or something.

Among some other stuff in the AutoHotKey script is the auto save (ctl-s), that
makes an autosave game and a backup. 99% of the time you'll be loading the most
recent save game, but i urge you to save often and keep them all, in case you 
save in a spot where the game is about to freeze, no matter what you do! (And 
the save-as menu is tedious!)