SCUMM/HE: PUTTRACE Add an enhancement to make Ralphie's barking trigger sooner during the digging minigame

[Thunderforge]

In the minigame where you are digging for hubcaps in Mrs. Airbag's back yard, it feels like a tedious series of random guessing. If you move your mouse cursor around with any amount of speed, you have no clues about where to dig.

However, if you move your cursor *sloooowly*, then Ralphie barks with varying intensity based on how close you are to dig.

​TV Tropes even says that this is a very common problem:

Guide Dang It: The digging minigame in Putt-Putt Enters the Race only seems like a Luck-Based Mission, to the avail of many YouTubers. Instead of just spamming holes, you're supposed to listen to Ralphie's barks.

It would be great to have Ralphie's barking trigger sooner so that it's much easier to tell that you are supposed to listen to him. Presumably this would be a game option, perhaps even one enabled by default.

Reproduction steps

1. Either load the attached savegame and click on the back yard, or open the debug console and type room 2
2. Move the mouse around with any amount of speed. Even if you move in a complete grid pattern, Ralphie will never bark.
3. Move the mouse extremely slowly or stop at various points. Eventually, Ralphie will bark.

You will see how it's very easy for users to miss this entirely.

Versions Tested

• Steam release of Putt-Putt Enters the Race
• ScummVM 2.6.0pre (2022-07-13)