SCI: LAURABOW: Gloria Doesn't Get Thrown Down the Well?

[ArthurWalden]

I am using ScummVM version 2.9.0.

In The Colonel's Bequest, the first Laura Bow game, I have a situation which I am not completely certain whether it is a bug or not.

In this game, the bodies of some characters who have been murdered can be found in one of two randomly determined places, while the bodies of other murder victims always appear in the same place. The confusion I have is over Gloria Swansong, who is murdered at the beginning of Act IV. Most sources on this game I have found state that her body is always found in the gazebo. However, some sources, including Sierra's official hint book, state that her body can be found in either the gazebo or the well.

To test this, I saved the game right before beginning Act IV (the beginning of the act is when I believe the determination of where randomly determined locations for that act's murder victim are made) and rechecked over 30 times, but every time I found dead Gloria in the gazebo.

So now I'm wondering: is the chance of Gloria's body being thrown down the well an EXTREMELY slim one? There are a number of minor random elements, including a few Easter eggs, in this game, but I can usually have them occur with a little retry, if necessary. Or did Sierra simply never implement Gloria being thrown down the well at all, despite saying they did in the hint book? What's even stranger for me is that I played the game back in high school over 30 years ago and I think I do remember finding her body in the well on one playthrough. Was this just a false memory prompted by reading the hint book?

I realize this is not a high priority situation, but if there is a bug caused by ScummVM, it would be nice if it could be checked out.

I am playing the GOG version of the game.

I am running the game on Windows 11 Home, Version 24H2.

[OmerMor]

Gloria's body location has 50% chance of being in the well, unless you enter one of these rooms in act 3, while some global variable is less than 7. In that case the body is set to be found in the gazebo.

That global variable is named gJeevesChoresState in sluicebox's decompiled scripts.
It is set in the clarwand.sc script as (= gJeevesChoresState (- 7 (/ [gCycleTimers 3] 100))) or in a c style: gJeevesChoresState = 7 - (gCycleTimers[3] / 100);

So I guess in your save game the global for (the future position of) gloria's body was already set in act 3.

I didn't investigate any deeper than that, but I'm sure Sluicebox would love to elaborate.

[ArthurWalden]

I tried going straight from the beginning of Act IV to the gazebo and well to check them without first visiting the billiards room (the scene of the crime which Jeeves is about to clean up shortly after you enter; every try before I had done I always visited the crime scene first and then went to check the body). I tried this new approach ten times. However, Gloria was still at the gazebo every time. I guess the value had already somehow been set.

[sluicebox]

I may have exaggerated my enthusiasm...

Gloria isn't random if you go to the well or gazebo while while Clarence is wandering.

Don't let me stop you from researching these: ​https://github.com/sluicebox/sci-scripts