#Kennywood Hours

[pittsburghbeautiful]

Kennywood Park

Exploring the Magic of Kennywood: Pittsburgh’s Amusement Park Imagine a place where nostalgia and thrill blend so perfectly it feels like stepping into another world. This is no mere daydream; it’s Kennywood, Pittsburgh’s premier amusement park and a place of both yesteryear charm and modern excitement. Whether you’re seeking the adrenaline rush of roller coasters or a leisurely stroll down…

[deregirls]

I will never go into a Wawa bc I think people here will smell it on me and I'm already at risk of being killed for not liking the Steelers or owning or wanting Steelers merch. I haven't even ridden Steel Curtain. (bc it's closed)

[eldritch-whoror]

for everyone who just learned ab kennywood from defunctland, the park brought back a beloved old ride and people waited in line for 5 hours yesterday.

and today another ride got stuck upside down

[todaywasafairytaletv]

Wait..i saw u said u live about an hour away from kennywood..and i do to..😦

ayy you do?? that's so cool oh my gosh-

[bumbis]

Waldameer TR

Drove two hours to Waldameer on Saturday (5/27/23). Ever since I found out there was a gravity group so close to me I knew I had to visit. I got there and entered in by the waterpark, took a second to find the back of the park. I noticed it was a pretty busy, which makes sense, it was a long holiday weekend.

Waldameer has never had any admission price, you can get an all day wristband or pay per ride. I headed to the back of the park and boy, Waldameer has a strange layout, its easy to navigate but feels more like a big county fair more than anything. I walked back and saw RFII :D I thought it was over 100 ft, but it's like 85?? DOESN'T MATTER it flies. I haven't been to a park that wasn't kennywood in a while and I was shocked with a drop that steep, especially on a wooden coaster. In the back row you get FLUNG over the drop, then go into that insane sustained hill over the road. loop around, go up another hill and you do it again and go into a fantastic twister section. its so smooth, so fast and the good thing about going on a busy day is you fly into that brake run. I couldn't get enough of it. Overall I rode it 5 times. It was about 30 bucks but damn, I don't regret it at all. What an insane ride. It hits every single time and might have one of the best views on a coaster. I think it's a back row ride, the forces you get in the back is crazy. Easily my favorite wooden coaster I've been on.

[beoneofus]

best rides at kennywood?

the phantom's revenge, the sky coaster, the sky rocket, the swingshot, the thunderbolt, the arrow 360 and the black widow.

that black widow though? always gotta wait nearly two fucking hours cause of how long the line always is 💔

[yanderepuck]

Like its friday, I have shit I need to do. He's taking his kids to kennywood(an amusement park), bc he decided to bring them to work with him, but I have to just sit here bored on my ass for two hours??? And can't get anything done that I need to get done??? I should leave like a half hour early.

No. I'm gonna turn the fucking phone off so I can't be called

[g0ttal0ve101]

I hate band camp so much oml 😩

I’m gone for seven hours (8-3) for TWO WEEKS LIKE??? 😭😭😭😭

At least I get a free pass to Kennywood tho 👁

[chuckling-chemist]

“you can find your own fun and hang out with your friends!”

look I appreciate the gesture my dude but i ain’t driving 3 hours and paying 10 bucks to hang out with people on my birthday when i can at least drive 3 hours and go to fucking Kennywood or some shit instead of watching a bunch of fighters posture.

or better, hang out with people that live where i do for free, in a city where there’s events almost every weekend around that time. 

[double-up-rides-blog]

About Me

Hey everyone! My name is Andrew, I’m an aspiring roller coaster enthusiast starting this blog to get a foot into the roller coaster community! I’m also starting an Instagram under the same name, so check me out!

Currently, I have 49 credits. I’m a new enthusiast but with several trips planned over the next few months, it’s a good start! My goal is to reach 100 credits by the end of 2019!

Growing up in a small town in northeast Ohio, I was very fortunate to live where I did, with parks like Cedar Point, Geauga Lake, Kennywood, and King’s Island all only a few hours away. Despite all this access to roller coasters, I never really grew up riding them because they scared me. I was however, fascinated with them. Playing Roller Coaster Tycoon pretty much since it came out, I liked to learn about how these rides worked so I could make realistic rides in my game.

The anxiety of riding roller coasters lessened as I learned how they work, and as I learned about the safety procedures and fail safes there are installed into every ride. So finally in 2010 at 12 years old, I rode my first roller coaster that wasn’t a kiddie ride. It was my third trip to Cedar Point and I finally got on the Raptor as my very first non-kiddie credit. I LOVED it. I didn’t go much bigger that day, however, mostly riding the family rides.

That same summer I visited Kennywood for the first time since I was very little. This was the season Sky Rocket opened, so I got on that one first. I worked my way up, eventually riding every roller coaster in the park, including Phantom’s Revenge. At this point in time, Phantom’s Revenge was by far the biggest ride I rode, and I was so proud of myself for riding it. I became obsessed with roller coasters. I brought out my copy of Roller Coaster Tycoon 3 and started playing religiously, studying on roller coasters and recreating rides near me pretty much every day after school.

The next summer I went back to Cedar Point, and at this point I was confident. I rode everything the park had, despite having a borderline panic attack in line for Top Thrill Dragster. I felt like I could handle anything.

Throughout the next few years, my interest in roller coasters really diminished. Growing up, I had wanted to be a roller coaster designer, but I learned pretty quick in high school that engineering wasn’t for me. I went to some parks here and there on school trips, including HersheyPark and Six Flags Over Georgia, but the interest was just not there anymore.

In 2016 a game called Planet Coaster was released as a new generation of theme park tycoon games. I bought it pretty quickly, but never really got into it. It basically just sat in my steam library for a few years.

In 2017 I started college, moving to Northwestern Pennsylvania, only about 30 minutes from Waldameer. My freshman year was hard, as most are. I faced many mental health issues, but I got through the year. I wasn’t sure I’d be coming back the next year, however, but ultimately I decided to give it one more shot.

Though there were some hardships, my sophomore year was much easier on me. I had an established group of friends, I met my wonderful girlfriend, and I discovered a few of my passions, and ended up rediscovering my love for roller coasters.

In October 2018, my school offered a day trip to Cedar Point for $20 for Halloweekends. Most of my friends being from all over the country, had never been to Cedar Point (some had never even heard of it, which blew my mind), so naturally I talked them all into it and we went. This was also the first year that a little ride called Steel Vengeance opened. The weather was really bad that day, so we only got to ride one ride, but luckily that ride was Steel Vengeance. Oh man, was that one ride all I needed. I was blown away.

Back at school, I became obsessed. Roller coasters dominated the little free time I had. I logged 150 hours into Planet Coaster over the rest of the school year, and became obsessed with enthusiast channels like ElToroRyan, Coaster Studios, Airtime Thrills, Canada Coaster Fan, Theme Park Crazy, etc. My girlfriend and I took a trip to Waldameer to celebrate the end of finals to ride Ravine Flyer II for the first time, which was incredible. I knew pretty quickly I wanted to be a part of this community.

So today, I counted up my credits to 49, and with a few trips to King’s Dominion, Kennywood, King’s Island, Cedar Point and hopefully Holiday World and Six Flags Great Adventure in the near future, I decided to start this blog! Here I’ll be posting my opinions, I’ll talk about my trips, news updates, sharing some Planet Coaster creations and whatever else I feel like doing! I hope you’ll stick around to see where my journey as an enthusiast takes me!

[mill3nniumforc3]

200: My crush’s name is: Russell :) 199: I was born in: April 1994 198: I am really: energetic 197: My cellphone company is: Verizon 196: My eye color is: hazel 195: My shoe size is: 7.5-8.5, depending on the shoe 194: My ring size is: 7.5 193: My height is: 5′5″ 192: I am allergic to: penicillin, cats, pollen, and strong scents 191: My 1st car was: I’ve never owned my own car. 190: My 1st job was: babysitting. First real job was a desk job at my university 189: Last book you read: I don’t remember. I don’t have time to read for leisure. 188: My bed is: comfy 187: My pet: Seamus the miniature schnauzer and Sugar the Aussie-mo 186: My best friend: Ashlyn 185: My favorite shampoo is: Dove 184: Xbox or ps3: neither 183: Piggy banks are: for kids and rainy days 182: In my pockets: nothing 181: On my calendar: going river tubing on Saturday, party next Saturday, trip for T’s birthday weekend, and possibly going to Kennywood and Kings Island sometime in August. 180: Marriage is: something for my future self 179: Spongebob can: do anything 178: My mom: is the bestest 177: The last three songs I bought were?: who buys music anymore? 176: Last YouTube video watched: probably an ASMR video 175: How many cousins do you have?: too many to count 174: Do you have any siblings?: three sisters 173: Are your parents divorced?: no 172: Are you taller than your mom?: yep 171: Do you play an instrument?: piano, drums, bells, and I know three chords of the guitar 170: What did you do yesterday?: sleep [ I Believe In ] 169: Love at first sight: sure 168: Luck: yes 167: Fate: maybe? 166: Yourself: depends on the day 165: Aliens: not really... 164: Heaven: yes 163: Hell: Do I believe in it? Yes, because God is just. Do I believe people are damned there? No, because God is loving. 162: God: yes 161: Horoscopes: no. It’s funny to see “horoscope” posts and see if they apply to me, but it’s a bunch of b.s. A bunch of Aries aren’t going to have the same day/month/year. That’s ridiculous. 160: Soul mates: I’m not sure if I do or don’t, but I do believe in love. 159: Ghosts: no 158: Gay Marriage: of course! 157: War: it’s an unfortunate and unnecessary part of life 156: Orbs: no 155: Magic: yes [ This or That ] 154: Hugs or Kisses: both 153: Drunk or High: drunk 152: Phone or Online: online 151: Red heads or Black haired: no comment 150: Blondes or Brunettes: brunettes 149: Hot or cold: hot 148: Summer or winter: summer 147: Autumn or Spring: spring 146: Chocolate or vanilla: chocolate 145: Night or Day: night 144: Oranges or Apples: apples 143: Curly or Straight hair: straight 142: McDonalds or Burger King: McD’s (though I’m probably biased because I work there) 141: White Chocolate or Milk Chocolate: both 140: Mac or PC: PC 139: Flip flops or high heals: flip flops 138: Ugly and rich OR sweet and poor: sweet and poor 137: Coke or Pepsi: neither 136: Hillary or Obama: Obama 135: Burried or cremated: I want to be cremated and have my ashes buried with a seed and grow into a tree 134: Singing or Dancing: dancing 133: Coach or Chanel: neither 132: Kat McPhee or Taylor Hicks: Kat 131: Small town or Big city: small town 130: Wal-Mart or Target: Target 129: Ben Stiller or Adam Sandler: Ben 128: Manicure or Pedicure: mani 127: East Coast or West Coast: east coast 126: Your Birthday or Christmas: Christmas. My birthday stopped being special after I turned 19. I get good food every year on Christmas. 125: Chocolate or Flowers: chocolate 124: Disney or Six Flags: Six Flags 123: Yankees or Red Sox: Indians [ Here’s What I Think About ] 122: War: What is it good for? Absolutely nothing. 121: George Bush: he had some good policies. Better than Trump, that’s for damn sure. 120: Gay Marriage: should never be illegal again. 119: The presidential election: #FuckTrump #VoteBlueNoMatterWho #ImpeachTheMF 118: Abortion: all my life, I was told to be pro-life. These days, I don’t know anymore, but I think my beliefs are closer to pro-choice than pro-life. 117: MySpace: it’s not 2008 anymore. 116: Reality TV: glad it’s not my life 115: Parents: they’re doing their best. I’m not looking to be one anytime soon though. 114: Back stabbers: bye! 113: Ebay: Amazon is better. 112: Facebook: these days, I use it to get laughs and memes. I don’t interact with people I know IRL much. 111: Work: good for the money. Not good for my mental health. 110: My Neighbors: they’re ok. 109: Gas Prices: #ThanksTrump 108: Designer Clothes: I can get good clothes at Target. The only “splurge” I do for clothes is at Spencer’s or Kohl’s. 107: College: I plan to go back soon. 106: Sports: entertaining. 105: My family: family is life. 104: The future: anything can happen [ Last time I ] 103: Hugged someone: Tuesday. 102: Last time you ate: a couple hours ago (chik’n patties and cheese) 101: Saw someone I haven’t seen in awhile: last week. I saw a manager I hadn’t worked with in like a month. 100: Cried in front of someone: Monday 99: Went to a movie theater: July 2nd 98: Took a vacation: June 97: Swam in a pool: back in February 96: Changed a diaper: I don’t remember 95: Got my nails done: way too long ago 94: Went to a wedding: in April 93: Broke a bone: 2017 (broke my toe) 92: Got a piercing: 2006 91: Broke the law: never. I’m a good person. 90: Texted: three hours ago [ MISC ] 89: Who makes you laugh the most: Russell 88: Something I will really miss when I leave home is: my dog 87: The last movie I saw: in theatres, Toy Story 4. At home, Adventures in Babysitting. 86: The thing that I’m looking forward to the most: being off on Saturday 85: The thing im not looking forward to: working tomorrow 84: People call me: Vonnie, Vonn, Bonbon, Sophia, and “the girl” 83: The most difficult thing to do is: not cry while watching Grey’s Anatomy 82: I have gotten a speeding ticket: never 81: My zodiac sign is: Aries 80: The first person i talked to today was: my sister 79: First time you had a crush: kindergarten. His name was Wally, and we were “boyfriend and girlfriend” til about third grade, and we remained friends til we graduated 8th grade. Haven’t talked to him much since. 78: The one person who i can’t hide things from: Russell 77: Last time someone said something you were thinking: Sunday 76: Right now I am talking to: nobody because it’s 3:30am 75: What are you going to do when you grow up: I hope to be teaching English education 74: I have/will get a job: I currently work at McDonald’s, but within the next 6-12 months, I’ll be moving out of state, so who knows where I’ll work.  73: Tomorrow: work 72: Today: work 71: Next Summer: I’ll be in a whole new state, so that means new amusement parks to visit and rollies to ride. 70: Next Weekend: party. Oh, and next Saturday makes officially 18 months with me and Russell, so go us! 69: I have these pets: two dogs 68: The worst sound in the world: the beeping in the headset when I work back cash. It haunts my nightmares 67: The person that makes me cry the most is: Heather because she sends me to back cash all the time 66: People that make you happy: Russell, my mom, my dogs, Ashlyn, and Aunt Dolly because she sends me lives on Candy Crush 65: Last time I cried: Monday 64: My friends are: Ashlyn, Mikayla, Jon, Rilee, Lamar, Tae, Alexus, Clare, Katie, Mario, and Kel 63: My computer is: all mine because I bought it with my own money 62: My School: not in school  61: My Car: don’t have one 60: I lose all respect for people who: lie 59: The movie I cried at was: Avengers: Endgame 58: Your hair color is: natural 57: TV shows you watch: Grey’s Anatomy, Once Upon a Time, House, The Simpsons, Bob’s Burgers, and... I don’t really watch TV because I don’t have cable. 56: Favorite web site: YouTube 55: Your dream vacation: Just a big coaster trip 54: The worst pain I was ever in was: my period this month. I had cramps for days leading up to my period that were so bad that, the day my period actually came, I couldn’t stand straight. 53: How do you like your steak cooked: I don’t eat steak 52: My room is: a mess, like my life 51: My favorite celebrity is: NPH 50: Where would you like to be: with my boyfriend 49: Do you want children: someday, but not today 48: Ever been in love: ohhh yes. 47: Who’s your best friend: not answering again 46: More guy friends or girl friends: i think i have a fair amount of both 45: One thing that makes you feel great is: this is tmi, but sex with my bf. 44: One person that you wish you could see right now: Russell 43: Do you have a 5 year plan: no 42: Have you made a list of things to do before you die: yes 41: Have you pre-named your children: I don’t have any definitive names, but I’m thinking MaryGrace Linda for a girl, and James Sebastian for a boy 40: Last person I got mad at: Anna because she put me on back cash 39: I would like to move to: someplace south 38: I wish I was a professional: dancer.... no, writer.... no, why not both? [ My Favorites ] 37: Candy: peanut butter cups 36: Vehicle: Jeep 35: President: FDR 34: State visited: North Carolina (not just saying that because I lived there for two months) 33: Cellphone provider: Verizon 32: Athlete: Trevor Bauer 31: Actor: Justin Chambers 30: Actress: Amy Poehler 29: Singer: Chester Bennington 28: Band: Linkin Park 27: Clothing store: Kohl’s 26: Grocery store: Marc’s 25: TV show: Grey’s Anatomy 24: Movie: 13 Going on 30 23: Website: Pogo 22: Animal: seal 21: Theme park: Cedar Point 20: Holiday: Christmas 19: Sport to watch: baseball 18: Sport to play: softball 17: Magazine: I only read magazines at the dentist office, and I’ll read whichever has an interesting cover story 16: Book: A Series of Unfortunate Events 15: Day of the week: Saturday, as long as I’m not at work. If I’m working, then Mondays, I guess... 14: Beach: Huntington 13: Concert attended: Winter Jam, because I got to see Skillet play, and I met Matthew West. 12: Thing to cook: desserts 11: Food: eggplant parm 10: Restaurant: Olive Garden 9: Radio station: Star 102 8: Yankee candle scent: vanilla 7: Perfume: I don’t wear perfume 6: Flower: Daisies 5: Color: pink 4: Talk show host: Ellen DeGeneres 3: Comedian: Steve Rannazzisi 2: Dog breed: I really like terriers lol 1: did you answer all these truthfully ?: For me to know and you to find out :)

[sleepyinkky2]

Your starting to scare me a little... are you okay?

Mun: I am fine... At the moment... In a few hours I won't be though... KENNYWOOD HERE I COME!!

[blauliebling]

i'm on my phone writing this in a hotel but i need to hurry up and say it before i forget.

if you're planning a vacation & you're not able bodied, here's something you need to know about universal studios via my experience with my mother.

i'm currently on vacation with my parents because i just recently graduated from high school, & a trip to the theme parks in florida was essentially my gift. my mother and i both have crohns; i won't go into the details of the disease since google exists, but there is a wide variation in how crohns might affect your life. for me, it doesn't affect me too much. a couple hours of IV treatment every 8 weeks and watching out for eating too much of one thing and that's all.

my mom is much worse off. she has to go to the doctors almost every week; in addition to her crohns ( & because of it ) she has severe rheumatoid arthritis. her normal walk is a waddle. she's constantly in some sort of chronic pain. her hip dislocates all the time & both sitting & standing hurts, even with her ( legally required ) wheelchair. now she's not wheelchair bound, but she has good days & bad days. theme parks are especially difficult for her with the terrain.

most of the time, when we arrive at theme parks she's given some sort of identification or card ( at disney it's called a DAS for example ). we don't use it for any special treatment other than any other person with a wheelchair needs. the reason for this, even though my mom can transfer into a car/ride seat ( with help from rails and me ), is because waiting in lines that are anywhere from 30 minutes to 3 hours can put her in immense pain. sitting or standing still can really hurt that hip, to the point where I've seen her leave shopping malls in tears because she feels like her leg is being ripped off.

i've been to disney in FL, busch gardens in VA, and kennywood in PA and they've all accommodated her needs. universal however, did not.

my mother was forced to wait in two, three hour lines in excruciating pain with other wheelchair users & even mentally disabled people who should not & could not wait in lines like that. she was told that the only thing they could do for her was give her a wheelchair, but because she already had one ( because you know, we own one ) they couldn't do anything else. "all of our rides are accommodating" they told us, even though many involve stairs in which we had to be taken another route. i watched her have to massage her own legs & have to skip rides because of the wait time, because she was too terrified that she'd be in pain.

you know what universal guest services offered us? a $100+ express pass so she could get in a 'faster line'. not a disabled accommodating line, a faster one.

so, tldr; don't give the universal studios theme park your money, if you can help it, & call them out on their treatment. guest services and many of the ride operators treated us with rude service & did not adequately accommodate my mother & her very prominent disability, + other disabled people i saw today. if smaller, cheaper theme parks can adapt to their disabled guests, so can universal.

[ufcw]

Theme park discounts for UFCW members

Time to Save and Splash at America’s Favorite Theme Parks

Whether you are a roller coaster enthusiast or just like an excuse to eat funnel cake, your UFCW membership gives you discounts on some of the most popular parks in the country.

Access Your Water and Theme Park Discounts

Accessing your discounts does require setting up an account on the UFCW Lifemart Discounts website, which is free for UFCW members. From there, you’ll not only get access to discounts on theme parks, but discounts on movie tickets, hotels, car rental, and more that can help you squeeze a little more fun out of your wallet.

REGISTER/LOGIN AND START SAVING ON FAMILY FUN

Discounts Available at:

WALT DISNEY WORLD ® RESORT UNIVERSAL ORLANDO RESORT

UNIVERSAL STUDIOS HOLLYWOOD DISNEYLAND® KNOTT’S BERRY FARM KNOTT’S SOAK CITY WATER PARK – ORANGE COUNTY SEAWORLD ORLANDO BUSCH GARDENS TAMPA BAY SEAWORLD SAN DIEGO SEAWORLD SAN ANTONIO SESAME PLACE – LANGHORNE, PA LEGOLAND® FLORIDA RESORT LEGOLAND® CALIFORNIA RESORT – CARLSBAD, CA LEGOLAND® California Resort has more than 60 rides, shows and attractions including the new LEGO® Star Wars

: The Force Awakens Miniland Read MoreSAVE OVER 40%BUY TICKETS DOLLYWOOD & DOLLYWOOD’S SPLASH COUNTRY WATERPARK KNOTT’S BERRY FARM – 2019 SEASON CALIFORNIA’S GREAT AMERICA SIX FLAGS DISCOVERY KINGDOM – SAN FRANCISCO, CA SIX FLAGS MAGIC MOUNTAIN – LOS ANGELES, CA PACIFIC PARK ON THE SANTA MONICA PIER SIX FLAGS HURRICANE HARBOR – CONCORD, CA SIX FLAGS HURRICANE HARBOR – LOS ANGELES, CA AQUATICA – ORLANDO DISCOVERY COVE ADVENTURE ISLAND TAMPA BAY, FL RAPIDS WATER PARK UP-CLOSE DINING AT SHAMU® STADIUM AT SEAWORLD® ORLANDO BUSCH GARDENS SERENGETI SAFARI FUN SPOT AMERICA DISNEY’S BLIZZARD BEACH WATER PARK DISNEY’S TYPHOON LAGOON WATER PARK DISNEY AFTER HOURS AT MAGIC KINGDOM PARK COCO KEY WATER PARK – ORLANDO, FL DAYTONA LAGOON WATER PARK FUN SPOT AMERICA ATLANTA SIX FLAGS GREAT AMERICA – CHICAGO, IL WORLDS OF FUN & OCEANS OF FUN MICHIGAN’S ADVENTURE VALLEYFAIR NICKELODEON UNIVERSE AT MALL OF AMERICA SILVER DOLLAR CITY SIX FLAGS OVER ST. LOUIS – ST. LOUIS, MO SIX FLAGS THE GREAT ESCAPE – LAKE GEORGE, NY DIGGERLAND USA – A CONSTRUCTION THEME PARK LEGOLAND® NEW YORK RESORT DORNEY PARK LEGOLAND Discovery Center Westchester LEGOLAND DISCOVERY CENTER WESTCHESTER CAROWINDS & CAROLINA HARBOR WATERPARK KINGS ISLAND & SOAK CITY WATER PARK LEGOLAND DISCOVERY CENTER PHILADELPHIA KENNYWOOD AMUSEMENT PARK LEGOLAND DISCOVERY CENTER DALLAS / FORT WORTH JAY PEAK PUMP HOUSE INDOOR WATERPARK BUSCH GARDENS WILLIAMSBURG COLONIAL WILLIAMSBURG WATER COUNTRY USA KINGS DOMINION & SOAK CITY WATER PARK MOUNTAIN CREEK WATERPARK SPLASH ZONE WATERPARK, NJ WET ‘N’ WILD EMERALD POINTE CRANMORE MOUNTAIN ADVENTURE PARK CAMELBEACH MOUNTAIN WATERPARK WATER COUNTRY NEW HAMPSHIRE IDLEWILD & SOAKZONE RAGING WATERS SACRAMENTO RAGING WATERS SAN JOSE RAGING WATERS LOS ANGELES NOAH’S ARK WATERPARK SANDCASTLE WATER PARK WHITE WATER BAY SPLASH KINGDOM WATERPARK SUGARBUSH RESORT GOLF CLUB HERSHEYPARK BIG KAHUNA’S WATER & ADVENTURE PARK DUTCH WONDERLAND – A KINGDOM FOR KIDS BROMLEY MOUNTAIN ADVENTURE PARK WET ‘N’ WILD PALM SPRINGS FRONTIER CITY THEME PARK SANTA’S VILLAGE – EAST DUNDEE, IL

  from Theme park discounts for UFCW members

[junker-town]

The 4 amusement park rides on which you absolutely don’t want to get stuck

10 minutes on a pirate ship is nothing. 10 minutes on the Musik Express is hell.

On Wednesday, western Pennsylvania’s Kennywood Park experienced its second malfunction in as many days when its Pirate ship — an amusement park standby that swings patrons back and forth — lost power to its brake line. The mishap left riders lurching at the bottom of a incomplete loop for what probably seemed like hours but was roughly 10 minutes on solid ground. While no one was injured, enough patrons were shaken up to leave feedback like angry Theme Park Tycoon characters.

“I was terrified. My kids are crying. There was people behind us panicking. There was a guy in front of us, he was ready to get sick,” said one rider, who asked to have his name withheld, told Pittsburgh’s KDKA.

“It just kept on going, and I just got really scared, and I was feeling really sick, and I was crying. I was just terrified,” said rider Evan Paulick.

That’s awful...but it could have been much worse. Amusement parks are basically affronts to the specter of death. It’s what makes them great, but also why you can set a Final Destination movie there and the world will respond “yeah, makes sense, great film.” The Pirate is a simple back and forth experience that gets tamer the closer you are to the middle of the ship. Would I want to be stuck on it for 10 minutes? Adult me says no, but 13-year-old me just threw up a churro in excitement just thinking about it.

But even 13-year-old me knows there are some rides that are strict 90 second experIences before moving on to the Potato Patch for some hand-cut fries. Here’s our breakdown of all the amusement park attractions that would be absolute hell to be stuck on for 10+ minutes.

The Musik Express

The conceit behind the Musik Express is simple. You spin around an inclined plane for two minutes, gradually getting faster and faster while a bored teenager in the booth plays either:

a) music (musik?) that hasn’t been relevant in two decades, or b) music that is entirely inappropriate — for me this was Nirvana’s In Utero, in its entirety, at Warwick, RI’s now-defunct Rocky Point.

What you don’t realize about the Express when you walk up to the line, or even as you’re strapping yourself in, is that it’s essentially an astronaut experiment to see how much centrifugal force a 10-year-old can withstand. As the ride speeds up, you’re flung to the outer reaches of your car. A slick, flat, molded-plastic bench means anyone sitting to your right — sometimes two patrons — are now intimately aware of what you’ve got in your pockets. This is the exact moment Sartre was talking about when he said hell is other people.

But the discomfort trickles away as the ride slows to a stop and you dizzily walk yourself off the pressed metal crosswalk and back to the gum-pocked asphalt of the park. The dulcet tones of Korn’s “Got the Life” fade into the cacophony of bumper cars and carnival games in the background, and in several months, you forget the discomfort of the Musik Express. Until you buckle the world’s least effective seatbelt for a ride the following year.

Now imagine that feeling, on repeat, while gravity smooshes you through 30 to 40% of Iggy Azalea’s The New Classic. Hard pass. Same goes for other spinning rides like the Rotor or Scrambler or anything that counts on centrifugal force to rearrange your organs. — Christian D’Andrea

Ragin’ Rapids

Pretty much every park has a whitewater simulator where you trudge wildly through brown-ish water the same consistency of a low-grade fever in a raft that looks like repurposed tools from an aborted effort to make the world’s largest deep dish pizza. Every ride is the same; you start out calm, bump into a few walls, hit a few manufactured “rapids” that leave itch-water drying on your shorts for the next several hours, and finally gasp in delight as that one strategically-placed waterfall soaks 30 percent of your boat right before the finish.

Typically, you then walk off, wring out your socks, and pray you remembered to bring your hand sanitizer. Instead, consider having to run the course four or five more times, ensuring total soakage. The chlorine in the water, exhausted from its losing battle with the park’s bacteria, decides to take its frustration out on your clothing and skin instead. Every bump increases your odds of accidentally swallowing something unfit for man or beast to ingest. Every trip past the waterfall feels more and more like God is taunting you. — Christian D’Andrea

The Zipper (a special guest opinion from James Dator)

Let’s be abundantly clear on what the “Zipper” is: A ride that was constructed by a group of carnies who checked out a book on medieval torture devices at the library and were like “seems like a good ride.”

You don’t get to sit on the Zipper, not really. It’s a half-standing human-shaped cage of misery. There’s a ever present realization that a few pieces of rusty rebar and fencing is all that holds you back from your annihilation.

Seriously, walk past the Zipper at any county or state fair. You’ll hear a group of people standing around trying to peer pressure each other into riding the Zipper, because the Zipper is an asshole that exists only because it knows people want to seem cool by riding it.

So now we’ve established that:

a. The Zipper sucks. b. People only willingly ride The Zipper out of social fear.

Now imagine being stuck on this thing for a considerable period of time. The ride itself has three points of rotation, two controlled by the ride and a third free pivot on each individual capsule. It’s designed to completely destroy any sense of orientation you might have.

The Zipper (according to Wikipedia) has a MAXIMUM ride time of 2.5 minute. TWO POINT FIVE MINUTES. Even the Zipper’s creators know that this device should not be used for any extended period of time.

I love my life. I really do. If you stuck me on the Zipper for 30 minutes I’d tear a piece of the cage off using my bare hands and commit seppuku.

Disclosure: I rode the Zipper in 2009 at the North Carolina State Fair and threw up my turkey leg. — James Dator

Space Mountain

The thing about amusement parks is that the rides are bad. They terrify me. I don’t like going through sharp turns. I don’t like being in the dark. And I definitely don’t like Space Mountain, the ride that goes through sharp turns in the dark.

The worst part about rollercoasters is that they make me nauseous and scared. That, but in the dark, is cause for an ambulance on its own and if I have to be stuck on that for TEN MINUTES lord help me.

I wouldn’t know where I was, what position I was in, where the end was, if I was hundreds of feet in the air. I wouldn’t know a single thing. So no thank you. Do not leave me stuck there. Unless you want a pile or tears mixed with vomit. — Matt Ellentuck

[ciathyzareposts]

Infocom Marathon: Leather Goddesses of Phobos (1986) – Part One

Written by Joe Pranevich

Sex sells, but few things market a product better than controversy. Throughout much of the 20th century, it was an adage that a book or a play “Banned in Boston” was guaranteed to sell well elsewhere. Oscar Wilde once said that, “The only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about.” Barbara Streisand discovered that the fastest way to get a lot of people interested in taking photos of her house was telling them that they could not. So it was in that spirit that Steve Meretzky penned A Mind Forever Voyaging as a controversy-magnet, guaranteed to get the conservative pundits wagging their tongues about his leftist pollution of young minds. The controversy never materialized and that game flopped. Unperturbed, he pushed for yet another game that could “go viral”, but this time he aimed to incite the ire of the pundits (and the libido of the players) by embracing sex. Could an assault on decency succeed where AMFV failed?

Whether it was the sex, the return to traditional puzzle-based gameplay, or something else, Leather Goddesses of Phobos garnered enough attention that it became Infocom’s final true “hit”. TBD reviewed the game in 2017 and so I will look at this game through a different lens. Instead of a sequential playthrough and review, I am going to focus on the game’s puzzles. This game is rightly credited as having some of Meretzky’s most clever mind-benders, but does he put them together in a satisfying way? I will also place LGoP in the context of Infocom’s broader story as we progress towards the end of 1986.

My original plan had been for this to come out as a single post, but it turns out that I have more to say about his puzzles than I thought. Rather than cut it down, I’ve decided to split the work into two. Today, we’ll cover the introduction and collect the first four key items. Next week, we’ll conclude with the final puzzles and some thoughts on how the game comes together as a whole.

Another in-joke that got out of hand?

Leather Goddesses of Phobos began as an office in-joke that got out of hand. As early as 1982, Steve Meretzky, still only a game tester rather than designer, scrawled the name onto a whiteboard with a list of upcoming titles before a press event. It was erased quickly, but it became a bit of a catch phrase around the office and would be mentioned whenever a hypothetical game was needed. This repeated meme wound its way into an official Infocom product in 1984 with the re-release of Starcross. As previously discussed, the shift to standard packaging as part of the “corporatization” of Infocom led to changes in all of the earlier titles’ game documentation. The earliest titles, such as Zork and Starcross, received expanded backstories although even later games saw changes. For Starcross, this backstory included a set of the player character’s diary entries that highlighted his boredom before his date with destiny. Tucked away in one such entry is the first public mention of the Leather Goddesses:

M.C.S. STARCROSS 03-28-2186 

Underway less than four weeks and I’m about to go crazy! First, the entertainment tapes were mislabelled. It’s all highbrow stuff like operas and lectures. Leather Goddesses of Phobos was really something about the history of the Terran Union. What a rip-off! I suppose I can always talk to the computer. I can’t stand those tapes. I’ll save them for later in the voyage when I’m really desperate. I’ll play games with the computer to keep amused that way.

Although this furthers my suspicion that Meretzky was the uncredited author of some of these new materials, it wasn’t long before Brian Moriarty got into the swing of things as well. The pleasure arcade in Wishbringer featured a Leather Goddesses of Phobos arcade game. While we never got more than that title tease, the idea spread around the office enough that when Meretzky– just off of his failure of A Mind Forever Voyaging— suggested making the game “for real” that it may have felt fait accompli. Their soon-to-be corporate overlords didn’t object and before long Infocom had its official twenty-first adventure game!

Infocom struggled to find consistent sales from the earliest days.

The mass protests never manifested, but Meretzky still managed to garner a few complaints and a computer store or two that refused to sell the title. Still others were unhappy that a game sold based on sexual content wasn’t pornographic enough. Whether or not the controversy helped, Leather Goddesses sold more than 50,000 copies in the first year and ended its run at 130,000 units total, making it Infocom’s sixth most popular title ever. Not bad for a game released so late in the company’s history! This success guaranteed that it would receive a spinoff, the Infocomic Lane Mastodon vs. the Blubbermen in 1988, plus a proper sequel in 1992. Sierra would even parody the title in Space Quest IV.

Activision may have eventually become a bit squeamish about the title. Inexplicably, they did not include it in either of the two Lost Treasures of Infocom sets from 1991 and 1992. Purchasers of the second set could order the game via a special coupon, but at $9.95 (roughly $19 today), that was no small sum for a six-year old text adventure. It was also not included in any of the 1995 compilation box sets, but would finally be included in the Classic Text Adventure Masterpieces of Infocom (1996). That box set was also the first to include non-Infocom games released alongside Infocom ones, but that will be a conversation for another day. It was not until 2012 when Leather Goddesses was finally included in an official Lost Treasures set, the much-loved but now dead release for iOS. I am still angry at Activision for refusing to update that app for 64-bit devices.

Also note the first appearance of the “Infocomix” branding!

Much like their other titles, Leather Goddesses included “feelies” including a Lane Mastodon comic, a scratch-and-sniff pad, and even a map of one of the game’s dungeons. As usual for this period, the comic is required reading as it includes copy protection solutions for several of the game’s puzzles. The comic was drawn by Richard Howell, known for stints at both Marvel and DC as well as helming his own independent comics company. He may be best known for his work on Vision & Scarlet Witch, a series that serves as one of the inspirations for the upcoming WandaVision TV show. The comic was converted to 3-D by Ray Zone, a pioneer in commercializing red-blue 3-D art and who produced many such works during the 80s and 90s. Howell also produced illustrations for the hint book.

The manual tries to place the game in the Zork universe, at least in a tongue-in-cheek way. There are references to Zorkmids and even Dimwit Flathead. While the two previous games that mentioned the Leather Goddesses (Starcross and Wishbringer) were “Zork universe” games, I just cannot buy the technology in this game making sense in the sci-fi worlds of Starcross or Planetfall. I’m going to hold my personal head-canon that Leather Goddesses is popular fiction in the Zork universe and you can all snicker at me that I would even think about this enough to care. There is also a mail-away coupon in the manual for self-help books like you would find advertised in old comics. The address on the coupon is in Somerville, Massachusetts (the next town over from Infocom’s offices near Boston), but the street name doesn’t appear to exist. I’m at a loss to explain what they were doing here as they should either have gone with a very fictional address (so that it was obviously fake) or a real one (so that they could sell some unexpected “feelies”); an address that looks mostly real but doesn’t lead anywhere is very strange. It is also possible that Somerville renamed that street in the last three decades.

Downtown Upper Sandusky, circa 2009.

Our game begins– after a warning that the software we are about to play should not be played by the prudish– outside of Joe’s Bar in Upper Sandusky, Ohio. If you are a child, as I am, of that part of the midwest then your mind immediately went to just how awesome a place Sandusky, Ohio always seemed. On the shores of Lake Erie, Sandusky is the home of Cedar Point, one of the oldest and greatest amusement parks in the United States. Pittsburghers know that Kennywood is even better, but Cedar Point was still a pretty cool place. However, Meretsky fooled us: the game takes place in Upper Sandusky, a town along the Sandusky River a bit more than an hour south and completely devoid of amusement parks.

The primary purpose of the bar is to give us a chance to customize our Leather Goddesses experience. After a night of drinking, we have to relieve ourselves and to do so we have to select whether we are going into the Ladies’ room or the Men’s room. Inside we find a stool which we’d better grab and then do our business. That will set our gender for the remainder of the game. I’ve played through as both male and female, but other than swapping the genders of our comrade-in-arms (either Trent or Tiffany, always the same gender as you) and a few other (ahem) partners along the way, it doesn’t change much. A few turns later, the Leather Goddesses abduct us and lock us in a cell on their spaceship.

Escaping the cell is simplistic as the Goddesses simply left the door unlocked. They also left behind a surprising number of adventure game provisions (including a painting of a cat, flashlight, blanket, metal tray, and piece of chocolate). From there, we can explore their ship, easily rescue a ditsy-but-genius new friend from the cell across the hall, and teleport ourselves towards adventure. A couple of  seconds after rescuing her/him, Tiffany/Trent will have an eureka moment and work out a plan to build a device that can defeat the Leather Goddesses and save the Earth, but we’ll need to find eight surprisingly mundane objects to complete the task. These consist of: a common household blender, six-feet of rubber hose, a pair of cotton balls, an eighty-two degree angle, a headlight from a 1933 Ford, a white mouse, a photo of Douglas Fairbanks, and a copy of the Cleveland phone book. Why these items? We have to play the game to find out.

The primary thrust of the game will be to explore Mars and Venus, as well as a bit of Earth and other locations, as we track down the key items. The design of the planets are heavily influenced by the work of astronomer Percival Lowell who, in the 19th century, popularized the idea that Mars may have been an arid landscape cross-crossed by canals. This was then used and reused, perhaps most famously by Edgar Rice Burroughs in his John Carpenter series of books. This game’s depiction of nations on Mars in a state of decay may also have been inspired by Burroughs. Most of this exploration is done by locating and using “black circles” which are scattered literally everywhere; entering one will take you to some other location, usually with no immediate way back. In this way, the game keeps up tension and you are forced into situations where the only way out is to progress forward until you can locate the next circle. Gradually, we develop a network of such portals that allow us to explore at will. Once on Mars, we will eventually discover a royal barge that can be used on the still-intact canals to float downstream. Passing by each canal dock only once (until an alternate method of transportation is discovered near the end of the game), we again feel the tension of needing to do everything and explore everything carefully because there is no way back once we leave. While I may not love the setting, we have to give Meretzky credit for building a not-quite-open world in a new and interesting way and unlocking new areas to explore incrementally. It’s well done. Let’s dig into the puzzles.

Second game in a row with a killer Venus Flytrap!

Puzzle #1 – Venus Fly Trap One of the two black circles that we can discover on the Leather Goddesses’ ship leads to a jungle on Venus and our first real puzzle. It also happens to be one of my least favorite, an example both of how clever Meretzky can be and also how he can overdo it. I suspect that playtesters had difficulty with this one because they added a second solution that is at least more straight-forward than the first.

Immediately after we arrive, a Venus flytrap approaches. It blocks a path to the west, so you know going west must be important. As it chases us east, we quickly reach a fork in the road where the path circles around a pit in the ground. My immediate thought is that we are supposed to get the pit between us and the flytrap, perhaps lure it to the other side then sidle around so that we can go west without it catching us. That idea was completely wrong. If we hide in the pit, the plant will go away, but she comes back when we emerge. How are we to get past her?

At the beginning of the game, we found a piece of paper with a grid of letters on it in Tiffany’s cell. She claimed to not know what it was and that she wrote it in her sleep. Converted to a spreadsheet for easy editing, the grid looks like this:

  My first guess was that it was a code, especially as a code is mentioned in the Lane Mastodon comic. Unfortunately, that is a dead end. My break came when I noticed the word “HEADLIGHT” in the second row from the bottom. When we first discovered the paper, Tiffany had not yet had her “eureka!” moment, but by now we know that a headlight (from a 1933 Ford) is one of the key items that we have to find. Searching carefully, we realize that this matrix is a word search puzzle and some variant on the names of each of the eight objects can be found inside. If we find and remove them all, a secret message is revealed:

The message reads: “HISSING FRIGHTENS FLY TRAPS”. I follow its instructions to hiss at the flytrap chasing us and it is destroyed, allowing me to reach the western edge of the jungle. There, we find a can of “untangling cream” and a circle leading to the hold of a mysterious spaceship. More on those later. If we had not worked out the word search, we could eventually discover a wooden trellis and a bag of leaves. By combining those over the put, we create a flytrap trap that has the same effect.

I wish I loved this puzzle because the idea of a word search isn’t terrible, but it doesn’t make any sense in context. Tiffany wrote it before she designed the anti-Leather Goddesses weapon and it’s strange that she would have embedded a solution to a completely unrelated puzzle inside. Tiffany’s subconscious may be clever, but this feels a bit too clever. If there had been a hint somewhere– perhaps Tiffany remarking about a dream that she had while we were running away from the flytrap– it would have worked better for me. As it is, I solved it on my own but it wasn’t as easy as it looks.

Science!

Puzzle #2 – Weird Science

The second major puzzle on Venus is easier but requires trial and error as we navigate a tricky scripted event. We stumble on a mad scientist’s lab in the jungle and are led inside and forced to participate in one of his experiments. We are taken down to the basement where we discover a cage with two gorillas inside (one male and one female), next to a slab covered in strange equipment. We also immediately notice that the cage contains a six-foot length of rubber hose, the first of our key items. We are quickly strapped to the slab and the scientist presses a button. We immediately discover ourselves in the cage, in a gorilla’s body, with an amorous gorilla of the opposite sex nearby.

While the scientist watches carefully, we are given the choice whether or not we want to “frolic” with our gorilla counterpart. Is it bestiality to have sex with a gorilla while you are a gorilla? I have no idea. Regardless of how we choose, the scientist notes our response with excitement and leaves us in the cage.

Escaping is the most difficult part. We do not have the strength to bend the bars, but the game implies that we almost do. How can we get a little more strength? The answer relies on us figuring out the properties of one of the items we found earlier: the chocolate bar delivered with our food way back when we arrived in the Leather Goddesses’ cell. If we had eaten it at any point, we would have received a bit of a “buzz” thanks to the sugar. If we eat it right now, the added sugar and energy it provides is enough to allow our gorilla-self to bend the bars. Unfortunately, the bar is being held by our human-self so that means that we need to quickly put it in the cage during a brief window (1-2 turns) after we are brought downstairs but before we are strapped to the table. Once we are free, we can push the red button to return to our own body, but we should not do so until we (as a gorilla) take the hose out of the cage and untie our human-self. Otherwise, we just wasted time and the game is unwinnable.

This is a fun “on rails” puzzle to solve, but it’s all trial and error and passing items into the cage during that brief window. I worked it out but honestly thought that gorillas (like many other animals) were unable to eat chocolate. Once we get the timing down and do everything we need to do, it’s a fun sequence.

Before we leave Venus, we’ll need to finish exploring the jungle. There’s a coin hidden in an old phone booth, a “Tee Remover” that can be bought off of a traveling salesman, as well as a black circle that gets us back to the main ship. Experienced players may have more difficulty with the traveling salesman than it would appear since he will only accept the flashlight as trade; I was very reluctant to trade my only light source in fear that there would be other dark areas to explore and so only did this when I was stuck elsewhere.

Poor King Midas!

Puzzle #3 – King Mitre Mars is the largest explorable area of the game, although we will have to navigate some puzzles to get to much of it. The area that we are dropped into initially consists of several ruined castles and deserts, surrounded on three sides by a martian canal system. There’s a canal boat north of King Mitre’s castle– more on him in a moment– but the canal is a one-way trip and can land us in an unwinnable state. The first puzzle we find is perhaps the most famous puzzle of the game: King Mitre.

When we arrive in Mitre’s throne room, we get a long infodump where we learn that the Earth legend of King Midas who turned all that he touched into gold is just a corrupted form of the story of King Mitre who turned everything he touched into forty-five degree angles. The game itself admits that this makes no sense, but we go with it for the sake of the puzzle. Much like in the legend, the now depressed king has turned nearly everything, including his daughter, into a forty-five degree angle. He needs some help. What are we to do?

The answer lies in the odd machine that we bought off the salesman on Venus, the “Tee Remover”:

‘It’s a TEE remover,’ he explains. You ponder what it removes — tea stains, hall T-intersections — even TV star Mr. T crosses your mind, until you recall that it’s only 1936.

The “Tee Remover” is a small device with a door and a button. You place something inside, shut the door, push the button, and it will have all of it’s “T’s” removed. It’s quite clever. Later on, we’ll be able to turn a rabbit into a rabbi and many other fun jokes, but for now the key thing is to realize that the “untangling cream” that we discovered in the Venusian jungle can quickly become “unangling cream” when we remove its t’s. If we apply that to King Mitre’s daughter, she reverts to normal. The king becomes so overjoyed that he provides us with an eighty-two degree angle in reward. How he did this when he can only create 45-degree angles is left as an exercise for the reader. We take it and continue on our quest.

As you leave, you hear behind you the sound like a forty-five degree angle landing on a pile of forty-five degree angles. “Oh shit! Not again!”, you hear Mitre moan.

The joy in this puzzle comes from working out what the “Tee Remover” does and how we can apply it to the situation. Depending on whether the player went to Mars or Venus first, it’s possible that this puzzle could have remained a mystery for a while. Unfortunately, this is the only case where the Tee Remover comes in useful; while there are other t’s to remove for added humor (“rabbit” into “rabbi” is my favorite), there are no more where we need it to solve a puzzle. Overall, this deserves its reputation of being the most “fun” puzzle in the game, but it still doesn’t make a ton of sense.

Elsewhere on Mars, we can discover a marsmouse on “Hickory-Dickory Dock”. As a mouse is one of the key items, we try to pick it up and fail. Despite the name suggesting that this puzzle would have something to do with a clock, the actual solution is trivial: show the mouse the picture of a cat and it will become stunned enough to pick up. It’s a bit of a letdown really, but that is two key objects in just a few minutes!

Pittsburgers call Cleveland “The Mistake on the Lake”

Puzzle #4 – Cleveland Rocks!

In a desert east of Mitre’s castle, we discover a fountain and a black circle that has been drained of color. If we use the black stain that we discovered on Venus, we can re-power the circle and are transported to the mythical land of… Cleveland!

Cleveland is, literally, a joke. After the sprawling expanses of Venus and Mars, we suddenly find ourselves cramped in a tiny suburban area that is somehow cut off from the rest of the world. Meretzky pokes fun at this, but the minimalism of this area feels jarring compared to the dynamic environments elsewhere. I’m sure that was deliberate:

You suddenly find yourself longing for the slime pits of Venus or the sandstorms of Mars. This particular section of Cleveland has exits to the northeast and south.

We can explore two backyards and enter one tiny house. The yards have a bag of leaves and a wooden trellis that we can take, both of which could be used in the alternate Venus Flytrap solution. As it is, the sack is only useful for me as a way to ease the inventory limit.

Inside the house, we find a bedroom with a window open to a neighboring street. Just outside is a 1933 Ford with an intact headlight– one of our key items! If this had been a real location, it would be simple to just go around to the public street where the Ford is parked and pick up the headlight. Instead, we can only get there by climbing out a second-story window. How can we do that? Searching the room, we discover a sheet on the nearby bed. We can tie it to the bedpost, but it’s not long enough to reach the window. We cannot move the bed or tie the sheet to anything closer. The solution is to make the sheet longer by ripping it into strips and then tying them together to create a makeshift rope, then tie the assembled rope to the bed. We are too heavy for the rope, but Tiffany will agree to go down instead. Doing so seems like a mistake:

Tiffany climbs down the rope and unscrews the headlight. Suddenly, a truck barrels down the road and hits Tiffany, carrying her out of sight. Moments later, you hear an explosion. As the smoke drifts past the window, your eyes fill with tears. You hang your head in sorrow for a moment to honor your brave, loyal companion who gave her life that humanity might be safe from the terrible scourge of the Leather Goddesses of Phobos.

Of course, she is revealed to have survived the blast a turn or two later after a misadventure with miners on Pluto or something similarly nonsensical. I could not solve this puzzle on my own and had to take a hint. I worked out that I could tie things to the bed and I was trying to use the sheet as a rope, but I never thought to rip the sheet into strips and assemble them that way. I suspect that I have not watched enough jailbreak movies. Tiffany also usually ignores you when you ask for help, but she leaps to it this time.

My biggest issue with this puzzle is how unnecessary it seems. We’re in Cleveland. The car is parked on a public street. It breaks my sense of immersion in the game to have such a clearly constructed puzzle only make sense within the realm of a game. Had Meretzky had duplicated the exact same puzzle in a motel on Ganymede, I am certain I would have enjoyed it more. Either way, we have picked up our fourth key item. Only four more to go!

But… we’ll just have to wait until next week for our shocking conclusion.

source http://reposts.ciathyza.com/infocom-marathon-leather-goddesses-of-phobos-1986-part-one/