Worlds within worlds... Let's Play Torin's Passage!

Torin's Passage is a point and click Sierra adventure game from 1995, developed by Al Lowe. If you don't know that name, Al Lowe is most well known for the Leisure Suit Larry series. The game was designed for children, which is interesting because of the reputation for how adult Leisure Suit Larry is, and surprised some folks. This was actually by design! Al Lowe wanted to make a game that he could play with his then 11-year old daughter.

An interesting bit of trivia is that Al Lowe was inspired by the movie Mrs. Doubtfire. When seeing the movie with his daughter, he noticed how there were two different groups laughing: kids laughing at the slapstick, and the deeper guffaws of knowing adults getting a joke that the kids wouldn't get. He thought "Why can't there be a game I can play with my daughter that works like that."

Getting into my personal history, this was a game my cousins owned... (I swear, a ton of my games seem to have this statement somewhere) And it had a few brain scratchers here and there that puzzled us!

The world of Torin's Passage is interesting because the world is made up of nesting worlds. Like those Russian dolls. There are a total of five worlds.

Table of Contents
#00: Prologue
#01: The Lands Above
#02: Escarpa
#03: Pergola
#04: Asthenia
#05: Tenebrous

Looking forward to this!

Well lets go ahead and start with the Prologue, a couple videos to start the game out!


#00: Prologue
Wherein Red likes the animation, is reminded of Black Cauldron, and tries to shut up during the cutscenes.

So lets get into the meat of the game, and see how the puzzles work in this one!

Chapter 1 is The Lands Above, taking place on Torin's homeworld. However, it seems like our destination, The Lands Below, isn't just somewhere people can waltz into! The game makes it sound like a prison of some sort.

The Lands Above isn't too tricky, and a touch I like is that some games would consider certain actions a non-standard Game Over but here they just make a quip and you keep going.

Surprisingly, the key to breaking in to a place you're not supposed to go might just be... terrible food.


#01: The Lands Above
Wherein Red finds the ridonkulous speed option, learns not to tease the croctopus, kids,, and makes a gourmet meal.

Oh god, the puns...

No, I haven't forgotten this. The last video had some issues and needs to be rerecorded.

So when we were in the Lands Above, you get the impression that the Lands Below are filled with the worst sorts of people, criminals that banishment is considered proper for. "Nutsos! Malcontents! Psychos! Politicians!" So it's safe to say you have a pretty clear mental image what you'll see going in.

...I wonder if your mental image gets shattered as quickly as mine did back in the day.

That said, lets explore Escarpa. We might even find part of something important.


#2: Escarpa
Wherein Red wanders into a sitcom, meets the best queen, and comforts the Area Below.

Started watching this, the puns indeed. Classic Sierra.

I love that the "Eye Five" maneuver is just a pun for pun's sake, as the number five is not involved in it whatsoever. XD It's more of a "High Eye", really.

And Booger, I mean Google, I mean... that's gotta be one of the ugliest "cute mascot" designs ever, my God. XD
Also, gotta love that you have an inventory of specific Burgle shapes, and the first puzzle you need him for doesn't use any of those available shapes. Puzzle Design! :V

ETA: Haven't watched the second video yet, but put me in for "captions always on" pls. As a non-native reading is much easier to follow than listening.

Sitcom actors! Royalty!

And for the record I don't dislike puns - I dislike bad puns.

...

OK, I dislike being on the receiving end of bad puns.

The third world, Pergola, might be the shortest of them all, since there's no exploration or backtracking. Instead, it's more of a story beat before a couple confusing puzzles with the Ostiaries who guard the phenocryst.

But hey, the story is a direct continuation of Escarpa.


#3: Pergola
Wherein Red learns the origin of BEAT, meets a girl with a great personality, and has to figure out how music works.

Continuing the trend of each world being different from the last, the fourth world of Asthenia comes off like a world that's been destroyed by some war. Not many natives this time, but who needs that when you have... THE MAZE.

Thank goodness ludicrous speed is an option this time. Just imagine me playing in '96 with the slowest walking speed.


#4: Ashthenia
Wherein Red finds Freddy Fazbear, goes for a walk along the lava, and finds the Scooby Doo room.

Ugh, this whole world was bad, but that first part of the maze, with the purposefully fucked up pathfinding, what were they thinking? What's even the point of making you click almost pixel by effing pixel?!

Mazes in adventure games, man. Not even once.

Also, the catapult part was pretty clear: there was a symbol with a balanced scale on the trapdoor, you balanced the scale, the trapdoor opened and the catapult came up.

I'm curious to see what would've happened if you'd jumped into it without a cannon ball though. (I guess probably a death by being thrown into the lava)

Part of me wonders if he could have just put a cannonball on each side of the scale.

So when we left Asthenia for the fifth world of Tenebrous, Torin hit his head and died. Which no other choice, we'll have to carry on playing as Boogle. Sorry everyone!

...Okay, not really, but that doesn't mean there won't be some Boogle shenanigans to horrify you. But despite Tenebrous being the fifth world, no one has heard of Lycentia... So what's the catch? And further, what's the mystery involving her and the hooded man we met back in video #0?

The one puzzle I dreaded the most is in this world, though, so, be warned. Let's enjoy this finale for Torin's Passage!


#5: Tenebrous
Wherein Red finds the Percy worms, encounters that one puzzle, and learns the secret to magic.

Well, that was one unexpectedly quick and anticlimatic resolution. You can tell they intended to do more games, because nothing is ever explored in depth, and whassername princess with a great personality never shows up again.

Regarding the dreaded, er.... obstacle (I won't dignify it calling it a puzzle): I thought that labyrinth from the previous world was the most pointlessly cruel challenge to the player they could come up with. Boy, was I wrong. My God.

To end on a more positive note, though, I did like the bits of meta humor with Dongle and the wipes or, specially, Torin accidentally hitting the menu, that was clever.
Also, right before that one, there's this little visual gag of Gooble-goble walking behind one of the duct's "windows", then Torin crawling along... then somehow Bugle again. XD

Thanks for the LP, Red, It's cool to see all these Sierra games that I never got to play.