Replaying MCF: Fate's Carnival

I've been replaying MCF: Fate's Carnival today.

Fate's Carnival is the 10th MCF game, made by Elephant Games.
The original MCF: Madame Fate was the 4th game in the MCF series, was released in October 2008, and was made by Big Fish Studios.
Mostly the original MCF: Madame Fate was a straight HOP.

MCF: Fate's Carnival was released 5 years later, and is an iHOP/HOPA.

I think my favorite of the MCF series is the 6th one, MCF: Dire Grove, from Big Fish Studios and released in November 2009. Not to be confused with the 11th in the series, MCF: Dire Grove, Sacred Grove, from Elephant Games, released in November 2014.

As much as I like MCF: Dire Grove, MCF: Fate's Carnival comes close.

(Game series releases and dates are
from rgamereview's series list *** here ***)

I thought that Fate's Carnival was an excellent game.

I replayed Madame Fate last year because I really like it. I don't remember Fate's Carnival too well but think I didn't like it as much as Madame Fate. I do have Fate's Carnival installed on my Win 7 computer so maybe I will check it out again to see why.

Fate's Carnival is a great HOPA with neat puzzles, so I will be interested to hear what you have to say about it, oldbroad.

Now you're putting pressure on me Marian.

Sorry.

Well, I finished the Main game.
The Bonus game seems to have a problem with inventory or hotspots not being available, so I don't seem to be able to finish.
Using the Hint button takes me to the location with the strange phone and the cubbyhole with the headless statuette and the snow globes. Nothing can be done there though. Use the Hint again and nothing highlights.

I checked the archive of the Big Fish forums and other players had the same problem at this location. Maybe it matters what order you do things, because I don't remember having this problem the previous times I played the game.

There doesn't seem to be any way to restart the Bonus game without creating a whole new profile and replaying the Main game first.

I did not have any trouble with the bonus game but I've only played the game once. I'm really sorry you ran into this problem, Jenny.

I've played it several times before now.
This is the first time I've had the problem, but sometimes these problems happen if you do things in a different order than what was tested.

Since the problem didn't happen in the Main game, only people who bought the CE would be affected.

You can find some comments about technical issues here
http://forums.bigfishgames.com/forums/show/3620.page

But it's hard to find the exact problem at the exact location.

I remember some CEs I've played where I was given the option to restart/reset the main game and/or the bonus game but this apparently isn't one of those games, unfortunately. That would be a good feature to implement in any game such as this.

Sorry to hear you are stuck. This game is one of my all-time favorites, and I have played it through I dunno, 4 or 5 times. Didn't get stuck, thankfully.
It's a massive game, probably the biggest project the MCF team ever worked on. Playing Madame fate just for a diversion right now, but you can bet I will go back to Fate's Carnival before long.

Just reminds me of the first time I first played King's Quest VI and the game crashed when I made it into the Monster's Lair and a message appeared on screen saying :
"We didn't expect you to do that"
Or words to that effect.
Which really made me laugh !!

You can reset the Main game.
In fact the button to Start over is right next to the button to Continue playing, so you can easily erase youre progress by accident.

No such luck with the Bonus game though.

I've started replaying Mystery Trackers: Raincliff from 2011, another old one.
Stuck on this one too, though I don't think it's a bug.
It's the access card "puzzle" in the bank vault where you have to enter 4 numbers as a key code, only the buttons on the device you use will enter a different number every time. The buttons you may have pressed earlier will change what numbers come up from pressing the same button the next time.

Here's a picture of the puzzle.
https://www.gamezebo.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/a/4866-MT54.jpg

It's confusing. I know I figured it out before, but I'm having trouble now.

I remember having trouble with that Raincliff puzzle too, and like you I don't think it's a bug. Your link unfortunately gives me a page saying error 1011 access denied.

The link worked earlier, but not anymore.
It went directly to one of the pictures in the gamezebo walkthrough.
I figured you didn't want to scroll through the entire walkthrough looking for that puzzle.

You can try ***this link*** that goes directly to Chapter 5 in the walkthrough and scroll up a little to the end of Chapter 4.

Thank you, Jenny. I took a good luck at the puzzle and the solution. I think I almost certainly skipped this one the last time I played. I can see why you are having trouble with it. It's tricky.

Fates Carnival is probably in my top 10 favorite casual games list......

They've got me playing it again now. Just started.

I'm sure I'll replay it again soon enough, and hopefully will be able to finish the Bonus game next time.

I hope so too, Jenny!

I am happy to hear that you played Fate's Carnival, CountZero.

Well, I got annoyed with a puzzle last night. I completed it and it WAS correct but it was not completed in the order the guide showed so it did not take! I ended up having to draw the 12 pictures in the guide so I could resolve the puzzle the way the game wanted me to. It's the puzzle in Madame Fate's trailer, in the chest that requires Gargoyle eyes.

Other people on this forum have reported problems of this nature in regards to puzzles in many different games. I have never had this happen to me, so I guess I've been lucky so far.

I checked a walkthrough and I wasn't able to follow the instructions in the walkthrough.
When I tried, the balls would attach themselves where they shouldn't have gone.
The large balls are only supposed to touch the middle of the sides formed by the small balls, but would get stuck on the corners when I tried to follow the instructions in the walkthrough.

I ended up messing with the puzzle until I somehow did it myself, and pretty much ignoring the instructions in the walkthrough.
If that hadn't eventually worked, I'd just have skipped the thing.
I'm past the point where I feel I have to do every puzzle in a game.
If it's not fun, there's no point.

It did take 3 or 4 attempts even with the guide. I was not reading it quite right I guess. I am also much more quick to use the skip button these days because I agree with this:

"If it's not fun, there's no point."

That's a nasty puzzle! I also skipped it (each time I re-played the game.)

This may be a stupid question Jenny, but did you open the diary and click on (page 4, I think is one of 3 different pages) the page that shows a room? Clicking on the page takes you to the room and there are puzzles to be solved there. One of the rooms has a projector that will bring up the phone numbers if you have a cartridge to put in it. I'm just asking because you say the hint button took you to the phone.

I did run into some minor glitchy areas where active spots were not showing as active and one of the big puzzle wouldn't register my information and I had to skip it half way through. I have finally finished the game and did go into the secret room last night where I ran into a problem of a hidden object not being accessible so I cannot get the item I will need for somebody.

All in all, I still prefer the Madame Fate game over this game. I actually feel this game was too long (if that's possible). There was too much going back and forth and repeating puzzles.

MCF: Madame Fate was one of the first HOG I ever played. It might not have been the best one to start off with as I remember clearly feeling frustrated with not being to find the objects ha ha. They were very cleverly placed and hard to find. Challenging game, but it got me hooked none the less.

Funny you mention MCF: Dire Grove because I just finished that one last month. I gotta say I also thought it was quite good! Makes me want to play the sequel now.