a really well done and exciting game!

Oh my, just escaped Jonathan May's Return to the Archipelago and here we go again. Great start for this year! I find this Tulse Luper especially interesting because I am a huge Peter Greenaway fan. (Notice: it's Greenaway, not Greenway)

My first reaction was: Tulse Luper, damn that sounds familiar. Then when you said Greenaway was behind this, that sounded right. I haven't been paying attention to Greenaway for a while, so I didn't know until I looked just now that he has three recent films called "The Tulse Looper Suitcases". My specific memory of the name is from an old short of his "A Walk Through H: The Reincarnation of an Ornithologist", though I think it's shown up in other films too (other than the "Suitcase" ones I mean).

I saw Greenaway at the Cambridge film festival, and his grand plan is to provide a pyramid structure for experiencing the tulse luper story. It is topped by a 2 and half hour edit of the three longer films that he made, which will be followed (apparently) by 92 DVDs and this game, which is presumably the bottom layer, of ultimate immersion.

However, the problem I had at the time, and still have now to a lesser extent. Is that far from being new collaborative media, Greenaway is still distancing himself from his audience, as the creator of all of this. And I think the logical force of his arguments about new media are the merging of audience and creator (wikipedia being a supreme example.)

The game presents less problems in this respect, as it's been developed as a massive collaboration, with the games for each suitcase being designed with relative freedom by people from all over the place, and Submarine providing the infrastructure. But I still feel that at a fundamental level this is very much Peter Greenaway's Tulse Luper Story, and that sits uncomfortably with the ideas he has regularly espoused for the past 10 years.

Anyone wanting to watch a Greenaway film should seek out "the Cook, the Thief, his Wife and her Lover", as it is the one film he has made that works cohesively. All of his films are interesting, but often they are filled with ideas that link to each other, but which never all link up at once.

About 15 years ago he directed a movie called drowning by numbers which also contained some sort of puzzle

Greenaway wants to be excentric but most of the times his movies are just pompous self indulgent and decadent. let's hope this game is not

Maybe it's easier to enter the game from the start with a short introduction: www.tulseluperjourney.com, instead of www.tulseluperjourney.com/game which leads you immediately to the login ...

As a member of the ARG community myself, the characteristics of an ARG are a little on the "light" side. From what I can gather so far, the suitcases are "found" within the game, by the game. Only when they "find" them do you have the opportunity to play the game for the information contained (which is also how they can stipulate the 18 month cycle without fail). An ARG would have them literally placed around the globe, but would need to be accesible to players that are in the game. Not all players play every game, its all about tastes and preferences.

The game does seem to have a very nice set-up, and the puzzles are fairly diverse. The idea of the community working together is simply nobody knows everything and someone might have information you dont (definitely an ARG concept), but it is simply on-screen. There isnt anywhere I saw to post any findings, questions, etc...

ANYHOO, this game is well designed and seems to be fun so far, so I'll keep messing with it. If at first you get confused as to what to do, simply go into the Research Centers, pull up any suitcase that says "Locked - Play game to unlock" just click it and it will start the game. I spent the first 15 minutes wandering around trying to "play the game" and find suitcases :P

Good luck everyone

I'm no purist. In fact, I am also a huge fan of the work of Peter Greenaway. But I do think it ought to be mentioned somewhere on your review that not all of the puzzles in this game are appropriate for children.

With that said, this is a great game. Thank you for finding this.

But now the game doesn't work at all!

The game should work again, I restarted the server :-)

Cheers, Simon! =)

And cheers Pynchon82 for the heads-up on the content. I have updated the review with a cautionary message.

Now that the game is up and running, this is one of the single best web games I have ever played. I cannot believe they are letting us play this for free.

Between this game and the recently discovered Puzzle Pirates, I may never actually do any real work at work again.

I am stuck on a couple of puzzles, though. And I'm sort of confused as to how you get new suitcases. Do you have to solve the suitcases that you have first? Or do you trade suitcases with other players?

I was a but flummoxed until I figured out that if you trade item A to get item B, both traders will in fact somehow keep both items. So, it's not so much trade as much as it is..."copy-paste onto the other guy's inventory".

...Sort of. What you trade away will disappear from your trading suitcase, but will stay in the lab so you can watch all parts of the movie. So it's there, but not really. Yes it is.

I'm having a devil of a time trading. How exactly do you do it?

There's also a little game in here called "Whistles" that has had me flummoxed for a half hour or so.

Click a person in "community", then click the dollar sign to trade. Remember to place all the items you want to trade and trade for on the table BEFORE you press any more buttons!

Also, that frog game is flummoxing me terribly. What are those letters an anagram of?

Have completed all of my suitcases except one.

Still wondering how I get new suitcases?

Here is a hint for the frogs

Hope that helps :)

Wait--that last letter was a G, not a B. No wonder I was confused.

This game's great. Still don't get trading though. Oh, and Jay - did you know that www.jayisgames.net is now registered to one of those annoying 'fake' websites? If I were you, I'd be honoured.

Sorry about the double post, but I just realised that so is www.jayis.com

Okay, here is my interpretation for the game. So far there are following suitcases available:

Capmid R.F. 03, 04, 17, 32, 36

Nordberg Institute 07, 44, 63, 65, 83

Huyen Centre 12, 13, 21, 70

I understood that you are not supposed to search new suitcases. The game developers just reveal them every now and then. So "all" that you can do is travel between places and play some games to open the suitcases and watch movie clips. And of course do some trading… But based on what is said on TLJ forum, you do not trade suitcases. You trade layers for movie clips. Notice that movie clips looks somewhat incomplete. That's because there are three(?) layers per each movie clip and you see only one after you have opened the suitcase. So you can trade layers to see the whole clips. Am I right or am I wrong?

Well, I am not sure if that is all, or is it really so. I have not made any trades yet because I wanted to open all the available suitcases first. All except numbers 44 and 65 done. There were some server problems so I could not download them. Someone tried to contact me in order to trade but I had just clicked for the travel so I missed that experience. Next I try to do the first move if I have enough credit. I spent 300 points just for flights.

Actually I am a little disappointed with the game. Just some puzzles to solve and films to watch. Is that all or have I missed something? Though you can do some research on your own as well… When solving the puzzle for suitcase number 36 (Radio Equipment) you hear some Morse coded message that goes: "leifbrush". It reminds me of the "Rosebud" thing in "Citizen Cane". And if you Google for leifbrush you find quite interesting stuff: http://www.d.umn.edu/~lbrush/LeifBrush.html

Went back to Norberg Institute and immediately received two offers. Now I have all layers for number 63 (Feathers & Eggs).

After I read some more about this project I came in to conclusion that ultimately this is just a way to promote Greenaway's production. Pompous or not ;)

Well, nice way to promote new art forms. And found that University of Art and Design Helsinki is also involved into this. Way to go Finns :)

I'd rather be able to find the suitcases in the game, and not over some crazy period of 18 months, although 1 or 2 months would be okay. Might as well wait till next year to play XD.
It seems each player only gets either the .1 .2 .3 layer of each clip, so if you get two friends to play along with you, and each of you gets different layers...voila, all clips easily completed!
Oh, and Yellow Paint can be painful if you use a touch pad ;_;
It would of been cool if Radio Equipment had nothing to do with math (as it hints in the game) but rather just have it be based on the hints in the book

Harukio, are you using the same alias on TLJ? And what comes to Radio Equipment, you can solve it also

However I allmost lost my interest. I don't understand how should you start the trade? And nobody helped me on that when I asked about it on communities. After you have solved all the available puzzles it turns to kids play where you trade some chewing gum tags (or what you call them in English?).

This game has some wonky interface problems
I'd like to be able to type the number and jump to a suitcase instead of scrolling, the chatting is HORRIBLE, and travelling is just dumb. The smartest thing to do would be to sit at one place until all the cases there have appeared and then go to the other two places and complete the whole thing.
And there's no insentive to use credits when trading, unless it does something useful like give you more space to put down your trades...

Maybe when they update with more suitcases, they'll fix some of those problems...

You are absolutely right Harukio. And if you meet some veterans who allready have all the clips, then what to trade? Or can you just go around and give the clips for free? I don't know. I hope someone writes a proper help pages for this game. Or is it part of the game that it has to be so "mysterious" for the rookies?

It seems that trading is just like copying, the reason that you won't see all your film layers when you trade is that you only see what clips of yours that the other person does not have, and you only see the clips they have that you don't.

I think that I am a bit slow, but finally I understood that. But can you just give them? If you don't want anything in return. Or is it then that the other person has to buy them with the credit points?

It's useful that instead of clips, you can trade money or credits or whatever. I'm glad they thought of that

Also: my nick over at the thing is "Kolin Chasm", and I'll be hanging out at the North Pole-ish place, mostly, if anyone is interested in trading.

Oh and yey I'm #4 on the high score list...weehee...

hey my nick over there at tulse is sleepysheep. Saw kolin chasm and harukio before. I've all the layers for all the current available suitcases. So if u wanna trade, come find me. ciaoz =)
Oh and you can earn ur credits by replaying the games again, so u don't have to worry about having no credits.

I have attempted to trade but no responses. If anyone sees me over there, please let me know how to do it.

Also, I could use help with puzzle #36, the radio equipment. I know the code, I've got the first 9 dials correct, but am unable to move any other dial to complete the puzzle, any suggestions?

Radio equipment counts the top green button as a switch, so if you've got 9 correct there's one you haven't really gotten yet. Hint:

Here is how to trade. Go to community room and click on the peoples $ sign. It opens the trading board. What you see then is what you can offer that the other person don't allready have, and what the other person can offer that you don't have. So you don't actually see what you and the other person have in general. Only what is tradable.

An example: Your board is empty and other persons board is quite full. So you have probably met one of those who allready have all the layers for all movie clips. What you can do is to offer some credits instead. Just drag the thing that looks like banknote from your side on the table (you may want to use +-sign to define some amount), then drag the layers that you want from the other person board on the table as well, and make a bid. Remember, if you see me there, do offer zero credits. I don't charge for the layers.

An other example: If there are tradable layers on both sides, then just drag what you want and give something for change from your side, and bid.

Finally you just have to wait for a while so that the the other person notices your bid and either accepts or rejects it.

Notice that you can also trade layers for those movie clips that are not opened yet. It is not necessary so nice to offer layers for unopened clips. It takes some reasoning to find out what layer line the other person are playing and what s/he has allready opened. But I am not going to explain that in here. Maybe later :)

There are two way to solve the radio equipment:

And pull the crank when you think you have solved the part of the pyramid ;)

Some more instructions:

- Earn more credits by playing easy games like 03, 07 and 21 (last one is easy for me). And don't waste your time on sinners on number 07 ;) Just memorize the saints and answer false to two sinners and you get 30 credits more.

- To use the chat, do not hurry. I think that the bubble disappears while you are writing your line. Meanwhile the other people can't see your bubble. So give enough time for others to read what you have wrote.

- If you want to use the mail system (the letter sign on other players), then remember not to spend more than 20 to 30 seconds before you post the message. At least for me the mail system opened on the same window and you can just guess what happens. You will quit the game aka logg out in 20 or 30 seconds! And remember, there's no direct possibility to reply on received messages.

So this is very unfinished game :( I hope they will fix these problems.

Thank you Amor for all your help.

You are welcome slgalt:)

And currently I am working on with the spoiler for "Cleaning Materials" (number 21). It takes a while...

Spoiler for 21. "Cleaning materials" (one solution):

I hope it works :/

I think I need a graphics tablet for 65. "Yellow Paint" :(

I somehow was able to do Yellow Paint with my touchpad.....even when I failed the last part (but got something like 99%).
That game is pretty aggrivating >.<

I used touchpad as well but 16% was best I got!

Either I have problems to run that Flash or I have serious motoric disability :(

Hint for the spent matches: Don't let your opponent leave you stuck with 9 or 5 matches left.

I'm stuck on Whistles at the moment, and yellow paint is cramping my hand.

Anyone know how frequent they release new puzzles?

If they publish them regularly, then I guess that the speed is 92 clips per 18 moths, which makes 5.11 per month ;)

I have officially given up on the Yellow Paint. I have used a mouse and a tablet with a stylus. I can get his name, but with the second long part it always gives me an x right at the end. Argh.

Any tips for Whistles?

Tip for Whistles:

The rest is down to you. Hope I've helped!

I forgot to mention the obvious solution for the private posting problem: write the message in some text editor first! Then access the form for private posting and copy/paste your message on posting form. In that way you don't have to worry to be logged out while writing the message.

I hope they fix this soon...

I'm glad to get to put up my first spoiler!

This is for S.36 - Radio Equipment

It's a straight up spoil-it-rotten ;) so dont click if you want to keep pondering on it..

Folks, in case you have not noticed, the game developers do follow the TLJ forum and they are doing their best to make this game even better: http://www.tulseluperjourney.com/mmbob/index.jsp?forumid=tljforum

Admin (Peter?) just opened Welcome thread where, among other thigs, he says that players will get email announcment when new suitcases become available.

And Madlock wrote that they are working on with some improvements for trading system. There's already some layout fixes made after first week of January. Madlock also wrote that freshly traded fragments (or layers) should now be seen highlighted on lab view, which makes it easier to spot them. Well, cant test that one since I already have all layers but it sounds very good feature ;)

why can't i see the engraved letters on the bones of the frogs? i wasted my time just looking for nothing... nice game though...

The Yellow Paint! But she is driving me isane! And I've got the benefit of a touch-pad. Thanks for all the help here. :)

For the frogs: You drag frog onto the small screen, then you select a clear xray image which will appear on the large screen. You then have to drag the image all around the big screen in order to capture the image of the letters.

There is one letter per frog, there are I think two xrays to examine for each, one is blank, one will have the letter.

Oooh! There is a new suitcase! In Huyen Canter. #11

And we have the mysterious 23.2 as well...

See thread 'General' at TLJ forum.

Here is something to point and click for those who has not seen Greenaway's Tulse Luper DVDs, films and TV series:

http://www.digiscreen.ca/weblers/tulse/flash.html

There you can find the suitcases as well ;)

New suitcase! Number 37 at Capmid.

And they have improved the trade system. Now you can see what both players allready have. The tradable ones are highlighted.

Thanks TLJ developers :)

Moreover, the system for sending private messages in the community room is fixed, quota for private messages increased, and now you can reply to private messages :D

The new game, Clean Linen, is awful.
Click and drag to shoot...but you don't always hit the darn birds or shoot far enough.
Stupid birds.

Clean Linen is not only a bad game, it is needlessly vulgar. Doesn't fit the feeling of the other games at all.

this might sound stupid but how the heck are you meant to do the puzzles?!

I have just started on this. The FROGS!!! What is that last letter?? Ii can not figure the word out! Please help!!!!
And soon!!!! And Jay, new fan!!!! I love your site....You and eBay are now my regulars!!! Keep up the excellent work!!

heres a hint:

i cant get it to load crys second game i can get to load wounder whats happening Ffirexxx

stuck on the erotic paintings how do you find the g-spots by the time you focus time runs out and i dont know what im looking for