A few weeks ago I started playing Tony Tough and the Night of the Roasted Moths. This was the first Tony Tough game, released in Italy in the late 1990s and then got a US/English release in 2002. It has beautiful, traditional animated graphics, but the game is just impossible. I hear people talking about the Discworld games being hard, but I think Tony Tough and the Night of the Roasted Moths is even harder than the Discworld games.

When you start a new game you can select an "easy" mode and a "hard" mode. The "easy" mode has a picture of a Tony Tough as a baby on it, implying that if you have to use easy mode you're a baby. I selected "hard", but I found out later the only difference between easy and hard mode is that in easy mode there is less stuff you have to do, and that despite that, easy mode is still pretty impossible too. I'll throw this challenge out to anyone right now: try to beat Tony Tough and the Night of the Roasted Moths on hard mode. I gaurantee you, at some point you will break and look up answers online. OR, you will break and begin systematically using everything on everything - which if you do this probably still won't help, due to the huge amount of inventory items and locations. If you used everything on everything, it would probably take you a whole day of sitting there at your computer tediously doing that.

I've played my fair share of adventure games, I know a lot of the tricks developers use in these games, but even so, I could not beat this game. The beginning part where you're at your offices and haven't gotten to the amusement park yet is easy, but after you get into the amusement park you will be lost. The pumpkin game puzzle is pretty easy too I guess, but everything else about this game has been designed from the ground up to trick and mislead you. Even Tony Tough himself will constantly insult you for trying different things "Sometimes I wish I was in command." he will say, or "I don't have enough water on my brain to want to do that." The thing is though, that everything you have to do is so illogical that ONLY someone with water on the brain would try and do it. So even Tony Tough himself misleads you. He will even sometimes say "You know, trying everything with everything won't get you far in an adventure game." After a while, you will start to hate hearing his whiney voice insulting you so much that you will become hesitant to try doing ANYTHING.

Another thing is, when you do finally figure out something it often doesn't lead to a breakthrough, it just leads to another wall. In most adventure games they'll be a few really hard puzzles that when you solve them, when you get that one inventory item that was really hard to get, everything else will fall into place. Not so here. You will get that "one really hard inventory item to get" and then you'll realize that actually was the easy inventory item to get.

As I kept soldiering through Tony Tough, my self-esteem started to decline. I've always thought of myself as an intelligent person who was good at these types of games, but constantly being at a standstill here made me doubt myself. "Maybe I'm not good at puzzles at all. Maybe I really am an idiot" I thought.

The frustration levels also caused me to take it out on my family. I started to yell at my Mom more, and ignore my pets. As I was trying to beat this game I could not think of anything else, even when I was off the computer, I was always thinking in my mind of what I needed to do in the game, and thinking of different ideas. Basically, the entire time I played this, both on the computer and off, I was consumed with an intense frustration.

Eventually, I realized that the time, and the emotional toll the game was taking on me, just wasn't worth it. One afternoon I broke down and looked up help online. Even though I only looked up help for the part I was stuck in, I always feel that when I look up even one answer for an adventure game, even if I use UHS and just get a suggestion that helps me, I feel like the game beat me and I lose interest in playing the rest of it. So it was with Tony Tough and the Night of the Roasted Moths.

I sincerely sympathise, ----- I know the feling very well

I must have played TT around 10 years ago and only remember the odd vague detail !

But I DO remember it left me with the distinct feeling of dislike and sense that if there is ever another - I DO  NOT want to play it.

I don't remember IF or how much I used a walkthru - but I would be surprised if I didn't --- and a LOT !!!

Originally Posted By Len Green (1 MAY 2012 5:44am)

But I DO remember it left me with the distinct feeling of dislike and sense that if there is ever another - I DO  NOT want to play it.

 

There has been another, it's called "Tony Tough: A Rake's Progress", but it has inferior computer generated graphics and not the beautiful, calssic animated graphics of the first one. I haven't played that one so I can't comment on the difficulty level.

But Tony Tough and the Night of the Roasted Moths - man, the thing is now that I read the solutions on the internet it seems so obvious to me, but when I was playing it, it seemed impossible. The translation and voice acting were good, but I do wonder if in the Italian version the diaglogue gave clues which got lost in the English version.

Many thanx for the info although I won't be playing Tony Tough 2 !

"Once bitten, twice shy" !!   

Like you, I have memories, albeit EXTREMELY vague, of beautiful graphics, a beginning in an office good and reasonable, and then great difficulies puzzle-wise afterwards in the fairground or whatever it was..

Pity - it could have been an absolute winner IMHO !!

What kind of "hard" is it? Are the puzzles logical, or are they based around the backwards logic that sadly is quite common in adventure games, where you are supposed to do rather outlandish things in order to solve puzzles and that don't make a whole lot of logical sense?

Mm, some of both.

I can't hate on this game too much, because it has such beautiful graphics, and it's a big game. That there are so many inventory items and locations are part of what make it hard too.

But they did some really, REALLY sneaky things in this game.

I had to look it up, and the first game does have a rather nice art style. I'll have to give the game a try at some point (though possibly with a walkthrough bookmarked for quick refference). 

Originally Posted By Fnord (2 MAY 2012 11:12am)

I had to look it up, and the first game does have a rather nice art style. I'll have to give the game a try at some point (though possibly with a walkthrough bookmarked for quick refference). 

Yes, it does have a nice style. And the amusement park setting looked like a lot of fun. That's what suckered me into playing it. I enjoyed that part at least, but largely disliked the rest. A pity, as a less tortuous game design might have bumped this game up to "minor classic" in my opinion. As is, it was pretty bad.

Originally Posted By Andromus (2 MAY 2012 2:53pm)

Originally Posted By Fnord (2 MAY 2012 11:12am)

I had to look it up, and the first game does have a rather nice art style. I'll have to give the game a try at some point (though possibly with a walkthrough bookmarked for quick refference). 

 

Yes, it does have a nice style. And the amusement park setting looked like a lot of fun. That's what suckered me into playing it. I enjoyed that part at least, but largely disliked the rest. A pity, as a less tortuous game design might have bumped this game up to "minor classic" in my opinion. As is, it was pretty bad.

I agree completely !

It could have been *SO* good !

I can't remember properly - but as it was. it was disapointing which was great shame !  

Looking back I actually think Tony Tough was one of the better games I've ever played, and I think I just became too impatient.

I prefer my adventure games to be hard rather than easy. I just think that if a game is going to be hard like this one was they should have a message at the beginning saying something like "We made this game to be difficult, it will take most people a long time to beat this game. If you find yourself stuck, it doesn't mean you're an idiot, we made it to be like that. Don't give up, and eventually you will succeed."

I prefer my adventure games to be hard rather than easy.

Did you play in Beginners mode or Advanced?

I played on hard mode, but it wouldn't have mattered as easy is very hard as well.

One of the things I tried after I got stuck in hard mode was to play a new game in easy mode and I ended up stuck as well.

The additional things you have to do in hard mode I had already figured out, and it was some of the things common to both modes that had me stuck.

I should have been patient is all. I have since started playing the rest of it, even though I already looked at a few soluitions, and it's a great game.

Originally Posted By Pygmy_Marmoset (12 MAY 2012 5:50am)

Looking back I actually think Tony Tough was one of the better games I've ever played, and I think I just became too impatient.

 

I prefer my adventure games to be hard rather than easy. I just think that if a game is going to be hard like this one was they should have a message at the beginning saying something like "We made this game to be difficult, it will take most people a long time to beat this game. If you find yourself stuck, it doesn't mean you're an idiot, we made it to be like that. Don't give up, and eventually you will succeed."

OMG - It's 10 years ago.

I don't remember if there was a choice of 2 levels and if so which one I chose,

I imagine I woul;d have chosen the easier mode.

As it is, all I remember is that I finished the game and that it was *HARD".

I DO NOT like exceptionally hard games.

I am VERY FAR from brilliant and nowhere near Mensa standard.

I do not have the patience to spend hours deciphering some abstruse puzzle or searching for a missing pixle !!

If/when I'm stuck for over an hour (or at the most 2 hours) I reach for a walkthrouigh which of course defeats the whole purpose of the 'hardness'.

I don't want my games to be TOO easy - but I I DO like them reasonable so that I can progress at a sensible rate and enjoy a (hopefully) good narrative !!