To prevent impressionable young persons from getting into the first Larry game, the humorous “age test” shown in Figure 9-15 was administered before the game began.

Figure 9-15. Leisure Suit Larry’s age quiz

Questions mostly concerned items of topical interest circa 1987, the sort of things adults would know but kids wouldn’t. The only problem is that nowadays, even the over-18 crowd would wrestle with questions like:

Who has not been a U. S. Attorney General?

The answers to all of the age-test questions are available on Al Lowe’s web site (http://www.allowe.com/Larry/1questions.htm). But there is another trick you can use, left in by programmers sick of answering their own questions every time they felt like starting a game up. Press Alt-X to bypass the quiz entirely. In the re-released 1991 VGA graphics version of the game, you must press Ctrl-Alt-X to get around the quiz.

Near the end of the game, you’ll get into a hot tub with Eve (see Figure 9-16), Larry’s dream woman. While you’re chatting with her, try typing in the command turn off bubbles to see what happens. In the point-and-click VGA version of the game, you’ll see a button on the hot tub that you can press to achieve the same goal. We’d show you the results, but this is a family publication.

Figure 9-16. Hm…if only that water level were a little lower

Larry’s second game featured no age test, but it did include a copy protection scheme that sought to prevent those who had not purchased the game legally from getting past the title screen.

In the game’s manual were color pictures of sixteen cartoon beauties (okay, some of them were a little scary-looking), each with a phone number written beneath her portrait. Before the game could begin, you had to input the girl’s phone number.

You can find pictures of all sixteen girls at Al Lowe’s site (http://www.allowe.com/Larry/2women.htm), but where’s the hack in that? Moreover, the pictures were designed such that if the manual were to be photocopied, it would be difficult to tell the black-and-white, blurry images apart. This had the unintended side effect of making it difficult to figure out the woman in question even with an original manual!

A better way to get past the copy protection—although it only works on version 1.002.000 of the software—is to input Al Lowe’s birthday as the last four digits of the number: 555-0724.

Larry 3 brought back the dreaded Age Quiz, with questions designed to confound and stump any young child or innocent adult who dared fire up the Larry3.exe. This time around, you could still play the game if you failed the questions, but the game’s naughtiness level would increase or decrease depending on how well you did. If you want to skip the quiz, press Ctrl-Alt-X and you’ll be able to set the rudeness level. Set it all the way to 5 to enjoy the game as it was intended!

Larry 3 employed a novel means of copy protection. If you pirated the game, you would be able to play through the first few screens, thus giving you a taste of the full product. But you wouldn’t be able to get very far without having the manual handy, as the maitre d’ of the club (shown in Figure 9-17) requires a ticket number printed on a random page. If you input the wrong number, the game will end immediately—hope you saved beforehand, butterfingers!

Since designer Al Lowe has provided a full list of the ticket numbers on his home page (http://www.allowe.com/Larry/cluescheats.htm), I don’t feel particularly bad about printing them in Table 9-1.

Figure 9-17. I’m guessing it’s not 6

There is another bit of copy protection for which the manual is needed, but since it also constitutes a puzzle in the game that requires a bit of lateral thinking, I won’t spoil it here. If you’re stumped (or don’t have the manual), check out the URL listed in the previous paragraph. (And while you’re there, read the informational section about the design of the Nontoonyt jungle maze for some insight into a truly retro gaming hack!)

Larry 5’s copy protection works much the same way as Larry 3’s—you’ll be able to play a bit of the game, but you won’t get far without the manual. This time, however, the copy protection isn’t an easily-copied list of numbers. You have to enter in a series of meaningless symbols that coincide with an airport check-in computer’s travel arrangements.

A large, easy-to-read image of the symbol list is available, again, at designer Al Lowe’s site (http://www.allowe.com/images/L5cpyprot.gif).

When you first meet the dental receptionist Chi Chi (shown in Figure 9-18) towards the end of Larry 5, you might be wishing that her uniform wasn’t so expertly tailored. Clicking on the button using the “touch” cursor won’t initially work, but if you’re persistent and click her about seven times, you’ll get some surprisingly risqué results.

Figure 9-18. Drat that pesky button

When you begin the game, walk over to the desk and pick up the xylophone. After you pop Chi Chi’s buttons, use the mallet from the xylophone on the second cactus from the left in the office bathroom. Actually, I’m just kidding. There is no Larry 4, and no hack will ever uncover one!

This is one of the most infamous Easter eggs hidden in the Larry games. You can’t get into the womens’ showers, but you can see what lies inside. Go into the mens’ shower room and look on the wall for a discolored tile. Take it off the wall, look in the resultant hole, and a brief cutscene (that I cannot show you) will play automatically.

Make absolutely sure to save your game before you attempt this Easter egg, as Cav—the buffed and physically imposing aerobics instructor—will literally kill Larry if he dares to take her shirt away. After you get her membership card (this is a necessary part of the game), you can remove her shirt if you try enough times (like with Chi Chi). Just don’t come crying to me when you’re dead.