Hehe, don't worry, I will give you more chances in future episodes to win those bookmarks. I'm actually very pleasantly surprised at how many people were interested in that! We've tried contests and such in the past and little to no participation, so this is very promising indeed. I seem to have attracted some great folks with these little videos of mine! :)

It was all too easy to get stuck in these games, and of course some of that was the company's wanting to sell you their official hintbooks. There were also other hintbooks, and even some magazines had hints. I guess it was also possible (if you had friends) to compare notes; perhaps someone had figured something out that you hadn't and so on. But I'm like you--I got stuck somewhere in all these games and wasn't able to finish until I finally got access to hints via the net. I think it's pretty much a flaw of the genre and one of several reasons why many people dislike them. If I ever design an adventure game, I will be sure to figure out some way to throw the player some bones to keep him or her from getting hopelessly stuck. Of course, adequate playtesting is essential, too.