When you play the game for the first time, it is highly recommended to watch the entire intro, so you know the background of the story and what Larry's task exactly is. Otherwise move your mouse to the top of the screen and feel free to press the forward arrow or restore a game from the Control Panel. This forward arrow is available during every cut scene in the game. During a cut scene, the other icons are greyed out, so those are unavailable at the point. During cut scenes, you can also click the left mouse button, to progress to the next text balloon if things go a bit too slow.
After the game intro, you can also rotect your game with a password.
Game toolbar
Leisure Suit Larry 5 is a point-and-click game, using various icons to trigger different actions. You can access the game toolbar by moving the mouse to the top of the game screen. Here you will see the following icons.
Clicking any of these icon will change the cursor into the icon or take the player to a new window.
The Walk icon allows the player to walk all over the game screen and into other game screens. Note that a hand icon is required to open doors. When the player goes into a close-up mode, the icon will change to an Exit icon. The Exit icon is used to exit a close-up screen, for example to exit from talking to a girl.
The eye icon is to observe various objects or people.
The hand icon can be used to pick up items, to touch or activate things. The player can use it to touch people, to open doors, to throw a switch, to pick up a bottle of champagne and so on. Picked-up items appear in the inventory.
The talk icon is to talk to various people. You can try to talk to objects for some funny reactions, too.
The zipper icon is not really needed to complete the game but can be used on items and people to get some funny stuff.
During regular game play, the fast-forward button is disabled. This buton becomes available during cut-scenes in case the player wants to skip the scene.
The small green window is the inventory icon. When an inventory item is selected in the inventory window, this active inventory item is displayed here for fast and easy access. Clicking the inventory icon will change the cursor into the inventory item. then click the inventory item on any item or person on the screen to use it on him/her/it.
The icon with the suitcase activates the inventory window where the plaer can look at, manipulate or activate inventory items (see below).
Clicking the icon with the sliderbar takes you to the game's control panel where you can save, restore, restart or quit the game, see the score and change sound and music settings. See below.
Click the question mark icon and then any of the other icons to get an explanation of what their functions are (as explained here).
Note that instead of moving the mouse cursor to the top of the screen and clicking on one of the "action" icons, you can also simply click the right mouse button to toggle through them.
Inventory window
After clicking on the inventory icon in the toolbar, the inventory window appears. Here all inventory items you have at your disposal are displayed. Note that Larry and Patti each have their own inventory items. In this window, you can look at the inventory items (using the eye icon), manipulate items (for example starting Larry's cam corder) with the hand icon and select an item with the arrow icon. After selecting an inventory item, click "ok" to return to the game screen and the item will appear in the inventory toolbar.
You can also use inventory items on each other in the inventory screen itself, for example to insert a new tape into Larry's cam corder. In order to do so, select an inventory item (the tape). The cursor will change to the item. Then click that item on another item in the inventory screen (the cam corder).
The Control Panel
To access the control panel, click the sliderbar icon in the game's toolbar. Here you can save, restore, restart or quit the game, or simply continue playing by pressing the "play" button. You can also click the Half-Dome icon to see the game credits and more info on Leisure Suit Larry and other Al Lowe games, as well as how to order a hintbook or call Sierra's hint line (both no longer active).
The slider bars on the right-hand side allow to change various settings:
- game detail (under DOSBox it automatically plays at the highest resolution)
- volume of the game (the higher, the more volume)
- speed: this is the game speed - put it higher to make Larry/Patti walk faster and increase all other animation speeds
- text: controls how long texts are displayed. If you're a fast reader, set this bar higher.
And finally there is the game score, currently 204 out of 1000 possible points achieved.
Copyright protection
Each time Larry orders a flight ticket at the ATM of an airport, he will have to type in a code with special symbols that matches the destination and flight hour. This is Larry 5's copyright protection. You can see the schedule here.
