Do you know Zak McKracken and the Alien Mindbenders [0]? A Lucas Games video game published in 1988 on C64 and several other platforms.
Puzzles were very difficult at that time in games, possibly intentionally because Lucas Games was selling hint books.
Throughout the whole game you take planes to fly from one location to another, and this eventually depletes your credit card.
At some point you have so little money that the only plane ticket you can afford is a rusty world-war-era biplane that will fly you to some destination through the famous Bermuda Triangle [1]. It's the only option you have so you will eventually take it. But why that? Because when in flight, a tractor beam pulls you up and you find yourself, the biplane and the pilot in an alien space ship, which is how the game justifies the myth of the Bermuda Triangle.
Now if I remember correctly, you will be stuck there and will have to reload a saved game, unless you have a guitar with you. In fact, in the space ship you meet the alien captain who is wearing the classic white Elvis dress. If you earlier purchased a guitar in the shop close to your apartment and now give the guitar as a gift to the alien captain, you will then become friends, and the alien captain will allow you to leave the spaceship with the biplane. Even more, on the ship there is a machine named "lotto-o-matic" or similar, that will predict lotto numbers. So you have to use the machine and collect the receipt. Back to USA, you can use those lotto numbers and win an incredible amount of money that will allow you to take all the planes you need for the remaining of the game.
I remember this particular puzzle as I was stuck for weeks in this limbo without money trying countless useless solutions. I leave in Italy those hint books did not exist and there was no internet. Luckily at some point a local game magazine (Zzap! [2]) answered a letter from another gamer who was asking for a clue.
Puzzles were very difficult at that time in games, possibly intentionally because Lucas Games was selling hint books.
Throughout the whole game you take planes to fly from one location to another, and this eventually depletes your credit card.
At some point you have so little money that the only plane ticket you can afford is a rusty world-war-era biplane that will fly you to some destination through the famous Bermuda Triangle [1]. It's the only option you have so you will eventually take it. But why that? Because when in flight, a tractor beam pulls you up and you find yourself, the biplane and the pilot in an alien space ship, which is how the game justifies the myth of the Bermuda Triangle.
Now if I remember correctly, you will be stuck there and will have to reload a saved game, unless you have a guitar with you. In fact, in the space ship you meet the alien captain who is wearing the classic white Elvis dress. If you earlier purchased a guitar in the shop close to your apartment and now give the guitar as a gift to the alien captain, you will then become friends, and the alien captain will allow you to leave the spaceship with the biplane. Even more, on the ship there is a machine named "lotto-o-matic" or similar, that will predict lotto numbers. So you have to use the machine and collect the receipt. Back to USA, you can use those lotto numbers and win an incredible amount of money that will allow you to take all the planes you need for the remaining of the game.
I remember this particular puzzle as I was stuck for weeks in this limbo without money trying countless useless solutions. I leave in Italy those hint books did not exist and there was no internet. Luckily at some point a local game magazine (Zzap! [2]) answered a letter from another gamer who was asking for a clue.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zak_McKracken_and_the_Alien_Mi... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bermuda_Triangle [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zzap!64