Rubacava
You begin the year as a successful businessman. Walk to the ground floor, and go outside. Watch the cut-scene with Meche, and then talk to the harbour-master about getting on the SS Limbo until you can say no more.
Go back to your club (finding your way around Rubacava does involve exploring – that’s part of the fun) and go upstairs to your office. Get the memos from your desk, and go downstairs to where Glottis is. Pick up the gold flake drink from behind the bar, and go through to the roulette tables. Talk to Charlie (the guy sitting down) and ask him to make you a fake union card. He’ll give you the ticket printer and should give you a VIP pass for the high-rollers club.
Show this VIP pass to Glottis – he has this gambling problem, y’see.
Go to the security check-point (behind the cat track) and talk to Carla. Drink some of the gold flake drink, and walk through the metal detector. When Carla and you are in the back, ask her about the metal detector. She throws it out of the window.
Go to the cat track, and find the “kitty litter” place. Get the tin opener. Use your scythe on the kitty litter to locate the metal detector, and pick it up.
Walk to the Blue Casket club, and firstly give your memos from Salvador to the revolutionaries. Pick up the book. Walk to the front of the room, and talk to Lola when she takes snaps of Olivia and Nick.
Go back to the casino, and ask your coat-check girl if you have any messages from Lola. An empty envelope? Strange…
Go to the high rollers club. Talk to Nick, using lots of flattery. Threaten to tell about Olivia and him, until he goes to talk to Maximino. Pick up his cigarette case, and take it back to the security check-point. Give it to Carla, saying it was left under her desk by a lunatic. She’ll detonate it, giving you the key.
Go into the kitchen of the high-roller’s club. Pick up the turkey baster. When the French waiter walks into the pantry, close the doors and jam them with the scythe. Glottis should hopefully walk in and drink from the barrel – if not, you may need to open the tap first. When it is empty, climb the ladder and use the tin opener with the barrel. You’ll be rolled into the wine cellar.
Drive the fork-lift into the lift, and go up. Climb aboard the fork-lift whilst the lift is moving, and push the prongs through one of the gaps (the raised sections) in the lift doors. When the lift passes an opening, the lift should stop. You can then use the lever on the side of the fork-lift to open the doors.
Note: On fast machines (PII 400+) the lift moves too fast for you to perform the actions needed. The patch to fix this is available on the LucasArts web site. Grim Fandango played via Residual and Grim Fandango Remastered do not suffer from this bug.
Walk down the passage and get the suitcase. But what is Charlie doing? Nutter! At least you got your union card.
Go to the lighthouse, and use Nick’s key in the lighthouse. Spare a minutes’ silent thought for Lola, then go and think about that clue.
If you talked to your coat-check girl earlier, it’s pretty obvious what you need to do with the tile (that is, if you were paying attention). Give the tile to her to get a girl’s coat. Search it to find the “rusty anchor” clue. Try giving this to Glottis, for a laugh. You can also give it to Olivia, for another laugh.
Walk to the Blue Casket, and enter the kitchen. Use the turkey baster with the dirty water from the sink.
Go now to the tattoo shop, and open the fridge, then the bottom tray to keep the door open. While the tattoo artist is distracted, use the water from the Blue Casket in the bottle. The sailor will fall asleep. Interrupt the tattoo artist’s telephone conversation by showing him the “Rusty Anchor” card. You’ll end up with a photo-finish card. Take the ID plate from the sleeping sailor, and leave.
Go to the morgue, and use the ID plate with one of the “dead” bodies. Give the metal detector to the pathologist, and you have bought yourself a ticket on the SS Limbo.
Go to the cat track, and use the ticket printer to print a ticket for “Tuesday, Week 2, Race 6”. Give this ticket to the guy at the photo-finish booth (ensure you’re not using the wrong booth – there are two) to get the photo.
Go to the docks where the Sea Bees are. Give the revolutionary book to them, and watch Terry get arrested (poor guy). Go to the high rollers club, and tell Nick you need a lawyer. Show him the photo to help convince him. Smack! That felt good.
One problem – Glottis is addicted to gambling. The only way to stop him is to go bankrupt. Go to Manny’s office at the casino and use the panel to make the guy lose – he’s a bad loser, so he’ll shut the place.
You’re ready to set sail. Congratulations – you cheating scoundrel. Don’t you feel you’re wasting this wonderful game by not thinking about it? All that time your mind could be busy, solving puzzles? No? You loon.
Hi! I’m having a problem with grim fandango: in year 3, when I just opened the vault and storage room to save meche, I dropped the ax in a way that I cannot pick it anymore to solve the next puzzle. Help! What should I do? Is there a way I can go back a few saved versions before instead of starting a whole new game?
Btw this is the remaster version in an iPad.
I used to see a YouTube video of the shooting match between Manny and Hector, but I cant. Anybody know where it is.
That was a funny scene.
I can’t find the video anymore
It was an ok game but we don’t know what manny was or did in his life, before he became a sales skeleton…
Who cares about his past. The game is more interesting focusing on the adventure that Manny is going through instead
Thanks for the useful walkthrough, but…what’s up with the comments at the end of each page? Personally, I have little patience for puzzle solving, so I often resort to walkthroughs, and I don’t really feel any sort of guilt for this, as I’m mainly interested in playing old adventure game classics to experience the story. As such, it feels especially grating to read such remarks. We don’t all play a certain game the same way (and we don’t have to)!
chill the hell out they wrote an entire guide for us lmao
To be honest, I don’t feel bad at all. Using a walkthrough when needed to keep the game fun should be the priority. Keeping it fun. Who in their right mind would have naturally put a turkey baster into dirty dish water and then used that to spike a guys drink. I agree not to use it constantly but the walk through is great to keep the game moving.
A little humour from the original author, that’s all. It’s not for everyone I suppose.
Thank you for this page. It was a life saver. 🖤
I I’ve saved Meche to ger out of the saferoom through the shower drain… and now Im on a beach with her, the two little flying kids and Glottis… and my beached boat… I thought right after the drain a cut scene happens and I fight Domino??? Do I have more to do before that happens??? Ive been searching but can’t find an answer Glottis keeps saying the boat isn’t ready… and then when I try to talk with Meche… Manny says he can’t leave without the others? Please help
You probably didn’t mount the rolls on the ship to break the corals, you can disenlodge them using the crane.
Hiya, have you sort this out somehow? I’m stuck in the same area as you last summer. Thanks
This was a great game, confusing as hell though
I didn’t receive the vip pass from Charlie after talking to him, and Manny says he wants nothing to do with him. So how do I get the vip pass?
Hey Kristina, more information needed really. Did you get the ticket printer from Charlie or have you got neither? If he hasn’t given you stuff yet, there must be something not yet done.
I have the same issue. Talked to Charlie until I exhausted his dialogue. Got the ticket printer but not the VIP pass. Now I can no longer talk to him as Manny says he wants nothing to do with him.
In case some one is still stuck on this, you need to talk to harbour-master first to learn about the requirements for working on the ship and to learn about union. After that you can ask Charlie to craft you a fake union card. He’ll ask you to go to the High Roller’s for him and hand over the vip pass.
I am stuck on the part where I need glottis to leave on the ship but glottis won’t leave the high rollers I have made Bogdan leave Manny’s club
Go again to your roulettes, Bogdan will be there again after you get all the other things you need. Make him lose again.
I am stuck at the end of year 2. I can do the chant about 3-4 times over but then go wrong.
How many times should it go around before its completed ? Or am i missing something?
What?
What chant? The Bees? You don’t need to do that, is just for the lols.
There is an error with these instructions. (Possibly others but this is a major screw up).
You NEED to use the dead soldiers arm with the snow machine grinder *BEFORE* you take away the grinder. Otherwise you will need to return to the snow machine before you can use the grinder on the Sproutella.
These instructions say to “pick up the arm from the dead soldier”.
A little further on it says “Now climb that ladder again and pick up the grinder from the snow-maker”.
Further still and it says “Use the LSA solder’s arm with the grinder to make a bone-grinder. Use this to sprinkle bone fragments over the Sproutella”.
But you can’t use the arm with grinder unless the grinder is in the snow machine.
So you would need to return to the snow machine and replace the grinder so you can put the arm in it.
Sadly most people will not read these comments, and those who do will read them too late so will not know about this problem until it is too late and they have had to back track to replace the grinder
Thanks for pointing it out. This guide is around 20 years old so in the interests of preservation I’ll leave it as is but add a bracketed tip mentioning what you describe.
So I finally got around to playing the game after buying it on Switch last year and this guide has been a great help so far for when I just can’t figure out the next step the game expects me to make.
But now I am stuck! I cannot get into the High Rollers club because Charlie did not give me a VIP pass when I spoke to him and now I have no option to talk to him again. When I try Manny just says “I have nothing more to say to him.” He did give me the ticket printer but I don’t know how to use it.
Have I missed a step somewhere or have I encountered a glitch?
Nevermind. My mistake. I hadn’t spoken fully to the captain. Once I did that I got the VIP pass from Charlie just fine.
Hi i am in year 3. I did everything and i think the last thing i have to do ist to tell glottis what to use to Go throught the riff. What do i have to do exactly? I dont get it
Yes, same problem. No cutscene, it just deposits me on the beach with Glottis and Meche, while the annoying kids play around in the background. I went back through the underwater bit to find Domino, but the dialogue options assume Meche hasn’t escaped yet. It’s like I need to trigger something else.
Do you have the grinders on the ship yet?
Edit: Get back into the crane, and drop the chain into the grinders. Lift it back out again, and the grinders will be set free for Glottis to use on the boat. (Don’t worry if it looks like the chain isn’t there, just lower the crane on the beach side and the chain will be there)
Hi!I’ve played this game for years and I’m always missing th same parte in the azteca puzzle.
Is a small piece located in the ship above where I think there is a cloud, does anybody know how can I complete that?Is in Rubacava’s location!
Please help!After 10 years I’m still missing that part in the puzzle, there is something I’m missing!:) Thanks!
Hola!He jugado muchas veces a este juego y siempre me falta la misma pieza del puzzle, me refiero al mural azteca que se va iluminando a medida que avanzas en el juego. Es específicamente la parte de arriba donde está el barco, pertenece a Rubacava, y la parte que no consigo iluminar parece una nube sobre el barco, alguien sabe a qué se debe?
Años después vuelvo a jugar y me sigue faltando esta parte!!!Ayuda!!
Gracias!:)
I did not pick up the memos and visit the coat check girl and now I cannot get back to Manny’s club! Is there anyone that has been through this that can guide me through this issue?
There is an elevator ouside the blue cascket at the left, you have to take it and go up. Then go up the stairs behind the elevator, there is Calavera’s club!
I cannot find which direction the Manny’s club is in Rubacava. What area is it near (the union bees, Blue Casket, Sea Captain, cat track, morgue/prison)?
Hey Navid, you’ll find the lift to Manny’s club right next to the Blue Casket. Look for a door that automatically opens.
Thanks Ryan! So, I found that lift already that took me to the morgue where the two bodies have sprouted and the empty prison. do I need to go further where I got the metal detector? I keep getting stopped by the metal detector before the escalator.
If I remember correctly, once you leave the lift you can go left or right, and left is to the club.
RYAN!!! YOU SAVED ME FROM STARTING ALL OVER FROM THE BEGINNING!!! THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!
To get back to the club you need to find the elevator and walk around you will see stairs
Cant get the picture from the ticket guy. I put the stub as Tue, week 2, race 6 but no luck. Help!
try the other ticket stub guy.
make sure you give the rusty anchor note to the tattoo artist, or otherwise the creating a ticket won’t work
Hello! I play the game on a laptop with win7 and a mouse. I am at the last year, so far so good. (Btw thanks for the tips, I am trying hard to get my way, but when I am severely stuck, I check your guide. And then I go “seriously???!!!”… sometimes the way the game goes has absolutely no logic, but anyway, its fun.) So my question is, is there any bug/glitch I don’t know how you call it at the point where I have to trick the alligator??? When I am going down the ladder, then the control for the car disappears and I cannot operate it to catch the gator’s tail >:( big bummer! any tips on that? Thanks in advance…
While it look your way, lower the car onto its tail, you just have time after you climb up to the overhanging metal walkway.
You have to wait till the alligator looks at you then go back up in the ladder then use the controller.
Cheif Boegon is the one you have to kick out, not Glottis.
in the secret room, i used the scythe to turn on the sprinklers, but now the when i hit it in the same spot again with the scythe, the sprinklers won’t turn off and Meche keeps saying “oh, not again”. help!!! i can’t take the constant water sound anymore lmao
‘Glottis is addicted to gambling.’ ‘ he’s a bad loser, so he’ll shut the place.’
How does this make sense in the same paragraph?
Cheif Boegon is the one you have to kick out of your casino.
I’m still stuck with Glottis after getting the picture.
I think this was an issue with the wording — ‘the guy’ would have been referring to Bogen rather than Glottis.
This game is so hard 😭 how on earth could anyone figure it out without his walk-through?!
I sometimes wonder how I got through this game for the first time all those years ago. I can only assume it was a combination of luck and trying a _lot_ of times.
I only look to the walkthrough after I exhausted every idea for passing through. But many times I did everything that you said to do, but not in the perfect way that the game expected. For example, to construct the dotted line in the boat, I did almost everything but I wasn’t being able to catch with the scythe. Only after reading here I could catch it. I was missing the window. And sometimes I do things in the wrong order. It’s a little bit frustrating! Anyway this games still amazing!
Thanks for posting the walkthrough. Great help for the more difficult part. Ignore the haters that need the whole thing spoon-fed pixel by pixel.
played on nintendo switch.
one thing to note. Don’t pick up snow grinder before using arm on it. It can be tricky to put down again.
I can’t get the lawyer because he won’t stop talking with the boss in the high rollers club.
Why ““Tuesday, Week 2, Race 6” ticket?
Is there logical reasons for purchasing this particular ticket in the game?
I struggled with this one too!
There are 3 parts to this puzzle in the picture of the cats racing
Race number is (6) as seen on the billboard.
If you examine the plaque on the cat statue it says Olivia 1 crashed on week 2 of the season. The lastly If you talk to the mean ticket guy, He tells you that they only give out kitty hat on Tuesday. In the photo of the race you see the Olivia 1 in the background and people are wearing cat hats…so we come to our answer. Race 6, Tues, week 2.
So the ticket should be: Race6, Week2, Tuesday
Make sure to get the detail right by examine the ticket after you print it.
I tried Tuesday Week 2 Race 6 many times with both ticket collectors and even examining the ticket before handing it over to the ticket collector but it doesn’t seem to work? Any tips for this issue or is it a glitch?
Help, i used the roullette thing before doing the other tasks, what am i supposed to do?
This!
He’ll come back.
How do i get to the server room
It’s near the entrance to the Department of Death. There’s a side-door you can take which leads to it — inside you’ll find a big machine spitting tubes out.
Trying to use the bone grinder with Glottis and the Bone Wagon. Was I also supposed to aquire the Sproutella ro use the grinder on?
I was frustrated and didn’t play for a while, I cant remember if I got the gun- but if I did, I dont have it anymore, Should I still have it? How did/do I get it? iPod Touch/iphone.
You can use the grinder and Sproutella to find a flower shop, where you’ll then be able to obtain a gun. You shouldn’t lose the gun afterwards.
So I was trying to figure stuff out myself and definitely did not do everything in order. Somehow I have the picture, and Nick is in the boss’ office..I have everything but a lawyer for the bee in jail and glottis is still drunk because I can’t go into the boss’ office:( They won’t leave the office and I can’t go in..is there something I’m missing?
Great work figuring it out! Rubacava is some of the most non-linear and tricky parts of the game, but still one of my favourite game locations ever.
Have you been able to get passage on Velasco’s ship yet, the SS Limbo?
Which picture? If it’s the one of nick and olivia kissing show it to nick, then you can talk to max.
I am in the same boat. Any idea how you managed? (I know its been 2 years but i havent got a saved game that is prior to nick entering the office.)
I’m stuck at the blue casket. I’m supposed to talk to Lola when she takes snaps of Olivia abd Nick. At the front of the room? All I find is a woman who reads poetry.
Old, but still. Olivia takes the pic first time you walk in, so it is most likely done.
Android version: attempting to “use turkey baster with dirty water”. Won’t do it. Any ideas why?
I can’t get the little guy to speak to me at the start of Act 3 – he just walks straight past me and the only icons I get are Examine and Talk To.
I had the same problem. Try walking further out till your as close to his walking path as possible. He should notice you when you talk to him then.
In the elevator, i cant get the forklift bkades jammed in the door because they are already raised and I can’t lower them. How can I lower them. Ipod touch.
This guide is very incomplete, the instructions are extremely difficult to read and follow. It feels like this guide was written by a 9 year old kid who is just learning to write. If it weren’t for the videos in youtube I could never solve the puzzles.
“have a runner…”
Thanks for the feedback Sammer. The guide was written almost 20 years ago so your comment about age probably isn’t too far off the mark! However you might also be struggling with the British colloquialisms throughout. For example, ‘do a runner’ is a slang phrase for ‘run away’.
Unfortunately not many people have the time or appetite to write an entire game walkthrough, but if any fans were to fancy taking this challenge on I’d be happy to host it.
Is it even possible to play this game without constantly having to look in the guide?
Honestly I have no idea how I ever figured the puzzles out by myself as a kid. Same for Monkey Island. I do recall needing help with the stump maze sign puzzle though — good god.
Please could you tell me abou what “deflated balloons” you are talking about?
You can get balloons with no air in them from the clown at the festival. :)
I’ve figured it out now but thank you anyway. :)
Hey, I feel like there may be a glitch on the iPad version? I’m trying to get Chepito stuck in the tentacles, but he and Glottis stop at the edge of the rock, and I can’t get them to move.
I had to reboot, try that.
Not just on ipad version it happened on pc too i think where it crashes there but stopped happening for me best way is to save before that part and load it after you crash
Ah found the salvadors memo finally :) so forget muy question
how I can get revolutionary book at Blue casket if I don’t have salvadors memo?? Help!
I’m playing on PSVita and I can’t seem to knock down the sign in the Bone Cruiser. Any suggestions?
on PS4, you need to exit the Cruiser and “X” on the sign; you’ll pull it from the ground.
It already got knocked down when you originally got in the car, you just have to pick it up
Before trying the roulette thing, make sure you have completed the other tasks. Also, check that Bogen is in the playins room. He wears a blue military cap, and Manny should say a few words to him.
I can’t seem to grab the grinder from the snow machine. Every time I try to remove it, it grinds more stuff. Any tips?
You have to use your mouse for that part… sorry if you are a keyboard player of this game, so am I..
On console (ps4) I used square or circle instead of X because X would only grind snow
Every item can be interacted with in different ways. On PC, you can use U (use), E (examine), and P (pick up). The last of those is what you need to use on the grinder. It’s also worth noting that many items in the game produce different dialogue/results from Manny, for example using U and E will cause different responses — some of which are quite funny. I only learned this after playing through the game multiple times and discovered a lot of extra dialogue. :)
There’s a hidden roulette table in Manny’s Office you can use to pissed off the cops.
How do you go bankrupt? I’ve done everything and am running around in damned circles now because it wont let me do anything.
He wasn’t as clear on this so maybe this’ll help. Like Amarelle said, there’s a hidden roulette table on Manny’s desk in his office when you go examine it. However, specifically you need to make sure the magnet is turned off – specifically for the third roulette table (or if that in itself is unclear, look to the left and you’ll see that the machine only magnetizes one machine at a time in a cycle – just make sure to make it so the magnet is turned off for all of them as it’ll automatically turn back on for all, so that it comes around and the policeman eventually loses like the big dumb loser he is)
I’m still extremely confused and I’ve been at this for an hour, can you explain in more detail
Hopefully you managed to solve it, but if I remember correctly you basically examine Manny’s desk to reveal the panel, and then when you can hear/see that it’s Bogen’s turn you activate the machine which will cause him to lose his bet. At that point he’ll get rather angry.
You don’t go “bankrupt”. I wonder if the author actually understood the game. In order to get Glottis kicked out of the VIP lounge you need to upset the chief of police by denying him his kickback, which is paid out as winnings at Manny’s casino on a rigged wheel. When the game is fair, the chief loses, gets upset and raids the club. A chain reaction causes Glottis to get kicked out of Hector’s race track. Glottis is then free to board the ship.
Causing the police to raid the club “shuts it down” causing bankruptcy and for Glottis to lose his line of credit ( which is what Manny had already been told would happen earlier )
It’d be great if you weren’t such a condescending asshole to people who need help solving puzzles. Like sorry not everyone is as smart and rude as you.
Honestly I don’t think he means it. I get what you’re saying, but I think he’s just trying to emulate some of the humor from the game. He’s not doing the best job, granted, but I don’t think he’s trying to be harsh either.
I thought it was amusing
Woosh