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I am playing through the game for the first time after a long while (used to own it in the '90s, but never got far due to the numerous bugs; playing with a walkthrough now for the same reason). I have gotten to day 3, where Dr. Cranium brings up the topic of the rehydration potion. I can ask him about "rehydration" and "formula", and this will get me some dialogue in return. However, he does not ask me for the formula, as walkthrougs suggests he will. I can give him a flask of goo, but he will just thank me and say that he can use it for his experiments. I won't get the rehydration potion in return.

Is this a bug? If so, is there any workaround? If not, what to do?
This question / problem has been solved by JMichimage
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dfnehring: I am playing through the game for the first time after a long while (used to own it in the '90s, but never got far due to the numerous bugs; playing with a walkthrough now for the same reason). I have gotten to day 3, where Dr. Cranium brings up the topic of the rehydration potion. I can ask him about "rehydration" and "formula", and this will get me some dialogue in return. However, he does not ask me for the formula, as walkthrougs suggests he will. I can give him a flask of goo, but he will just thank me and say that he can use it for his experiments. I won't get the rehydration potion in return.

Is this a bug? If so, is there any workaround? If not, what to do?
A couple of possibilities come to mind:

1) You have to give him the rehydration formula before he can make it for you. It's in the manual that came with the game. (It's a copy protection feature that Sierra built into the game.)

2) Have you talked to the domovoi yet? It might be that you need to "need" the rehydration solution before Dr. Cranium will trade you for it.
I remember having read somewhere that there's an alternate solution to the "dessicated Domovoi" quest. Apparently, you don't necessarily need the rehydration potion, a simple flask of water will do. I haven't tried it, so I can't really say if it works, but it's worth trying if you can't get the potion.
avatar
dfnehring: I am playing through the game for the first time after a long while (used to own it in the '90s, but never got far due to the numerous bugs; playing with a walkthrough now for the same reason). I have gotten to day 3, where Dr. Cranium brings up the topic of the rehydration potion. I can ask him about "rehydration" and "formula", and this will get me some dialogue in return. However, he does not ask me for the formula, as walkthrougs suggests he will. I can give him a flask of goo, but he will just thank me and say that he can use it for his experiments. I won't get the rehydration potion in return.

Is this a bug? If so, is there any workaround? If not, what to do?
I think that on day 3 he says he's working on it, on a later day he'll say he dreamt the formula, but forgot it. Do a save so you can return to this point, then just sleep for a day, and go talk to him again the next day. If it's just a case of waiting, reload, and continue playing as normal.
Thanks for the suggestions. I managed to solve the problem. I first talked to the domovoi on night 3. On day 4, I asked Dr. Cranium about "rehydration" under the "science topic" (i.e. not in the main list of conversation topics). This makes it possible to enter the copy protection codes and receive the potion..
Post edited December 01, 2012 by dfnehring