It has been a while since I’ve posted about the Apple II game Alkemstone (and some reading this might have arrived from elsewhere without seeing my previous posts) so a brief summary/recap:
Alkemstone was a game released in 1981 by the company Level-10 with a $5000 prize attached (later upped to $7500) where the titular “Alkemstone” was hidden somewhere in the real world, and the clues on where to find it were hidden inside the game. It was confirmed fairly recently by the lawyer in charge of certification that nobody has claimed the prize. The company that sponsored it is long defunct, and the object buried was not valuable in itself (you didn’t even need to extract it to get the prize, just explaining the location of the Alkemstone was enough), so solving the mystery is only of historical interest, but still — a 40 year old mystery nobody has cracked!
Picture from @deliciousgames.
Last year I did a playthrough of the game, which involved running around a maze and finding clues that flashed at irregular intervals on the walls, ceiling, and floor. I managed to extract quite a few clues, but I knew (because someone on Mobygames found a clue I hadn’t) that there were still clues I was missing. I just didn’t know how many.
May I present to you:
A ZIP file with every single clue in Alkemstone
To clarify, a reader (Andy Boroson) did some hacking at the game file itself and managed to extract the locations of the clues as well as a method of stopping the invisible-flashing-clue effect from happening. This led to him making a complete map…
… and the file of images above. They are given the numbers matching the map above; some of the sequential numbers clearly go together (even if they aren’t placed together on the map) so the numbers themselves may serve as a clue. There are 80 clues (84 listed, but one of them is blank, and likely removed some time during development; 3 are “special coded” to be findable at the same location, marked “00” on the map) and I managed previously to find about 3/4 of them, but some of the missing ones have what seem to be essential information, so it is quite possible it was not feasible to crack the mystery until now, the moment I post this.
The ZIP file preserves the screenshots in a complete fashion, so I’m going to survey them numerically and clip images together when possible. (That is, what shows up as separate clues I have merged into the same image, for compactness; again, if you need “clean” images, refer to the ZIP file.) Additionally, some of the text clues are stored as text, so I’ll just give those in text format.
Are you excited? I’m excited.
Just as a note ahead of time, the main guess/presumption based on the clues is that the treasure is hidden somewhere in Washington, DC. However, there is nothing I’d call certain confirmation on this. I will say it is near certain (based on a trio of clues I’ll get to last) that the treasure is in a public place somewhere, meaning it should be in an urban environment, not hidden in some random place in the wilderness.
When booting Alkemstone, this is the first thing visible upon entering the maze…
There’s no “hanging banners” style messages other than this one.
…which is certainly reminiscent of the Albert Einstein statue in Washington DC, which was finished just in time for it to be part of the game (1981).
#1 John F Kennedy
#2 Stonewall Jackson
#3 Zachary Taylor
The #1 and #3 clues are names of US Presidents, while the #2 clue is the name of a Confederate General. This suggests historical US sites rather than something dealing directly with the Presidency itself (like the numbers attached to each president).
#4 (on left)
#5 (on right)
Both suggesting wordplay, and #5 is new. There are multiple anagrams using the letters P, I, N, E, S so I’m not sure which one to prioritize, but I should point out the author’s previous game included an ambiguous anagram puzzle as well.
#6
Bruecke is “bridge” in German but rata isn’t anything in German, but maybe it is wordplay leading up to that. (The Rs being lined up is intentional.)
#7 What You Don’t Do To Go
#8 (written as a fraction) DENVER / 10
Again not sure, although I have suspicion #8 is referring to Denver being the “Mile High City”, that is, the clue refers to a 10th of a mile. I haven’t had luck with zipcode or the like.
#10 Calentadora de dedos del pie
#11 Wo Adler sich sammeln
#10 is “toe warmer” translated from Spanish. #11 is “where eagles gather” translated from German.
#12 JOB
#13 TESS
#14 MARIA
The one and only puzzle I’m certain we have the real solve for. Roger Durrant pointed out that both names appear in the song They Call the Wind Maria from the musical Paint Your Wagon.
A way out here they got a name for rain and wind and fire the rain is Tess the fire’s Joe and they call the wind Maria
“JOB” is a “typo” but it may have just been an honest mishearing. (I don’t think it’s a clue, but you never know.)
#15 144
I theorized long that this possibly references the fact that with 12 zodiac signs you can pair them with another 12 to get 144 angles (there’s zodiac symbols elsewhere). However, I haven’t found any confirmers to put this guess at high confidence.
I also pointed out the War Memorial in Washington DC had a 12-arrowed floor that could be interpreted in a zodiac direction sense.
#16-#22
All 7 images appear in roughly the same spot when drawn, so there may be some relation.
#23
Not quite in the same place as the previous clues, so might be distinct. Possibly hinting as to a time of year, that is, Easter (there are later references to this as well).
#24
Hinting a place with a famous speech? Or perhaps a current place (at least current for 1981) where speeches can be made.
#25 BLACK OR WHITE They Are All The Same To Me
This is where the internal number I think is helpful — it certainly seems likely #24 and #25 are related, perhaps referencing the I Have a Dream speech?
#26 Don’t Smell The Salt
#27 THOSE THAT SEEK TO FIND MUST FIRST SEEK TO PASS
#28 Seemanns-warnung
#26 might mean avoiding the ocean. #28 is “sailor’s warning” in German. I’m not sure if #27 is connected.
#29 The First To Recognize The Second
#30 For Us It Is Already Here
#31 Of All This One Is Equal
Not sure on any of these.
#32 WITH GIN YOU BEGIN THE END
More wordplay? I feel like there’s got to be word fragments being glued together at some point (“join” is a clue later).
#33 For the One You Seek The Two Are Known The Three Are There
Again not sure.
#34
The two theories I’ve heard are a.) the signature of TS Eliot and b.) (courtesy Casey Muratori) a metal access panel.
#35 My first is sixth My second is content Followed by the rest Finally a child could play
One of those riddles indicating letters in positions, perhaps, or word fragments being mashed together? I could see “the rest” being the literal “day of rest”, either “sat” or “sun” depending on your theology.
#36 -CIDE
Another word fragment clue. If it is the same as #35, is SLIDE (“a child could play”) somehow tweaked to be CIDE?
#37 join
Again, internal numbering adds some information; this probably refers to #35 and #36, at least.
#38 Coat Of Blue
Possibly the Civil War song.
#39
Look between the pillars?
#40 ONU
Another word fragment?
#41 To Start Anew
Feels very crossword-clue to me.
#42
Bees tend to be popular in rebuses for the sound “-be-” getting put somewhere.
#43 Don’t Go When Winter Blow
#44 Warmer Than Others
Referring back to the potential Easter clue, this might refer to a time of year. Easter has to (no matter the year) land after winter. This also might be simply fitting in with rebus logic somehow (the fragment “apr”, for instance).
#45
Redundancy with the child playing clue?
#46 GPI
#47 FTN
#48 pnijure
#49 BUSH
Not sure.
#50
I’ve played with this one quite a bit (add the numbers on top, then divide, subtract then divide, etc.) without much luck.
#51 Nothing Runs Like A Deer / And It Is A Beaut
The “Nothing Runs Like a Deere” slogan has been around since 1972 for the company John Deere, but I don’t know if the intent here is a pun or something else.
#52 It’s Best To Rest
Another resting reference.
#53
A word ladder? Don’t know what clue this indicates, though.
#54
#55, #56
The best I could come up with here is a reference to the Battle of Wounded Knee, but I have no idea what that would indicate.
#57, #58
Is the first picture of a train or something else?
#59 It’s Not Right
#60 The road is clear But you may have to leave it To find your way
Is this referring to directions at the actual site, or literal wordplay still?
#61 KAMM
#62 CIBURA
More word fragments, perhaps?
#63 Don’t Tread On Me
Another American History reference? All four words are written on separate lines so it could be the initial letters DTOM.
#64, #65
5 is the base? Don’t know what the deal is with those parallel lines on the 5 then, if that’s the case.
#66 This Is Almost The Age of AQUARIUS
Another day of the year reference?
#67 TIME IS RELATIVE BUT SEVEN HOURS SHOULD BE ENOUGH
#68 THAT WHICH GOES DOWN / MUST COME UP
#69 follow your nose / where taylor goes / but not too far / you’ll find a scar
The last clue may refer to some specific site involving Zachary Taylor, although it is unclear what.
#70 ONE SHOULD BE TEMPORATE IN ALL THINGS
This might intentionally be related to time rather than a misspelling of temperate.
#71 Wherever You May Roam There Is No Place Like Home
#72 a billion stars may show you the way
These (plus clue #81) might reference specific museums in Washington DC. The ruby slippers from The Wizard of Oz are at the National Museum of American History, the stars might refer to Phoebe Waterman Haas Public Observatory (or that might just be another astrology reference so the clue goes with #66 etc. instead).
#73 Large And Small – Can’t See Them At All
#74 THE SUN ALWAYS RISES / THE SUN ALWAYS SETS
#75 WHOLE BUT NOT COMPLETE
#76 DO NOT OVERLOOK ANYTHING
#77 After Awhile We All Pay The Price
#78 MIDDLE AGE IS THAT TIME WHEN THE BROAD MIND AND THE NARROW WAIST TRADE PLACES
#79 THE HIGH AND THE MIGHTY MAY BE OF VALUE
#80 97914
#81 If You Want A Scene / Holocene and Pleistocene Might Do
#81 might be the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History.
Finally, not with regular numbering, there are three clues in the same dead end (corresponding to the three walls). I’ll give the pictures this time:
Due to the status in the game, I suspect this is a meta-clue showing the structure of what is being solved for “Where I Live” is one set of clues, “Be Upon” is a second set, “A Thought of You” is a third set, and “How Far I May Go” is a fourth. All this is still guesswork, though.
While the “watch them play” feels most likely a park, it is possible this refers instead to “play” as in music; either way, not wilderness? (Although maybe you could stretch with a particular named rock monument.)
I’ve skipped some speculation from my previous posts, so if you’re looking for more inspiration, feel free to read those as well as the comments which include some more ideas. It’s fair to say the puzzle is still wide open at this point.
ADD: I put everything into a Google Sheet. It has all the images in miniature and a place to enter speculation.
Renga in Blue 
It seems to me possible that the intended meaning is: standing inside the Lincoln Memorial (beneath the statue of Lincoln sitting or “resting”) and looking eastward through the pillars of the building, then the shadow of the Washington Monument at a certain time of day and season of the year will indicate the direction in which to walk outward from the Monument to find the buried treasure. The time of the year is evidently spring; the time of day would seem to be either around sunrise or sunset.
The Washington Monument itself is 555 feet high, or just over 1/10 of a mile, and the walkway around it is circular in shape. (In effect this idea would be using its pyramid-shaped tip – cf. the pyramid clue – as a giant sundial of sorts, which may account for some of the generic “time” references.) The Potomac River is to the southwest of the Washington Monument, which may provide a boundary of sorts when searching.
There are a couple of roads that separate the Lincoln Memorial and Washington Monument, as well as the famous Reflecting Pool, which may account for the references to roads and lakes in the clues.
The TS Eliot reference may be another spring indicator: “April is the cruelest month…” And the word ladder would seem to be LIKE > LAKE > LAME. Perhaps the intended reference here might be one of the war memorials to the north of the Washington Monument?
The giant sundial idea is very promising — part of the issue with this type of hunt is indicating a _very_ exact spot in pre-GPS days (or at least pre-use by the public) and a shadow at a set time is a good compromise, that’s what Masquerade used (and if I remember right, it got the shadow a little wrong so the item was in the wrong spot).
Maybe you guys, can use this:
https://app.shadowmap.org/?lat=38.85606&lng=-77.08380&time=1627542163666&vq=2&zoom=15
What if “where eagles gather” is meant to be a clue to COIN, and this combines with -CIDE to get COINCIDE?
Is there a way to mash things together to get SHADOW?
Another stab: suppose ONU was supposed to spell mONUment. Is there “ment” anywhere? (or men + t and possibly more letters after)?
For what it’s worth, the middle of the visitor’s center is exactly 528 feet due east of the monument.
48 can anagram to Juniper (that is the only word it anagrams to) and it is immediately followed by BUSH. That is highly suspicious! It could refer to a real bush or it could refer to the only Leonardo da Vinci on display in the US which has a prominent juniper bush.
This has probably been mentioned already regarding the 3 part clue.
Where I live=home
Upon=on
You=thee
How far I may go=range
Therefore: when I get there I will be watching the deer and the antelopes play.
Was there a local zoo with deer and antelopes?
Jake Wildstrom came up with that as well. It’s actually quite reassuring to have someone else independently get to the same solve — I think it makes it much more likely.
It appears the National zoo in Washington have had deer and since 1913…
It is possible that the shadow indicated by the Monument is meant to point to a particular juniper bush at which the treasure in question is buried (or a bush that was on that site at the time). There have been juniper bushes on the the Monument grounds since the 1930s, and digging around in the grass off the sidewalks might be what is meant by the various references to children’s play and “leaving the road”.
The sheer preponderance of similar shapes and sizes in 16-22 makes me suspect that they’re meant to be composited. I’ve been toying with this in an image editor, and have made some fairly compelling shapes, but nothing obviously meaningful. Do they form anything interesting when superimposed at their original screen locations?
I’m not the person to ask about image edits, although in terms of pixel-for-pixel 16 and 17 match the closest on top of each other. The other images are slightly off-shifted.
I’ve personally only seen one “compelling” composition at exact pixel-perfect coordinates: 18 and 21 (composite was added to the Google Sheet)
The word ladder is ambiguous: it could be LIKE – LAKE – LAME, LIKE – LIME – LAME, LIKE – LIME – LIMB, MAKE – LAKE – LAME, MIME – LIME – LAME, or MIME – LIME – LIMB. There are a few more options if you allow MAME.
As Phoenix Wright would say, “Almost the age of Aquarius means it’s not the age of Aquarius!” The astrological sign before Aquarius is Capricorn. Maybe that has something to do with it? Alternately, the word “aquarium” is almost “aquarius”, so it could be a hint to look for an aquarium.
The TS doesn’t really look like Eliot’s signature. It isn’t Tom Stoppard’s either. Trying to think of other people with those initials.
In a cryptic crossword, “To start anew” would indicate “a” and “coat of blue” would indicate “be”. Also, don’t forget the possibility that the 144 simply clues the word “gross”, which could be part of a name of a person or place.
I like your theory about 144 more than the others.
With Aquarius, if take the full “Age of Aquarius” in a more literal sense, the 2160-year astrological age, so “almost” being the age would be something like “the year before it started”. The only problem is there’s a lot of argument about over when it started, so if this is the interpretation, it’d be hard to know what year Alkemstone means!
I have not seen updates for a while, so this may go unread. . . . The “word ladder” is one that I had a thought on (also added to the spreadsheet). It would seem that no matter how you go through it you almost have to have LAKE in the middle. This leads to the idea that somewhere there is lake in the middle of something – either physically or in a name like “Salt Lake City”
I read everything. Just hasn’t been reason for a new Alkemstone update yet.
I should do a re-omnibus sometime compiling everyone’s observations. Haven’t had what I’d call a definitive breakthrough yet.
for 57/58, my first idea was this hints at the rail fence cipher. ref: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rail_fence_cipher.
Ah, so “rail” + “fence” as a rebus. Interesting.
(Any of the texts suggest an encipherment to you?)
If it is more literal — just referring to a literal rail fence — it is kind of an odd clue since the second picture is of an actual rail fence.
This one (#57) sort of haunted me – because I “knew” it was something I had seen before. It suddenly came to me that this is the rear “notch sight” on an old style rifle. Also, given the angle, it would seem to be aiming n0rth-east. (I also put this in the spreadsheet)
The “rail” idea may refer to Abraham Lincoln being known as a “rail-splitter”.
P I N E S! That is a completely natural order to unscramble those letters in and totally the first thing I thought of, not the order with the vowels exchanged!
Goodness, whatever can you be referring to? *clutches pearls*
We’re getting to the last On-Line Systems game, but that’s still about 10 away.
More seriously, it seems like maybe it’s significant that “pines” is in the shape of a cross and in a circle? There’s no Crosspines Circle in DC unfortunately. (There’s a Pinehurst Circle but that doesn’t seem like it can be relevant.)
Perhaps more constructively, “sailor’s warning” makes me thing “red skies at morning.”
I’m not sure if this is relevant, but it feels like it might be:
At the time this game was released, there was a fiberglass statue of a triceratops on the national mall in front of the Natural History Museum. Children used to climb on it. Its name was “Uncle Beazley”.
I mean, I guess its name still is Uncle Beazley, it’s just that it was moved somewhere else back in the ’90s and they don’t let people climb on it any more.
Some thoughts:
In the manual, the puzzles are said to be written by two-headed “The Youth” who says that he felt “each head contained half the answer”
I feel this may be a clue as to how to interpret/combine puzzle solutions (but may also just be superfluous writing that confuses the issue)
It may offer an idea on what to do with puzzles #36, 40, 46, etc…
#12,13,14: If those characters are fire, water (rain), and wind, then we’re missing “earth”
#16 – 22: These look reminiscent of alchemy symbols or astrology symbols to me. #22 is definitely “sun” in astrology and I think it is “gold” in alchemy. #21 is quite similar to “mercury”
#34: I agree with @muckenhoupt that the “TS” doesn’t match T.S.Elliot’s signature. That loop at the top of the S had to be plotted and programmed, so I’m hoping that means it is legimately trying to copy something specific. My first thought was “Tom Sawyer” but looking through the original illustrations for the book, there is no match to the letters. I tried making a high-res version of those letters and reverse-image searching to no avail.
#39: My first thought on the “pillars” is that they look more like football goal posts. Do with that as you may.
#53: On the word ladder, I’m personally partial to make > lake > lame. I think the action verb of “make” as an instruction to the puzzle-solver makes sense. Also, saying those words together quickly almost forms something like “make acclaim” Not sure where I’m going with this.
#66: There is, of course, the song “The Age of Aquarius.” Given #12-14 seem to reference a song, it seems possible that another song is referenced. The lyrics say “when the moon is in the 7th house”. The immediately next puzzle #67 also references 7 in the “seventh hour” which may mean absolutely nothing.
I’m toying with the idea that the S in the TS is not an S. The loop at the top reminds me of a cursive captial E. Einstein’s signature (“Look to Albert for help”) “E” is shaped similarly, but I can’t call it a match.
I’m not sure how much the booklet that comes with the game matters, but that was fairly popular back in those days (i.e. Infocom, etc.)
So, that said, #23 is a rabbit. A rabbit is the first form the Alkemstone transforms one of the characters (who becomes Chimera) into.
The Einstein memorial in DC has this star map embedded into it.
Definitely fits the zodiac/astrology angle of some of the clues, and which was just generally a popular theme of the time. I remember seeing a lot of astrology-based things in popular culture (like astrology computers; I had a Coleco Zodiac around 1980)
#59: It’s not right -> Left
#68: That which goes down, must come up -> The Sun (seems to be a recurring theme)
#7: What you don’t do to go -> stop
#10: Wo adler sich sammeln -> “where eagles gather”
From the New King James, Matthew 24:27-28
“For wherever the carcass is, there the eagles will be gathered together”
From New King James, Luke 17:37
“Wherever the body is, there the eagles will be gathered together”
The numbering for these is wrong, I think? Or are we missing a clue?
In this list there is no #11.
In the screenshot package there is no #9.
If numbering is important to solving things, might be best to get the numbering squared away.
The numbering is entirely internal so can’t be essential (that is, it shouldn’t be visible to players normally) but when I whip up a google spreadsheet later for gathering the info I will fix it.
Oh, I see. I didn’t realize the numbering was like that. Thanks.
Could #34 be Greek letters? Tau followed by lower-case zeta?
The fact that the starting area of the game map has different graphics from the rest seems like it must be significant. Maybe the idea was for the overall map to approximate an American flag, as a very broad clue to Washington DC? And so maybe #27 roughly means that if you want to find the treasure you first have to traverse (and map) the maze?
I’m investigating the manual for additional information.
I’m super interested in this clue “don’t overlook anything” and the manual saying, “As you wander through the caves, pay attention to every detail, no matter how insignficant it may appear.”
Might there be additional clues than the non-obvious text/image based ones? While wandering the maze, looking at every single wall/ceiling/floor… maybe there’s something else there? For example, while stepping through the images in the .zip file, I norticed that the lines of the walls are usually white/blue… except sometimes they’re green: 10, 18, 30, 39, 62
Also, CIBURA (#62) is a dead-end with walls depicted on the left and right. Every other case with this, the wall being faced has an arch shape. But CIBURA is square.
Oh, I see now. The map shows a green area in the upper left with those numbers. Yes, I think this is absolutely important.
This is making me wonder: What if the maze is a map? Like, the green area in the corner could represent a park or other green area, like the National Mall, or the adjoining park where the Albert Einstein statue is located. The physical placement of the clues could be important. Maybe we’re supposed to correlate them with real locations.
I’m also wondering about the fonts used.
if “HCOAC” is only important in its letters, why not use the same letters used on other clues?
Why custom-drawn letters in a style that doesn’t appear anywhere else?
There are also what appear to be missing letters (debatable)
#51: assuming it references the advertising phrase, “Deer” is missing an “E” and “Beaut” could be missing a “Y”
#42: “Blow” is missing an “S”
Spells “YES” but… I dunno.
I wonder if position of the clue is important? For example, are the clues on the “floor” all related?
“a billion stars may show you the way” -> milky ? (as in milky way)
Overlaying images is turning up some very interesting potentials.
#53 and #49 (word ladder and “BUSH”) line up perfectly, with a perfect one text line gap.
#48 and #60 (“juniper” scrambled and “the road is clear”) fit pixel-perfectly together.
#21 and #18 (3 dot glyph, “y” looking glyph) fit together so perfectly it can’t be coincidence (or maybe it can?!)
I put up a Google Sheet (with general edit access) if you feel like doing some cutting and pasting. I’ll be going over later today.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1KSpxIFGAZFiWY22Mw97dNzIEFusBJvfZTIjyUgTyK4U/edit#gid=0
#8 (DENVER / 10) and #36 (-CIDE) use the same font, and are the only two clues to use that font.
#24 (person at odium?) and #34 (T.S.) are exactly the same size and appear in the same lace on the wall. What does overlapping them look like?
Good point about #8 and #36. Since #8 is “division”, #36 might actually be a minus sign.
#24 and #34 combined don’t make anything visually interesting, except that it kind of makes it seem like T and S are labels for the person and the “podium”
I’ve added some visual combos to the Google Sheet.
I’ve requested a pull request to Casey Muratani’s github repo to include the layered photoshop file I’m using.
I’m currently only exploring pixel-perfect layering, but moving images around to fit one another might also be interesting.
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“Home on the Range” was made the official state song of Kansas in 1919.
The clues for Home on the Range are the only 3 that are hard-coded and guaranteed to appear, I believe?
Perhaps our search begins in Kansas?
And this would make sense relative to the “Wizard of Oz” (potential) reference with “no place like home”
And “wherever you may roam” could also be an allusion to “home on the range,” where the buffalo roam.
Third verse talks about, what else, stars again.
How often at night when the heavens are bright
With the light of the glittering stars
I stand there amazed and I ask as I gaze
Does their glory exceed that of ours?
There are some distinct capitalization patterns in the clues:
Words Capitalized:
1, 2, 3, 7, 26, 29, 38, 41, 43, 44, 51, 52, 59, 63, 71, 73, 77, 81(?)
ALL CAPS:
6, 12, 13, 14, 27, 32, 40, 46, 47, 49, 53, 61, 62, 67, 68, 70, 74, 75, 78, 79
lower case:
37, 48, 69, 72
Words Capitalized PLUS CAPS:
25, 66
Sentence case:
35, 60
Is this an indicator of how we’re supposed to group clues into larger solutions?
#24 and #25 The “watch them play” reference and the image below it seem to refer to an orchestra playing (the image being that of a conductor).
#4 and #5 clearly says “Coach Penis” or “Penis Coach” for whatever that’s worth
#10 is actually “warmer of toes” in the plural, if that’s important. Although the English translation would be “toe warmers”
#57 look like guard rails on the side of a road to me
Dont know why, but I think all these clues in the game are somehow referring to Wolf Trap park just outside of DC. There was certainly a major incident there in 1980 (large parts of it burned down). Been a while since I’ve been there, but if it has some connection to either the names (Taylor, etc) or zodiac/constellation stuff, I wouldn’t be surprised.
While it may not be in the spirit of the puzzle, has any attempts been made in tracking down the original developer Gene Carr?
Jason, thanks for the rabbit hole. I just spent far too long reading these posts.
Maybe this is nothing, but maybe something that triggers a thought for someone else…. Has anyone had a thought or theory about why some of the image “hints” have feet in sandals at the bottom? I didn’t see any mention of this in previous posts/comments. But what I did notice is the picture of the Albert Einstein statue. Take a look at his feet. He appears to be wearing sandals/slippers.
The sandals are being worn by our character. We’re actually seeing our real feet in the game universe as we’re looking down.
Hi Jason,
I’ve been obsessed with all these clues lately, I just recently discovered this game through your blog post a few months ago but I’ve spent the last three weeks just grinding through it.
I have an insane amount of notes and got some excellent revelations. I will give it another week or two to organize everything and complete my notes before I share them.
I organized a lot of the clues and found their twin clues. But it’s a lot of work, the hardest part right now is learning about various ciphers and applying them to different clues. I also know nothing about star charts or how to find a location from the stars.
Are you aware of other retro games with prizes that were never solved? Alkemstone reminded me of the SwordQuest series and that’s why I was drawn to it.
I wanted to bring to your attention that the Google Doc has most of its images missing, but that could be an issue on my end.
Also, the zip file skips over #9 which can be confusing sometimes.
I wanted to share a small discovery I made, that I can’t approach on my own, although it might not be important.
Combining clues “ONU” and “-cide” together, then unscrambling them spells “Unicode” which might be important for the images. However, I’m not sure what Unicode system the Apple II computer used back then, I’m assuming it’s not the universal Unicode we have today? I’m not well-versed in programming or coding, and answers online are confusing. Additionally, I think this is a coincidence because these two clues are twins with other clues, and not each other (maybe?).
Anyways, I’m either really close or embarrassingly wrong!
Also, I can’t find anything definitive on the puzzle creator Gene Carr. It seems likely that it was a man named Terry Gene Carr who had a career in science fiction writing. He, unfortunately, passed away in 1987. His wife, Carol Carr, lived all the way up to 2021 before passing away. Carol married a man named Robert Lichtman who just recently died last year. I’m not sure if any of them had children or not.
It might be possible that the people who knew where the Alkemstone was are not with us anymore.
Looking forward to your writeup!
btw, Unicode wasn’t invented yet when this came out. There isn’t any way that could be significant.
oh, regarding your other unsolved retro game comment–
Krakit, which we just recently did, went unsolved, although the answers later got released.
https://bluerenga.blog/tag/krakit/?order=ASC
However, the explanations weren’t! So we were able to back-solve most of what we didn’t solve, clue number 6 (which ought to come out to be Delhi, India) is still a complete mystery. Each of the clues is a self-contained puzzle so it isn’t a grand metapuzzle like Alkemstone.
Thanks for your responses, Jason.
Ruling out Unicode lessens the information load of the clues, so thank you.
I started filling out a PowerPoint of all my findings, but it’s still incomplete. Utah has a 25k treasure hunt that I began to focus on instead for now. Once that’s over, I can finish my Alkemstone work.
My methodology has been to find as many answers and interpretations for each clue as possible, then group clues together based on similarities, and if I feel confident, match them up with their pair. It’s very repetitive and exhaustive work, but I’m having fun.
I’m also conflicted about sharing everything because I feel like I’m getting a direction, and my intention was to make some sort of amateur mini-documentary if I found it and traveled to the location with some friends. However, I only really have until the end of summer before I can’t travel for a long while, and that’s when I would feel the most comfortable with sharing everything. I will share some things I found that might be of importance.
While I believe that “Albert” referring to Albert Einstein is still a valid answer, I also want you to consider an alchemist named “Albertus Magnus”.”Alkemstone” references the “Arkenstone” from Lord of the Rings and it’s a combination of the words “Alchemist’s Stone”. The “Alchemist’s Stone” is also known as the “Philosopher’s Stone” the unobtainable treasure of the alchemists which can turn any substance into gold. There are a lot of references to gold in the clues. Albertus Magnus dabbled a bit in alchemy, but he was mostly mis-accredited by alchemist fans of his about his alchemy skills, so he adopted that reputation. While I’m not sure about his connection to the clues themselves, I have been finding a lot of good answers by applying an alchemist’s perspective to the clues. Albertus also dabbled in astronomy and astrology as well, which the clues mention a bit.
There’s also the “Alberti Cipher”, but I haven’t found much luck applying it to the clues. Although it might be possible, I just need to work on that more.
Additionally, many clues seem to be dichotomous yet similar to each other. Like the civil war, classical elements, lead, and gold, night and day, east vs west, north vs south, yin and yang, etc.
Not sure about the importance of this, but was interesting.
I’m not sure how much else I should share, I feel very douchey about gatekeeping information, but my friends wanted me to not say much for now.
Anyways, thank you for rediscovering this game, it’s been very fun to go through.
I’ve really enjoyed the whole All the Adventures series up to this point, and I’d love to find out the solution to this game. I think the most interesting possibility is that the 4 JFK clues correspond to four graves in Arlington. To me that suggests some parallel between the game grid and the real map. I made a pull request to the Github repo with a GeoJSON file for exploring this idea, in case any of y’all are nostalgic to relive the pentagram puzzle from Police Quest 3. I tried to do it myself, but no breakthroughs jumped out at me.
Also, I like “pass” as a solution to “what you don’t do to go” because it suggests a connection between the “seek to pass” instruction and the mysterious empty square in the grid. I wonder if the differences in capitalization are supposed to be a clue as to which of the two puzzle-writing creatures was the author of each particular message. And I’m curious how we know the snake’s appearances are truly random.
Speaking of completeness…will we ever solve Alkemstone?
#39 may be rugby goalposts -> Rugby Field in DC?
Or #42 and #36 could be joined: beecide (beside?) Maybe connected to other location clues?
#40 ONU might be UNO (one) spelled backwards.
#66: Is this simply Dawning (= almost/barely the age of Aquarius)? (Referring to the song). Also corresponds with #68. If 7am (7 hours are enough) is the right time, the sun will rise about 7am on September 27 (or February 14 but that wouldn‘t avoid the winter). #68 may also be referring to the nautical twilight instead? Was it the same in 1981, though? Also, there wouldn‘t be much of a shadow.