I can’t say I really made “progress”, but I did map out Phases 10 through 12, which is dense enough to make an update. (Prior posts here. My most recent post is particularly necessary for understanding this one.)
Friedman, W. F. 1934. General solution of the ADFGVX cipher system. Technical paper of the Signal Intelligence Section, War Plans and Training Division.
Phase 9 (incomplete): the struggle is real
So the “incomplete” portion deserves some discussion: it is impossible, with this particular setup, to know when the current phase is complete. This makes a major break with the rest of the game; previously it wasn’t always clear which direction you were going, but at least if you broke through in the right way you got definite Progress by the phase number increasing.
With this phase … who knows when I’ll be done? (Other than the authors, of course.) There’s the automaton I still haven’t been able to do anything useful, and it certainly seems elaborate/significant enough to be important, but other than having it either a.) follow me around or b.) take the portable power generator and wander a little on its own I haven’t seen any other actions. At least, it doesn’t hop on the train, so that does limit it to phase 9, making it more likely to be used within phase 9 itself rather than later.
There’s also the mystery of the weird numbers on the floors, which might be genuinely nothing…
…but there’s an overarching theme of cryptography, and these particular numbers go from 1 to 26, so seem to match with the letters A through Z. Naïve crypto-solving hasn’t cracked anything (an auto-solver got me “a cargo these debris of a platos fide” as one out of many implausible choices), and I can’t think of a more clever tactic that will work.
SASGZ
TLWCQ
CXCIG
DQTPS
JMSLT
QPDXC
It _could_ be read as something other than left-to-right, but there’s an enormous number of possibilities to try. Going top-to-bottom starting from the left there’s equally weird choices like “sert blindly ash restorm and closer”.
I should mention, for the sake of completeness, other than just the Call 911 sign I mentioned last time, a placard:
Jenny Taylor Promotions
In association with the Rigid Digit Troupe
are delighted to announce a new collection
Juicy Lucy and the Suppurating Slits
with Hardlong Pipe and the Plumbers will play
The Come and Get It Adlib Concert
for one night only
Do not miss this once in a lifetime show
31st October 1985
An aural orgasm – The Voice of the Streets
Promoting Agents: Throbbing Vain Acts
Which is interesting both for the innuendo (this has been surprisingly innuendo-free for a mainframe/microcomputer game) and also the date, which suggests when the plaza was abandoned. If the bombs dropped 50 years ago, and the current year is 2083, what happened here to have a concert advertised from 1985?
I also spent an inordinate amount of time trying to escape from the sewer since last time.
Straightforwardly, there’s a blocked passage to the south, a blocked passage to the north, and all my attempts at poking and prodding to find secret exits (like the fridge from Phase 8) have been for naught.
-> d
Whaooah! You appear to have stood on some very slippery slime causing your rear end to impinge upon a significant downward slope that deposits you most ungracefully in a very unpleasant place.
Sewer
The walls here are curved as in a tunnel and their covering is not pleasant but the stench is far, far worse. The disgusting passage is blocked to the south. Overhead is a very dark opening in the tunnel roof.
I do want to mention the “diving suit” I found in the sewers (but have not got a use out of yet, I’ll get to a bit in a later phase where it could show up) is next to a “mouldering paper” pasted to the wall which is puzzling in itself.
I need to explain this before I expire. My life’s research has led me here. Sadly, I think my mind has been failing over the most recent years, things not having the clarity they used to possess. For what it is worth, and I hope it is worth something, otherwise my life has been for nought, my findings are as follows. Please pass on to Prof. Anderson of the Anthropology Department of Springfield University if you can.
“Every story of lore had three protagonists, they say. Let’s call them A, B and C. These lovely three were not related but they were from the same family, which means they are related, if you see what I mean. The first degree of freedom is the order of significance, which, in this case only, is reverse alphabetic order with a small, but significant, amount of moistness. Now, each of A, B and C can represent an individual digit, number, equation or some combination of some or all of the parts. Suffice to say the permutations are nearly endless, but in this case, think of some bears with a propensity to sugary conserves. The second degree of freedom is magnitude, for which an analogy with the late 20th century telephone will suffice coupled with the standard innuendo. The third degree of freedom is position within the arithmetic equation (or it is not how big it is, but what you do with it, to use televisual allegory). In this case we need to look to X and Y. If X is larger than Y then B is below the line, whereas if you are playing bridge it would be definitely above the line, if not straddling it. If Y is larger or equal in magnitude to Y then all are above the line with a straightforward multiplier effect. Not forgetting, of course, the geographical offset.”
I think this is trying to clue in specific values of A, B, and C, that gets used somehow. The “Now, each of A, B and C can represent an individual digit, number, equation or some combination of some or all of the parts. Suffice to say the permutations are nearly endless, but in this case, think of some bears with a propensity to sugary conserves.” is particularly suggestive.
Sewer Alcove
The walls here are curved as in a tunnel and their covering is not pleasant but the stench is far, far worse. The alcove appears to continue to the west.
Exits: —W ——– —
There is a putrid rucksack here
There is a slimy fleece here
There is a sandwich pail here
There is a cake tin here
There is a rusty key here
There is an oblong of parchment here
The other items found in the sewer are shown above. The cryptic parchment that I can at least give a little more info on:
As Tablesaw noted in a Mastadon post, the first letters of the phrases are ADFGVX, and there’s a code called ADFGVX developed in WW1. The 6 by 6 table is an integral part of the code, and the only other thing needed is a key word; FRET might suffice, but even if it is not that and we don’t have it, it should be possible to brute force crack a cipher encoded with this parchment.
The problem? Any encodings naturally use the letters A, D, F, G, V, and X only. I haven’t seen anything like that. So this is likely information for later or I’m missing something. I’ve resorted to random actions like taking a javelin (found in the middle of the numbered areas) and throwing it at one of the blocked passages.
Sewer
The walls here are curved as in a tunnel and their covering is not pleasant but the stench is far, far worse. The disgusting passage is blocked to the north.
Exits: -S– ——– —
-> throw javelin at passage
Thrown.
What’s really awkward it is faintly possible (only because this is Ferret) that going down to the sewers is purely a way of getting information, and there is no way out. However, as I already hinted at, there’s a tempting place for the diving suit later, so I’m 98% still certain there’s a way to escape.
Phase 10: An even bigger number grid
I eventually decided I had enough with 9, figuring useful info could be found later. It is of course possible the various codes and riddles can’t be solved without later information. Eagerly I stepped forward:
Ticket Office
You are in what was probably a ticket office, though it is now hard to tell as the room appears to have suffered from a number of nearby explosions. There is a wooden door displaying a carved inscription to the east.
Exits: NSE- ——– —
-> s
Open Area
You are in a vast open area. Inlaid into the design of the floor surface is the number 22.
Exits: NSE- ——– —
Only to find more numbers! This time nine by nine. (I tried my best to fiddle with zoom and fonts to make the numbers visible. Yes, I could just make it small and make you click to enlarge, but based on my blog stats almost nobody does that.)
The marked spots are “Open Area” spaces with no number at all. This suggests … spaces, maybe? Is there a historical cryptogram that matches this setup? If you assume “open area” means “space” and “double open area” means period, the code is
vaqfcz t uxfi xbx nbceuxjgqsq. uvfcnmauxx qyxcapqnnu. urqstxuocbxnbx xnex k hvoocn.
which also stumps the auto-solver I was using. The other grid is English-like enough in distribution I’m willing to believe it just needs reading in the right direction, but this one just doesn’t work:
ksurij w mary ada editmanzulu. mkriegsmaa uvaisqueem. moulwambidaeda aeta c pkbbie.
yuivoq b save aga ngocsazmiri. syvonkusaa iwaoufinns. shirbastoganga anca d lytton.
uracol i escp sys nyodeskjava. eucongress absorzanne. emavisetoysnys snds w hutton.
unoped c sapy aja rjetsaxbowo. superinsaa ogaenzorrs. showcaslejarja arta m fuller.
The only items hidden around are a rubber charging mat and a damaged communicator, with an interesting result if you put them together.
The communicator emits three short beeps followed by: “Area Scan commenced. Scan Completed. One humanoid detected in vicinity. Continuing. Automatic Personnel Identification Procedure initiated. APIP completed. Continuing. Agent identified, Darkins, B. O. Message Retrieval Service activated. Standby…. Latched. Continuing. This is your automated message service. You have one new message as follows: Darkins, you have failed to register with The Department for an excessive period. According to standard protocol you must text the first 8 characters of your Security Pass Number to 80085 immediately, whereupon you will be notified regarding your court hearing. Failure to comply will result in immediate termination. This message has been deleted automatically”.
This is fascinating from a story sense and I’m still trying to chew on it. As far as has been revealed so far, our main character was put in stasis for medical reasons “embalmed due to unknown viral infection”. Is that not entirely true? Was there something else to it; are we a secret agent of sorts where something went wrong? Have there been other clues in prior Phases to the nature of The Department?
Various people have noodled with this to no avail. If you go back to the telephone way back in phase 7 and try to dial 80085 it gives a “constant beeping noise” (what it gives if you dial an invalid number). I think the communicator is meant to be a separate communications device from all others.
Over to the west side of Phase 10 there was a theater.
Green Room
A large area apparantly designed for people to gather or possible wait. On the north wall is a copper pipe rising from the floor. The pipe has been severed about half way up the wall and is emitted a soft whistling sound. Above the pipe is the dirty shadow of a water heater that has apparantly been removed. There is an unmistakeable smell of methane. There is a steel door to the east and a staircase leading down. Near the staircase is a brass switch.
Turning the switch has explosive results.
There is a not inconsiderable explosion as the ancient workings of the brass switch generate a miniscule arc of electricity which, combined with the methane gas, causes a conflaguration that knocks you bodily down the stairs.
Rehearsal Room
You are in a large circular area with a low roof. There is a stairway leading up from the room. In the middle of the space is a podium mounted upon which are four pads. The pads are designed in the shapes square, triangular, oval and round.
Exits: -S– ——– U-
-> s
Dressing Room
You are in a large room with a low roof. Around the walls are broken mirrors and smashed lights. Under the lights is a long bench, in front of which is a bench seat.
Exits: N-E- ——– —
There is a sealed pvc vessel here
There is a zinc key here
You end up getting locked downstairs from a small fire caused by the switch. I haven’t gotten past this.
I was stuck long enough I decided to ride the train again.
Phase 11: The Lake
The pattern is broken up a little bit here. You’ve got locations with colorful titles (I gave “Chasm of a Thousand Cuts” last time; I also like the location called “Fist of Gloating”). None of the titles really indicate anything for the rooms they are at in particular.
The “Asylum from Emnity” is a little different. It has explosives.
Asylum from Enmity
A dank crepuscular room made from reinforced concrete as if to survive a blast overhead. There is some form of opening in the ceiling apparantly to permit the ingress of light and ventilation. Against one wall is a safe surmounted by a resin slab.
Exits: —W ——– —
The resin slab contains:
a mobile phone
some Semtex explosive
-> examine slab
The solid resin slab is rectangular and semi-transparent. It appears to contain a number of structures, principally a lump of Semtex explosive, embedded into which is a mobile phone comparable to many a Hollywood big time stylie bomb.
-> get slab
Do you know what happens to old explosives?
They become unstable to the point where any kind of disturbance can cause them to blow – literally. Your fussings appear to have provoked that senario. The bluebottles are swarming.
I assume the explosive can be set off early by dialing the right number. But what, and how? (Is it seriously using the phone all the way back in phase 7? I don’t think so, given the way the game is coded — personal state and objects carried have moved between phases, but nothing like a long term state change. Ferret can’t be underestimated, though.) Maybe this is where the cryptic A, B, C message comes into play? Why would that be referring to this explosive, though? Why would someone set this up in the first place?
On the north side there’s a lake:
Lakeside
The path reverts to rock as it runs back to the southeast. There are steep rockfaces on both sides of the path leading you into a beautiful lake.
Exits: —- –NWSE– —
There is an oak hogshead here
-> push off hogshead
It’s a bit of struggle given the weight of the hogshead, the roughness of the terrain and the unwieldy size of the barrel but eventually success is achieved. The hogshead is bobbing gently in the lake water.
-> nw
Lake
You are paddling in a beautiful lake. In the middle of the lake is an island.
To the southeast is a sandy path.
There’s two other approaches (one by a pier, one by a bell) but I otherwise haven’t gotten anything to happen. Can’t cause the barrel to move by any actions I’ve tried, but it might just be guess the verb/phrase. Diving suit would be nice to have, though!
There was even less to noodle with here, so it was an easy choice to jump to phase 12, which goes back to having an atrociously large multi-room setup where the names might be clues. But I think I’ve reported in enough for now, except I want to mention this clip from a cave in phase 12:
Retreat to Dessiccation
The cave is dark and foreboding, very gloomy and grey, most suffocating in its cloying damp atmosphere.
Exits: —W ——– —
There is a stone tablet here
-> read tablet
The tablet appears to have been engraved at some time in the past but the ravages of time have caused much distress to the surface of the stone. However, a little of the inscription is still legible.
On one side: 6, 26, 10, 11.
On the reverse side: M, V, X, Z.
Is this a clue for _previous_ phases? I haven’t tried it yet, but maybe this works to decipher four letters on phase 9, and that’s enough to decipher the rest, and then you’re supposed to make a spiral or something like that?
Renga in Blue 
80085, eh? I can’t help but imagine that number typed out on a calculator. Did the authors sneak in a “BOOBS” joke there?
The ‘standard innuendo?’
What do you mean with “innuendo free”? Are haikus or whole poems to be expected in mainframe text games? :-O
BTW, again my admiration for your patience. I’d have thrown the towel many iterations ago.
Lugi had a limerick: https://bluerenga.blog/tag/lugi/?order=ASC
but in general, there’s been either references or full-blown sex scenes (like in Haunt or Battlestar) in all of the mainframe games except for the Cambridge ones and the ones based on Adventure. Took until phase 9 for this one to get there.
I wonder if the “standard innuendo” mentioned with the “late 20th century telephone” might have anything to do with the old prank-call joke about “Prince Albert in a can”, since the tobacco referenced there shares its name with a type of genital piercing?
It makes me think of 867-5309, in which case the standard innuendo would be “for a good time call Jenny” or something like that. (Though 80085 = BOOBS is also convincing.)
You know, at first I was avoiding these entries in with the thought that I might play this game on my own some day, and thus uninterested to spoil myself on it. But as these entries kept piling on more and more, with no end in sight I’ve been putting that notion far away. Gotta say, this is feeling less like a really hard puzzle game and more like one this is the longest piece of IF to ever exist.
Hmm, that’s a good question: Ferret vs. Cragne Manor?
I do it so you don’t have to!
I had fun up to the end of 8, I need some more breakthroughs soon though.
btw, I think I’m _probably_ done with phase 12, unless there’s a way to take down a cyborg (probably uses an item from a prior phase I don’t have yet)
The major big area is just a [n tvnag znfgrezvaq chmmyr]
You can solve by going to the top row and using these steps
ghea fjvgpu;ghea fjvgpu;ghea fjvgpu;ghea fjvgpu
ghea fjvgpu;ghea fjvgpu;ghea fjvgpu;r
ghea fjvgpu;ghea fjvgpu;ghea fjvgpu;r
ghea fjvgpu;ghea fjvgpu;r
ghea fjvgpu;ghea fjvgpu;ghea fjvgpu
j;j;j;chfu ohggba
It gives a book with some very cryptic ASCII art. I’ll drop it as a reply to this.
Found a lifejacket in 13. Are we sure the train is one way only?
13 taking forever to map. Also found a [chpr genafcnerapl] but I started using something to search every exit at once and landing in the room with the item apparently was random luck.
I enjoy this. I am a bit short on time recently and haven’t been able to explore everything I want to yet but I’ve made some beachheads into all of the 9-16 phases.
I will post some things that I have stumbled upon as individual posts just one or a few at a time to allow for discussion rather than just dump all my information not yet revealed in the blog posts at the same time. I will have to disappoint you right away though – you will notice that while I have gathered new(?) information about some things I am still meeting dead ends most everywhere so far.
Firstly, about Master Mode parser changes and a possible slight game glitch.
I have noted that some new commands/interpretations that are hinted at becoming available with Master Mode actually are not available until I reach Phase 9 (or if it activated by points – I reach Master Mode at 960 points and Phase 9 at 965 points), though it is a very subtle difference. Maybe the difference is due to that there is some +5 points thing that is supposed to be activated but that I have not. (In such case it would be the third or fourth occurrence of such a thing in my playthrough up to Phase 9. You might remember this giving me trouble earlier also, when Expert Mode was not yet activated for me due to having skipped some points rewarding actions several phases back.)
More important though, I think you will find it rewarding to try to uncover other useful “meta” parser changes than the only one I’ve seen posted here (in a comment by Voltgloss on previous blog post).
Secondly, I want to talk about the locomotive, train line and stations. I really want to be able to more with the train than just get one-way travel to the next station, so I have tried to be quite thorough about this.
You have probably seen that the station names correspond to (a selected number of stations on part of) the Waterloo-Reading railway line. Image here: https://imgur.com/a/dyUHlZl
But is it not very strange that the descriptions tell us that we are rolling EASTwards when we go in the Waterloo to Ascot direction? The real world direction is clearly to the west. For a short time I was thinking that I misunderstood the descriptions so that the slope was towards the west but we were somehow activating the engine taking us upslope to the east (and then I was hoping for a way to “attack” the problem of rolling down the slope rather than climbing up it), but I don’t think that is right.
There are also some minor inconsistencies in the descriptions. The Ashford station in-locomotive description says that the steep embankment is to the south, on the same side as the platform – just a meaningless mistake I think. But there are more slight curiosities in the wordings: After becoming Master of Knowledge we get told about the handbrake resetting (after we have turned the knurled knob), that does not happen otherwise (but it still happens silently). There are also some other variations in the descriptions. I was hoping for this to be some hint, but now I believe this to be a dead end. You can see see an overview of the changes here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1t9BBm8ejDN1wfKBCh3XSmWNEwrnIz6w–isQHdMj2_w/
On to something probably more rewarding – the “square channel around the handbrake” which is possibly missing its grip is possible to use verbs on. To me this indicates that we might be able to modify the train controls. Alas, I have not been successful in my attempts so far. Trying to put something in it leads to the response that it is not open.
Some new ways to die that you might not have tried due to having better survival instincts than mine: GET OFF LOCOMOTIVE (where there is no station), FEEL TRACKS
And the last thing I have about the locomotive – you can [ERNQ UVREBTYLCUF], but that is all a mystery to me.
So, mostly disappointing(?) dead ends. But perhaps something in this gives someone a lead that they may be better at figuring out than I am.
Is the name “local Western Transit Loop” at all strange? (that’s off the lime ticket in the wardrobe) Your map just calls it a line, the “loop” suggests it actually can cycle somehow.
Maybe the weird channel only works in a certain spot. Or maybe we’ll find an item that fixes the channel?
Transit loops are not uncommon in larger cities. I don’t know of any transit loop related to this railway line (or any other railway in the London area). Googling didn’t help much.
Unless it is a red herring I definitely think that the handbrake is missing a part that could enable us to do more things with it. (Or it might be a remnant of a puzzle that was removed… Isn’t it a bit strange that we can operate the handbrake without the grip?)
I went ahead and asked. Authors confirmed it is still linear — you can’t go back.
The thing that strikes me about the numbered grid in phase 10 is that it’s perfectly symmetrical. Also, the distribution of numbers seems a little too un-random to comprise a simple substitution cipher, though I could be way off-base on that. Anyway, the symmetry seems significant.
I was thinking crossword, tbh
huh … actually, if you use the four letters from the cave, and fill them in and think of the whole grid as a crypto-crossword, they land in relatively decent places (there’s a four letter word ending in Z, but at least “ditz” fits in there).
V?X shows up as a three letter word but that could be VAX. (add: VEX works better)
Also “buzz”, but 11 would be “z”, no? Or would it be reversed (to make the characters on the front of the tablet spatially map out to the ones on the back?) In any case, it’s doubtful that the cipher, if that’s what it is, is meant to be read horizontally if the letters map out as shown on the tablet – either “m” or “z” would be taken as a single word.
it is mostly (if not totally) authors so it could be a relatively odd word
but based on the rules of the crypto-cross it would only be able to end with one Z
if I’m right (Still not 100%) 1-across is ASIMOV and 1-down is ALDISS (both sci-fi writers)
current progress, probably don’t have time to finish tonight
Link here
trickier with sci-fi/fantasy authors in there
LEE is a decently prominent fantasy writer in England
still feels like something might be off? I did also quite carefully check things, there’s one bit I think is just a buggy map spot (the “i” of S?inn) where going east leads to a different spot than it should.
truly last one for tonight
Link
Names have a ton of flexibility so it is hard to figure out what goes in the small stuff
Only thing solving this (assuming this is right) might give is that maybe the numbers now are what go in the phase 9 grid
Maybe this can be of help when experimenting with the “crypto crossword”: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1fNwoH-RiDvk44skfZ6AP-I7OsAB746ZhIyWh5Hf95TI/
You can make an editable copy of it if you find it convenient. I think the document is self-explaining, but otherwise just ask. Do not edit anything except the letters in the yellow area – unless you are sure of what you want to do.
Wow, this is impressive!
Shinn/hinz sounds right to me. Any particular logic behind your placement of “T”?
Looks like you missed a row on the phase 9 reference, it is six rows and you have five.
Ooops, the phase 9 data was added as an afterthought that it might be useful for that too, fixed it now.
About the T – at the stage of fiddling presented there were two “?I?” sequences with the same number at the end and different first numbers. The remaining unused letters (“USE” column) were JKPQTW. T at the end with possibilities like Kit and Pit for the two rows were my best guess, but there are probably much better ideas that did not occur to me. :)
I’m quite suspicious of FEB unless someone else finds support for it, but I think BARRON is good, so maybe F should be switched. FEIN could be KEIN or WEIN (or e.g. BEIN if that wasn’t used up), maybe it should be WEB…
also, the phase 9 grid looks suspiciously like it is trying to spell out numbers
you get TWO going down twice on the phase 9 grid if you swap W in instead of F
Wein is a more recent fantasy author but phase 10 was written by the authors in the “later period” so anything 90s is fair game
ADD:
if you toss in an F for 7 you get, reading left to right, top to bottom
TWO / XIS / EIGHT / OWT / FOUR / EVIF TWO
where the backslashes are unassigned numbers that don’t show up on the crossword at all
Ha, there was a point to that afterthought after all. :D
Two other quick points for anyone who wants to try “plugging in” the numbers somewhere
It could be the “untranslated” numbers get used as themselves, not as “spaces”:
TWO (4) XIS (12) EIGHT (23) OTW (4) FOUR (12) EVIF TWO
additionally, even though they read backwards above, everything is going from top to bottom, so really you could think of the XIS as “upside down”. If we go by 80085 logic (that might have been a hint?) then we might flip it calculator style, so XIS is really a “9” digit.
(ADD: hey, we’ve got that keypad with only the digits 2, 4, 5, 6, 8 present … that seems suspicious too?)
Of course, only one or both or even none of those things may be true.
This is some amazing work. The code works.
-> press 2
Click.
-> press 6
Click.
-> press 8
Click.
-> press 2
Click.
-> press 4
Click.
-> press 5
Click.
-> press 2
Click.
There is a whirring of machinery followed by a clunk.
Which of course just seems to leads to another mystery.
The wide slot contains:
a tan block
Another question is the phase 10 ‘crossword’ just a key to getting the phase 9 code or does it have some other use. Some non-names in there could be a clue. EDEN FIT(?) AMONG ICE.
Slightly spoilery stuff that you might want to find out yourself after our work with the cryptos… I am not going into any how-to details in the ROT13, but it is not at all difficult so you will probably find it out soon if you haven’t already. If you have something that reads “1M TB” you have already done everything that I just did.
V whfg unq gb gel bhe arj qvtvgf fbzrjurer, naq vg jbexrq, naq gung yrq gb fbzrguvat, juvpu yrq gb nabgure guvat, juvpu raqrq hc jvgu zr univat n “1Z
GO” zrzbel pneq.
Ah, we can use the digits… I had to do it this way… :D
-> push top nipple
Click.
-> push right nipple
Click.
-> push bottom nipple
Click.
-> push top nipple
Click.
-> push left nipple
Click.
-> push middle nipple
Click.
-> push top nipple
Click.
There is a whirring of machinery followed by a clunk.
My ROT-13 is a bit further than the tan block though. I did a leap of faith for that.
So, on to some Phase 10 things that I haven’t seen mentioned.
I start out with things that might be more of a bug report, just in case they could be meaningful. Then I will go on with what is probably more relevant.
Two things on my map of the Open Area do not match the one you posted, but I guess they can both be unintended glitches. Going W from the NE Large Kitchen Garden location takes me to the “number 14” Open Area location just south of the NE corner of the whole Open Area (ie N in EDEN); and going east from the “number 17” Open Area location “I in SHINN” takes me to the “number 24” Open Area location “last E in LEE”. It seems the W exits from both Foyer and Green Room should really be E exits, and fiddling with the steel door can lead to the Green Room having exits both W and E leading to the same Wings location. NW and NE exits from Front of Stage seem to have been mixed up, going to the opposite wing.
On to the actual gameplay of phase 10 then. I have not been able to unlock/open the cupboard or do anything with the tap/worktop/opening. I have not found any use for the translucent fruitbowl nor the memory card. I have not been able to do anything productive with the charged damaged communicator, no matter what I try dialing/typing. I have not been able to do anything useful in the theatre. I have not been able to survive going downstairs without causing an explosion. I have not been able to come back up. If you are in Rehearsal Room ~19 turns after the explosion you die in the building collapse, but if you are somewhere else at that time you can go back and spend the rest of your days hanging around the three(?) rooms of the downstairs area. I have not been able to do anything useful with the pads except “emit a short beep”. I have found out what I can do with the sealed PVC vessel, but not what I am supposed to use it for, I have tried using it at the locations available to me but it did not seem to do much except the obvious expected. The uselessness of the Closet and its racks boggles me. I am rather convinced that the zinc key is for operating a gas valve, but where is that valve, maybe in the cupboard, but if we turn off the gas, how can we get down the stairs, we need to find some light (which will probably explode the gas in Green Room if we have not shut off the valve, but the key is downstairs…), maybe in the cupboard too.
That is my phase 10 status, maybe I should have brought something from phase 9? I am thankful for any subtlish hints.
Sorry, perhaps I misled you about the closet. It seems the closet might be needed to avoid dying in the collapse.
This is my exact script for that part:
turn switch;s;e;wait 17;w;n
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