(Prior posts on Ferret in chronological order here, and in case you’re curious, we’re now at Part 34.)
The lake is defeated! (Probably.)
Last time I had arrived at a mysterious “Control Center” after moving past an airlock under a lake.
Control Centre
This is a large area that has been thoroughly ransacked. Only a few items of the original equipment remain, possibly because they appear to be immovable or of little value. Attached to one wall are a green button and a red button together with an electrical contact breaker. Near to the green button is a tiny slot. To the right of the slot, embedded in the wall, is a copper spigot. Set in the middle of the floor is a curved pipe surmounted by a big rusty wheel. There are tunnels leaving the area to north and south.
Past this there was a tower that you could climb in order to see a dam with a hole letting out water…
This circular area has a staircase leading down into the base of the tower. Your position commands a tremendous view of a wide lake surrounded by high mountains. One end of the lake disappears into mountains but at the other end is a dam. The concrete wall of the dam appears to be damaged as there is a vee-shaped disruption to the integrity of the wall that allows a torrent of water to flow out of the lake and away.
…and a waterfall, where entering the waterfall essentially sticks the player and forces them to restore a saved game.
Waterfall
You are standing in a most wonderful, beautiful awe-inspiring waterfall. The water has a wonderful cleansing effect but the sheer force of the water is totally disorienting.
Recapping my item list, I had put a “long duralium spanner” in the pocket of the diving suit I had used to enter the airlock, but otherwise wasn’t able to bring in any outside items. I also had access to a “PVC Bin” and an inflatable dinghy in a side room. None of these caused any effect from the parts of the Control Center. I tried pushing the buttons in various sequences, patterned and not. I tried turning on and off the spigot. I tried with and without pulling the contact breaker. I tried turning the wheel at various intervals.
-> push red
Click.
-> pull breaker
The contact breaker snaps downwards viciously, nearly smashing your fingers.
-> turn wheel with spanner
It won’t budge.
-> turn spigot
Done.
-> turn spigot
Undone.
-> push green
Click.
There’s also the “slot” in the description but the only plausible item to be slotted in was the spanner, which didn’t fit. So I switched to the assumption I was missing an item, and starting messing around with a “hogshead” (large cask) by the lake and seeing if I could get it to float over to the other side of the lake where the dam was. Mind you, the dam is placed such that you can’t actually reach the lake water, but I was low on options.
-> 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.
-> get on hogsheqad
You are in the hogshead.
Lake
You are wallowing around in a hogshead on a beautiful lake. In the middle of the lake is an island.
The above works if you have no items, and no items stuffed in the hogshead. But you’re also stuck, and eventually float to your death:
Geronimo! Over the dam we go and you experience the sheer thrill of flying down a waterfall in a barrel. Unfortunately, the hogshead does not appear to have any form of braking (breaking yes, braking no). A fact that becomes strikingly evident as the hogshead explodes as it encounters a rather substantial rock outcrop snuggling under some shallow water at the base of the dam.
You have been smashed to smithereens.
It is still faintly possible — because the hogshead passes by the Treasure Island where we blew up a rock a little while back and got stuck underground — that there’s some relation to that, but I expect this is simply an extended red herring, as it turns out I was making things more complicated than I needed.
The diving suit has a second pocket!
-> look in suit
Peering inside you can see:
a comb pocket
which contains
a long duralium spanner
a coin pocket
The reason I missed this is a.) I had learned about the pocket second-hand, rather than seeing a direct message and more importantly b.) the game is very picky when it comes to verbs for looking at things. Specifically, LOOK AT, LOOK THROUGH, LOOK UNDER, and EXAMINE don’t work; the first three are included under the TEST verb (which if you remember, tries a whole bunch of verbs all at once). LOOK IN wasn’t included, and while I’ve used it with containers without prompting, I didn’t think of the suit as a container.
The coin pocket is enough to fit a “a tiny rectangle of mica” that I had been toting around — this is back when we solved the giant crypto-crossword and we got a code that got put into a keypad — and to the game’s credit, I almost immediately realized this had to be the item that I needed. Tucking it in my coin pocket, I went back to the control center:
-> put mica in slot
Done.
-> pull breaker
The contact breaker snaps downwards viciously, nearly smashing your fingers.
-> push green
Click. Off in the distance a tremendous rumbling starts and then gradually mutes to a distant hum.
-> turn wheel with spanner
Eek, eek, squeak, squeak and other onomatopoeias. The wheel requires a tremendous effort to turn. Once turned a distant whine appears to emanate from an unknown source.
This slows down the waterfall and lets you pass through, even finding a secret location in the process.
Waterfall
You are standing in a most wonderful, beautiful awe-inspiring waterfall. The water has a wonderful cleansing effect.
Exits: -SEW ——– —
-> s
Venus Crux
You are in a hollow in the concrete of the dam. There is a most wonderful, beautiful awe-inspiring waterfall to the north.
Exits: N— ——– —
There is a cellophane bag here
which contains
a strawberry ticket
Moving past the waterfall (and a hike of a fairly large number of “plain” locations) finally leads to a well, where two more puzzles awaited.
-> d
Wee. Oh. That’s no fun. Just looking forward to a good fly by no wire when the voyage is rapidly arrested by a jarring thump on something quite hard. No damage done, though, as you landed on your head.
Dog Leg
You are on a small ledge formed by a large rock intruding into the side of the well. The well does not appear to have been formed by hand nor machine, rather the shaft appears to have been rent in the earth’s surface, the contours of the shaft being irregular and uneven. The rock is only a short distance below the opening of the well so there is light from above.
Below you is only darkness.
First, surviving the trip farther down, which is just a plummet to death. As long as you leave it uninflated until this very point, you can carry the dinghy down here with you, drop it, pull a cord it has, and, well:
-> pull cord
Phsstt. Phssshhhh. Phsstt. The dinghy inflates to its full size. Amazing really considering the chances of an ancient dinghy still having enough compressed gas available to do the business. Lucky old you.
-> board dinghy
You are in the dinghy.
-> push off dinghy
It’s a bit difficult to launch when there’s no water around, let’s try pushing off anyway….
Wee. Oh. Great fun. This flying lark is wonderful. All the more so, by doing it in the dark, with no idea of the consequences. Let’s have a hard think while plummeting. What are the chances of a soft landing? Probably not good really. Squidgy plop. This dinghy is certainly a useful thing to have around as it forms a quite respectable bouncy castle cum emergency landing platform. After some considerable rocking and rolling you arrive at a reasonable level of equilibrium.
You are in the dark.
(Yes, PUSH OFF is also a weird verb choice, only used in this game as far as I know, but it dates back to Phase 1 now so I’m used to it.)
The problem is that you are entirely in the dark here with no way out. It took me not long to suspect I had done something wrong, and I’ll skip past some flailing (you can, through extreme shenanigans, take the teleport bracelet with you — it doesn’t work) to the point where I landed on something other than solid ground. Notice the difference in description below:
Wee. Oh. Great fun. This flying lark is wonderful. All the more so, by doing it in the dark, with no idea of the consequences. Let’s have a hard think while plummeting. What are the chances of a soft landing? Probably not good really. Squidgy plop. This dinghy is certainly a useful thing to have around as it forms a quite respectable landing craft, splashing as it does into some sort of fluid. Let’s hope it’s not dangerous. After some considerable rocking and rolling you arrive at a reasonable level of equilibrium.
What had happened is I created an unusual variant of the Parallel Universes Problem, which I’ll recap here to save you clicking the link:
Suppose you are a happy adventurer going from point X to point Z and manage to do so without any obstacles. However, you later restore a previous game (because you got eaten by a bear, say).
After restoring, you try going from point X to point Z, but get stopped in the middle at point Y this time. Something different happened! What changed? Perhaps you had picked up an item in universe #1 but didn’t realize it; perhaps there was some secret timing element that you lucked out on the first time. Either way, you ran across the frustrating situation of being in an alternate universe without being aware something had changed.
This time, rather than stumbling across a puzzle that was previously not encountered (due to it being invisibly solved) I solved a puzzle without understanding what had happened! (This is sort of like playing an adventure with a group, where a particular member of the group doesn’t have a new insight, but rather types things in a slightly different order so manages to get through. I created my own clone helper.) Fortunately, the game has ample scrollback and combing through my log I realized while I had in all iterations turned the spigot at the Control Center on, in the save that was working I had taken a brisker route to the well.
The water is timed: you have to turn the spigot, then make sure you move rapidly enough that you land in water.
-> wait
Time passes (yawn).
You are experiencing a strange therapeutic sensation, as if gently bobbing in water, which gives you slight feelings of elevation and elation.
-> wait
Time passes (yawn).
You feel a sudden rushing sensation as if you are being thrown sideways with quite considerable force. There is a period of buffeting with the sound of rushing water followed by a brief period of silence with a wonderful flying feeling as if you have been launched into free-fall. You confirm the falling sensation by falling into daylight followed by a slight bump as you come to rest on the floor of a cave.
Crux of Turbulence
A dimly-lit bowl carved out of solid rock. Above you is an angled hole in the rock roof. There is a similarly angled exit in the rock floor.
Exits: —- ——– -D
There is a human skull here
Going down leads you back out to the south side of the Lake, where you can get back on the train and leave.
Assuming this completes the Lake section, that means the only two left to tackle are Phases 15 and 16. As a public service announcement, I’ll mention the Holloway Museum in Phase 15 has a crash after all these activities:
-> n
Holloway Museum
A dark area between very high walls. To the south is a steel door, to the north a stairway leading to a raised area. High above you is a wire cable.
There is a mildewed infosign on the east wall.
Exits: NS– ——– U-
-> read infosign
Holloway MuseumOpened 1957
A system of deep trenches created through the woods during the War of the Three Forests.
To confuse the enemy in the event of invasion the trenches changed direction many times with curves, rises and falls to disorient anyone unfamiliar with the layout. The difficulty of navigation was exacerbated by the many dark, interconnecting tunnels between the trenches. An intrinsic feature of the deep sheer-sided trenches was the propensity to flood during rainy periods, which mandated the need for regular and frequent maintenance of the drainage system. Regular users of the Holloways knew to follow the green arrows painted on the wooden signs if the water level started to rise.
An infosign provided by the Trustees of Holloway Museum. Digest and Enjoy.
-> n
Raised Platform
A raised area between very high walls. There is a sunken area to the south.
High above you is a wire cable.
Exits: NS– ——– -D
-> n
Raised Platform
A raised area between very high walls. To the north is a staircase leading down into water. High above you is a wire cable.
Exits: NS– ——– -D
-> n
The Event that was expected wasn’t found; a situation that would cause Windows to crash, but in this world the next message will be wrong…
That’s because the area is now filled with water — dealing with the dam and control center has affected an entirely different phase! In order to prevent the crash (which is just a death that lacks description) you need to be wearing the life vest. (Which you can grab from the dark maze, which is way back like 7 posts or so.) This drops you in a watery maze, which I have solved (see in the comments if you are playing and need help), but I’ll get into it more next time.
Renga in Blue 
To solve the maze upon entering the water portion of the museum:
nsgre svefg ragrevat gur jngre, tb
abegurnfg, abegujrfg, abegurnfg, abegujrfg
gurer jvyy or n fgnve
To get out after you’ve picked up the item:
obneq gur pntr
Excellently done. I have to wonder if TEST not including LOOK IN is intentional by the authors, to punish those of us used to relying on TEST by rendering the diving suit inscrutable.
Authors let me know lack of Look In in Test was an oversight. They will be adding it in.
Also (and I sadly suspected this given what we have found skips a stop) 9-14 have five tickets, not three. So we aren’t done combing through yet.
My suspicion is one thing is hiding at Prototype at the number sequence puzzle. Dunno on the other.
I agree Prototype at the number sequence puzzle is highly suspicious (especially as you get some points for going into the Subbasement to start the puzzle, but then get no more points for working through the puzzle rooms – even upon reaching the “end” with the silver obol).
Perhaps the mysterious book from the Mastermind puzzle building also has a ticket inside it that needs to be extracted somehow.
For what it’s worth, I’ve found that the waterfall in phase 12, after turning the control room wheel, behaves exactly like the waterfall in phase 11 before turning the wheel, ie: once you pass beneath it you can’t move in any direction. I can’t help but think there’s a clue in this somehow.
Old Nick should be just above Prototype. In theory, the other question/microphone rooms should have additional rooms beneath them. I’ve tried holding as many heavy items as I can carry and jumping on their floors, moving additional items into the room and doing the same, etc. to no avail. I have a feeling something more systematic is needed here.
I think it is possible the phase 12 waterfall thing may have been a bit of evil we just managed to avoid. Someone who manages to get through the Wilde puzzle on 9 before leaving the first time (which is possible) and get through the lake sequence before moving on to explore phase 12 will just find a dead end, and _not_ find the number clue that applies to the previous phases.
There is a new version out, 10.21.
“Phase 14 tweaked to neutralise brute-force solution.”
I didn’t think anyone needed to bruteforce *this* part, but I am intrigued how it could be stopped. Not prioritizing looking at that over all other things going on in the game at this time though.
Maybe it is not brute-forcing the negative/positive-oscillating triangular number sequence they refer to, but it is some other part of phase 14 that I haven’t found yet. E.g. how many times to jump in a room to make the floor break…
Version 10.21 introduces a new bug though.
It seems that when you READFILE an FCF file with a comma in a COMMENT the parser crashes with “The kits have been chewing the wires again…” error message. This was not the case with 10.20 and earlier versions.
*now removing many many commas from comments in my FCF files*
It seems to break a lot of other and more important things too, my FCF files are broken already in phase 1, it seems it is no longer possible to pick up things in the dark in the Labyrinth like I have used to do, or it might be even more complex than that. I expect that when I have worked around this part there will be more newly broken things to work around.
Actually it seems I didn’t need to do much more rewriting after the Labyrinth inventory shuffle.
The timing of the Labyrinth in phase 1 is now just right for bringing only the two (plus one) things you absolutely need to the beach. My old system here allowed me to bring many many more items from the house to the beach, but there has been no sign of any of the other items being useful or needed so I guess this is an intended change.
If this change takes away any possibility to pick up items in the dark (like it seems to do) throughout the game it will make it significantly harder to do some of the parts where we used that trick for mapping.
Big hint on phase 14 breakthrough.
BX, gur punatr ybt zrffntr jnf fhpu n ovt uvag ba ubj gb cebprrq jvgu cunfr 14 fb V qba’g guvax V unir gb jevgr nalguvat zber urer…
Right?
Maybe a slight clarification needed – I do not mean that you should “exploit” the possibility that was removed in 10.21, I made the breakthrough in version 10.21, no brute-forcing involved. I must say that I feel a bit stupid to not have thought to try this before.
Tried dropping a lot of weight on the floors, Tried jumping. Tried an actual brute force (because I haven’t updated yet) where I said all numbers from -1000 through 1000 in prototype.
I’m … really not sure what you mean. Maybe Invisiclues it?
I’ll ROT13 the solution here, it’s not really invisiclues, sorry, lack of creativity:
1. Lbh nyernql xabj gur cngu (V qba’g zrna gur “pbqrf”, ohg gur “trbtencuvpny” cngu) gb gur boby.
2. Jura lbh pbzr gb Fho-onfrzrag, qb abg tb hc, ohg vafgrnq tb gb Cebgbglcr (qnex!) .
3. Gura whfg sbyybj gur fnzr cngu, fgrc ol fgrc, nf lbh jbhyq ba gur sybbe nobir sbe ernpuvat gur boby.
3o… Xrrcvat va zvaq gung Cebgbglcr yvarf hc rknpgyl jvgu Byq Avpx, fb fgneg sebz gurer jvgu J;A;R;F;F;J;J naq fb ba.
4. Vs lbh qb guvf pbeerpgyl lbh jvyy trg bhg bs gur qnex whfg jura lbh ner orybj gur boby.
5. Vs lbh jnag gb tb onpx, gung vf nyfb cbffvoyr, ohg abgr gung gur cngu vf abg rknpgyl gur fnzr va erirefr – gur pbaarpgvba orgjrra Xanir naq Oêgr Abver vf nflzzrgevp, gur fnzr tbrf sbe gur cngu va gur qnexarff.
The ROT13 takes you up to a point where you add another +20 to your score. I.e., if you have already found 20 points after Sub-basement there is no real spoiler material for you in the obfuscated text above.
> Tried an actual brute force (because I haven’t updated yet) where I said all numbers from -1000 through 1000 in prototype.
As I found out from my FCF files being broken in Phase 1, the removed brute-forcing possibility is NOT about trying numbers. The actual nature of the removed brute-forving possibility was the big hint that was enough for me to overcome this obstacle.
I am now stuck (I strongly believe) at a later point in phase 14.
I made some progress that I will write about here in clear text but this should not be any really spoilery material except for the fact that there are several more things to discover in phase 14 – but we all guessed that already or you know it now…
Score increases in phase 14 that I have found so far:
Longcross Station Platform +5
Sub-basement +25
Looking up Satan’s Bumhole +20
Cataract +10
Snot Central +20
The way to reach LuSB is covered (in the ROT13 text) already.
Then there is soon a poster which I do not make any sense of.
Poster text in ROT13:
Ivfvg Wbpx’f One
Znexrg Fgerrg arkg gb gur Frpx’f Fubc
Yvdhbe va gur Sebag
Cbxre va gur Erne
Fcvg-ebnfgf n fcrpvnyvgl rirel Fngheqnl
Then there is a large section which I have not found much point to yet. Note that it has some horribly glitchy asymmetric connections which might mess up your mapping, it does not seem to be any intentional problem.
After that you might look for reaching Cataract and Snot Central, which are sort of just two parts of the same problem. I discovered that there was something at all mostly by chance, and then I got past the section through methodical experimentation (no scripted brute-forcing needed). I still don’t see the logic in how to solve it, but I have a method in my FCF that works every time.
The point where I am now stuck (after you have gone through Cataract and Snot Central) has an instruction that demands that I “state my destination” (probably by SAY). I have tried a few things but without any success. You will know when you are there, it won’t take long!
So. I made it down to the [Nepuvir bs Natfg] *before* updating to the latest version of the game. And then revisited it after updating.
In the previous version of the game, [gurer vf abguvat gurer ohg gur cyhz gvpxrg. Gur oenff cyngr, gur tevyyr, gur ratenivat, gur vafgehpgvbaf… nyy bs gubfr jrer nqqrq va gur zbfg erprag hcqngr.]
I therefore strongly suspect [gur bayl checbfr bs tbvat qbja gurer vf gb trg gur cyhz gvpxrg, naq rirelguvat ryfr vf na rkprrqvatyl serfu fpneyrg cvypuneq.]
For what it’s worth, gur zvqqyr guerr yvarf bs gur cbfgre ner n ohapu bs rkprrqvatyl qvegl wbxrf, juvpu znxrf zr fhfcrpg gung vg vf vaqrrq n pevzfba xvccre.
Something neither of you two mentioned is that:
gur ebbz znexrq “Oynxr” ba gur abegu fvqr npghnyyl unf na vgrz lbh pna ybbx ng sbe zber vasb
Gur fnepbcunthf tyvfgref naq fcnexyrf va n zbfg gerzraqbhf jnl. Lbh ner
orqnmmyrq naq, abg gb n fznyy qrterr, ulcabgvfrq ol gur ornhgl bs gur bowrpg.
Fgenatr gung fhpu jbaqre fubhyq or nffbpvngrq jvgu gur zbeovqvgl bs qrngu.
Nal ebnq hc, lbh znl or vagrerfgrq va gur vafpevcgvba ba gur fvqr bs gur tnhql
bowrpg juvpu ernqf:
Gur Zbfg Rkhygrq
Gur Uvtuzbfg
Gur Yrnqre bs Serrq Zra
Gur Punzcvba bs gur Haqreqbt
Gur Zbfg Orgenlrq bs Nyy
Chg gb Qrngu guvf Qnl
NOPQKL0123789
Ol Srqrengvba Grezvangvba Beqre
Znl uvf Zntavsvprapr Erfg va Crnpr
It is interesting to play “against” this moving target of a game.
Have you been able to find the plum ticket in version 10.21? I am getting nowhere with the “new” Archive of Angst room.
Interesting that such a big change was introduced without any mention. I wonder if could be unintended? Maybe a glitch similar to the faulty phase 17 access from an earlier version.
There is something wonky going on, which I can’t tell if it’s intentional or a bug. First time I went there in version 10.21, the ticket was there alongside all of the other recently added trappings. I then reloaded an earlier save to get back there with more items (I had been using a save that didn’t have the PVC bomb and zinc key), but when I got back there, no plum ticket in evidence. It feels like that room in Phase 9b where Jason reported not seeing a particular item (I think it was in the Study? Wherever the trapdoor is) and then it mysteriously appearing later (I am blanking on the specific details).
The bugginess has a bit uneasy — I’m going to stick with 10.20 for the moment although I will inquire further as to what the issue is.
Anyone have luck on the hunt for the other extra ticket? Or trying to cart stuff back to the window washer cradle? (I was thinking pvc box + skull = helmet but I haven’t been able to find a combo yet that works to get on the right floor)
Got some clarity from the authors: the brute force was _not_ referring to the dark part, but the sequence leading up to the ticket, which is in reference to some other clue maybe in terms of the right sequence of movements? (They also indicated brute force was still possible, just not of the “wander randomly” type.) But also that we can grab the ticket in 10.20 if we want to and it won’t break anything.
Casket + PVC bin works to get to the “good” Phase 15 floor, but I couldn’t get anything useful to happen with the bin. (It’s too big to fit inside either the wire chip basket or the hob “depression” itself.)
I also found that the following inventory also gets to the “good” floor, but haven’t had luck tinkering with them there yet: skull, indigo pin, silver key, nickel key, puce transparency, vermilion transparency, acrylic orb, asbestos bag, book.
(Incidentally and speaking of changes-made-via-update, the earliest update that I reached the wire chip basket location, the *only* items available there were the chip basket and the three vinyl objects. Everything else that now appears there – the osmium thing, the driftwood, a couple of other things I don’t recall as I type this – only first started showing up there with one of the later updates.)
I also got a hint on the heating puzzle, and it was just
“Svaq gur pbeerpg bowrpg gb fhowrpg gb jnezgu.”
juvpu fbhaqf yvxr vg’f whfg n znggre bs grfgvat hagvy jr trg vg, engure guna fbzr pbzcyrk pbzovangvba.
No breakthroughs here, just a variety of inventory lists I’ve found work to get to the Milligan floor in Phase 15, to aid others in testing:
1. granite spheroid (this by itself is the exact weight needed to reach Milligan)
2. jade globe, manila envelope, indigo pin, silver key, toy truck, iron ring, piece of linen
3. skull, globe, manila envelope, voucher, PVC envelope, PVC vessel, zinc key
4. pin, perspex rod, security capsule, life jacket, any two tickets
5. fur, black cylinder, piece of linen, charging mat, PVC envelope, chunky bracelet, duralium spanner, fruit bowl, piece of mica, scroll, smudged pamphlet, radio, teleport bracelet
6. picnic box, ruby rod, communicator
7. manila envelope, voucher, flashgun, iron ring, toy robot
8. globe, mirror, wallet, tweezers
9. skull, pin, silver key, nickel key, puce transparency, vermilion transparency, acrylic orb, asbestos bag, book
10. casket, PVC bin
11. mirror, acrylic orb, chunky bracelet, one of the transparencies
12. silver key, fur, black cylinder, piece of linen, charging mat, one transparency, two tickets, wallet, chunky bracelet, fruit bowl, silver obol, piece of mica, book, flier
Slamming my way through things with no luck, I’m guessing you are too, like
asbsestos bag –> won’t fit
skull –> vaporizes
silver key –> vaporizes
acrylic orb –> vaporizes
nickel key –> vaporizes
pvc envelope –> vaporizes
pvc vessel –> vaporizes
zinc –> vaporizes
globe –> vaporizes
glossy voucher –> vaporizes
etc.
I do wonder if the solution is in fact a combination that involves one of the vinyl items, because I have not gotten *any* useful result from placing items in the basket by themselves (or placing anything directly in the depression without the basket).
It is also entirely possible that the item we need is something we haven’t seen yet, perhaps in a hidden section of Phase 10 or 12 where the elusive fifth ticket lies waiting.