Something has happened. You don't know exactly what, but you know that this place doesn't seem right. This place where the doors don't have hinges or knobs and passing through one feels like you're passing through space and time. No, it doesn't seem quite right, but some things seem...familiar. Such is the strange and wonderful world served up to you by RobotJAM and Rob Donkin in Synapsis 2.
Synapsis 2 is the equally mindbending point-and-click adventure game sequel to the original, Synapsis. You are David Carter, a man who is trapped, maybe inside of his own head, maybe he's between places or maybe he just took a wrong turn somewhere. Either way, he's looking for a way out and to do that you'll have to guide him through a variety of puzzles. The mouse is all you will need to move from place to place, manipulate the environment, pick up and use items.
For a game that's so deliciously weird, the puzzles make sense. There will be times when you scratch your head and a few might cause a little frustration, but for the most part you won't be wondering why you're doing something. The relatively low difficulty of the game means that some players will be able to breeze through Synapsis 2. This is a little disappointing as you'll just want to luxuriate in the unique world and explore more of it, however it also means the game doesn't give itself a chance to get old.
Synapsis 2 is a beautiful looking game. The rooms are varied in appearance and atmosphere and each has their own sounds and music. The whole feel of the game is like a mixture between Twin Peaks' Black Lodge and the introduction to The Twilight Zone ("a place of sight and sound...a wondrous land whose boundaries are that of imagination"). There are plenty of games that are weird, this is one of the few games that I would label as surreal. it's an artfully constructed mixture of the mundane and the bizarre with a story where the confusion is part of the fun and what you see is more important than anything that could be said.
If you're looking for an adventure game that truly takes you to a unique world or you're a fan of film makers like David Lynch of Alejandro Jodorowsky, then you should definitely check out the Synapsis games. It might not take you long to get through Synapsis 2, but the sights and sounds will leave you begging for more.
Walkthrough Guide
(Please allow page to fully load for spoiler tags to be functional.)
Synapsis 2 Walkthrough: A Guide to Escaping Oneself
At the end of the beginning cutscene, you'll be in an office. The name of this room is Work. Pick up the key towards the left end of the desk, stick it in your inventory, and head into the "window" in the wall to the left.
You're now in The Hub. You can tackle these rooms in a few different orders, but let's start with the door on the far left: Childhood.
Open the window the bird is behind, then pick up the worm on the floor (it's in the spotlight of the same window) and stick it in the cage.
Pick up the crank handle that falls and put it on the can-shaped object on the floor-- it's actually a jack-in-the-box of sorts. Take the hammer.
Stick that hammer in the hand of the puppet in the puppet show booth and it'll reveal a skeleton. Take the quarter-circle from its hand, and also be sure to grab that helmet at its feet. Now you can leave.
Well, THAT was a trip. And it's nowhere near over yet. Now pick the door on the far right-- the one to Void.
Grab the Post-it note from the safe and inventorize it, then click it again to read it. Okay, but there's nowhere to input that... until you poke the power button in the bottom middle of the screen.
Hey, a keyboard! But it wants a passcode. Well, use the hint from the note: with A=1, B=2, the string of numbers on the note translate to "SESAME". That's the pass, so enter it by clicking on the letters and confirm it with the lower-right key (enter).
Okay, now it wants a load command. Try the word that was in all caps on the note: MANUAL. A book appears! Pick it up and read it just like you did the note.
...The manual's all gibberish, including the words in the margins, but those are just scrambled. The four words are PLANT, SHIELD, TABLE, and GLOBE. Enter them on the keyboard one by one.
You now have four more objects. Take the shield (it'll be useful later) and note the numbers on the other three things. Read them from left to right and they're the code for the safe. Input them and open 'er up!
Ooh, another room. "The Past"? Interesting. Not much you can do here yet, but open the red blinds and take the pendulum from the grandfather clock, then open the door in the back and check out that room.
"The Present". Doesn't look very pleasant. Take the wrench from the floor and the mirror from the wall, then head back to The Past via the same door that brought you here.
Back in The Past, stick the mirror on the wall on the same place it was in The Present, then use the wrench to turn the valve nearby to stop the dripping water. That should make our robot's future much less grim.
Return to The Present and observe the good deed you've done. Take the quarter-circle, then head back to The Hub through the Void.
Next stop, the second door on the left, War. Inside this room, take the clock from the wall on the right and the shoulder plate from the floor on the left.
Take the document next to the enigma machine in the foreground, then look at it. Approach this same enigma machine and use it to decode the three gibberish words on the document. Just "type" the words and they'll be translated.
Now go to the big map on the far wall, find the three Post-it notes that display the translated names when moused over, and click on them to add airplane icons. If you add an icon to the wrong place, click again to remove it.
Once they're all correct, you'll receive an interesting scene and another quarter-circle. Skedaddle and return to the Hub; it's time to tackle our last wing. Second door on the right.
Welcome to Reflection. The suit of armor on the right doesn't have a few things his partner does. Give it the shoulder plate, the helmet, and the shield... but it still needs a sword.
Use the key you picked up at the beginning on the chest in the foreground to find the missing sword, then put it in place to open the door. Take the clock front from the table on the left before proceeding.
Time. Put the three clock faces you've picked up in the clocks identical to the ones you took them from. The rectangular face goes on the rectangular thing in front of the window, the round pendulum on the grandfather clock's face, and the big round clock goes on the hook on the right wall.
You now have access to three pairs of arrows. Each one controls a different ring in the contraption in the center. You want to connect each 1 to the center of the clock, and each 0 to a dark circle endpoint. Focus on finding the arrangement that connects every digit to the center or to an endpoint, then rotate all the rings together until they properly reflect the 0's and 1's. See an image of a solution (thanks, Ruufy!):
image
Once you've solved the puzzle, you'll have your last quarter-circle. Go back to The Hub and approach that portal-thing at the end of the hall, then stick all the quarter-circles in it. Game complete... I think...
Posted by: SonicLover
|
July 25, 2011 7:12 PM