Well, this is yet another fine tropical mess you've gotten yourself into in Evolution, 58 Works' latest escape puzzle adventure. After you escaped your Solitude on a deserted island, your newly acquired mini-sub ran into an unfortunate cave-in, and now you're stuck with the task of finding a new way to escape from... wherever you are. Evolution has you wandering a rocky underground base filled with mysteries and puzzles, your only company an egg-headed scientist who really likes bananas and seems to have lost his pet cat. As is the 58 Works custom, you'll pick up and use various items that come in handy here and there, and more uniquely acquire pieces of a rather cool bodysuit that gives you all sorts of new abilities.
Everything that made Solitude great, such as an interesting environment, totally logical puzzles, simple but appropriate graphics and sound, is back in Evolution, and the new content like intermittent short cutscenes, and a somewhat more artificial setting, is nothing to sneeze at either. The level of challenge is just right; as you work you way through the game you may get stuck from time to time, but a second look at the clues and resources you gather can help get that much-needed "aha!" moment. There's still no save feature, but that's a small errant stitch in an otherwise majestic carpet.
The central gimmick of collecting pieces to the aforementioned bodysuit is well designed, and helps to tie everything together. Our protagonist "evolves" piece by piece, gaining new abilities all the while. The excitement of getting each new part and getting all antsy about what you'll be able to do with it is nearly unmatched. Go now, readers. Play this game, and let your supersuit fantasies come to life, part by part.
Walkthrough Guide
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Evolution Walkthrough
Part 1: A Hands-On Experience
You'll start out facing the mini-submarine you got here in. Go inside (click when you see the circle of arrows) and pick up the frog and yellow gem, then leave (the arrow at the top of the screen).
Pick up the mushroom near the bottom right, then turn right to see a staircase blocked by a boulder, some rocks, and a cave painting that looks like a fist and your yellow gem. Move one of the rocks aside to get the purple stone, then turn right again.
You'll see a passage blocked by roots. Click the black thing behind the crevice in the upper right to get a beetle, then use it to cut the roots and approach the statue. Get the yellow stone behind the statue, and take a good look at its arms.
Its hands are pointing in various directions, and it's wearing a different number of bracelets on each wrist. 1-2-3-4-5-6 equals up-left-up-right-right-up. Remember that.
Back away and turn right one more time. You'll see six dials. Set them to what the statue's hands indicated and the door will open. Go into the new passage.
Go straight ahead and you'll see two doors. Open and go through the door on the left. You'll see a strange little office with an egghead scientist. Remember this room; you'll be back here a lot.
You can't pick up any of the parts around the room without the scientist glaring at you… except for those gloves hidden behind the batteries. Take them, then put them on by examining yourself (first inventory icon) and using them on your arms.
Part 2: Getting A Leg Up
Hell yeah! These'll be awesome for punching through things! Try them on the rectangular yellow gem: examine the gem and use yourself on it. (Remember the cave painting?) You'll get a strange-looking key.
Backtrack one room, then head down the passage on the left. You'll see three panels in the wall; the one on the left needs a key, the one in the middle has a puzzle, and the one on the right comes right off.
The lid on the left can be opened with the key you've got. Take the book behind it, then flip the lid over to reveal a symbol similar to the one behind the lid on the right.
Read the book. It contains a lot of useless notes and two useful-looking recipes, but you don't have the ingredients for either cocktail just yet. You don't have anything to mix them in or with, either.
Now, the middle panel. Experiment and you'll notice that each square can be set to white, gray, or black. Copying one symbol does nothing, but try overlaying both on the grid, using white for empty space, gray for one symbol, and black for both.
The result should have three black squares, four gray, and two white. You'll know you've got it when the panel comes off. Take the pestle behind it, then backtrack to the starting area.
Remember the staircase blocked by a boulder? Go there and punch the boulder out (again, use yourself on it-- get used to this). Once it's toast, move aside the highest piece of debris to find a cyan stone, then head up the stairs.
Interesting pattern on the wall here. You can set the colored stones there, but don't bother just yet. Pick up the bunch of bananas to the right, and knock over the rock to the left to get the jar.
You'll be back here later, but for now head back to the scientist's room and give him the bananas. He'll let you have the boots, so take them and put them on like you did the gloves.
Part 3: I Can See Clearly Now
Boots, eh? Wonder what you'll be able to do with these. Go back to where you got the bananas (up the stairs from the starting area) and take the left passage.
Is that a… is that a soccer goal net in the distance? Odd, but you'll mess with it later. Take the berries from the left bush. Now you have everything you need to do a little alchemy.
Put the mushroom and the berries in the jar (you'll need to open the lid first), then mash them with the pestle. Feed the resulting concoction to the frog and it'll turn red.
Use the frog on the string hanging up above to knock it down, then yank it and a soccer ball will appear. Give it a kick… okay, maybe you won't be trying out for the pro leagues anytime soon.
Pull the string again to get another ball. Remember those boots you put on? They should amplify your kick power. Use yourself on the ball to send it flying. GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO *deep breath* OOOOOOOOOAL! Take the white gem.
You may have noticed that lines appeared on your gems when you came out here, but you'll worry about that later. Go back to the previous room (right), then put the gems in the wall according to color mixing: purple between red and blue, yellow between red and green, cyan between blue and green, white in the middle.
Did it? Now you can go right. Do so, then go up the ladder. Remember that star on the door; you can't do anything with it just yet, though. Move both drums to the left to get another bunch of bananas.
You know the drill. Take the bananas back to the scientist (down, left, down, turn around, forwards, left door) for another piece of equipment-- the visor this time-- and put it on.
Part 4: Stop and Catch Your Breath
A visor? Interesting. Go back to the bottom of the ladder where you just were (from the scientist's room, down, down, turn around, forwards, right), then go into the cave on the right. You should see a strange eye and a sign marked "DANGER".
Time to see what your new visor can do. Use yourself on the eye to see an array of symbols. Some of them should look like that star on the door. If you look at ONLY those stars, you should see a sequence: right-left-left-right-left-right-left.
Go back to the star door (down, up) and try its handles the same way (right-left-left-etc.) to open it, then go in. Move aside one of the "DANGER" tanks to start a fire (er… whoops) and get a mouse toy. Examine the toy, turn it over, and turn on the switch on the underside to make it run.
Go to the eye again (down, down, cave on right). This time, go left past the "DANGER" sign. You don't want to get on that panther's bad side, so give it the mouse toy and watch it chase after it. Pick up the rope it was guarding.
Go back to the bottom of the ladder and tie the rope to it. Climb down it and you'll find yourself in front of the scientist's room. Now you have another route to this area!
Go take back the hexagonal gems from the wall where you set them (just up the stairs from the starting area). The door will close, but you can get back to the area via the rope. Do exactly that.
Go back up the ladder and through the star door, then left. You have to set the gems in the wall here. This puzzle's actually easier than it looks; the number of lines on each hex is equal to the number of hexes adjacent to it.
With this in mind, set the gems. The yellow gem has three lines, so it goes adjacent to three hexes; the white gem has two lines, so it goes adjacent to two hexes; and so on and so forth.
Once the arrangement is good, you'll get yet another bunch of bananas. Go give the scientist another citrus supplement in exchange for yet another supplement to your power suit: air tanks this time! Put it on, what are you waiting for?
Finale: I Believe I Can Touch The Sky
Air tanks? They'd probably be good for breathing underwater. How about that pool in the area with the three panels, just to the left outside the scientist's room? Go there (from the scientist's room, down, then left) and use yourself on it.
Lot of water ducts. Take the lever hidden behind the rock to the right, then go left and get the blue plant. Neither looks particularly useful at the moment, but keep an eye on them. Leave the pool.
This time, go back to the area with the eye and "DANGER" sign (right, up, cave on right), and go right. There's another spotted mushroom hidden at the bottom of the screen, so pick it. Mix it and the blue pant in the jar using the pestle.
"Sleeping drug". Put it in the rhino's water tank to knock it out. Now you've got a better view of the shapes behind it. A large circle with a lower-left alignment, a medium-size circle aligned to the right, and a small one upper-left. Remember that pattern.
Go to just past the star door, where you knocked that tank over and started the fire (left, down, up, forwards). Go right from there and you'll have a place to enter the combination from the rhino's cage; rotate the rings until they match the ones from the cage. You'll hear a click when you're done.
Oh, and snap the lever into the hole to the right, then pull it to open the dinosaur's mouth. Grab the fire extinguisher and use it on the fire, then press the now-green button to open the elevator doors.
Before going anywhere, note the sequence above the door: dash-dot-dot-dash-dot-dot. Then ride the elevator up and you'll see six levers. Each one's "up" position looks like a dash, while its "down" position looks like a dot, so set them the same way to summon a ladder.
Partway up the ladder, you'll see a bright patch of leaves to the right. Knock them away until you can pick up the net hidden behind them. Now backtrack ALL the way back to the pool below the three colored panels (down, right, down, down, down, left).
Dive into the pool again, go left, and use the net to catch the fish. Now go back to the tree (right, up, right, up, up, forwards, forwards) and climb the ladder all the way to the top.
See that cat? If you don't, go down and up again. If you try to catch it it'll vanish, so use the fish on it and it'll come with you. It looks an awful lot like that lost cat in the posters around the area, doesn't it?
Maybe the scientist lost it, he's the only other human being around. Take the cat to him and he'll give you a key. That key goes to the door next to the scientist's room, wherein you'll find your suit's final upgrade: a winged vest! Uh… cool?
Go all the way back up to the top of the tree (up, up, forward, forward, up, up). How nice, the scientist and cat are there to see you off. Now, use yourself on the sky to fly away!
Congrats, you've escaped-- and I can't think of a more awesome way to do it!
Posted by: SonicLover | September 26, 2011 1:40 PM