An adventure of epic proportions. Perfect for young readers.

Kumakinoko


  • Currently 4.7/5
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
Rating: 4.7/5 (206 votes)
Comments (13) | Views (16,617)

Weekday Escape

elleA piano melody sets the mood, a welcoming armchair beckons you to browse through Shakespeare's classics, and it is so tempting to just sink in, forgetting the cares of the day to lose oneself in the lovely subtle magic of Robamimi's world. This is quintessential Robamimi, an escape game that is as much about escaping into serenity as it is about finding clues and solving puzzles all in pursuit of getting out: Kumakinoko.

KumakinokoThose of you who are familiar with Robamimi's style of escape already know the treat you're in for (in fact, you're already playing, not reading this review). For the rest of you, welcome to a place of seamless navigation, an intuitive inventory, changing cursors and a kindly hint function to assuage frustration and increase immersion.

In being so nice and friendly, Kumakinoko does tend toward being "too easy" for the practiced escaper, but it's only a fault because we don't want to leave so soon from this peaceful room of bears (kuma) and mushrooms (kinoko). Still, the puzzles are creative and do take some thought and nimble observation to solve. As always, Robamimi is a respite from all that is dull and inane, always charming and affable, and the only disappointment is saying goodbye.

Play Kumakinoko

Not loading? Try the alternative link: Kumakinoko.

Walkthrough Guide


(Please allow page to fully load for spoiler tags to be functional.)

Kumakinoko Walkthrough

Starting Out: Exploration

  1. When you begin, you're facing a table, a door, a box, a safe and stacks of cups.

    • Make a few notes about what you see:

      • The cups have three different patterns on them.

      • The door has three mushroom buttons on it.

      • The box needs a key.

      • The safe is missing a handle.

    • There's nothing you can do in this view right now, though, except poke around, so....

  2. Turn right. There's a wide, rectangular aclove in the wall with couple boxes and a big red button:

    • The large box needs a 4-digit number code.

    • The small box has a 3x3 grid of buttons.

    • Pressing the red button reveals a bear behind the panel, but it won't stay open.

  3. Turn right again. Here is a lamp, a chair and a three-door chest:

    • Take note of the codes needed for each door:

      • Top: "cups" needs a three-letter code.

      • Middle: five sliders with green buttons.

      • Bottom: a moon and two buttons, "a-m" and "n-z."

  4. Turn right a third time.

    • Here you see a grey box on the wall, a light switch, some books, and a low window through which mushrooms can be seen.

      • The grey box needs a 3-digit number code and the light switch doesn't seem to work.

      • Perhaps it's also a good idea to observe the books now, though, taking note of their arrangement.

    • Now you should be ready to open some drawers.

The 3-door Chest:

  1. The middle door is opened by observing the books:

  2. The green buttons should be in this pattern...

    down-up-up-down-up

    ...then click "enter"

    • When you open the door, take the DOORKNOB.

    • Note the pattern: stripes, dots, plaid.

  3. Turn back to the table with the cups. Use the pattern you saw in the middle door of the chest to figure out a three-letter code.

  4. Return to the top door of the chest and enter the code...

  5. Starting with the stripes, note which shelves have cups with stripes on them: tracing those shelves make the shape of a letter. Do the same for dots and then plaid. You'll end up with three letters...

    A H E

    ...and click "OK" to open the door.

    • Get an ICEPICK.

  6. Go back to the safe under the table:

    • Put the DOORKNOB on the safe and open it.

    • Inside, you see a block of ice. Use the ICEPICK on the ice.

    • Get a KEY.

  7. Go to the little box on top of the table, next to the cups. Use the KEY to open the little box and make a note of what you see:

    • BLUE (moon picture) MOON.

    • Three jars of jam. Note the letters on their label and whats inside them.

  8. Now go to the bottom door of the chest to open it based on what you saw in the little jam box on the table...

  9. Notice some letters in "blue moon" are on the right (R) button, some are on the left (L) button. Just push the buttons to spell out blue moon...

    L - L - R - L - L - R - R - R

  10. When you get the bottom door open:

    • Take the bottle of WINE. Notice the number on its label.

    • Also look at the numbers on the brandy and whisky bottles.

3x3 Button Box and Grey Wall Box:

  1. Use the information from the bottles in the bottom chest door and the jars in the jam box to figure out which buttons to press...

  2. Column A = light up 1 and 3

    Column B= light up 2

    Column C = light up 1 and 2

  3. Click enter and get the CABLE.

  4. Turn back to the grey wall box and input the numbers from the cable...

  5. 2 1 9

  6. Insert the CABLE to the "in" slot in the grey wall box.

  7. Back up and go over to the light switch. Now you can switch it up to "IN."

    • Look around the room. Notice something different?

  8. Go over to the grey wall box again and arrange the switching on the "out" panel to match what you saw on the lamp:

  9. left-right-left-right

    (The red indicator light will turn green when you have it correct.)

  10. Go back to the light switch and flip it to "OUT" position.

    • Now look at the mushrooms through the floor window; they're lit up.

The Door to the Hallway and the Wobbly Picture:

  1. After you flip the switch to "OUT," look door and zoom in on the mushrooms through the floor level window. Make a note of their pattern...

  2. middle - left - left - right - left - middle

    Note: the door won't open until you look at the lit up mushrooms, even if you use the correct code.

  3. Go over to the door and input that same pattern and click "OK."

  4. Go inside the hallway and look at the picture to the left.

    • Everything you need to know about this wobbly picture is in the picture.

    • Just follow the bus route to know which corners of the picture to click:

      Top Left - Top Right - Bottom Right - Bottom Left - Top Right - Top Left

  5. When you click the corners in the correct order, the PICTURE comes off the wall.

    • Make a note of the pattern you see on the back of the picture, then put it away.

    • Get the BLUE BEAR.

  6. Turn to face the doorway you just came through. Close the door.

    • Behind the door is the RED BEAR. Take him.

  7. On the other wall is a niche with a place for four bears...time to go find the other two.

The Big Wooden Box and the Four Bears:

  1. Go back over to the rectangular niche in the wall. Put the BOTTLE OF WINE on the big red button and the panel will stay open.

    • Get GREEN BEAR.

  2. Then, move back to the big wooden box and enter the 4-digit code from the back of the PICTURE...

  3. (The number on the back of the picture is upside down, so just turn it around...)

    5 1 7 9

  4. Inside is the YELLOW BEAR.

    • Make a note of his weight, then take him.

    • Then weigh the other three bears.

  5. Go back out to the hallway and turn right to face the shelf for the four bears.

    • Put the bears on their stands according to how much they weigh and the diagram on the wall:

    • From left to right:

      yellow - blue - red - green

    • The door opens and you're automatically escorted outside to see the bears playing under the mushrooms.

Enjoy!

13 Comments

Another great Robamimi game.... I wonder if anyone else was dumb enough to:

Leave a bear on the scale, and then first wonder why you can't select it to put it on the shelf, and then when you realise you don't have it, wonder where it went???

For about a minute I was convinced it was a glitch.

Reply
crashlanding October 10, 2012 9:50 AM

hahaha mattOG I did EXACTLY the same thing. You are not alone.

Reply

argh!! can't believe I got stumped by the

bear behind the door

Other than that, great game. Logical puzzles, some trial and error, and beautifully rendered as you would expect from Robamimi.

What really impresses me is that Robamimi continues to model new objects to put into their games instead of reusing the same models over and over. That's not a knock on Teshii.e, but a complement for Robamimi.

Reply

@neo1973 - exact same thing happened to me. Still, a lot of fun.

Reply

It wont load for me even though I have flashplayer 11

Reply
justforfun October 11, 2012 2:39 AM

It wasn't too hard, but I am little disappointed - some puzzles were dumb (sorry), atmosphere in the game is awful. Not my cup of tea. It is not necessary to be original if it's showed with a lack of elegance and logic. Sorry again, I am fan of Robamimi, but this game is under his (or her) level, or they made us players spoiled, so, maybe, we expect too much from game designers.

Reply

I had the same issue, the game refused to load in IE9, but it loaded fine in Chrome.

As for the game itself, I thought it was great. Some of the puzzles were pretty unique, but seemed logical to me. Maybe that's just a result of my own warped mind. The only disappointment for me was that the title lead me to believe there would be a lot of puzzles in the "bear" and/or "mushroom" theme, not just one with each.

Reply

Hint-through

The game provides a lovely hint system, but sometimes it's just a bit too cryptic. Here are further hints to help you along if you're stuck. To use this, get the current in-game hint, and look it up below.

Look at the books.

Look at the middle door of the three-door cabinet (to the right of the chair & lamp).

The cups are important "mark" and "position".

Combine the pictures behind the middle door, the top door of the same cabinet (where it says "cups"), and the cups themselves.

The door needs a three-letter code.

Notice how the shelves are arranged - doesn't it look kind of like an 8, but made up of segments like on a calculator?

Take one of the types of cups, say the plaid ones. Which shelves contain plaid cups? Draw the shelves; what does that look like?

Figure out what letter each type of cup spells, put them in order according to the picture behind the middle door, and use that code to open the top door.

Crush the ice.

You've acquired two items: a door handle and an ice pick. Both are used in the same place.

You've just acquired an item. Go find someplace to use it, already.

Look at the moon.

There are two crescent moons: one on the bottom door, the other on the box with the jam jars. Combine them to get the code.

The door has two buttons, labeled with two halves of the alphabet. So it's really just a left/right button puzzle in disguise.

Which half of the alphabet does B fall into? What about L? U? etc.

Is there a weight put on the switch?

The "switch" is the big red button on the right side of the alcove.

Try anything you have in your inventory. (There's probably only one thing in your inventory.)

Jum and Liquor.

That's *jam* and liquor.

You're working on the code for the box in the middle of the alcove, the one that has ABC across the top and 123 down the side.

Look at the indicated items (the jam jars and the liquor bottles). Pair them up according to the labels on the jam jars.

Isn't it suspicious that the numbers on the liquor bottles all consist of the digits 1, 2, and 3?

Check the cable.

View the blue cable in your inventory and look at the number.

There's only one place in the room you can use a three-digit number.

IN

Find a place to put the blue cable. (Hint: where did you use the numbers written on the cable?)

There's an item in the room labeled "IN". It didn't work before; try it now.

Make the same shapes.

Look at the lamp.

That switch on the wall is only half-working: it'll stay on IN, but not on OUT. Why?

Look at where you put the blue cable. Fiddle with the levers along the top.

OUT

You might want to look at that switch again, maybe it'll stay on "OUT" this time.

What's on the door that leads "out"?

Where else in the room are there mushrooms?

Look at the mushrooms behind the floor-level window. Note the flashing pattern.

Route map of the bus.

Find the bus. Hint: it's in a newly-opened area.

Wobbly picture time! (Wait, I thought this is a Robamimi game, not a Tesshi-e one!?)

There's a path. Start at the top left.

close.

Close the door behind you, silly.

The back and rotation.

Always examine things in your inventory. Is there anything you can do to them? Flip them around, maybe?

That's an odd way to write "bus": Why is the B lowercase? Why the overlap on the bottom right of the U? Maybe you're not looking at it correctly.

Remember writing messages on your calculator at school?

Where in the room do you need a four-digit code?

Graph of the weight.

Look at the other side of the hallway for the graph. What does it say below the graph?

Weigh the bears.

Place the bears according to their weights.

Reply
skylightica October 12, 2012 3:48 AM

Got stumped by a terribly obvious point (same as neo1973), but otherwise everything else was a breeze. A bit easy, but I love the lack of random clicking to find POVs and items. Nothing extremely creative, but it's well polished game.

Reply

Thanks for the wonderful hint-through, Reka! (That should probably be put up at the top with Elle's walkthrough, I think, so others don't miss it by not scrolling down through the comments in fear of spoilers.) The extra hints were just what I needed the couple of times Robamimi's in-game hints didn't give me quite enough of a nudge. It's not often I can finish an escape game without having to resort to checking a walkthrough, so if there's a hint-through available, and it can get me through the game, I really enjoy the extra sense of accomplishment at not needing any answers handed to me.

I didn't think any of the puzzles were "stupid" -- neither illogical nor too-simple, nor misleading in a bad way -- and in fact I really liked that there was a balance between innovative and familiar puzzles.

The atmosphere was nice, too; I had the sense that the room was something like a garden shed, and having the walls not be white was a pleasant, eyestrain-easing change from all the so-'modern' decor in many room-escape games. If all I had to go on was the furnishings in some escape games, I'd think there was no comfortable seating anywhere in Japan...

This was one of the most enjoyable escapes I've played recently, in fact. Thanks to Elle for choosing it to feature this week! And, now that I've looked at it, Elle's walkthrough is up to her usual high standard; some escape games, I need a fair amount of hand-holding (i.e. consulting the walkthrough) in order to finish, so it's always good to know the answers are there if I need them.

Reply
JetSetVegas October 13, 2012 12:49 PM

With all due respect to justforfun I felt these puzzles were kinda easy but they were anything but dumb. The puzzles were logical and the clues were just challenging enough so you didn't just breeze through them. Although I will admit the clue for the ABC 123 box could have been a little more clever. Robamimi excels at logical puzzles that don't require guessing and giant leaps of faith and as a rabid room escaper I certainly appreciate that. Sure, some of the clues could have been more challenging, but sometimes it's nice to play a room escape game where you don't need an advanced degree in Rocket Science or have to look at the walkthrough every step just to make it out.

Reply

^ Scroll Up | Homepage >

Leave a comment [top of page]

Please consider creating a Casual Gameplay account if you're a regular visitor here, as it will allow us to create an even better experience for you. Sign-up here!
  • PLEASE UNDERSTAND SITE POLICIES BEFORE POSTING COMMENTS
  • You may use limited HTML tags for style:
    (a href, b, br/, strong, em, ul, ol, li, code, spoiler)
    HTML tags begin with a less-than sign: < and end with a greater-than sign: >. Always. No exceptions.
  • To post spoilers, please use spoiler tags: <spoiler> example </spoiler>
    If you need help understanding spoiler tags, read the spoiler help.
  • Please Preview your comment before posting, especially when using spoilers!
  • No link dropping, no domains as names; do not spam, and do not advertise! (rel="nofollow" in use)
chrpa Jayisgames needs your help to continue providing quality content. Click for details Hi! Weekday Escape and Weekday Puzzle are here! First we have two new cans from tomoLaSiDo and then two small rooms from isotronic. That's all for this...  ...
6,365 Views
0 Comments
chrpa Jayisgames needs your help to continue providing quality content. Click for details Welcome to Mobile Monday! We have another beautiful game from Nicolet and it's a winter game as it should be. Tasuku Yahiro have released another of their...  ...
6,161 Views
2 Comments
chrpa Jayisgames needs your help to continue providing quality content. Click for details We've got a new game from Rinnogogo's magical world and this time it really is magical.. Not only do you get to meet cute animals that express themselves...  ...
chrpa Jayisgames needs your help to continue providing quality content. Click for details After a few weeks of patient waiting, we have been rewarded - the new game from Ichima Coffeedo is here. We got a wonderful new game - it's...  ...

HELP Jayisgames.com

Recent Comments

 

Display 5 more comments
Limit to the last 5 comments

Game of the week


Dark Romance: Vampire Origins Collector's Edition

Your Favorite Games edit

add
Save links to your favorite games here. Use the Favorites editor.

Monthly Archives