The tatami room is quietly furnished, monochromatic and soothing, a suitable setting to enjoy a meal and relax slowly. Add in the gentle tunes of a classical guitar and, if not for the grumble in your belly and the whimsy of Tesshi-e's clever puzzles, you could possibly even drift off into slumber. But Tesshi-e lives in a world where opening doors in an escape game mean food on the table. So, before you can settle in for some Japanese-style dining, you must first Escape from the Tatami Room 3!
The point-and-click interface of this tatami room, as in the first and second rooms, is intuitively user-friendly, making navigation, exploration and item use a breeze. There is no changing cursor, but that's the remarkable thing about a Tesshi-e design: it's never needed. Helpful messaging as you click about will guide your investigations and, for the most part, clues are very clear. Of course, there is both a normal and a happy end, so use "save" in the function menu before you grab the happy coin.
Although some puzzles are straight-forward, and all are very logical, one or two depend on outside knowledge and may temporarily hold you up if you're not mathematically inclined. Other times, it takes inference to finally figure out how to achieve what you know you want to do. The visual clues are there, but they're subtle, things you'd recognize much more quickly if you were actually standing in this room. Yet it's those riddling aspects, along with the beautiful presentation and sequencing of clues, that turns the experience into one of pure enjoyment. As the answers unfold and you work your way through locked cupboards and quirky devices, a little frustration is quite alright because it only enhances the giddy feeling when success is achieved.
Walkthrough Guide
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Walkthrough
1.
look at the chest in the upper right of the closet
The symbol on it matches the shelves across the room
It is highlighting a specific section
the dolls in that section have a series of rings on them
hit the buttons in the order indicated by the rings
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take the nail puller
2.
go to the paper window to the left of the shelves
Use the nail puller to pull out its nail
3.
open the right side of the window. take the screwdriver
4.
go to the upper right side of the closet
use the screwdriver to open the panel
take the lubricating oil
5.
find the wooden shelves with a birdie and top.
take the sponge from the drawer
6.
get the sponge wet in the pool of water with the flower
7.
use the wet sponge on the windows to reveal shapes
look at the clock on the shelf
do the hands remind you of anything?
they match with one of the symbols on the windows
put the sliders on the clock to line up with the symbols on the window
second from top, bottom, top, second from bottom
take the key
8.
put the key in the lock under the flower
9.
spray the key with the lubricating oil
10.
open the compartment under the flower
take the green ball next to the box
11.
return to the upper right section of the closet
put the green ball in the opening
12.
return to the compartment under the flower.
take the green ball and the funnel
13.
go to the upper left section of the closet
attach the funnel to the device
14.
squeeze the wet sponge into the funnel
15.
take the glass sphere
open it to get the diamond key
16.
use the diamond key to unlock the doors under the 2 mr birdies.
take a green ball from the right side
17.
look at the device on the left side. it has a star and says adopt
the pictures on the shelves also have stars.
the star is in one of 3 positions
all of the animals have 3 letter names
the position of the star indicates a letter
these letters can spell "adopt"
correlate the order of the animals with their positions on the shelf
bat 2 - a -lower left
dog 1 - d - upper left
cow 2 - o - lower right
pig 1 - p - center
cat 3 - t - upper right
push the buttons in this order and take the matches
18.
open the left side of the window. clear the smudge with the wet sponge
19.
the 3 dots above the window correspond to the 3 dots on the mr hippo
mr hippo says "NineZero°"
90°
count how many 90 degree angles are on each shape
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put this into mr hippo and take the candle
20.
open the white box
put the candle in the holder
21.
use the matches to light the candle
22.
close the candle box
look at the numbers on the side
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input those numbers into the box under the flower
take the grabber claw
23.
open the closet, and look behind the pile of sheets on the lower right. Take the grabber arm
24.
combine the grabber arm with the grabber claw
25.
move aside the scroll behind the flower
use the grabber to grab the scroll
26.
unfurl the scroll
hang it over the symbols next to the exit door
27.
look at the box in the upper left of the closet
recognize that symbol?
It is on the wall next to the exit door. Its positions form a pattern, which is partially masked by the hanging scroll
correlate the positions of the symbols, from top to bottom, to get the combination to the box
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take the green ball
28.
put the 3 green balls into the holders next to the 2 mr birdies
take the heart key
Normal End:
use the heart key to open the door
leave
Happy Coin End:
look at the symbol behind where you got the heart key
it looks like the symbols on the window
find another combination of sliders on the clock from this
bottom, second from bottom, bottom, second from top
input these into the clock
take the happy coin
use the heart key to unlock the door
leave
Posted by: Mystify | June 1, 2014 9:19 PM
Walkthrough
(I know I've been beaten to the punch, but maybe someone will find this useful. I've tried to make sure all the spoilers are labeled, so you can drill down to the hint you need without having to open a whole bunch of spoilers you either don't need anymore or didn't want to read yet.)
Initial Exploration
Black shelf
Clock
There are four knobs that can move up and down. The clock is showing 6:00, but the hands are odd: they're both the same size.
Animal pictures
There are pictures of a dog, cat, pig, bat, and cow. Each picture has a star and two dots, in various orders. Don't know what to make of this yet.
Dolls
It would probably be a good idea to count the stripes on the dolls. :)
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Windows
There are asterisks on the windows. If you click them, it tells you that "the patterns are likely to separate and fall". OK, so this will likely become a clue later on, but there's nothing we can do with it yet.
Closet/nook
Left side of closet
Examine the top of the box.
There's a glass ball in a glass tube, and a pipe on the top right that says something can go in it. Looks like we need some way to nudge the glass ball to the left.
The front of the box has three buttons and a symbol. We'll need a code of some sort.
Right side of closet
Box
There are five buttons and a diagram. It looks a lot like the black shelf, and the shelf with the dolls is highlighted.
Go ahead and use the doll code to open the box. Get the nail puller.
Small panel
Look to the right of the box to see a small black panel that's secured with screws. Looks like we'll need a screwdriver. (Who are we kidding? It's a room escape game. Of course we'll need a screwdriver!)
Towels
Move the towels aside and get the strange gizmo. Nothing we can do with it yet.
Scroll
If you move the hanging scroll aside, you'll see a recess in the wall. There's something in it, but we can't reach it, not even with the nail puller or the strange gizmo.
Flower
That's one mighty strange iris: it's growing out of solid rock, and there's water around its base.
Padlock
The cabinet below the nook is locked with a rusty padlock.
Raised area
Hippo
Mr. Hippo has a candle in his mouth, and needs a four-digit code. The "NineZero°" and the three black dots written on his side are probably a clue, but it's too cryptic for now.
Little shelf
There's a little drawer in the little shelf, and it's not even locked. Get the sponge.
Screen
The four-sided screen is hiding a candle holder.
Upper cabinet
We will probably need to put something into the three things sticking up on the top. The sliding doors are locked with a key.
Small windows
The window sashes are fastened with a nail. Good thing we've found a nail puller, ain't it?
The left side of the window has three black dots on top, and the glass has a big stain. The dry sponge doesn't seem to help.
The right side of the window has the all-important screwdriver.
Right wall
There's a pattern of symbols, some of which look like the symbol on the left box inside the closet. There's also a nail above the pattern; looks like we need to find something to hang from the nail to help us interpret the code.
Let's get to work
Mr. Hippo
Wet the sponge at the flower.
Wipe off the smudge on the small window. Note the symbols.
90°, eh? Count the number of right angles in each symbol. (Or, well, count the number of angles: they're all 90° angles.)
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Put the resulting code into Mr. Hippo. Get the candle from his mouth.
Clock
Look at the big windows. Remember how it said the patterns were in danger of falling off? See if you can encourage this tendency using the wet sponge.
Look at the clock hands, then look at the windows again. Do you see the similarity?
Note the location of the symbols that look like the clock hands.
Counting from the bottom, it's 3142.
Position the knobs on the clock according to the clue. Get the small key.
Padlock
The key from the clock fits into the padlock nicely, but it refuses to turn. Too much rust, I guess.
Let's look around for something that could help us. For example, we now have a screwdriver, so we can open that small panel on the right of the closet.
Well, whaddaya know: a can of lubricating oil.
Use the lubricating oil on the padlock.
Get the green ball. There's also a box that needs a three-digit code.
Glass contraption
First, there's a bit of outside-the-box thinking.
If you were really, really observant, you'll have noticed that the place you got the green ball is a small square hole in the wall, same as the small square hole in the wall where you got the lubricating oil. And if you were almost superhumanly observant, you'll have noticed that the small square hole in the wall where you got the lubricating oil continues downward - the flat bottom ends before it reaches the back of the recess.
OK, so if there are similar holes kind of opposite each other, only one is on top and one is down below, if we dropped something in the top, it should come out down below, right?
Try it: put the green ball into the hole where you got the lubricating oil (right side of the closet). Then look in the cabinet below the nook. Collect your ball and the small gray thing.
The small gray thing is a funnel-like part. The glass contraption had a pipe that should hold the funnel-like part nicely. Ayup!
OK, now how to nudge the glass ball to the left? We need to use the funnel to, well, funnel something to it. We don't need a lot of said something; we just need to give the ball a little nudge.
Tesshi-e didn't have the foresight to allow you to use the lubricating oil for this purpose, but some water will do just as nicely. What's that you say? You don't have any water? Sure you do. What have you been cleaning the windows with?
Use the sponge on the funnel. Get the glass ball, then get the key out of it.
Upper cabinet
Use the diamond-shaped key from the glass contraption to open the sliding doors.
The right side has another green ball.
The left side has a box with five buttons arranged in a square, a star, and the word "adopt".
Time to use the animal pictures. Each animal is a three-letter word, and each has one position starred.
Identify the letter with the star: dog (top left) = *oo = d, cat (top right) = oo* = t, pig (middle) = *oo = p, bat (bottom left) = o*o = a, cow (bottom right) = o*o = o. Press the buttons in the appropriate order to spell "adopt".
BL, TL, BR, M, TR
Get the box of matches.
Candle
Put the candle onto the holder behind the screen. Light it with the matches.
Close the screen and note the code.
515
Put the code into the box below the nook. Get the part.
The left box
Two strange parts, eh? Let's see if they fit together. Ah! It's a grabby hand thingy!
Maybe now we can reach that item behind the scroll.
The item behind the scroll is a scroll. Well, OK then. Hang the new scroll over the pattern on the right wall of the raised area.
Note the location of the symbols that match the box in the closet.
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Put the code into the box and get the third green ball.
Green balls
There's only one place the green balls can go: above the two Mr. Birdys, in the flower-like holders sticking up. Put them in and get the heart-shaped key.
Exiting
Normal end
You have the key, go use it on the door.
Happy Coin end
Note the Y-shaped symbol behind where you got the heart-shaped key.
Look at the windows; find the symbols that match.
Position the knobs of the clock according to the new code; get the happy coin.
New code = 1213
OK, now you can use the key on the door.
Posted by: Reka | June 2, 2014 12:00 AM