What ho, noble readers, it's time for another installment of your favourite grab-bag of random escape games and mine, Weekday Escape! I was, uh. Kind of tapped to write this thing at the last moment, so I'm not really sure what to say. Getting my head in a proper "escape game" mindset takes work, you know? But it's cool. I've got on my Scorpius shirt and leopard print workout pants, and I've shut and locked all the doors to my office and replaced all the obvious things I'd use to get out with a bunch of torn-up notes, cheerful coins and be-hatted birdies, and a random assortment of items I could theoretically use as tools. Ready? Let's do this.
Mom's First Class Reunion - Usually it's the whiny little girl who has to solve the puzzles and amass the list items in no1game's always cute "My First" titles, with one notable recent gender exception, so this time around it's nice to see mom the one who has to get ready for an upcoming class reunion. She's got a list of everything she needs, but because her house is a terrifying puzzle-box of codes, locks, and random objects hidden in odd places, getting everything together is easier said than done. Maybe now she'll have more sympathy than when she expects her kid to do it for her. How does it feel now, Mom?! How does it feel?
The Games of Escape - Esklavos can always be counted on to make some lovely but very strange games, and this one is no exception, as you stumble through a golden hued house apparently assembling the components of a smoothie at the whims of your television set. Which, I mean, I guess is an accurate representation of what it's like to be me in the morning getting up for 6AM kickboxing, but not necessarily what you'd expect to theme an escape game around. Are there mysterious runes, cryptic notes, and puzzles to boot? Um... yeah. It wouldn't be an Esklavos game otherwise.
SleepWalking - SnailCraft delivers our final game of the week, and boy is it a doozy... trippy, surreal, and just a little bit unsettling... mostly in good ways, apart from some clunky navigation and unintuitive issues. You wake up in a strange place filled with stranger creatures... skulls fall from the ceiling and emit light, moths flit around giant cocoons, things race down hallways, and something big is snoring on one of the floors. It's got some great atmosphere to be sure, though you might find its hint function, accessed under the options, um, less than helpful.
Thank you, Dora Dora!
Walk-through for Mom's First Class Reunion according to items on the list:
-Makeup kit:
Under the table.
-Invitation Letter:
Back away from the table; you will see a white double-door.
Click on the right side of the door.
Pick up the 'grabber'.
Go right once.
Use the grabber to get the letter from the AC unit.
-Jewelry:
Open the left side of the chequered double doors; grab the 'pliers'.
Go right once and click on the dressing table.
Use the pliers to open the box.
Open the bottom drawer and grab the necklace.
Open the top compartment and get the earrings.
Also note the positions of the coloured rings.
-Clothes:
Go to the screen with the double doors of a closet with a blue and white pattern.
Notice the sequence of the different sized flowers. (Follow the sequence from right to left)
Return to the screen with the dresser and click on the cupboard's lock.
Press the buttons according to the sequence of the flowers:
Middle, left, right, middle, right, left
The cupboard will open, get the dress.
-Shoes:
Return to the blue patterned closet door.
Open the right side and get the box.
Click in the middle of the box to bring up the lock panel.
Enter the code according to the positions of the rings found in the jewelry box:
First column/Green: middle.
Second/Pink: bottom.
Third/Yellow: top.
Forth/Blue: middle.
The box will open. Grab the shoes.
Also note the letters inside the box.
-Handbag:
Open the left side of the blue patterned closet.
Click on the top drawer.
Enter the code found in the shoe box:
The code is PICTO
Get the bag.
After getting all the things, return to the table with the list and place all the items there.
Just saying, but those shoes do NOT go with that dress.
Warning for Sleepwalking.
One of the rooms WILL insta-kill you.
thanks zombiebee. can't wait for the others.
Sleepwalking was... interesting, if pretty obviously a first game. I liked the atmosphere of it, but there were a few hot spots that I'm assuming were meant to be hidden but ended up just being frustratingly unnoticeable. Just a few amateur mistakes, I guess. I liked the art direction and the feel of it enough that I kept playing, though.
The hints really were pretty useless in the end, though! I kept thinking certain hints were for the wrong rooms, or that I was completely off... so I went through the trouble of sort of transcribing what these hints meant. They're like hint hints.
Navigation hints in general: some rooms you can click the left/right sides or the bottom in order to move between rooms. This... isn't really obvious, so it bears saying.
Bottom right room:
The start room. The picture it shows is of the barrel, which isn't exactly helpful in and of itself -- but keep in mind what's drawn on the barrel, what what else in the room is clickable.
Middle room:
The top floor from the elevator, with the moving stairs. Clicking this question mark shows a turning gear, which turns out not to relate to the gear-like object that you haven't got yet that's displayed at the top right of your screen. Keep an eye out for other (rather small and picky) hotspots.
Top right room:
Up the stairs from the top floor, then to the right. The hint isn't too difficult to parse, here -- something in this room is to do with the bookcase on the start floor -- but what's really confusing is figuring out what the hint actually opens. Pay attention to details on the floor, even if they seem like they're just background details. As for the bookcase itself... well, it's pretty dark in there, you know.
Upper middle room:
Beyond the doors when you go up the stairs. This one's pretty easy to understand. It's actually referring to the next room back, just saying to check out the lever, and then when you go back, hang out for a bit.
Middle right room:
This one's also really obvious, it's just that the placement of it isn't. You can't get here until you've been through the room above it. Then it's just a matter of using your ears.
I also found myself bored enough that I wrote up a walkthrough for Sleepwalking. In full paragraph form. Because... reasons?
Start off by clicking the immediate thing your mouse is drawn to: the electricity box. Open it and click the switches again to zoom in, and then flip up the bottom two switches. I don't think the rest of them actually do anything, which is poor planning on the electrician's part.
Now when you go to the room to the left you can click the grate, which will slide up to show two buttons. The green button on the top will open the elevator, and you can hop in. However, it's probably worthwhile to go left again to the room with the bookshelf, then click the lamp on the desk to light it up. Remember the numbered books near the top left of the bookcase; there's only about three.
Click the topmost button in the elevator to go up. Once you're there, you'll see some kind of escalator. Click the turning gears under the platform (the hotspot can be kind of small, here, so aim for the outside rim of the gear) to change the stairs' direction, and then click to the top right of the screen by the arrow to head upstairs.
Go forward through the doors, and then through the next door that's marked lovingly with a skull. This is the absolutely unnecessary instant death room that has been mentioned. It's pretty easy to avoid aforementioned death, though -- just don't click on the box, even if something's peeking out at you. Instead, click the lever, which will close the door behind you, then click it again to confirm it as broken. No need to panic; in a couple of seconds, when you hear knocking, it'll work again and open the door, but it takes you to a slightly different room.
Just hang out in here for a little bit and some kind of alien will show up. Poke the swirl on its forehead, then pick a hand (it... doesn't actually seem to matter which, it doesn't even provide a different animation) and it'll give you the gift of a half of the key. Now you can back out of the room again.
Back in front of the double doors, head to the right. You can into these doors and click on the paper on the wall, which will tear a sheet off and drop it to the floor. Apparently you can only read when the paper's on the floor. This gives you an incredibly cryptic hint for later, but it's not fully necessary.
Anyway, in front of the double doors here, there's a really subtle trap door on the floor. Click the trapezoidal handle bit to bring up a keypad. The password here can be found way back down on the start floor (which is actually the second floor, according to the elevator), back in the room with the bookcase. I mentioned all this earlier. It looks like the password is literally always the same but it's so easy to get that I'm not even going to tell you.
Down the pit we have some... thing, chilling out in front of a reminder of who made the game and chowing down on some fruit. If you read the note in the other room this looks like it's that Ezhi thing, but the note didn't really give you a lot of hints. Clicking its spines makes its eyes bulge out and has it make a weird noise. One of them makes a different sound... so you can probably guess we have to find the right order to click spines.
I don't actually think there's anywhere that tells you the order, at least, not that I noticed, but there's only three so I'm willing to mostly forgive this. Sort of. Anyway, if you're lazy it's the second spine from the head, then the fourth from the head, then the fifth from the head.
The ezhi will blow a bubble which you can click to burst, revealing the second half of your key. Pick it up and don't worry too much about where the ezhi went. Click the wheel on the door twice to leave, head up the stairs, click the grate and the green button and hop in the elevator.
Back up to the top floor, change the direction on the stairs again, but now go to the rightmost set of double doors (where you got the ezhi note, if you did) and through. You'll get to a room with a metal door, which has previously been locked but now that you have the key you can open it and witness some weird cutscenes.
yes, sita, i totally agree! girlfriend needs a makeover, stat!
Games of Escape are creepy!
for the smoothie "game"
do yourself a favor and take a screenshot of the note in the kitchen
you want to arrange the rune tokens so that the number of bonds is correct
this may mean you need to be creative about your shape -- it doesn't have to be circular
my shape came out looking vaguely like a horse pictograph, if that helps
use the flashlight in the only dark space that self-identifies as dark
yellow key is for the cupboard in the kitchen
for the mask "game"
use what you find slipped under the door on what you find on the kitchen floor (rhyming?!)
red key is used in the bedroom, under the nose of that smirking tv guy
for the chess "game"
do yourself another favor and write those piece moves down!
good luck,
fellow test subject! (at least, that's what it felt like to me . . . paranoid, much?)
Sleepwalking glitch?
i went exploring first before i met the alien, and when i clicked its hand, it gave me an orange instead of a key
anyway, restarting helped
also, the cutscenes make it pretty clear
that this game was originally entitled, "freebasing," before it was renamed
either that, or, "acid-trippin'"
thanks, vamoosi, for the paragraph walkthrough :D
Anyone else unable to load the esklavos webpage?
Yeah, I can't seem to load it either...
Awwww! When you said cheerful coins and be-hatted birdies I thought we were going to have a Tesshi-e game on our hands! It's all good! Thanks, Dora! Now to dig in.
First off...6AM kickboxing? I'd have to be pretty angry at somebody to want to do kickboxing at 6AM. Wow. So do you do that pre-coffee? Or post-coffee?
Now, having finished this week's menu of escapes, I must say thanks again, but I have to wonder where else you've been hanging out to find that experience called SleepWalking? I think lavamuffin has it right. Somebody changed that title to hide what was their true inspiration.
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