Part 5: Keys Lead To Keys Lead To Keys Lead To...
Alright, let's finish off this first floor so we can explore some different scenery soon. First off, a note: I'll be talking about the IGN review I mentioned in the OP in this update, mostly because this seems like a good time to do so - we're only going to be re-visiting safes we couldn't open before, with only one new location. I'll put that talk into the addendum in the end, if you just want to skip it.That being said, last time around, we found a very helpful book that gave us the solution to not one, but two safes! Let's waste no more time and jump right in with...
Puzzle #14: The Safe Of Liberty
This one's basic as all hell, now that we know the code. Just punch in L-A-F-A-Y-E-T-T-E and we're done. The spoils are as follows:
A key (room 07; #2) and a diapictures disk. That's pretty helpful. Video. And with that disk in hand, we jump right to...
Puzzle #15: The Diapictures Safe
This one's kind of tricky. Basically, you use the diapictures disk from your inventory to seat it into the safe. Then you use the two buttons on the left and right with the single arrows to screw with the pictures until you find the right combination. Essentially, you're going to want to make it so that you get a clean picture, then just go from there with alternating buttonpresses until you hit the right picture, a potted plant. It's easier when you see it in motion.
And out of this safe we get the third piece of the codekey. Only one to go, although I remember just giving up on finding the fourth one when I was younger. From here, it's just ten combinations to try, which is pretty easy to do. With that, our current lead ran dry, so let's make our way to the braille safe in the big showroom.
However, on the way there, we stumble over a book and a diagram in the chief engineer's office. You can see the solution for the Pascal safe here, but that conversion diagram doesn't seem all too useful just yet. Anyway, moving on...
Puzzle #16: The Braille Safe
Basic stuff, now that we've got a translation guide in the form of the book from the sick room. A bit of tinkering reveals the following instructions:
1 RIGHT
5 LEFT
4 RIGHT
2 LEFT
Now, this is a bit tricky, because there's two ways you can interpret this. Does "1 right" mean "move to the dial with the number one by turning it to the right" or "move the dial to the right once"? In the end, the former one is correct. And here's the video for the whole thing. What do we get for our effort?
A key (room 13; #3) and a part of the code to the final safe. While that does give us all the parts to room 13's three-key-safe, we're going to check out a room I skipped over before.
A room that we can reach from this very room, in fact. Welcome to...
Room #21: The Kitchen
Just a nice little kitchen for your work-day needs. It's got a funky tune, too. However, that coffee bean box seems a bit suspicious...
Aha! A clue! And that leads us directly into...
Puzzle #17: The Fridge
Once again, pretty simple, now that we have all the clues. First, you use the "drain" and "fill" valves to set the middle thermometer to 49 Fahrenheit, then convert that value to Celsius and Kelvin using the conversion formula we found previously and then enter those values on their respective thermometers as well, and you're done!
Here's what the solution looks like, and here's the whole thing in motion. Note: If you noticed a discrepancy in those last few screenshots, that's because I flubbed pausing my recording while converting the temperature values myself, leaving me without decent footage of the safe, so I just started up a new game, blitzed to the kitchen and solved it again. As for our reward?
That's a rogue's gallery of bizarre items. An apple, a banana and a milk carton, those I get. By extension, the block key and the T-1001 scroll also make sense, since those are the contents old Crabb hid in there for me. But who the hell put the light bulb in there? To my knowledge so far, there's no use for that item at all, so I'm perplexed as to what it's doing here. Then again, the milk is also entirely useless, it seems, and the apple and banana only have slight amusement value (see the addendum at the end for more on that). Anyway, that block key seems like it'd fit quite well in another safe we skipped over before, so let's scratch that one off the list too:
Puzzle #18: The Block Safe
Easy-peasy. Put in the block key and you're done. Video.
And this nets us the key (room 07; #1), which means we have all three keys for that safe too. So while we're in the neighborhood...
Puzzle #19: The Big Showroom Three-Key-Safe
Stick the three keys in, and you're done. Video.
And inside, we find a blueprint from the keysafe and the final piece of the codekey.
A wind-handle? Now what in the kitchen could have that kind of function...
So, these three pieces plus the one we saw in the sick room give us the full code for the elevator - 1-8-1-2. And now, to finish this grand tour of safes off...
Puzzle #20: The Administration Three-Key-Safe
Second verse, same as the first.
And all we get out of it is another piece of the final safe code, which brings our line of safes to an end.
So with that, we're done with the first floor (with the exception of the jukebox safe, which we can't solve right now)! The game says we're 55% done, although the really interesting puzzles are still to come. Next time, we'll board that elevator and see where it goes.
ADDENDUM:
1. Snack Time!
Somebody mentioned the banana in my inventory in the thread, and I replied I was going to show it off eventually. So here it is. Basically useless, yet kind of interesting.
2. Review Talk
Alright, let's talk about that aforementioned review. I'm going to quote some sticking points of mine first:
quote:
Alright, maybe Safecracker's not all THAT bad, but it's the kind of hardcore adventure game that's meant for anally retentive sleuths, die-hard codebreakers, and anyone but casual audiences. From the moment the game starts, leaving players stuck out on the street with only their wits to use in order to gain entry to Crabb's padlocked funhouse, it's an uphill climb.
quote:
The main problem is that clues aren't so much found as stumbled upon. Though many of the safes encountered can be cracked by solving simple combination based puzzles, such as turning dials or hitting buttons in the proper sequence, others require keen insight on the player's part. [...] But I can't honestly say that the need to flip through random catalogs, books, and circuit diagrams scattered about on coffee tables throughout the mansion looking for descriptions of safe architecture, ciphers with which to decrypt codes, and other tidbits of useful information is within the bounds of reason. Because you're given no directions on how to proceed and aren't confined to specific areas of the mansion, those without a keen sense of perception are doomed to wander endlessly in search of answers.
quote:
Though I'll be the first to admit that a rather large quantity of the puzzles to be found in Safecracker are nothing short of ingenious, a great majority of these conundrums are made unecessarily difficult due to a nonexistant system of progression. Left with no helping hand to guide them (or at least no immediately visible one) on how to defeat locks based on temperature conversions, radio freqeuncies, and the braille alphabet, casual gamers will find themselves more clueless than Alicia Silverstone.
quote:
Heck, they may even find themselves homicidal after being subjected to the game's techno crud soundtrack. After an instinctive lunge puts an end to the mangled noises coming out of the speakers, however, it's possible to view your pleasantly rendered surroundings in peace.
quote:
One of the hardest adventure titles I've ever seen, Nut, er...Safecracker is a challenge worthy of the most demanding gamer. To the rest of us, it's just another outdated budget title that's more trouble than it's worth. In the immortal words of my girlfriend, "can't you tell them to stop sending you this sh*t and get something like Myst instead?" Amen, baby, amen.
Right. Now, onto each quote in order:
1: Honestly, that's just plain wrong. From a purely logical point of view, the first puzzle (the padlock) is one of the trickiest in the game, because there's absolutely nothing to help you at that point, and even that might not be true - I knew the answer and didn't go searching for clues for obvious reasons, and as such I never fully explored the outdoor area. Could very well be there's a hint to that as well. From there, you go to the first safes in the reception (all solveable using your brain for a bit), and from there, the mansion is open to exploration, which leads to clues and solutions.
2: "Safe architectures and ciphers" - sounds to me like the papers strewn about in the reception. The thing is, I never needed those to figure out the solutions, I just used my brain for a few minutes at best. As for the "wander endlessly" part, I'm not sure the reviewer went at this game with a basic plan. The way I see it, if you want to beat Safecracker, you do it as follows: One: Gain access into the mansion. Two: Find the map in the reception. Three: Search every room for useful stuff (which is pretty much always books and the like, which are easy to spot while looking around) and make notes. From there, it's just a matter of your searching being up to snuff, and you'll eventually find every solution you're looking for. Giving the player a direction would have ruined the game, because just like a point-and-click adventure (remember how I called this game part PnC in the OP?), a big part is searching your environment for the right tools to continue on your path. And considering some of the pixel hunts I've gone on in PnC games, Safecracker is babycakes in that regard. And even then - I mentioned I missed a few things when I previously played this while I was younger - a lot of things you can figure out without any help. The Pascal safe, for instance.
3: Braille, temperature conversions and radio frequencies. Now, we've already found the solutions for the first two and a hint for the third, and none were hard to find. The book with the Braille alphabet was obvious if you take one good look around the room, the temperature converter needs a decent eye, but nothing extraordinary if you take your time. Making clues "immediately visible" just completely craps over the puzzles, making them blatantly obvious, which is just all sorts of wrong.
4: OK, this might be a bit personal, but I don't get this guy's problem with the soundtrack. Hell, not even half of the soundtrack can be called "techno"! Is it just me? Is the soundtrack really that bad? I've posted a decent bit of the tracks in the LP so far, tell me!
5: So, to recap, I don't get why this guy considers this game to be so nutbustingly difficult. It's not hard at all, if you just use your brain for a bit and approach the game logically. Old-school text adventures and the like are MUCH more nutbusting than Safecracker is, really.
So yeah, with my soapboxing over an age-old review done, check in next time, when we'll be exploring new territory and will potentially blow up the mansion!