Part 9: That's Me in the Corner
As always, let's start out with puzzle solutions.
Although this does resemble the pinball puzzle in Shivers, the key difference here is you can actually see where each ball will go when you move it instead of just blind guessing (or writing everything down). It's a lot easier to see/find the solution in this puzzle.
...which is to say I spent 20 minutes dicking around and solving it, looked at my garbled mess of eight billion screenshots, and then found a walkthrough so I could screenshot their much shorter solution instead.
This one's all me, though.
So, as LoreOfSerpents pointed out, we actually can solve the cemetery picture puzzle right now through brute force, and that's exactly how I did it my first time through the game. You know why? Because the designers are dicks.
The clue for this puzzle is found in a video we haven't seen yet. Sort of. Here, just watch:
I actually think that's a pretty good clue video (and it has the least bad song, too!). It's far from the
present in other videos, but it's also not as obscure as the pressure gauge puzzle - which LoreOfSerpents also solved. You are on a roll.
The video is actually cluing us to go back to the cafe. Well, it's really just saying "look at the backs of pictures," but the cafe happens to have the picture we want. "But..." you object, "didn't we already explore the cafe?" Yes, we did. "Is it like the pressure gauge puzzle where we have to watch the video first?" No, their dickery knows many forms.
Remember this photo? Here's what it looked like in the third update when we first found it:
Inspecting the photo for the first time immediately triggers a phone call... and it's in a far off room, so you have to run to try and get it. If you were playing, maybe you would have been more clever than I and realized that was just a ruse, ignoring the phone or coming back to the photo later. It's still a dick move.
Oh. Look. The photo can be turned around. assholes
I am so sorry, LoreOfSerpents.
Going back to the cemetery, we replicate the picture like so:
The tile in the second row from the bottom on the far right needs one more quarter turn. When it's properly oriented, we're immediately backed out of the puzzle to the sound of something heavy shifting. Nothing in the immediate area looks different, but...
That door beneath the puzzle is now open.
The inside is pretty sparse, containing only one thing we can inspect closer.
That's it. That's all this damn puzzle gets us.
...all that being said, that's probably my favorite dick move in this game. I find it pretty hilarious and clever how they distract you from the picture. ...but they're still assholes.
With that out of the way, I believe you all wanted to see the library/museum. Since they made an entire game out of a museum last time, this ought to be good.
I have high expectations for crazy mazes and Escher-inspired architecture.
That's it? The door just... opens? No underground back entrance? What kind of crappy museum is this?
I see the library, but I do not see a whole lot of museum.
There's a card catalog that we can inspect over on the left side of the room.
Much to my surprise, only one of the drawers opens and it's not empty!
Yay, our first chess piece!
It's not relevant right now, but there's a number printed on the bottom of the piece. We'll worry about that once we have the remaining pieces.
Let's go up the tiny staircase on the other side of the room.
Just to the right of where we go up, we find the most pathetic newspaper archive I've ever seen.
That sounds like a foolproof plan to avoid getting robbed. Now I know why banks close early in real life!
Phil looks like he just made up his mind to send the photographer a mail bomb.
Something tells me that Mrs. Matthews is not exactly a hard-hitting investigative reporter. Now that we know this is Nora, I can also point out the picture from the beginning of this update was her standing next to someone else (possibly Pearl).
I believe that also answers the question about the town's doctor: nonexistent!
Somehow, the guy on top manages to be even less thrilled about photographers than Phil.
There's only one shelf we can inspect over here.
I am now 300% less disappointed in this crappy museum. Then I realize the book doesn't open and I become 200% more disappointed.
I think maestro1123 speaks for all of us with his desire for more Windlenot.
Well. This seems relevant.
We should probably remember that.
(Stairway to Heaven? In the Church?
)
Over on the other side of this raised platform...
What the fuck is wrong with these people?
In case a tourist lacks the four minutes it would take to walk around the entire town, they've provided a handy model here.
Moving on, if we head back down the stairs and wind around the side of the raised platform, there's a staircase leading down.
Every library has a dark corner like this, and it always smells like pee.
...this dark corner manages to be even worse. I hate this town.
Getting out of there as quickly as possible, we find another staircase leading down, straight across from the one leading to the perv corner.
Some completely non-interactive shelves.
If that's not a wizard drop kicking a skull, it is now.
Kinda cramped isn't it? We accidentally knock into one of the shelves several times while trying to squeeze our fat goon ass into this narrow space.
The Atkins diet hasn't been invented yet, so I think it's time to hit the Stairmaster... or maybe a Bowflex. Anyone remember those? ...no?
We finally found it, so
can lay off for awhile.
Spider Grandmother gave a special charge to the Anasazi - to guard the original Sipapu and keep it open so that the dead would remember the passageway to the third world from whence they came. She gave them the Ianyi stone, a talisman of great power meaning "breath" or "life." Along with the stone, she gave them instructions on how to perform the yearly ceremony so that the dead would not be lost.
The Anasazi built a great Kiva (Hopi word meaning "underworld") around the Sipapu and selected 12 of their strongest warriors to defend it. Each year, as part of a secret ceremony, one warrior was chosen to carry a sacred Bahos into the Kiva. After proving he was worthy, he offered himself as a sacrifice to the Sipapu. Before the warrior was completely dead, the Shaman inhaled the warrior's last remaining breath. Then, taking the Ianyi stone, he blew that last breath over the stone and into the Sipapu, bridging the gap between the third and fourth worlds. The warrior then became kachina and his body was buried in the sacred valley.
Mockingbird begged Spider Grandmother to give the Ianyi stone great powers so that the Anasazi could better protect the Sipapu against evil. Now, Spider Grandmother was very fond of Mockingbird, so she gave the Ianyi stone the power to bring...
The danger to the Sipapu was gone, but with no enemy to fight and no more warriors to sacrifice to the Sipapu, the Shaman despaired. He feared the kachina would come and take the stone away. Now that he had used Ianyi's power, living without it was something he could not bear. He broke the stone into two and hid the pieces in the canyon. The pain of its loss was so severe, that he sacrificed his own life at the Sipapu.
The Pueblo Indians still build Kivas with Sipapu in remembrance of where they came from. It is believed, however, that many of the dead are lost and cannot find their way back to the third world. That is the cause of many of today's troubles.
Look what our ass has wrought.
Back in the main area, there's only one place left to explore: a door straight across from the building's entrance.
This looks like a great place to remove some inventory clutter.
Yay, we figured out what to do with the strange vase thing (which we now know is an arrowhead) and the cross (star?) from the church. Looks like we have two more to collect, though.
...off we go, to find more strange symbol stones.
Our life bar reflects the brain damage we took from the shelf.
Puzzles: None this update.
Notes:
Can't get anything from the vending machine.
"Check under the windowsill"
We might be able to find quarters at Phil's store.
The literal key to "the truth" is under Burt's trailer.
Who is Darkcloud?
Find something to use on the candle.
We have some kind of triangle code thing.
Find something to use on the gas pump.
Find
What do the directions in the church music and Spell It Out mean?
We need to find a stone symbol of a bearclaw.
We need to find a stone symbol of a ... snake ... thing.
Voting:
You all really hate bahos, don't you? You're very good at avoiding them.
Location list:
Bakery
Barber Shop
Burt's Trailer
Max's Cave
Mine Entrance
Phil's Market
Savings & Loan
Warehouse