Part 62: Monty Hall

Part 62: Monty Hall

Time for part two of our two-part special. You can probably tell why people wanted to go right here from the title.



One decision, two choices.





Music: Riddle and Puzzle 2nd Mix







So, this is Control. The air, water, and electricity for the shelter are all managed here.



This is probably where transmissions to the outside world happen. But...



It's disconnected.















Well, I guess not uniformly. Nipple sizes differ.

What a strange size reference to use, Junpei.





A carbon dioxide extinguisher.

You're definitely a firefighter.



Occupational hazard.



Whenever I go somewhere new, I end up checking the extinguishers first thing.

I see...









You dive into danger without thinking twice about your own safety.





I wonder how much of Junpei's attitude comes from Akane gushing over Carlos.





Well, Carlos was just doing what he was trained to do... Isn't that right?

Yeah. It's like you said.



Akane sighs in disgust.



I'm sorry, Carlos.











You just sound even more childish to me...

Can we go back to D-Team instead? I forgot how annoying these two could get.



Ah! It's January 1st!



Worst way to start the year off...





Missing Lip Animations: 49







Don't forget what Zero said.



"Very few of you will find yourselves able to welcome a new 2029."

Junpei does his best Zero impression here.









Music: Quondam Monitors (Monty Hall) (Monitor 2nd Mix)





As usual, I'm going to start with the chair.

It's just a normal chair.

No time to rest now. Let's keep looking.

Someday the chair will be important!



I can definitely tell you're a firefighter. You're not missing a thing.

Really? I'm getting a crick in my neck just trying to look at the ceiling.



Lots of screens on this machine, and some of them are on already, so let's take a look.



That looks a lot like the crane from Manufacturing. We never did do anything with that, did we?

This large monitor here is showing some kind of crane.

Where is that room... Oh, I think these buttons can move the crane.

It's like those crane games... Okay then, let's give it a go.

Are you good at these, Junpei?

Not really. Usually my wallet gives up first.

It's not exactly something to be proud of...



Each arrow moves the crane in a particular direction, and makes a captioned sound while doing so. Down = "Znnnuurr", Left = "Whirrrrrr", Up = "Guurrrrrr", Right = "Vrrrreeee". And activating the claw is "Ding dong", but otherwise doesn't do anything yet. We probably have to move the claw to a particular location, first.

Damn... I don't think this is working.

Moving it around randomly won't work.



Right below we have some blank monitors.

Four small monitors are at the bottom left. But they aren't showing anything.

I really can't believe all these security cameras are simply down...



More monitors on the upper left...

The three small monitors at the top left are blank.

...Maybe they'll show the faces of those who die in here.

Don't say things like that, Junpei! It's bad luck.



Nearby is an image of a door with some letters.

What's that on the monitor?

The letters S and W...on a door?

The S is red and the W is pink.

Is it saying we need to spell those letters out with our bodies?

I doubt it's going to be like Sports Day back in Japan, Junpei.

Not sure what room that door is from, but I'm sure we'll be back here later.



Another monitor displaying a weird image further to the right.

Is this some kind of shutter?

Looks like it. There are some lines on it.

You can use the slider over here to zoom in and out.



Zooming in doesn't do anything, but zooming out gives us a more complete picture. Not sure what to do with this one yet, either.



The position of these things seemed important so I traced them onto the memo pad.



More blank monitors above the image of the shutter.

The top right monitors aren't showing anything...

They're totally black. How do we turn them on?



Watch as a self-destruct sequence starts if we just start pushing everything.

Ha ha. I can't say that's not entirely impossible.

Yeah, none of these buttons actually do anything.



Right above them is a monitor showing an image that appears to be from the Biolab.

Are those...cylinders on the monitor?

That's my guess. But I don't recognize them. Maybe they're from one of the other wards.



One last set of monitors in the middle.

The four monitors here are turned off.

They can only be seen by those of pure heart.

What, really?

I'm kidding. Too gullible, man.



Next to the console with all the monitors is some kind of switchboard for power.

Painful shock?

The yellow mark over in the corner.

Oh, I see it. That sign indicates high voltage.

You always were scared of static shocks during winter, weren't you, Akane?

I also make sure to not pull plugs out with wet hands. A shock from that terrifies me.

Ha ha. You're probably afraid of thunder too, aren't you?



Not sure what to do here yet, let's keep looking.

Nothing's happening... Is there a right way to do this?



What we're really here for is this card.

What's this card?

Some of the boxes have numbers written in them.

Gotta be some kind of hint. Let's take it with us.



Looks an awful lot like a certain console we were just looking at.



Some weird colored pedastals around the room.



It seems so. But what does it mean...

Oh hey, we can turn it. Let's fiddle with it.

Looks like we found what the colored letters on the door in the monitor go with. The monitor had a red "S" and a pink "W", but I didn't see a green one.



The intercom here can be messed with.



What? Let's do it!



It's a card with boxes and numbers.

It was hidden, so it's probably useful. Let's take it just in case.



More numbers in boxes.



Page two of the memo pad is now dedicated to this numbers-in-boxes puzzle.



Anything else in here?

There's nothing left behind the speaker.

A monster might bite your hand if you stuck it in far enough.

What are you even saying, Junpei. As if that would happen...

Your voice is wobbly and you're shaking like a leaf, Akane...



The red pedestal is the same as the green one, with no new dialogue. I set it to "S" and move on.



That's an awfully big plug, there.



I wonder what could be in here. Is there any way to open it?

I'm not sure. Let's look around.



Well, let's see. Maybe holding it up to your mouth will shoot cola out?

The hell it will. ...Kids would flip if that really did happen though.



Well the plug leads to this machine, what does it do?

What is this machine for?

No clue. Looks like it's connected to the one on the right, too.

I see a loose cable sticking out. I'm not sure what it's for.



Nothing on that machine, how about this one?

What's this huge machine for?

I've never seen it before. I have no idea how to use it either.

Then we probably shouldn't touch it. Who knows what could happen.

Yeah both of these machines are just decorative. Moving on...



We couldn't force it open, so I'm guessing it's impossible to break it down too.

Let's try to find a way out.



This poster looks familiar.



Okay then, let's make like we're flipping up a girl's skirt!



Oh, sunglasses! There are sunglasses behind this!

Ha, so there IS treasure from flipping things up!

Junpei you're going to get yourself slapped again.



These are vital when it's summer and the sun is bright. Not so much in the winter, like now.

I've always liked them since I was a kid. Doesn't it seem like they make you look cool?

Yeah, just like in that movie with The One fighting against the computer AI. Classic.

I have to say I'm surprised you know that old movie. It's one of my favorites.

Is The Matrix still cool? I kind of thought most people drifted away from it after the third movie.



Notice that there's a voltage sign in the top right as well.

It's not as if the poster has electricity running through it, so why is it there?

The poster obviously has something to do with the power switchboard across the room, but what?



Below the poster are some lockers.

There's a total of ten lockers.

We tried them all, but none open.

I want to know what's inside. But no point to wishing since they're locked.



More machines further to the right.

What is this machine?

No idea. I've never seen it before... Why don't we try pushing some buttons.

No dice. Is this thing broken?

Yeah that one's also just decorative. There are two more pedestals just below, though.



I think this one's blue and the next one is pink, but I can't quite tell. I set them both to "W" just to be safe, but nothing happened.



Another machine, with another locker.

This locker is locked. We can't open it.

It just deepens the mystery. Is there any trick to opening it up?

Probably, but we don't know it yet.



There's that firefighter side coming out.

There are a bunch of large buttons down here. Twelve in all.

Do firefighters deal with a lot of radiation, too?



Then they're all just on/off switches.

If only Junpei's personality changed as easily.

What, the me before and the me now? Not likely. The amount of things I know now that I didn't then... It's too big a difference.

Junpei...



Anyway, this puzzle seems to correspond to another one of the monitor images, but the cylinders were all off in that one so we don't know how to light them up yet.



It must be for measuring radiation levels.

But the needle isn't moving. Maybe we have to do something on this machine first.

Not sure if there was a puzzle cut here or what, but the light switches are the only thing we deal with on this machine.



One last machine in this room. First, the compartment at the bottom.



If it's locked, then there's probably a way to unlock it.

But how are we going to do that...

Okay, what else do we have here?



But it's blank.

Maybe it'll show instructions for this machine if we push a button somewhere.

These monitors never do anything, either.



Nope, nothing happens when you push them.

Maybe we need to push something somewhere else?

Neither does the input device on the side.



These buttons don't do anything, either. Same dialogue and everything. While we're here, though, does this machine look familiar at all to you?



Reminds me of closing a gas valve.

I can just picture Junpei forgetting to close it, and panicking once the room smells of gas.

You, on the other hand, would probably never make a mistake like that.



Reminds me of one of those monitor images. Let me check my notes.



Kind of lines up. Let's see if I can rotate all these knobs to match the picture.



Not shown: Me going back and forth between the puzzle and the memo pad a half-dozen times. I miss the extra screen from the 3DS sometimes.







Ooh, lasers.

So the monitor WAS the hint for this after all.

Bottom locker's open. Let's see what's in it.



A small battery... Maybe it attaches to something? And this is...

A card with some numbers on it...



It also looks like an earpiece.

It must attach to a pair of glasses. Maybe we can use it somewhere.

Good thing there's a hint on examining these parts, because the name is totally useless.



Just combine them with the sunglasses...

What? The sunglasses are displaying something on the lenses.

Then attaching the battery turned them on? Must not be normal sunglasses.

Yeah. Looks like there are three modes: A, B, and C. We should pick one.



Might as well check them out in order.

Okay, let's go to A mode.



Lines connecting five boxes on each side, with another high-voltage symbol. Looks important, better write it down.



Eh, good enough. I forgot what labels went onto each side, but we can figure that out later.

What was that? A bunch of scribbled lines? No wait... I think there was a mark in the top right corner.

Let's check out B mode on the sunglasses next.









Four images from the Healing Room, with different projections set. Come to think of it, it's pretty convenient that we're doing Control so close to the end, so we can understand all the references to the other puzzle rooms.

Huh? It's just showing numbers changing on a wall... I'm not sure what that means.



C mode is just a password prompt. Can't do anything with this one yet, either.



There's also a card in the locker, which I add to my second page notes.



Not sure why the monitors and input devices are here but nothing ever happens with them.



Hey, didn't we just see that mark somewhere?



Let's add some labels to my crude drawing from the poster. You might be wondering why that would be necessary.



Well, it's because the order of the labels on the actual switchboard is different. If you tried to recreate the picture from the sunglasses directly here, it wouldn't work. Instead, you have to translate using the poster, and then connect the same pairs from the poster on the switchboard. From my crude drawing above, we have 4-V, 1-II, 2-III, 5-I, and 3-IV.



I would show you the whole solution, but that involved me going back and forth to the memo screen several times again. Here's the end state, though.

Huh. I think that did it?



So the poster and the sunglasses were the hints for this after all.

Okay let's take another look at the monitor then.



SE, N, E, and SW.

I wonder why they're four different colors.

I hate all the color-based puzzles in this game. The dialogue didn't tell me what color was what so I looked it up, even though I'm pretty sure I could tell. I totally missed that the pink now said "SW" instead of "W" though, because it's invisible to me in the picture and I missed it in the dialogue. Anyway, I went looking for another hint by clicking again:

SE, N, E, SW... What do these mean?

Southeast... North... Maybe they're directions?

Oh! Then E is east and SW is southwest!

Again, I was so disappointed that they didn't tell me the colors that I missed that they explicitly told me that pink was now "SW" instead of "W". Anyway, here's the right setting for each pedestal:









Between not being confident in the color of the blue/pink pedestals and not realizing that the pink direction changed from "W" to "SW", it took several minutes for me to get this one right.



Our reward is a new pedestal.

Huh? A black stand came out of the floor?

Does that mean we got the directions right?



The light going off, means some of the cylinders are now glowing in the dark?



You're right. And some of those cylinders lit up, too.



These pretty obviously correspond to the radiation buttons across the room. I'll just take a quick note...



Yeah, you're right... But where?

The hint gets more explicit on the second click:

Hey, doesn't this layout look a lot like what's on the bottom right monitor?

Ah, yes! The cylinders! There are twelve of them too!

If they're connected, then we have to push the buttons that match the lit cylinders.



Just click to turn each button off or on.



So the hint really was the lit cylinders.

I'm more curious about the locker. Why don't we take a look.

Fair enough.

Let's see what's in this locker.

Some kind of ear speaker...and this.

A card with four numbers on it...



It looks like the type that goes over your ear.

Maybe it's supposed to attach to a pair of glasses.



Combine with the sunglasses, and we now have audio!

Wait, what's going on? It's video and sound...

Did the sunglasses become a head-mounted display?

Oh, oh! What's it like, Carlos?!

Hold on a sec... I see three modes: A, B, and C.

Yeah, same three modes as before. Will having audio help one of them?



A mode has no change, and C mode still wants a password. So let's see if we can hear anything in B mode.



Now each image comes with a sound, which thankfully is captioned.







I heard different sounds... And the number on the wall changed as each sound happened.



Oh right, we also got the last of these cards.



Not the neatest handwriting, but it'll be okay.



I had to go back and write down what sounds each button made, but we've got the solution. Here it is at double speed:





So sound was the key to it. Impressive.

Oh, the monitors have letters, and the cards have numbers. Guess we have to line them all up.



Top to bottom: B, E, and R.



From left to right they read T, Y, and E. I wonder what this means?



From top to bottom they read B, D, T, and I.



From left to right is S, E, F, and E.



Now we know which number goes with which letter. But what does it mean? Well, we have the numbers 1-14 once each, so let's try arranging each letter in order of its corresponding number.



BETESTEDBYFIRE. Sounds ominous, but for now I think we had a password prompt that could use this phrase.



So we pull up C mode in the sunglasses again.



As we thought, the 14 letters were the password. Oh, the video started playing.



Looks like Zero? What's he doing?



Oh, he's messing with the pedestals.











I wrote these down as they showed up in the video file.



Something comes out of the floor.



Looks like that's where the giant plug goes?



He's...turning the stands in certain directions. And then... He plugged the cable into the machine that came out of the floor. So...

Carlos tells us exactly what to do. I'll spare you the screenshots of me turning each pedestal to match what was in the video. When we get the last one in place...



So turning the stands according to the instructions on the video brings that out.

I hope it was worth the hard work.

Nothing left to do but plug in the cable.



Yeah, let's do it.





Ummm...



We found...fire?



No music here, just the roaring fire.



Hissing as the carbon dioxide extinguisher activates.



Bye-bye, fire. Well, that was anticlimactic.



Oh! The fire's out!







Guess that extinguisher up there helped, huh.

Music: Consternation 2nd Mix

Yeah, I think so.





Missing Lip Animations: 50



It doesn't look like it's stopping... At this rate we'll...



Junpei starts gasping.



So does Akane.



The percentage of carbon dioxide in the air is roughly 0.04.









You lose consciousness shortly after it hits 7%, and after that...



Welcome back, computer lady. Last time we saw one of these was the Rec Room I think? That bodes well.





[Computer Lady:] Within one of them...there is an oxygen mask.







A drumbeat for each reaction shot.















The probability is 1 in 10...

Well, at least it's better than 1 in 216? No hints. We'll have to go with our gut...



Heartbeats.



Music: Moral Dilemma (Annihilation 3rd Mix)



I could just leave it here, and ask you all to pick randomly between ten equal options, but where would be the fun in that. I asked my three-year-old what his favorite number was, and he said "two", so we'll just go with that. If you got the fragment title reference, you probably are already expecting something more to this one...



Anyway, pick any locker you like, then hit "OK".



Music: Trepidation 2nd Mix







[Computer Lady:] I know...which locker contains the oxygen mask...

Somehow the computer lady manages to sound sinister during this speech.











Eight lockers are opened. That's a pretty nice dynamic animation, actually. The game doesn't know which locker we'd pick, or which random other one is going to stay closed. Unless they animated it 90 times and just picked the one to match the current situation. Maybe that's where all the lip animation budget went.





Thus, the fragment title.







Thanks, computer lady. Looks like we get one last opportunity to change our decision.





There's no way we'll last twenty min--



Junpei starts cackling. I don't think it's that kind of gas, Junpei.

Wh-What's wrong, Junpei?





Our chances went from 1 in 10 to 50:50?!

That's not it, Junpei...!



It's actually...



And Akane's down before she can tell us the solution again. Feels a lot like the Infirmary.



Akane!







Damn, this isn't good...





Which is it... Which one will it be in...



Heartbeats again.



Music: Moral Dilemma (Annihilation 3rd Mix)



Okay, now we've reached the real decision. Our two options here are best phrased as follows: Stick with our original decision, or switch to the other locker? Choose a locker.