Shivers 5a: Getting Bitten and Getting Even

I am closing in on the endgame, but not without some frustration.

So I got the wood ixupi, and started hunting for the others. I put off going into the capital punishment room as long as I could, but finally couldn't avoid it. There, of course, I found a good jar, and then I finally got into the psychedelic and game room, where there are some infamous puzzles. I went ahead an looked up the solution to the pinball puzzle, which can be enormously frustrating (I wasn't in the mood for frustration), because I wanted to keep moving, but the "master mind" puzzle can't be hacked because it's randomized. You have to win it on your own. I figured out some of the strategy myself, and looked up a better strategy. Got lucky and won the first time I tried that! Darn it, I didn't take a screenshot.

After that you get another talisman and you find the six skulls that you've been setting the colors on, according to the Museum Brochure. I had all but the last one, and that last one is in the subterranean room, with the awful maze. It's an awful maze in two ways: it uses the same picture tiles over and over, so you have few clues about where you are, and it has absolutely awful "music." I muted the computer. But the only way through is to either follow a WT or just stick to the sides and keep turning the same way, which isn't as easy as it would seem. But finally you get through.

And here's where I had my problem. You really ought to catch the oil ixupi before you go through all this, because the thing loves to inhabit the oil in the basement. You can go ahead and turn the skull wheel and just navigate the maze again to get out (ouch!) or you can travel over the tar. But if the ixupi is there, it will eat you.

Just to see what would happen, I let it kill me. Here's what happens:

The oil ixupi, eating.

The voice says you're trapped in a jar, forever.

So that was interesting. I reloaded to try again later. But I realized that I really had to start hunting, and find the verdamnten lids and jars and get the things caught. I got the wax one after chasing it around. Got the cloth one, which is important because it's usually hiding another talisman. So unless you're lucky and it isn't in the room where the talisman is hidden, you'll have to get it first. 

Finally got Wax!

Got Metal!

So I was zooming along nicely. Found the oil pieces and got the ixupi in the strange beasts room, so that when I went back through the maze it wasn't there. But I almost mistook the metal jar for the crystal jar, then realized that I had not found the crystal jar at all.

But by that time I had revealed virtually every lid and jar available in the game, except for the final talisman (that's always electricity). So where was crystal?

I was near the lobby. I knew that every other location was empty by now. I wondered if I had left the item that I found in the clock tower there when I first found it, so I rushed up the stairs again, and there it was!

Solved three puzzles from a very early save to get this shot for you!

And here it is!

There was only one possible place for the lid: the Chinese Checkers puzzle, because I'd been checking that one all along and nothing fit. And zoom zap! The pieces matched!

Got it!

So that got me everything except the electricity, which is always last.

One thing I wonder: I went up to the bedroom (not easy, the only path there is the elevator, which requires you to solve two elevator puzzles going up and going down. Good thing I kinda like those). But once there I wondered why we never do anything with this chest. Looks like a great place to hide something important.

Tempting, isn't it?

But it's apparently just window dressing in the game.

OK! Tomorrow I will finish! There really isn't that much left to do. It's going to be exciting!

Next Entry.