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 Hello and welcome to my LP of the Submachine series. Before we start, let's get some Q&A's out of the way. What is the Submachine series? Submachine is a series of point-and-click adventure games created by Mateusz Skutnik. The main themes of the games are exploration and solving puzzles to escape the Submachine. The first game was released back in 2005, and the tenth and final game in the main series came out in December 2015. As the series went on, the games became larger and more involved, and the plot and the mystery of the Submachine also grew deeper. Okay, so what is a Submachine? Submachine stands for 'submerged machine'. A submachine consists of many chambers, a lot of them large enough for a human to to explore. In-story, it is believed that most of the submachine (or submachines, it's not completely clear whether there's one or more) exists underground, hence the name. Other than that, the submachine is very mysterious, and we will learn much more about it as we progress through the series. What's known is that the submachine we explore is enormous and even though we'll visit many parts, it's implied we are barely scratching the surface. This "tip of the iceberg" feeling pervades a lot of the series, making the name very appropriate. Why are you LPing this series and why should I watch? I consider this series to consist of two main things: there's the individual point-and-click puzzles and there's the overarching mystery of the Submachine we're trying to solve. I will show off the puzzles but I honestly don't think it's that interesting to just be given the answers. So if you like that kind of puzzles, I strongly suggest you play the games yourself. The standard versions of the game are free, after all. I like to focus on the second part: the larger mystery of what the hell is going on. I'll collect information during the LP and keep it in the 2nd post. Lots of theories about this series have already been written, but I'd really like to hear your thoughts and to see a discussion about the nature of the Submachine. What games are you going to play? I'm planning to play all ten of the main games and the spin-offs in release order. One exception is Submachine Universe, previously known as the Submachine Network Exploration Experience. This is not a game with an ending, but a free exploration through many of the areas visited in previous Submachine games. New rooms are added to it regularly. I frankly don't really know how to tackle that one, and it doesn't add much to the plot. If I show it off at all, I'll do so at the end of the LP. There are multiple versions of some of the games. Which versions will you play? Most notably, there are standard and HD versions. The standard versions are, and always have been, free to play, while the HD versions cost a few dollars apiece, or $25 for the full set of games + soundtrack. While I have bought the HD version, I have decided to show the standard version. That's because I believe that if anyone deserves a compensation for their work, it's people who release cool games for free. If you want to see the HD version, the least you can do is give Mateusz some money and buy the games. The gameplay of the standard and HD versions are mostly the same, with one notable exception, which I'll point out once we get to it. Other than that, Mateusz released newer versions of some of the older games as time went on, mostly with small changes to have the games fit better in the series as it grew. I'll be playing the latest version of each game.  Spoiler policy I'll bet that quite a few people haven't played all the games. And the whole idea of the series is that you slowly gather more hints about the Submachine as time goes on. So I'm going to ask you folks to not talk about anything we have not seen yet. If you post theories, base them on what you've seen in the LP so far. Don't worry, we'll get to the next part soon enough. Updates Part 1 - Submachine 1: The Basement Part 2 - Submachine 2: The Lighthouse Part 3 - Submachine 2: The Lighthouse Part 4 - Submachine 3: The Loop Part 5 - Submachine 3: The Loop Part 6 - Submachine Zero: Ancient Adventure Part 7 - Submachine 4: The Lab Part 8 - Submachine 4: The Lab Part 9 - Submachine 4: The Lab Part 10 - Submachine: Future Loop Foundation Part 11 - Submachine 5: The Root Part 12 - Submachine 5: The Root Part 13 - Submachine 5: The Root Part 14 - Submachine 6: The Edge Part 15 - Submachine 6: The Edge Part 16 - Submachine 6: The Edge Part 17 - Submachine: 32 Chambers Part 18 - Submachine 7: The Core Part 19 - Submachine 7: The Core Part 20 - Submachine 7: The Core Part 21 - Submachine 8: The Plan Part 22 - Submachine 8: The Plan Part 23 - Submachine 9: The Temple Part 24 - Submachine 9: The Temple Part 25 - Submachine 9: The Temple Part 26 - Submachine 9: The Temple Part 27 - Submachine 10: The Exit Part 28 - Submachine 10: The Exit Part 29 - Submachine 10: The Exit Part 30 - Submachine 10: The Exit Part 31 - Submachine 10: The Exit Part 32 - Submachine 10: The Exit Part 33 - Submachine 10: The Exit Part 34 - Submachine 10: The Exit Part 35 - Submachine 10: The Exit Part 36 - Final thoughts Bonus: Interview with Mateusz Play the games yourself: Submachine 1 - Submachine 2 - Submachine 3 - Submachine 4 - Submachine 5 - Submachine 6 - Submachine 7 - Submachine 8 - Submachine 9 - Submachine 10 Side games: Submachine Zero - Submachine FLF - Submachine 32 Chambers Carbon dioxide fucked around with this message at 11:49 on May 25, 2017 |
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Jan 24, 2016 21:50
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Notes --- Hey you! Yes you, person in the future, reading this in the archive. The rest of this post contains all notes found in the games, and is full of SPOILERS. If this is your first time encountering the Submachine, you might want to skip past this and jump straight to the first update. --- Submachine 1: The Basement Single page from a diary posted:last summer I went camping under the big waterfall of Kent. I guess this was a great trip for me, however some people do not understand why. Well, I did lose my left arm, but what the hell, I found out that I had a third arm. The invisible one. Since then I started to learn how to use my karma arm, and soon my skills were those of a master. It wasn't a surprise to me when people started turning their backs on me, since I was considered to be a freak and mentally ill. Funny thing, I can't tell them the truth, it would be like explaining the possibility of space travel to a goldfish. So I'm just trying to Submachine 2: The Lighthouse Lighthouse Pamphlet posted:WELCOME Cat Note posted:mid october 05 Letter to Liz posted:Hi Elizabeth. Diary 2 posted:
Note to myself posted:12.13.06 Portal Note posted:so here it is. Submachine 3: The Loop HD Note posted:Never stroll away from the center. HD Note posted:I've been here before! HD Note posted:He said to mark this paper every time I pass it. HD Note posted:The rooms reset every other cycle. Mur's Note posted:READ ME! Submachine 4: The Lab Conversation with Mur posted:(@lab): root.ping//144.235.182.100 Note 1 posted:coordinates of known locations: Note 4 and Note 5 posted:At first we thought there was just one submachine. Note 2 posted:Our mission has just started. Murtaugh taught us the necessity of writing notes and leaving them behind in locations they were made in. That's for leaving a trace in case somebody got lost. But we are all well trained, nothing bad is going to happen. Not this time. Note 3 posted:We haven't even started exploring this ancient section and our coil is already dead. Probably someone forgot to recharge it. But the situation is serious. Note 12 posted:I've been here before! Note 6 posted:Our coil is broken, and we don't have a replacement. It's useless. It's so useless. Note 7 posted:Murtaugh came by today. He said that since we cannot charge the laser to break the Orb, he's returning it to it's original position. Note 8 posted:Did you notice that you have never found any signs of human presence in the submachines? No matter which ones? But there are at least four teams wandering around the vast net of submachine. And there are probably other people too, locked within their own locations. What are the odds of never finding anyone here? Note 11 posted:I'm stuck, please help! Note 13 posted:No clues. No clues. Wait, what I was doing here? Note 9 posted:Need water. Must find water. Not much, one drop would be enough. Just one drop of water. All I see is sand, 32 chambers filled with sand as I remember. Note 10 posted:Crew expendable. Where did I hear that? Did that come from the company, or someone even higher? Nevermind... In the meantime we tried almost every possible way of unlocking that drat ladder. this lock just won't open. the last attempt is to blow this up. We're setting up wires right now, and if we're lucky someone of us will survive and finally see what's on the upper deck of the ship. However, I'm going to write another note just after the explosion, if we'll still be alive that is. Note 14 posted:If you looked hard enough and you are feeling lucky you can always try this location: Author's note posted:Thank You for finishing this game. Submachine 5: The Root Murtaugh posted:Hi there. Assignment posted:First assignment: Submachine 6: The Edge Note posted:Well, that's it... Note posted:do not mess with the protocols. Note posted:Did he tell you that you were the first one sent out here? Note posted:don't believe in his lies. Secret note posted:I never thought that playing Murtaugh's game would lead me here. Portal prototype 2/32 posted:Portal prototype developed for transportation of maintenance units between different sections of the subnet. Thoth inscription posted:Thoth Secret note posted:I was sent here by Murtaugh. Of course, who else. Murtaugh posted:from: Murtaugh Murtaugh posted:mur@lab: hello? Submachine 7: The Core quote:note to myself Liz posted:Hello. Liz posted:How could they have possibly known? Liz posted:I know it is kind of ironic to dock my laboratory out here in the ruins of the winter palace. Pamphlet posted:WELCOME Liz posted:Now you know how Murtaugh's karma portals work. You just used one. They can in fact transport you through different dimensions. quote:Once there was a man who said he knew what was happening after Murtaugh left. quote:Why does this sociopath only talk to Elizabeth? Liz posted:So when things started to collapse, why certain bits and pieces got left behind? quote:If subnet is universe, then the loops are black holes. Book page posted:[...] The Fourth Dynasty at the peak of it's cultural and technological development was able to create first man-made submachine structure. That was around the beginning of twentieth century and is now considered the birthdate of the outer rim. Those first structures were merely flawed copies of the original structures, but in time they grew into something completely autonomous. Attempts to chart new territories failed miserably leaving the vast submachine wilderness to it's own. [...] quote:Once the great scheme of things was clearly visible through the layers of seven main dimensions. Liz posted:It's no wonder they wanted to bury this whole lighthouse with him still inside. Mur posted:Hi Elizabeth. Liz posted:Dear Murtaugh. Liz posted:I finally understood how they could mimic the structure of the subnet within a garden... Liz posted:I can hear Murtaugh breaching the defenses of my ship. It is the high time for me to leave this dimension. Submachine 8: The Plan quote:Liz: You can create dimensional portals while being inside such a portal? quote:Murtaugh is coming back. We should go. quote:I clearly remember the day it all ended. It was not long after the computer processing power exceeded that of the human brain. Many thought that this was the turning point, but not so. The moment came a bit later. I remember, because I was there, when we asked the biggest question. The one we've been struggling with for millennia. quote:- Where are you? quote:- But why the boundaries. Why this particular shape? quote:- I never knew beam of light could bend like that. quote:- This is just a toy. Just a toy. quote:- Do you see it now? quote:A woman came to our village. No one knows exactly how she entered, since the gate was closed at the time. She went straight to the [term not translational], and one minute later a beam of bright light shot from it straight up to the sky. When she disappeared we knew we were blessed with the presence of the goddess. That was 742 years ago, and we worship her to this day. quote:Liz: So... Did you ever catch me after all?... Secret posted:Murtaugh: "If there's one thing I regret - it's the fact that of all people I sent to the edge no one ever came back. Not a single soul. That will haunt me for the rest of my life..." Secret posted:- "Have you ever been to the place called the loop?" Secret posted:- "Why does this sociopath only talk to Elizabeth?" Secret posted:- "But that's impossible! He can't be in different dimensions at the same time!" Secret posted:- "Doesn't he understand that his karma portals are shattering this dimension?" Submachine 9: The Temple quote:The light of Shiva drawn Murtaugh to live in the lighthouse. quote:The light of Shiva drawn Elizabeth to leave the lighthouse. quote:When Murtaugh put his arm into the waterfall, he noticed that he no longer had an arm, but seven of them. That was not something unexpectable. quote:When Murtaugh saw the cat changing the layer of reality he falsely connected that event with Einstein's theory of relativity. quote:Nobody could predict that the enlightenment would cause such destruction. Even Murtaugh himself didn't know what happened. He was already looking at all layers at once. He was already removed from one-dimensionality. quote:- Why does this sociopath talk only to Elizabeth? quote:- The greatest mystery and misconception of the doctrine is that Murtaugh gained his powers. Secret posted:- There are seven main layers of reality. Secret posted:- How is it possible, that people are still coming through the loop and trying to turn off the defense systems? After all these years... Secret posted:Murtaugh never said it was about revenge. But by then he was well used to not being understood. Back then they didn't yet have seven-layer bullets. Secret posted:After the second enlightenment Murtaugh dedicated his life to restoring the chaos. While the main layers flourished under his word, the third dimension remained broken. Secret posted:If he's the explorer, she's the healer. If he's the child, she's the older sister. When he couldn't understand, she knew that it wasn't his fault. When he fell, she picked him up. When they wanted to kill him, she explained. Submachine 10: The Exit quote:We the King welcome you in Northern Garden docks. quote:Caution. quote:- So how did he escape after all? quote:- I've found my grave today. A proper tomb, in fact... quote:- We're in a loop. quote:Dear Murtaugh. quote:- If there is countless number of sub-layers, it's practically impossible for two people the end up in the same layer, right? quote:- - - - - - - - S.H.I.V.A. - - - - - - - - quote:- Do you know how many numbers are there between 0 and 1. quote:Light crown converter needed to connect light crown to the fuse outlet. quote:- I'll come back to the shrine every 32 years. I promise, anyone who still listens to this frequency. quote:Dear Elizabeth! quote:- You can't fix everything, just let it go. Submachine doesn't need your help. It's fine as it is. quote:- But how is it possible, that she knew the Submachine was sentient and reasoning? That's like Lumiere brothers talking about retina cinema of the early 21st century. quote:- I think you're ready to enter the Submachine. You know more than enough and will probably find out more on your journey. Remember, this can destroy or transform you. But you will not return the same man. May the wisdom of Thoth guide you. quote:- Wait, Submachine was already sentient that early? quote:- How will you know that they're coming? Secret posted:Are we alone in the Submachine? Well, yes, but you can always feel somebody right beside you, doing the same things you do in the Submachine. Just one sub-layer away. That's comforting, isn't it? Secret posted:What happened to sunshine_bunnygirl_17? Don't worry, I took care of her. I transported her to the first layer, she's taking care of Einstein when I'm not around. Secret posted:Will I ever come back to the Submachine? Well, of course. There are more people still trapped there, my mission is to navigate the sub-layer infinity to find them and bring them home. Secret posted:Is Submachine real? Or just a dream? Well, if Submachine is only a dream, I still haven't woken up from it. I mean, as far as I know, it's real, all of it. Secret posted:Thank you from the bottom of my heart for playing Submachine, for finding all secrets and sticking around for as long as you did. For me this journey lasted 10 years, I know that for some of you too. Thank you and see you in the next game! Carbon dioxide fucked around with this message at 14:27 on May 26, 2017 |
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Jan 24, 2016 21:50
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Part 1 Submachine 1: The Basement Note: These first two updates have a smaller screenshot size. I was still finding my way around the SSLP format at that time. This is remedied from Part 3 onwards.  (Click here to play the game yourself.) The first Submachine game is a bit unusual compared to the later ones. It feels a lot like a small standalone 'Escape the Room' game. This game has been updated several times over the years, and I'm playing the 2014 version.  We start out in this room. All Submachine games have quite nice sound effects and also rather atmospheric music. This is the only game for which the music wasn't made by ThumpMonks, which means that it isn't in the OST. Luckily, there is a redux of this music made for a later game. It is similar enough. ♫ ThumpMonks - Submachine 1 Redux 1 Urgggh... where am I? How did I get here? Last thing I remember is some kind of tower in the distance with a bright light... a lighthouse? Meet our unnamed protagonist. We'll never get to see their face, but I can tell you one thing: they're not the kind of person to give up easily. I need to find an exit. What's to the right?    The second picture shows what room transitions look like in this game. In the right room we can pull the lever but it doesn't seem to do anything and just springs back. I guess we'll have to come back later. Let's try going left from the start.    If there's any complaint I have about this game compared to the later ones, it's that the rooms look similar and are quite bland. There's no windows in any of these rooms. Am I in some kind of prison? Or underground? Hey, maybe I can use that thing to get out.  We got a Valve, and this lever is nice enough to stay pulled down. Time to backtrack again. By the way, the first version of the Basement had the exact same puzzles but only about half the rooms. And even this version is short for a Submachine game, I'll finish it in a single post.  You know what the worst thing is? I can't even remember my name. To think of it, I can't remember anything from before my vision of the lighthouse. I really need to get out. Perhaps if I gently caress with this machinery someone will come looking.   Down from the starting room, we find this room with exits on all sides. The drawing was added in a later version of the game and is a rather obvious reference to Submachine 2: The Lighthouse. What the hell? That's the lighthouse I saw before! Is this some kind of joke?   To the left we find a room with three pistons. By clicking the screws we can move them, but I don't know what position they need to be in.   This dead end has an electrical box we can't do anything with and an Ancient Coin to pick up. What's this? There's some really strange symbols on this coin. 2..627? Wait, I understand these symbols? The number appears when you hover the cursor over the symbols, and is different for each playthrough. Fun fact: in the first version this was a 50-eurocent coin, but Mateusz decided that that didn't fit in the game's lore that well. Next destination: to the right from the picture room.    A radio? Perhaps that can tell me where I am. When you click the radio, some music plays, the drawer opens, and you get a Spoon.  Well, that's helpful. Now I have a way to eat pudding if I find any.   The room below has nothing but a leaky pipe, while the room above has some device. Right now one of the lights is green. Reader, can you figure out yet why that's the case? Anyway, this is a dead end for now, so let's go down from the lighthouse picture room this time.   We found another switch to pull, and more importantly, our first Note. This will be our primary way to learn about the story throughout the LP. Single page from a diary posted:last summer I went camping under the big waterfall of Kent. I guess this was a great trip for me, however some people do not understand why. Well, I did lose my left arm, but what the hell, I found out that I had a third arm. The invisible one. Since then I started to learn how to use my karma arm, and soon my skills were those of a master. It wasn't a surprise to me when people started turning their backs on me, since I was considered to be a freak and mentally ill. Funny thing, I can't tell them the truth, it would be like explaining the possibility of space travel to a goldfish. So I'm just trying to This is actually the only note in Submachine 1, it's been there since the very first version, and I think it was the first thing to hint that Mateusz had a story in mind that surpasses a single game.    Further down we find yet another 'hub' room. Going left, there's a wired panel. Pressing the buttons increases the numbers on the panel. If we punch in 2627 there's a click and...   We get the Electrical Fuse.   On the other side of the lower hub, there's this room. Each bell switches the position of some of those metal blocks. With a bit of trial and error you can get them all to float, a panel opens up, and you get a Tile. My gif tool caused some weird artifacts in the center of that pic, sorry for that. Nothing else to do here, so we have to backtrack. But we did find some things that allow us to solve some earlier puzzles.  The hint for this one is in the lower hub room. It's also randomized for every run, it just happened to have all three up for this one. However, solving this puzzle doesn't seem to do anything yet. We need to go further up. Hey! I can hear water running. You need to first solve the piston puzzle and then turn the valve to solve this one. There's one place we haven't been to yet: right and up from the starting room. There's a third switch there.  If I can find a way to reach that hatch, maybe I can get out of here...    We go back down and place the fuse in the fuse box. Solving the valve puzzle breaks the pipe completely and nets us the Old Pearl.   Pulling the three switches and replacing the fuse turned on the strange device which somehow made another Tile appear, and you can use the Old Pearl on the clock to get a third Tile.    We can now also pull the lever in this room to turn on power and cause those lines to spark. We use the spoon to short circuit the machine, making a panel fall off that hides the fourth Tile. No pudding for me, I suppose.  We now have everything we need to finish the game... but there's one more thing we can do.    The short circuit caused this switch in the room where we found the coin to be exposed. If we pull it, the hatch in the top right room opens and a ladder drops down. In the new room, we can grab the floating 'Ancient Crystal of Wisdom'. This is another thing that was added to The Basement in a later version. We will find out what it does later. I don't know what this is... but somehow it feels important. I guess I'll hold on to this.    Back in the starting room, we just have to put the tiles in place to make a door appear, which leads to an elevator.   The elevator takes us up, we walk out, and... Finally some progress?   We step outside, hearing birds tweeting and crickets chirping. Congratulations, we escaped from the Submachine. Thank you for reading this LP, I'll close the thread now. ... Just kidding, of course. Next time, we find ourselves in The Lighthouse. Carbon dioxide fucked around with this message at 14:39 on May 26, 2017 |
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Jan 24, 2016 21:51
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I loved these games. Back in junior high I played through them repeatedly in my spare time, I didn't have access to many games at the time and I got really hooked on the strange atmosphere... Glad to see them being LPed! I like our unfortunate protagonist's voice, you should keep it up with them. Looking forward to seeing how you develop them throughout the games!
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Jan 24, 2016 22:25
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This is kind of interesting. I'd like to see where these games go. How many are in the series? I'd play them myself, but I'm not into point-and-click games, unless they're being LP'd. Keep up the good work and make more updates, so I can know the mystery!
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Jan 24, 2016 23:16
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Leavemywife posted:This is kind of interesting. I'd like to see where these games go. How many are in the series? 10 main games, three side games and that Submachine Universe exploration thing which isn't really a game in the classical sense. The main series is complete now, but the dev said he might make more stand-alone Submachine games in the future.
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Jan 24, 2016 23:19
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Holy poo poo, that is a lot of games. I hope none of them get super-long; are most of them going to be contained to a few updates?
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Jan 24, 2016 23:29
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Yeah, if you know your way around they generally don't take that long to solve. The wiki has a list of how many rooms each game has and they do keep getting larger, though.
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Jan 24, 2016 23:36
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Wow, I actually remember some of these. A real blast from the Flash past.
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Jan 25, 2016 03:35
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I think the protagonist voice is okay, and it will probably help out with trying to keep things straight in a game series where I imagine things can get quite confusing later.  Also, a karma arm being worth losing a real arm? Our dear diary writer seems to be the interesting one indeed.
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Jan 25, 2016 06:08
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Love this series of flash games. Can't wait to see what you do with the rest. Edit: Since the games are free and online, would you want someone to link the games for others? Or are you going to link each game with each one as you do it or something? Citizen Kane 13 fucked around with this message at 20:23 on Jan 25, 2016 |
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Jan 25, 2016 20:16
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There have been more Submachine games? Awesome  Looking forward to seeing this Let's play through the series, I think there were only three or so when I last heard of them. They had a great sense of mystery to them where it always felt you only saw a tiny part of something much greater.
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Jan 25, 2016 21:09
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I was going to do this for my flash game thread but yeah it's a series that deserves it's own thread.
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Jan 25, 2016 21:37
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Citizen Kane 13 posted:Can't wait to see what you do with the rest. quote:Edit: Since the games are free and online, would you want someone to link the games for others? Or are you going to link each game with each one as you do it or something?
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Jan 25, 2016 23:37
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Very eager to see what the later games are like. In regards to our protagonist, I think I prefer them being unvoiced, but seeing as there's only been about 5 lines from them so far, it's possible the later games will improve my opinion.
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Jan 26, 2016 11:43
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Carbon dioxide posted:Good idea, added a link to the first game to the OP and the update. Awesome. Oh, and since I neglected to earlier, Audience Surrogate Protagonist is good. I'd be interested to see what you do with that.
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Jan 26, 2016 14:24
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I was waiting for someone to do an LP for this series for some time - this is probably one of my favorite game series of all time, no joke. I'd love to see it get some more recognition, as it really deserves it, especially for the later games. I vote to keep the protagonist voice as well, I'd like to see where it goes later on.
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Jan 27, 2016 03:19
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I didn't realize the 10th game came out! Thanks for letting us know. This series has been a lot of fun to return to over the years. Early last year I "re-discovered" it and bought all the HD versions so that I could go through them in a couple days' time. Just as good as I remember and the puzzles just get more and more clever as they go. Sometimes the answers get really obtuse but it's not often. Most of the time you just need to apply a good logical mind, especially later in the series when the puzzles seem to shift focus away from items and more around a central mechanic inherent to whatever episode you're playing. The story is also very strange and like many others I don't really know what to make of it beyond fan musings. Gonna follow along with this. For anyone who hasn't seen the series before and doesn't plan to play them on their own, you're in for a treat.
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Jan 29, 2016 16:51
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Part 2 Submachine 2: The Lighthouse ♫ Thumpmonks - Submachine 2 - Menu  (Click here to play the game yourself.) Let's jump right into it. This game starts with a cutscene. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=duXp7wnziu8  Where the hell am I now? An arcade machine? And what's this in my pocket?    You can try pressing the buttons of the machine, but they don't seem to do anything. Checking our inventory, first of all, we find this game's help screen. There's also the Wisdom Gem from the last game, and the diary page. The little red marble is a 'Secret'. You can collect 20 of them in this game, and they have no purpose other than bragging rights, at least in this game. They can be quite hard to find. In fact, there's one right here in this room.   In case you didn't see it, it was sitting where the two rocks meet, to the right of the machine. Yes, they are tiny. And I suppose the fact that these screenshots are about 40% smaller than the game itself doesn't help. Let's go left. ♫ Thumpmonks - Submachine 2 - Forest    RTL We're going left, which means that the room with the phonograph is directly left/west of the starting room. The room with the up arrow is one further to the left. Last update, I posted the pictures in chronological order, which causes their positioning to be wrong. I know that's confusing. This time, I'll post them in the correct relative positions, and add a RTL note if we're moving right to left. I hope that clears up some things. This area is known as the Lighthouse dungeon. The track that's playing right now is very similar to the sounds at the end of Submachine 1.  The Wisdom Gem goes into this device. By clicking on that pearl, a ladder drops in the previous (up arrow) room. But there's no point going there right now, as the next level is still blocked off. Let's go further left and take the stairs there.   There's a Cog Wheel on the ground here, and a Secret in the chair. We collect both.   Backtracking through the ladder room, we go back to the phonograph room. The Cog Wheel allows us to take the needle off the drum. This does two things: it unlocks a ladder on the next level and it makes the forest soundtrack stop. Instead, the main music of this game starts playing. ♫ Thumpmonks - Submachine 2 - DigoutsSeriously, listen to that. It adds so much atmosphere to the game. Pointing and clicking just got a whole lot creepier. And if you can't get enough, there's an extended edition of this music in the OST.    Anyway, time to take the ladder up. There's not much to see beyond the left plank. To the right is some kind of weird machine. What's this? A power station? Some kind of transmitter? The levers seem to be stuck, but something's written there.   Up another level, there's a pipe we can enter to the left.    RTL The key in the upper pipe can't be reached from here, but all the way to the left we grab the Room Key.    Further up the ladder, the way left is blocked by a locked gate. To the right we grab a Fork, and another Secret hidden on the pair of bricks to the top right. I suppose I can try eating pudding with this fork. Let's hope this place has a fridge. ---    And with that, we climb up to the next part of this game: the Lighthouse basement. Climbing the ladder all the way up, we find a lamp we can turn on. There's a bunch of them in the game, and they're just there for aesthetic reasons. They aren't used in puzzles.   The tunnel to the right leads to a cave-in and some... thing? Get used to seeing cave-ins, the series is called Submerged Machine for a reason. We can't do anything here yet.   The room left of the first room of the Lighthouse basement has a very sneaky Secret, hidden behind a slightly cracked wall tile. Let's go further left before we take the stairs up.   I can change the switch on this viewer, but it doesn't seem to do anything. The next Secret sits on the height adjustment knob. The only place to go is further up.   Yet another Secret in the rubble, to the left of the plank in front. ---    This area is the Lighthouse's first floor. Don't mind the message in the first picture, it's still from the previous room. There is a new Secret here, on top of the lamp. We'll get back to that metallic door later. How big is this place, anyway? I can't even tell if I'm still underground or not.   In this room we can grab a Pamphlet. I think the typos are fixed in the HD version of the game. Lighthouse Pamphlet posted:WELCOME By the way, adding this pamphlet to what we learned from the diary page last game, this Kent has both a waterfall and a lighthouse. The wiki editors did their homework, and apparently there are several places called Kent in the US and the UK that have one of them, and some that might have both, but there's no perfect match. I think it's most likely the in-game Kent is just fictional. Let's look at the nice picture on the wall, and then go further right.    I don't think it's normal for heaps of soil to come in through a first floor window. But there's a Secret sitting on the triangular stone to the right, so I don't mind. Let's return to the stairs from the basement and go further left.   RTL There's another sneaky Secret on top of the window frame. And two more rooms to explore.   Behind the left door there's this reading room. Let's turn the light on and read that note. Cat Note posted:mid october 05 We'll see some more of Einstein the cat later. He's my favorite character.   The right door is locked, but we can open it with the Room Key we found in the pipe down in the dungeon. We get a Sewer Key from the hook. You can try to open the tap or flush the toilet, but it turns out there's no water. Before we explore the rest of upstairs, let's go back down and check out the Lighthouse sewers. --- ♫ Thumpmonks - Submachine 2 - Sewers    RTL We passed the entrance earlier. The sewers are actually quite large and complicated, it's easy to get lost. Screenshots would just be confusing, so I grabbed this map from the wiki and edited it a bit.  We enter at the top right. The place marked 4 is where we grabbed the room key.   3 is the key we couldn't get to before. It's the 2nd Floor Key. 1 and 2 are both Secrets that are easy to find if you explore the sewers well.  In the dead end at 5 we find a Positive Coil.    The letters indicate rooms. There's a horizontal tube with something inside at C, and some kind of panel at B. The panel is a puzzle. If you push a button, all buttons in a + shape around it light up. It's one you can get stuck on for a while, but if you know the answer you can solve it in four moves.   This opens up the other tube, allowing us to grab the Switch Handle.   Finally, room A seems to be part of the dungeon. It has a Secret in the little cubbyhole to the right, number 12 in case you haven't been counting. There's also the Letter to Liz. Letter to Liz posted:Hi Elizabeth. We got both a name and an initial here. I think we can conclude Elizabeth is a friend or a relative of 'm'.  We're done with the sewers now. Before we can go to the second floor, it's a good idea to make a quick detour to the crawlspace in the basement, to insert the Handle and pull it. We'll see what that does in a bit. --- ♫ Thumpmonks - Submachine 2 - Lighthouse   This is the actual Lighthouse tower. We grab the Negative Coil lying at the bottom before we continue up.   We use the 2nd Floor Key from the sewers to open this door. Let's go to the left first.    Now, this is interesting. We found the second part of the diary. Have the complete entry: Mur's diary posted:last summer I went camping under the big waterfall of Kent. I guess this was a great trip for me, however some people do not understand why. Well, I did lose my left arm, but what the hell, I found out that I had a third arm. The invisible one. Since then I started to learn how to use my karma arm, and soon my skills were those of a master. It wasn't a surprise to me when people started turning their backs on me, since I was considered to be a freak and mentally ill. Funny thing, I can't tell them the truth, it would be like explaining the possibility of space travel to a goldfish. So I'm just trying to And more and more pieces are coming together, but every piece is also making the mystery greater. At least we got a name now. Our note and diary writer is a guy named Mur. Confusingly, Mateusz, the game designer, also went with the nickname of Mur in these early days, making fans think the character was an author-insert. Later on Mateusz made clear he doesn't consider Mur to be very much like himself. For one, Mateusz never claimed to have a third arm.   RTL We can turn on the radio to the bottom right. It's mostly static, but sometimes a small shred of music or speech comes through. Nothing comprehensible, though. To the left, we can find the Movie Memory.   I'm going to skip the right door for a bit and climb the tower further instead. The switch in the basement we pulled earlier turned that ladder 90 degrees, so that we can climb it. Up here, let's go left, and climb the ladder there.    A four-digit number puzzle, just like in the first game. By now, we've seen all the clues required to find the answer to this one, so I'm going to end the update here, and leave it to the thread to find the answer. If you know, please give others an opportunity to guess as well. Use spoiler tags if you like. Carbon dioxide fucked around with this message at 14:44 on Apr 9, 2017 |
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Jan 31, 2016 01:37
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Wow, these games. Started playing these forever ago, would always catch up, forget about the series, then be reminded somehow a bit after the next game came out, and replay the whole series. Thanks for letting us know the 10th is out! Guess it's time to go replay all of them. I have only vague memories of most of it, though this puzzle is something I do happen to remember, so I won't say anything. LP is good so far! I like the format, including the protagonist voice. I'm kinda curious as to what the mistake was, though... I didn't notice anything, at least.
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Jan 31, 2016 02:37
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Sorry folks, I had to edit the previous update out for a bit to fix it. It should be fine now, check it out two posts up! What I did was keep the images original size this time. I thought that would work out so the pics are better quality, but I had completely planned the update so three pics fit next to each other, and this worked fine in the SSLP test poster, but not in the actual tables of the forum. So I had to reduce the image size to make it fit.
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Jan 31, 2016 02:43
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In regards to the image size, I think they're too small now. It's very difficult to see the smaller details in the game with the image size being what it is. You may have to cut your losses on the 3-image-wide parts just for the sake of general clarity.
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Jan 31, 2016 03:22
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For what it's worth, everything fit on my screen (24", 1920x1080) very nicely at their original size. e: Doing them vertically would probably look fine? Just a thought.
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Jan 31, 2016 03:53
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I'm also voting for larger images. "Mur" is Polish for "Wall".
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Jan 31, 2016 05:33
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Yes, I was thinking of changing it altogether for my next update. I suppose I'll do that then. But not before that puzzle is solved.
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Jan 31, 2016 09:04
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It seems too easy, but if it's looking for a 4-digit number, I guess try 1857 from the guide booklet. :EDIT: Alternatively, that looks like an "e" in the bottom right. "m = 845" and "e" is 8 letters before "m", so try 0837. FishOnAPiano fucked around with this message at 15:45 on Jan 31, 2016 |
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Jan 31, 2016 15:37
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I've played before and know what it's asking so I'll put my response in bars. If m = 845 and c = 3 and we're trying to solve for e, e = mc^2. Therefore e = 845*(3)^2 or 7605.
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Jan 31, 2016 17:32
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Okay, so some weirdos buried this lighthouse. But who put in all the number puzzles?
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Feb 1, 2016 13:28
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Part 3 Submachine 2: The Lighthouse ♫ Thumpmonks - Submachine 2 - Lighthouse   FPzero got the correct answer. It says e on the input panel, which is a reference to E = mc^2. c = 3, according to the writing on the strange machine in the dungeon, and m = 845, according to Mur's diary entry. 845 * 3 * 3 = 7605. I wonder if anyone who hasn't played this game before got it on their own and just didn't post it because FPzero already got it. It's a rather unintuitive puzzle, though By the way, the answer is random, and the hints change with it, although c always seems to be either 2 or 3.  For this puzzle there's no sound clue or other direct indication you solved it. The only way you can see whether you got it, is by zooming out and checking whether the light turned green. This makes it rather annoying to brute force, which was probably intended. This puzzle was actually one of the final puzzles of the game, but before we can continue with the other end-game puzzles, we need to climb back down and check out the rest of the second floor.   To the right of the door we find this safe.   You can change the symbols by clicking them. The hint was in the lighthouse picture on the first floor.   Punch in the right code, press the button, the screen turns dark and we can grab the Lightbulb. I suppose only a Lighthouse keeper would care enough about lightbulbs to store them in a safe.   To the right is yet another strange device that somehow moves as you move your mouse cursor. It has four Secrets in it. It's not too hard to get them, just slowly follow one of them with your mouse until you catch up.  There's also the Note to myself under the bedsheets. Note to myself posted:12.13.06 Let's try and get to the top.   Using the fork here to complete the circuit, we make a ladder drop down. Before we climb further, let's check out what's to the right. drat, I'm never going to get the chance to use eating utensils for their intended purpose, am I?    Another tricky puzzle in this room. If you push any of the eight buttons, two of the dials will rotate, at different speeds. The goal is to get every connector to touch the center, turning the lights green. There's also a Secret on the cable to the lamp.   Once again, the puzzle is easy to solve if you know the trick to it. Just stick to the two top-right buttons and you'll get it in no time.   Back to the middle of the tower, going up and up. This room has two side passages, although they blend in with the background quite well.   The right side is where both coils go.   RTL - remember, this means I traversed these rooms from right to left. The left side just has a Secret, number 18 out of 20. We're getting close!   Let's climb all the way to the top, to the Lighthouse lamp.   Three of the five indicators are green. That means we've solved three of the final puzzles: the number puzzle, the puzzle with the dials, and finding and inserting both coils. Two more puzzles to go. There's also a Secret here, in the wiring to the bottom left. And a note on the wall. Portal Note posted:so here it is. You might feel that way, protag, but I think it's cool that it could take us literally everywhere. Also of note: Mur says he drew the portal. What does that even mean?   To the left we find some device with a slot for something. The 'Secret found' message is still from the Lamp screen. To the right of the Lamp room is a similar device, and the Digout key is stuck in the ground. drat, it really seems this lighthouse is completely buried. I suppose I'll try activating that portal then... We collected some things which we can use downstairs in order to get the final puzzle pieces. First of all, back to the basement. ♫ Thumpmonks - Submachine 2 - Digouts   Using the Lightbulb from the safe and the Movie Memory which we also found on the 2nd floor, we can activate this viewer. Looking at it, there's some kind of still scene of a table with stuff. I can click on the card and when I do...  OW, my eye! Wait, how is that even possible? Anyway, we grab the ID card.  Next up, the Digout key gives us access to this hatch on the First floor.   RTL   RTL The final Secret is in the tunnel just right of the larger room. In the room we can find a Fuse. Why is this tunnel here, anyway? Did Mur (voluntarily?) get buried in with the Lighthouse and did he try to dig a tunnel to escape? Did someone else dig this tunnel? ♫ Thumpmonks - Submachine 2 - Lighthouse   Back at the top, we put the ID card in the left device and the fuse in the device to the right, in order to give the Lighthouse Lamp full power.  If anyone is hearing this... I'm gonna activate that so-called portal. I have no idea what might happen. If you never hear from me again, please try to find out if I have any relatives. If I do, please tell them what happened. For now, just wish me luck! Ending cutscene: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hbvg93gLzos  Crap.  And that was the Lighthouse. Next time, can we escape from the never-ending corridors in Submachine 3: The Loop? Carbon dioxide fucked around with this message at 14:43 on Apr 9, 2017 |
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Feb 3, 2016 22:35
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I feel like Submachine 2 does a good job in setting the tone of the series and showing its expectations of the player. The lighthouse is confusing in itself due to the fact it appears to be buried and then you have this mysterous Mur who lost and found an arm, a cat and some girl Mur mentions letting you know that the story definitely does not end here and it is only going to get more and more complicated as you go. The puzzles aren't too difficult yet but they can be complicated and involved and do require backtracking to previous areas as well as making the player carefully pay attention to their surroundings. Basically, this is a really good series as has been mentioned more than a few times by now. Now if only i could figure out how to beat the last game...
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Feb 3, 2016 22:44
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So... what? The lighthouse lamp was just a television screen?
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Feb 5, 2016 02:22
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Glazius posted:So... what? The lighthouse lamp was just a television screen? The lighthouse lamp is a portal, or powers a portal leading to some other place, as will be confirmed in the following chapters. I honestly have no idea what that ending cutscene was about, I think it was only there because it fits neatly with the starting cut scene. One possibility is that portals screw with your mind somehow. If that's true, perhaps we also stepped through a portal at the end of Submachine 1, which took us to the Lighthouse? As you can see, about a bunch of these things I'm just as clueless as anyone else, and all I can do is put my ideas on the table.
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Feb 5, 2016 07:19
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Part 4 Submachine 3: The Loop  Click here to play the game yourself This game starts with some cool music. ♫ Thumpmonks - Submachine 3 - Intro  The gif's framerate makes it hard to tell, but we're moving downwards at incredible speed through a series of identical rooms.         I'll say right now, this game is probably the most difficult to LP in the series. If you're not trying to solve the puzzles yourself there's not that much to see. So I'll try to keep the pace up for this game. In this starting room we can do only one thing: pick up that device on the ground.  The device appears on screen. I've seen it called the Compass or the Navigator. We'll be needing it soon. Grabbing the Navigator also makes the cover move from that button in the middle. In the standard version it's not possible at this moment to go through the doors or climb the ladders, all we can do is click the button. But in the HD version, it's possible to leave at this point. There are four new Notes hidden around the HD version of this room, and I'll post their contents during this update and the next one. Anyway, let's press the button.   We fly off to the right at great speed and end up in a room similar to the one we started in. We also get passwords in this game, to restart where we left off if necessary. Some of these passwords are actually Polish words. I think I'm gonna be sick... We can now explore. ♫ Thumpmonks - Submachine 3 - The Loop  To the right of the room we ended up in, we find this map room. The X shows our origin (the room we were just in, with the Passage machine), while the dots show rooms that are important. But who cares about maps. Let's just go further right.   As you can see, the Navigator acts as a sort of coordinate system. The left number shows our x coordinate, relative to the origin at the Passage machine, while the right number is the y coordinate. We can actually keep going forever in any direction, there seems to be an endless number of these empty rooms. Looking down the corridor, this seems to go on forever. Where am I? Does this place even fit under the ground anywhere? I mean, there's got to be some kind of software limit, but I don't know what it is. I tried going 100 rooms out, and the Navigator just keeps counting. Luckily, the puzzles are mostly located close to the origin. According to the map there's something in the room above the Map room, coordinates 1,1. Let's check it out.   There's a kind of valve (It's more like a wheel-shaped switch, but what do you call that?), and when we turn it, the bottom light of the Navigator turns blue, while one of the top lights turns green.  Turn the valve in the next room over, and another Navigator light turns green.   There's six of these valves, and when we turn them all, all of the Navigator's lights turn green and the Passage machine unlocks. The big light on the bottom of the Navigator indicates how a puzzle is going: red = not started or reset, blue = in progress, green = completed. This first puzzle is as easy as they get, it's probably meant as a tutorial on how to read the Map room and how to navigate the Loop. Let's use the Passage machine.   Going doooooooown... Another one of those things? How many are there? This entire place seems to repeat in more ways than one.   Hmm, a whole lot of stuff to the top right this time. Every marked room contains this device.   If you click on it, a number appears. To solve the puzzle, you have to go to the room that number represents and activate the device there. Do this six times in a row to unlock the Passage machine. The puzzle is actually less obvious than it seems, at first I didn't realize those numbers correspond to coordinates at all.   This seems like a good time for the first Note from the HD version. HD Note posted:Never stroll away from the center.  We end up at the location of the third puzzle. I think it should be clear by now that this game is rather different from Submachine 1 and 2, in that the puzzles are completely self-contained, and there's not really anything else to see.  Six rooms of interest this time. Let's start with the top right one.   The buttons let us increase and decrease all the numbers except for the top right one.   RTL The top middle room has a valve we can't do anything with yet, while the top left room has another device with numbers. In this case, the number in the top left is stuck. The same pattern is mirrored in the rooms below the Passage machine.   This puzzle is solved by having all four number devices match. In each one, a different number is stuck, so you have to check out every one to get the full solution. Each of the number devices makes a light on the Navigator go green. In addition, each pair of number devices unlocks a valve. Turn both valves to get the final two lights on the Navigator go green, and to unlock the Passage machine.   Urgh... how far down does this place go, anyway?   The marked rooms are a bit more scattered right now, and they all have the thing you see in the right picture. This one doesn't seem to do anything though.   Bingo. This puzzle isn't too hard. Just turn the knobs in the order they have been numbered.   Before going on, another HD Note. HD Note posted:I've been here before! poo poo, I don't even want to imagine how horrible it must be if you wander off and can't find your way back because you don't have this coordinate thing. I'm glad I found it right away... Let's just hope it helps me find a way out of here. I'm starting to get kinda thirsty, and this doesn't seem like a place that would have a water cooler.  Another fast transport down, another subtle colour change.   All the rooms are to the top right. Last time that happened, it was a puzzle involving coordinates. In the rooms, you can use the buttons to pick letters.  It's as simple as it seems. A = 1, B = 2, and so on. Just set each room's letters to the coordinates of that room.   The puzzle wasn't too interesting. I'm glad to say that the games that come after this are more like Submachine 2, in that there's much more to see and do in the rooms. This game does matter in the overall story though, by establishing that the Submachine contains a seemingly infinite area. Let's move on for now.   Seven dots, scattered around. Let's start with the one just to the left.   We can use the buttons to cycle through the runes. Let's go to the other marked rooms to find some hints.   Once again the obvious solution is the correct one. Just place these runes at the indicated positions on the screen.   Press the button on the floor and if you got the runes correct, all lights turn green at once. Alright, we're about halfway done with this game, so I'm going to end the update here. Next time, we'll try to find a way out of The Loop. Carbon dioxide fucked around with this message at 14:42 on Apr 9, 2017 |
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Feb 7, 2016 22:51
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Well, ultimately, this is an indie production, and doing things like dropping a puzzler into an adventure game is just part of experimenting.
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Feb 8, 2016 13:02
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Part 5 Submachine 3: The Loop ♫ Thumpmonks - Submachine 3 - The Loop  We'll continue with puzzle seven. Let's see where the map wants us to go this time.  Oh. poo poo. Let's look around then. And not stray too far from the center.   Below the (broken) Map room we find this device. We can set it so that either the top right and bottom left lights are green, or the top left and bottom right ones, but not both pairs at the same time.  There's a simple pull switch down from the Passage machine, which we immediately use.   It turns on a projector in the room above the Passage machine, showing a pattern.  Finally, to the top right there's a valve that doesn't do anything yet. So what's the solution?   There's five more of these rooms to the right of the first one. We have to reproduce the pattern from the projector on those. So, the leftmost one needs to have the top left and bottom right lights on, and so do the third and sixth ones. The others need to be set so the top right lights are green.   Turning the valve activates all six green lights and unlocks the Passage machine. Let's look at the third HD Note before we continue.  HD Note posted:He said to mark this paper every time I pass it. Who's "he"? Mur?    Nice to have a working map again. One room up we find this inactive device. It actually kinda reminds me of the turrets from Portal, although this Submachine game was released a year before Portal 1.   Under the Passage machine room at the origin, we find a device that allows us to pick numbers. These are obviously coordinates, and this machine is different from the earlier ones in that it allows negative coordinates. Anyway, the switch only stays down if we press it after picking coordinates that correspond to one of those 'turret' pods.  The pod opens, and we can pull down the two switches inside. Each switch activates a Navigator light.   Repeat for the other two pods, and the Passage machine activates.  Down to the ninth puzzle.  Another broken map. But it isn't much of a problem. The only rooms of interest are those directly above and below the Passage machine.   Only the grey buttons can be pressed, not the black ones. The buttons cycle through colours and letters respectively.   Just match up the colours with the first letters of their names. In this case, orange, yellow, yellow, black, orange, and purple. This puzzle was changed in the HD version, by the way. Instead of colours and letters, you have to match up numbers with Roman numerals. I'm guessing that was done to make the game colour-blind friendly.   Press the big button under the colours to solve the entire thing. Speaking of the HD version, here's the final Note. HD Note posted:The rooms reset every other cycle. This whole thing is reminding me of the horror film series Cube. And it won't be the last time Submachine makes me think of Cube. Submachine 3 was released a year or two after Cube Zero, and Mateusz has said he was inspired by Cube when making this game series. Luckily, it doesn't seem the system is specifically out to kill anyone, so far.   The map for puzzle ten seems to be working. Let's go up and see what the puzzle is about this time.   RTL Nothing in this room... and nothing in the room to the left either. What's going on?   The trick is that the map isn't a map this time. There's an empty map screen to the left of the Passage machine, and by clicking on it, you can fill it in.   If we copy the 'map' we can activate the valve below the origin (easily found if you do your normal round of exploring).   And the Passage machine unlocks.  A Note!  Mur's Note posted:READ ME! Should I really trust some weird dude that only communicates through notes? I don't think so. Let's keep going...   An actual working map this time. Going down, we find a valve that is currently inactive.   RTL Going left from there, we find some kind of hint, and another inactive valve. The leaf can randomly appear in any of the rooms surrounding the Passage machine. I'll leave it behind for now, and show what it does in a minute.    On the top row, there's two rooms with coloured tubes and another hint. The buttons allow us to set the height of the colours, and the hints tell us how high they need to be. The difficult part is that the hints are in the wrong order.   Red, yellow, and white go at heights 2, 4 and 1. Blue, purple and green go at 5, 0 and 5. Each triplet of colours activates one of the valves below, and by turning both valves we solve the puzzle. This puzzle was also changed for the HD version. The hints are the same, but all tubes are grey. In one of the rooms there's some scribbles on the wall indicating the order of the 'colours' using the hint's letters. If anything, it makes the puzzle more difficult.   Let's see where it takes us this time.  Oh. Uh. That never happened. Let's rewind a bit.  The password system is a bit finicky. I think the problem is that while the font is all-caps, with no distinction between lower and upper case, you do need to type the password in lower case. Should I really trust some weird dude that only communicates through notes? I suppose I have no choice. A leaf, huh?   This time, the leaf is in the lower left room. Let's put it in our inventory (yes we do have one in this game), and make our way to -12, 9.   We drop the leaf on the pedestal, there's a spark, and...  In case you can't tell, we're finally moving up.     Hm, perhaps I don't want to escape. This is quite fun, all in all. Hey, wait a second! I want to get out of here and go home, wherever that is!   And that was the entirety of Submachine 3. We will be going to The Lab, but not just yet. Next time, we'll explore a bit of the history of the Submachine in the first side game, Submachine Zero: Ancient Adventure. Carbon dioxide fucked around with this message at 14:41 on Apr 9, 2017 |
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Feb 12, 2016 23:12
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Submachine 4 is really where the series kicks off for me and we'll see why soon. It just hits all the right notes for me. The Loop feels like a weak entry in terms of gameplay but it does teach you that the answers to puzzles will sometimes require you to be smart about your answers instead of just trying to use items on everything. It also establishes the weird Loop setting too which does seem to be a pretty important part of the series setting as a whole.
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Feb 13, 2016 01:09
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So you just get that one warning before you get damned to eternal puzzling.
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Feb 14, 2016 05:57
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Part 6 Submachine Zero: Ancient Adventure  Click here to play the game yourself This game, sometimes known as "Submachine 0", sometimes as "Submachine Zero", and sometimes simply as "Ancient Adventure", was released quite soon after The Loop. It was made for a game creation contest hosted by the game review website Jayisgames.com, in which contestants had only 3 weeks to create a full game. It has the least rooms of any Submachine game, except for the very first version of Submachine 1.   The game reuses the Lighthouse's help screen. We find ourselves in a place called the Ancient Ruins. This game takes place in the past, so we're not playing as our protagonist this time.   This area is to the left of the starting point. We pick up the hard-to-notice stone Tongue here.   To the right is another Tongue on a stand, and a Lighter hidden in the gap between the bricks. The HD version has one more area to the right, where you can see that the sky isn't as real as it seems. It shows that this area actually exists in a part of the Submachine we'll be visiting later.   Placing both Tongues in the mouths of the statues lets us open the gate by clicking on the knob in the middle. If you hadn't found the first Tongue by now, this would be a good hint that there's another one. ♫ Thumpmonks - Submachine 0 - Ambient   Going down into the ruins, we find it's very dark. Luckily, there's oil lamps on the walls and we got a lighter.  We can go right or left here. Let's go left first.   Lighting the lamp, we see a rather dangerous looking obstacle. Those spears shoot out whenever your mouse cursor gets near them. They obviously won't kill your mouse, but we cannot pass, either.   Downstairs, there's a stone switch we can pull to disable the spears. Before going into the room behind the spears, let's explore a bit further by going right.   We can climb further down, just to hit a dead end. To the spear room!   The block in the room can be turned in order to show four different faces. If we put this 3/4 circle in front, a hatch opens at the dead end.   We pick up the red Jewel here. I wonder what kind of symbolism the creator(s) of this place intended with this winged scorpion.   Turn the block another quarter, another hatch opens.   Which gives us access to a second Jewel. We go back to turn the block one last time, to pick up the final Jewel.   This game doesn't add much to the story of the Submachine by itself. There are no notes or anything. However, Mateusz is good at tying things together, so we will run into the Ancient Ruins again in later games. I wanted to show this side game because it adds context to some parts in later games.  There's nothing left to do in the left part of the ruins, so let's explore the right bit. You may notice some things disappearing from my inventory, that's because I'm showing the screenshots in a more sensible order than the one I took them in. In the room to the right, there's another spear trap. Let's go down to hit the switch.  Oh. It's broken off. I suppose we need another solution.   What you need to do is go and grab this Stone from one of the Jewel rooms. It blends in with the background, so at first I didn't even notice it could be picked up, and I got stuck here for a bit.   We can crawl through into the next room if we use the heavy Stone to block some of the spears. Yes, crawl. The top spears still shoot out if you get near, and you can only go to the next room by clicking the lower part of the doorway. I think little touches like that are neat.   This is where we need the Jewels. We place them in the jackal statue's slots in order to make the pieces float. If there's something to take away from this game, it's that the Submachine does not only have ancient sections, they seem to consist of a weird mishmash of cultures. This looks Egyptian, but those statues outside the main gate didn't look Egyptian at all, at least not to me. And winged scorpions? Those could be Egyptian but I don't think I've ever heard of a mythological winged scorpion. A Manticore is somewhat like that, but not quite the same thing. E: Thanks to JamieTheD for pointing out it's actually a Skarabeus. Anyway, let's climb down and finish this short game. ♫ Thumpmonks - Submachine 0 - Outro   The wiki says that in this game we might actually be playing as Mur. This would be him finding the Wisdom Gem he left behind for us in the Basement. But I don't know if there's any real evidence for that theory.   This final message seems to be intended for the player, bringing us back to the fact that this game was 'just' a stand-alone contest entry. I don't know about you, but I'm already excited for the next game, in which we'll learn a whole lot about the Submachine and Mur, and we will encounter an interesting device that many would consider a staple element of the series. See you soon for Submachine 4: The Lab. Carbon dioxide fucked around with this message at 14:57 on May 26, 2017 |
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Feb 22, 2016 18:58
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I don't think I remembered that tidbit about the extra room in the HD version. Makes me want to go back and check it out for myself because without that knowledge there's nothing suggesting that this area is part of the Submachine as a whole.
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Feb 22, 2016 21:18
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| # ? May 8, 2024 14:04 |
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Really interesting LP so far. Point-and-click puzzlers aren't really my cup of tea, but I like the art style and the soundtrack. Thanks for showing it off. Thread needs a new page though.
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Feb 22, 2016 23:42
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