ARCHIPELAGO

	ARCHIPELAGO
	Author : Jonathan May Website : www.woolythinking.com
	HOW TO PLAY Shipwrecked and alone, you find yourself on a surreal reef strewn with mysterious items and bizarre devices. A storm at sea has left you shipwrecked on a strange group of islands filled with mysterious gadgets and devices. Use your wits to solve the puzzles and escape it if you can. INSTRUCTIONS Use your MOUSE aim at where you want to go and LEFT CLICK the object you want to get to. All actions are performed with the mouse: movement, camera panning, picking up items and activating levers and buttons. To look around, position the mouse near the edge of the game window. A little practice is all it takes to get the feel of it, just don't press any keys on the keyboard during the game or everything you've done will be hopelessly lost, and the only recourse will be to close the game window and start again.

That'is a solution ? (part 1.)

Archipelago is an online game developed by Jonathan May.It is played in your browser, and can be completed in an hour, or several days – however since there is no save function, you will need to restart it if you are unable to complete it in one session.Why write a walkthrough for a short game?Well, after four sessions, several thorough readings of the helpful hints, and a good deal of frustration at being stuck on this great game, I emailed Jon for help.He answered with a great deal of help, and for me, the revelation that many things that I thought I had correct were way off base.Since there may be others in this same predicament, I’m writing out my solution to this quirky, sweet little game.

Map of Islands - I didn’t drown!You wake up facing a cluster of islands, and you swim towards the nearest.What you’ll find is a skull, and arm bones, over a tablet saying, “Is there no escape from this wretched place?”Well, isn’t that encouraging!Since there is no inventory in this game, and you can only hold one object at a time, let’s begin here by taking the arm bones with us.Looking toward the volcano, you can just see a blue mound of an island.Click on this with the arm bones.You will pass over an island with a single palm tree that has a coconut.This will be useful later.Also note that when you approach an island, regardless of the side you came from, it will always look the same to you.This was a great idea by Jon, to prevent us from having to walk all around the islands to place our objects or to interact with them.Place the arm bones at the edge of the island and let’s go back and gather the skull.Rotate left of the volcano, and looking to the right of the six stone pillars, and you will see an island with a stone on it.Just to the right of that, you’ll see the island with the coconut palm and looking through it, the island we came from.Click on that tiny spot and return to the starting island.Grab the skull, and head back to the blue mound, which will be called the mechanical island from now on.Note that there are five large buttons on this shoe-like device.We will need to somewhat recreate a human form by placing these bones on the buttons in a certain order, but we only have three.Let’s go look for the other two.

If you look to the right of the low end of the mechanical island, you will see a stone head.Click on this island and pick up the other arm bones.We can’t do anything else with the stone head at this point.Return to the mechanical island and place it to the side.Now look toward the six stone pillars.In front toward the left, you’ll see a sandy mound.Click on this next, and go to the sand castle.Retrieve the remaining leg bone, and return to the mechanical island with it.We will return to the sand castle later as well.Now we get to solve our first puzzle.Imagine the mechanical island is a human body with the head at the low end, arms in the middle and legs at the left.Look in the distance and watch carefully the six stone pillars.The far left one has an object on top – a telescope.In order to reach this we must lower the pillars into a staircase.The large buttons in front of us will each lower a pillar.We need to associate each button with the five pillars to the right of the telescope one.The first button pressed will lower a pillar a bit, the next one will be lowered a bit more, and so on till one is nearly at sea level.The buttons need to be held down, and this is where the bones come in – they will weigh down the buttons, and the pillars will remain in the lowered position, enabling us to climb up to the telescope.Given the way the mechanics work, we need to lower the second left pillar, then the third, fourth, fifth and sixth, in that order, to make a staircase.

Place the arm bones (either one) where the skeleton’s right arm would be.Watch the second pillar descend.Then place a leg bone (either one) where the left leg would be.Then place the skull bone on the far right button.Then place the left arm and finally the right leg.The stone pillars should now be a staircase shape.If not, then remove the bones and the puzzle resets.Now click on the far right pillar and swim there.Rotate your view to the left, and click each one till you climb to the top.

When you look through the telescope, you’ll see one of the totems.We want to see the ship in the distance that is to our left.Scroll left through the beige, and deep blue till you see light blue water, and pinkish-purple sky.Just past the bottom of the sun, the ship will come into view.Focus on the ship, and note the pattern on its flag.We’ll need this pattern later.Okay come back down, and we’ll do some looking around, to orient ourselves.Head toward the volcano, and go to the tiny island just in front of it.You may have to do this in two steps.There is a control panel (#P6 on the map).The left toggle won’t do anything at this point.The right one raises the island up like an elevator.Turn around and face the islands.This is the vantage point the map is made from.Note the lighthouse on the far left, the pillars straight ahead, and the stone head to the right.

Let’s shed some light on the subject! - Turn back to the control and click on the right one again, bringing you back to sea level.Now go to the lighthouse, press the button on the side, and this sends out a beam of light.The next nearest island has a dolmen – two vertical pillars with a capstone.Let’s swim there.There are five of these dolmens, each with a colored circle labeling them.Also each looks toward a totem, all of which are different.This dolmen has a green circle, and faces the totem with a diamond shaped pattern.Note: The pattern of the totem is NOT what is important here, but rather the shape of the tiles that make up the pattern.In this case they are the same – diamond.There is nothing that you can do here but note the patterns.The next island to the right has a pillar with a blue disc on top – these are mirrors, and will reflect the light from the lighthouse.Press the button on the pillar to tilt the mirror into place.Let’s do this one, then go in a circle doing the other three.When you are done, go back to the volcano mini island and watch for a few seconds.You’ll see colored beams of light go up into the sky when the light from the lighthouse beams on them.Hmmm, wonder what that means?

Let’s continue on our tour.Near the stone head, to the right of the mechanical island, is another dolmen and totem, let’s go there.The dolmen color is blue, and the totem is made up of square patterns and tiles.Between the floating green pyramids and the stone head, in the distance, is another totem.Let’s go there.Now this totem has a diagonal pattern, made from diamond shaped tiles.The dolmen is red.Behind the six pillars are another set of dolmen and totem.This dolmen is purple, and the totem has a triangular shaped pattern made with triangle shaped tiles. Crossing back around to the front of the six pillars, you’ll see one last set.The dolmen is yellow, and the totem is in a zigzag pattern made up of triangles.We’ll need to pair up the dolmen-totem and their colors to solve a puzzle.