Commentary

Beyond Atlantis, or Atlantis 2 as it is also known, is a very satisfying game for the most part. It is a long game, the story line is not outlandish for an Adventure game, the graphics are very good indeed, and a good share of the puzzles are solvable without help, but very likely not all of them. The spoken dialog is understandable, which is frequently not the case in many games, and the option of having it printed as well heard is a big plus, as is having background music, sound effect volume, and dialog volume all separately adjustable. Cursors are few in number and are informative.

Something must be said about saving games, a procedure that here is like no other you are likely to encounter in computer gaming. When you click on the Save Game button and give the OK, your game is saved at that point, but you are not allowed an entry that describes where you are in the game. The only identification recorded is the date and time from the computer clock, and you will not see this until you click on the Load Game button, at which point the times of all your saved games appear sequentially along with a non-unique thumbnail picture for each, giving a very general idea where you were in the game at that Save Game time.

Here is what you might do: when you start saving games, keep a listing of them, giving each one a sequential number and a descriptive name, and saving a space for the time to be entered. Then when at some time you wish to load a saved game, you will see the sequential time listing of the saved games and you can enter these times in your descriptive listing so that you will have a cross referenced record for your saved games. Because you will be saving games frequently--you should do this, you know--you will shortly have a long and growing list, and other than trial and error, using your descriptive name to find the time in your Load Game listing will be the only way that you can select any saved game that you want to bring up. Even though it is something of a chore to keep a good record of your saved games, do so often.

Beyond Atlantis relies heavily on conversation between you and the many characters that you encounter. When you click on one of these persons, a series of query squares usually appears next to him, each square showing a person or item about which you need to inquire. The walkthrough usually instructs you to ask everything that you can, but this should be a routine that you do without being so advised. You should realize from the start that a question and answer are frequently necessary to set flags in the program so that subsequent actions will occur, or that new queries will appear.

However, there are inconsistencies occasionally encountered in the many times that this process is employed. Normally when you click on one of the query squares, when done with it the intensity of the displayed square diminishes, but this is not always the case. You can click on any square, bright or diminished, at any time in order to repeat the questioning if you wish to review what has been revealed, though you may not get the full Q&A series of the original. On a rare occasion this repetition is necessary for game continuation. The repetition does no harm, and you can step through any query quickly by clicking the mouse. It is better to perform these repetitions than to miss something required for game progression and about which you are unaware.

In addition to the above considerations, there are a couple others. When you again meet one of these characters after the first time and wish to question them some more, all of the initial query squares may not show up, so be sure to consider them all at first, and any new ones that appear. It may happen that when there are several query squares, and depending upon the order in which you access the squares, the questioning process my terminate before you get to them all, though this is rare. (Questioning the goddess Aine is one.) You have no warning of this; you could save your game before you think it might happen, or you will have to go back to the last of the games that you have so frequently been saving.

The hokey character of the ending of this game is pretty standard for Adventure games, but a completely satisfactory conclusion is seldom found in these games. The several abrupt transitions are somewhat unsatisfactory, one example that of being in a monastery and the next moment being underwater on a strange elementary craft that rises, flies, then goes underwater again. There are too many instances where what is required has no resemblance to a reasonable consequence. Another example: you must be in an unindicated location (monastery room), place one of sixteen items all of which you may not have (star) in a place that is not exactly to be expected (window). And worst of all, puzzle solutions with clues too cryptic to be deciphered. As a Balmoral review put it, "Several 'unfair' puzzles have solutions with no connection to the clues you are given to solve them".

The story line, while as stated above is not outlandish, is still labored and disjointed as presented in the game booklet from the CD jewel case, and by Rhea upon encountering her when you get to Shambala. You must listen carefully to the first interchange at the start of the game in the ship Atlante between Ten, the protagonist, and the wise man, the keeper of the crystal. Ten is to journey to Shambala and beyond, and the road he must travel is broken into six sections. He is given triangular stones that are the keys to three of the journeys; you will subsequently learn that in each of the three scenarios he, in the persona he is given, performs what may be described as a "good deed" that earns him another stone for the rest of the journey. Finally he goes to Shambala, but that is not yet the end.

The walkthrough that follows is quite detailed, and although it is not always the case, effort is made to have this detail indicate what you should do to get answers, not the answers per se. Included at the end of the walkthrough are several diagrams and illustrative screen shots, scan them to see what has been included. Some are helpful aids, others are spoilers (but so is the walkthrough of which they are a part), so be hereby so warned, and use them at your own discretion. Only one is specifically referenced in the walkthrough, but places in the action for the others to be consulted will be readily recognized.

Walkthrough

When the game begins, you are Ten, the Bearer of Light, struggling through the deep snows of Tibet toward the ship Atlante, however strange that might be: a sailing ship in the Tibetan mountains, and somehow suspended above the snows. When you reach it, click on it to go aboard, and then go below. From the top of a barrel next to the steps pick up a triangular gray stone with a distinctive white pattern, the first of three that you will need. Move to the opening in the wall on the right and look through to glimpse the planetarium that is the key to your several journeys. Move toward it to get a better look and a wise man sitting in a corner of the room speaks to you. Ignore him for the moment. Go a step closer to the planetarium and turn left to find under a desk another triangular stone with a different pattern of white markings. Move closer still to the planetarium and you may acquire an unpatterned triangular stone that is under the hammock to the right. Keep track of where you got each stone.

Next examine the planetarium. Run your cursor over it and you will find seven hotspots, one by each of the six yellow pointers around the perimeter and one in the center. Starting with bottom yellow pointer, number them clockwise from 1 to 6, and refer to the center hotspot as position 7. This walkthrough is based on the foregoing triangular transporter stone acquisition and planetarium hotspot designation.

Now turn to the restless wise man and talk to him as much as you can to learn more of the story that propels this game. During this interchange he gives you a sphere that he calls a crystal. Pay close attention to what he tells you, and remember it. A repetition of this conversation is not out of order. After your exchange with him is concluded you must place in the planetarium one of the triangular stones that you have in inventory so that you may make one of the journeys about which the wise man spoke. The first stone you picked up from the barrel takes you to a Mayan city, the last stone you acquired from under the hammock takes you to China, and the other from under the desk takes you to Ireland. It really doesn't matter which you first choose because you must use all of them, in whatever order you wish. The China trip may well be the easiest and the Mayan one perhaps the most difficult. The choice is yours.

China

From inventory put the unpatterned triangular stone that you got from under the hammock into the planetarium on the hotspot next to yellow pointer 3. You will be transported to China at some time in the past, appearing in the courtyard of a Tao-shih temple, the Abode of the Purple Deposit. Here you are Wei Yulan, a government official. You are on business for the Emperor, and you must be on your way, but when you try to go out the temple gate a shadow (click on it) outside it will not let you pass. At the side of the temple courtyard you can see an old man who may be a source of information. When you talk to him, however, other than his name all he tells you is that you may not leave the temple because a shadow is just outside the gate and will not let anyone out, which you have already discovered.

Enter the temple and look around. There is a nervous man seated at a table in the first room to the left. Talk to him, to find out that he is Master Lo, the abbot in charge of this temple. He attributes the shadow, as well as the region being overrun with unhappy ghosts end escaped demons, to a mysterious star that shines day and night, a phenomenon that can be seen in all the places to which you travel. You and Master Lo have a very long exchange, during which he accepts with seeming equanimity that all in the temple will probably die of thirst because no one can get past the shadow to the temple well that is outside the gate. You find out more about Master Wu, the old man outside, and also about the immortal Tan Yun, a master exorcist who could undoubtedly dispatch the shadow, but who disappeared 317 years ago yet is somewhere in the temple. There is no one left but you to try to find him, and Master Wu can direct you. Go talk to him again.

Wu tells you to meet him in the Turtle Chamber. Lo tells you that this is the room with the lake. You must find this chamber within the temple, and in looking for it you may well encounter a man who speaks nothing but proverbs; however, you can ignore him. When you enter the room across from him, Master Wu is already there, standing in a corner. He warns you, as did Master Lo, that many have tried to make the journey to find Grand Master Tan Yun, and none have returned. He says that you must establish directions and travel to the House of the Tiger. Since you are determined to try the journey, he states that you will need the black turtle and the engraved medallion that he gives you.

Go forward twice and then right to stand next to the large pot in the center of the room. Put the turtle in the water at the center of the pot. (This must be the lake about which Lo told you.) The turtle is headed away from you. Click on Wu, then on the query square that appears containing the turtle. Wu tells you the turtle swims toward the mountain, the plain at his tail, to his right the pagoda, to his left the river. You will find that clicking on the rim of the pot at either side will cause the rim to rotate. Click the engraved medallion on the rim icon at the turtle's tail and you will see a closeup of all four colored rim icons. Examination will show that while three of the icons contain a mountain, the red one is differentiated because it does not have a pagoda. If you move the rim so the red one is at the top and the turtle swims towards it, the green one will be at the bottom, and this one has no mountain, thus the plain is at the turtle's tail. In summary

In the House of the Dragon there is a miniature lake with a swimming amphibian and several arrays of candles around the walls. Move to the chest on the left in the rear, and from this nested set of boxes get a wand. Cross the room to stand within a group of four colored incense candles. You will be standing on a light greenish yellow figured area (looks like plastic) on which there are several hotspots. Face the wall and use the wand to light the candle on your right. Turning clockwise, light the other three candles, which causes you to spectacularly shrink a lot!

Now walk toward the lake, and you are suddenly outside ready to cross a bridge into a bright landscape with trees that have lavender foliage. Go over the bridge and go along the path as far as you can, then turn left and face an arch from which chains suspend a horizontal timber with a wheel behind it and five pegs along the front. From the ground pick up the five statues and the bag of money. Return to and enter the House of the Dragon, where you are back on the greenish yellow figured area. It does not have any bearing on the game, but if you look toward the lake you will see that the amphibian that appeared to be swimming in the water is actually above it.

Turn left from the lake, then move forward and you will regain your original size. Now you must place the statues and the moneybag on the hotspots that are on the greenish yellow figured area bounded by the incense candles. If you place a statue on a hotspot where it does not belong, you can pick it up again, but if it belongs you cannot retrieve it. Having made these placements, walk toward the lake to shrink again, whereupon the statues become animate, and all five have something for you if you pay them. Fortunately the moneybag contains five coins, so click the coins on each statue in turn, and in exchange for one coin you will get a disk along with a cryptic remark about the identifying pattern on the disk. Examine these disks in inventory, or better yet look at them in the screen shot provided, where the details are better seen.

The disk from the woodsman, the man with the ax, is covered with either water waves or fish scales; the disk from the woman water bearer has within it some Chinese mountains; the disk from the cook, the short man holding a frypan and using chopsticks to eat moths, has the appearance of a bronze coin; the disk from the lady by the wall carrying a walking stick shows a dragon; the disk from the smith shows wood grain. Making a couple of associations--dragons with fire and mountains with earth--and ruling out fish scales as unlikely, the disks represent the five elements of feng shui, or geomancy, the ancient Chinese art, or pseudoscience, of creating a harmonic balance in nature. The five elements are metal, water, wood, fire, and earth.

One of the very basic precepts of feng shui is that these elements can interact with each other in either a creative or a destructive cycle. Feng shui references explain the creative cycle as follows: condensation on metal leads to water, water is required to grow wood, burning wood yields fire, the ashes from fire go to earth, and ore from the earth is smelted to give metal. The destructive cycle is that metal will cut or saw wood, wood decays to earth, earth will make water dirty, water puts out fires, fire can melt metal. From the foregoing, the creative arrangement of adjacent disks is

Metal, Water, Wood, Fire, Earth

and the destructive arrangement of adjacent disks is

Metal, Wood, Earth, Water, Fire

Applying the above precepts to the statements made by the figures when you bought their disks will reinforce the disk identities. The woodsman stated "It fashions wood", the second of the creative precepts says that water is required to grow wood, and the water disk was sold by the woodsman. The lady with the walking stick said "Water drowns it", the fourth destructive precept and clearly indicating her fire disk. The smith says "It engenders fire, but is later eaten by metal", these being the third creative precept and the first destructive one; this is the wood disk. The cook states "It creates water, but is later consumed by fire", these being the first creative precept and the fifth destructive one, both applying to metal, the disk from him. The water bearer says "Metal is born of it, wood later destroys it", the first statement being the fifth creative precept and applies to earth, the disk from this woman, but the second part of her statement does not seem to be any of the precepts.

Move toward the lake to go back outside, across the bridge, and to the end of the path, where you will see before you an open drawbridge. Turn left to the timber with the five pegs on it. Put the disks on the pegs in the creative cycle order; if they are in the correct arrangement the wheel behind the timber will turn and the drawbridge will lower half way. If this does not happen, remove the first disk, move the other four forward, and put the removed disk on the peg at the end. Repeat this process until the bridge moves. Then do the same thing using the destructive arrangement of disks and you will get bridge fully lowered.

Cross the lowered bridge to the gate with the golden doors. Click on the hunter to have the arrow point to him, then move your cursor to the top of either of the doors to open them. Enter the strange dragon, turn left, and move forward. On the left is a simple puzzle in which you click on one of the five clouds on in the top panel to raise the five clouds below. Do this when the snake is not moving. When you raise the last of the lower clouds you get a pearl. Go into the engine room in the dragon's head, turn around, and put the pearl into the hole in the brass plate on the wall. A rather amusing video is initiated wherein the dragon flies you to an island on which there is a house with a red door built up against a very large rock.

Each time that you try to enter the house through the red door you end up turned around facing the dragon. Try the door twice to be sure. The only other avenue of movement is around the house to the right. When you go there you find a large blank panel in the side of the house. Nothing for you there. Back to the front to try the red door once more, and Grand Master Tan Yun appears on the lawn beside the house. There are several query boxes, and you should have a long conversation, during which he produces a door in the blank panel on the side of the house. He will provide you with what you need to exorcise the shadow at the temple gate if you bring him the mushroom of immortality, which, he tells you, is in Hell. Hell, it seems, is the red building.

Go around the building to the door that Tan made in the panel and enter the building. The interior contains many pillars and wood partitions within a square stone enclosure. At the doorway is an officious bored clerk to question and from whom you can get a blank form that you must get stamped in order to get the mushroom. When you have finished talking to him and have obtained the blank form, you must travel through the place until you find a young girl holding a fox mask on a stick. She tells you that you saved her life; this was done when you pointed the arrow on the golden gate at the hunter rather than at the fox. She gives you a fan on which are three images. These are the stamps that you must get on your form from three of the six clerks in various locations in Hell, and are different each time you play the game.

You must locate the particular three clerks so that you can get your form stamped with the proper images and in the correct order. As you move around you will see that some of the clerks are on the ceiling. There is a curious vertical symmetry about the place in that should it be inverted and you were walking on what presently the ceiling, it would look pretty much the same. There is a set of stairs in one of the stone walls where you can do just that, and you can then get any needed stamp from a clerk on the ceiling. When your form has the three stamps in the correct order, return to the clerk by the door to get the mushroom. Exit Hell, go to the front door of the house, and then to Tan Yun. Ask him the full set of questions before you hand over the mushroom. He tells you to put the serpent on the shadow, then remove it. He then disappears in a puff of smoke, leaving behind a Chinese lantern for your inventory.

Go back into the dragon and remove the pearl from the brass plate in the engine room wall. Immediately replace it and fly back to the original island. Go through the golden doors, across the bridges, and into the building, the House of the Dragon. Move off the statue area to regain your original size. (Have you been miniaturized all this time?) Leave the House of the Dragon and go through the turtle room to the temple hallway. Upon stepping into the hallway a concluding video begins in which the shadow is exorcised, you receive the thanks of the abbot, and a triangular stone is returned to you by Master Wu. You are transported back to the wise man on the ship Atlante. A glowing green triangular stone is now in position 3 of the planetarium in place of the one that you put there to start your journey, and which is now back in your inventory. The wise man may have a new query square.

Click on the green triangular stone in the planetarium by yellow pointer 3, and you will find yourself back in front of the entrance to the Abode of the Purple Deposit. Go in and back to the turtle room. Go to the far left corner and walk in the direction of the mountain along the path that is one removed from the wall. Click on the dragon and the dragon door will appear as before. In the Dragon Room step on the area with the statues and move toward the pond in order to become small, then go outside and on to the golden gate. Click the spherical crystal from the wise man on the left side of the gate structure and move it around until the lines within it become pulsing red. Left click your mouse and you will travel to the far side of the moon. Click on the earth to return to the golden gate. Find your way back to the temple courtyard, where there is a striker mallet leaning against the near leg of the gong. Pick up the mallet, strike the gong, and you will return to the ship Atlante.

Ireland

From your inventory put the triangular stone that you got from under the desk into the planetarium on the hotspot next to yellow pointer 1. You will be transported to a monastery on an island in Ireland at an unspecified time in the distant past. Here you are the monk Brother Felim illustrating a manuscript. The abbot, Brother Liam, is talking to you, during which a cry of distress is heard. The abbot sends you outside to investigate. Go through the chapel, then through the next room that is here called a porch, and ahead along the path through the gate. Turn left and try to talk to Brother Finbar, the source of the outcry, but you get no intelligible reply. Return to report to the abbot. When passing through the porch look to see the weeping head that is in the wall to the left, but DO NOT click on it or you will be transported back to the ship Atlante.

Talk to the abbot about Finbar and about the weeping head, then turn your attention to the large open book on the bookstand. Get a closeup of the illustration, then pick up a brush from the cup above the book. Click the brush on the illustration and you will be transported into the book. You will see a blue man, and you must find your way to the front of him so that you may talk to him. He is Dian, a physician and craftsman, and the brown statue near him is his ensorcelled daughter Airmid. Ask him about everything, and it is to be hoped you can follow the Gaelic. Go over to the king and click on him until he repeats himself. Go back to Dian, then go right and look for the word exit on the wall manuscript fragment. Click on that and return to the monastery. It is now your task to find the glass tower and King Nuada's sword. Start exploring everywhere and examining everything.

On the way out of the chapel something in the bookcase on the right of the door to the porch catches your eye. Inventory says it is a piece of a skull. When you get outside go around to the left and examine the two runic markings on the chapel wall. Go through the gate, past poor moonstruck Brother Finbar, and continue on down the path to the arch of stones that is before the earthen mound. Go inside to find a part of a skull. This must be the grave of Ailill, killed by the weeping Aine, about which the abbot told you. Click the bone fragment you found in the bookcase on the skull. It fits. You need more fragments.

Leave the grave and turn left to start walking around the monastery island. After three clicks you should see a fox lying in a shallow shelter. For no good reason click on him so that he runs away. After he disappears you will hear the sounds of chickens. Follow the fox and you will soon come upon three grazing sheep. Look carefully at the base of one of the boulders and you will find a jawbone. Go back to Ailill's grave, taking the high path on the left. Just before you get to the grave, did you see the horse carved in one of the stones? Take a look at it.

Go into the grave and add the jawbone to the skull. Leave, and at the grave entrance turn right. Go to the area behind the grave between it and the sea, where you will find four beehives. In the entrance to one of these is yet another skull fragment. After you add this piece to the skull, go up the hill to Brother Finbar. Go behind him and through the entrance to the small walled area and get a hayfork that is lying on the ground. Return to the churchyard and from the gate go to the left toward the shelters built into the hill. In the first of these you can get a hard to find black pitcher. The abbot is sitting out here by a third one of these shelters, seemingly not very concerned about Brother Finbar. Talk to the abbot. He'll tell you again about Ailill and Aine, and when you ask him about the Standing Stone he will give you a key. You can use it immediately to open a small chest on the ground to the right, from which you get a knife and a parchment. Click on the parchment and you will see drawings of several different trees along the top, and below each a rune associated with it. Click on the abbot to ask about the parchment, then click the parchment on him to have him identify the individual tree representations as you point them out. Note the resemblance to one of the runes.

Now go the well where a chicken is pecking away. At the base of the well where it is pecking you can find another piece of skullbone; had you not rousted the fox you would not find it. You can see a ladder leaning against the building. Climb it and look down into the chapel through a hole in the roof. Atop the large cross you can see one more bone fragment, as your cursor will attest, but you can't reach it. Drag the hayfork across it to dislodge it, then climb down and go into the chapel to get it from where it has fallen on the floor. While you are up on the roof you may wish to look around for a view of the island.

Return to Ailill's grave, where these last two bone pieces will complete the skull, which will undergo some startling transformations and end up a human head, presumably Ailill's. When you try to talk to him, all you get in reply is grunts. Go to the weeping head in the porch and fill the black pitcher with tears. Return and click this on the head, and it is no longer mute, but it is cryptic. He says an evil force is abroad and that you will have to ride the white horse. He also wants the knife. Well, you have that. Give it to him, and whatever it is that he says, presumably more Gaelic, must put a spell on it because when you get it back it is glowing. He says it is ready for the trees. Click on him to find out who he is and how he died, and about the runic markings. He says they are ready for the knife.

Go back now to the two runic markings on the chapel wall. Since Ailill has said the knife is ready for the trees and the trees are ready for the knife, save your game and see what the knife will do to the three runic trees. You will have noted references to the Standing Stone, though it does not seem to be identified. The abbot says he knows nothing about it except that it is very ancient. When he was shown the tree parchment, he said that there had been an oak tree and an elder tree growing beside the Standing Stone. This is your clue: look at these two trees on the parchment. There are three tree runes, but only two are referenced. Remove all the branches from one of the trees, and make the other two look like the oak and elder runes. Then click the knife on the spiral rune and the wall slab on which the runes have been carved lowers into the ground. On the ground behind it is a stick. That's all, a small stick. Must be important, pick it up.

With Ailill's statements about a horse and a stone in mind, go to the carving of the horse on the stone near the entrance to his grave. Hit the carving with your newly acquired stick and the horse will come off the stone and gallop away. Now all you have to do is find and catch it. Go to the grave entrance, then past it one click toward the beehives. Wait for the horse to appear from behind the hives and come up to you. When he stops, put him in your inventory. Walk down to the shore where there are a lot of poles in the water. Put the horse in the water and see him change from a small gray animal to a great white stallion. When he has settled down, mount him for an exciting video ride across the surface of the sea through a storm. The horse deposits you on another small island.

This is bleak Birdman Island, where all the trees are dead and bare. Walk ahead until you find the Birdman sitting in a tree. When you try to talk to him he answers with a birdcall. Then there appears a column of six birds, and when you move the cursor on and off each one you get a different birdsong. Click on the one that matches the Birdman's call; if you make a mistake you hear a raucous jaylike birdcall. When you have made three consecutive matches, which might take a while, he flies, sort of, out of the tree. Question him as much as you can, try to find out about the glass tower. He tells you that it is not on the ground nor above the ground, so he gives you a forked stick, a divining rod, to look below the ground. Go to the area in front of the remnant of curved wall and move the cursor around until it indicates a hotspot on the ground, then click the divining rod on that. The ground trembles, rocks fall, and a well appears.

There is nothing else but dive down the well to look for the glass tower. When you do that you can see it down there, but you can't get to it because some sort of aquatic monster is guarding it. Come back up and talk to Fintan the Birdman again. He refers you to Airmid, daughter of Dian. So mount the horse and ride back to the monastery. Return to the chapel and the big book that you were illustrating. The man in red at the right of the page is now a hotspot. Run your brush over him and a drawing of a sword will appear next to him. (If it does not, you may have to enter the book and talk to the king, then come back out try again.) Enter the book and talk again to Dian, the blue man. Be sure and ask him once more about Airmid, and question the new query squares, then go and talk to King Nuada. Take his sword, exit the book, and go talk to Ailill in his grave. Ask him about everyone but himself, about Fintan, and Airmid. He speaks of Aine, and the old sun spinning across the sky (he must do this).

The Abbot Brother Liam is still sitting by the well in the churchyard. Go talk to him. Ask him about the old sun spinning across the sky, after which he gives you an ancient cross, Brigid's Cross. Ask him about that. Enter the chapel again and regard the large wall tapestry. There are several hotspots on it where you could place Brigid's Cross, but it will properly only go in one of them in the sky, where it becomes the spinning old sun. When you find this correct place, the goddess Aine appears. Ask her everything, and at one of your replies to a question of hers she will remove the curse from Airmid. Enter the book once more and talk to Airmid, who is no longer a statue. Ask her everything. She wants her salmon that was taken from her.

Exit the book and click your brush on the girl on the left in the illustration. A fish appears in her hands. Enter the book and talk to Airmid, click on the salmon query square again. She has now had her salmon returned and has made from it an amulet that will help you get the glass tower. With the fish now in inventory, go from the book to the shore, where your white steed is waiting to take you back to Birdman Island. Dive into the well and use the amulet to make the monster leave so that you can at last get the glass tower from the bottom. Ride back to the chapel, enter the book, and give the tower to the blue man. He uses some Gaelic to "weave some fragility" into it. Now use King Nuada's sword to break it and get the silver hand. Give the hand, then the sword to King Nuada, who will spectacularly dispatch the one-eyed monster Bres.

Your mission here is done for now. Leave the book and go to the chapel porch where you meet the abbot for the concluding video. Brother Finbar is cured, you get the triangular stone back, and you are returned to the wise man on the ship Atlante. A glowing green triangular stone is now in the planetarium at position 1 in place of the one that you put there to start your journey, and the latter is now back in your inventory. The wise man may have a new query square.

Click on the green triangular stone in the planetarium by yellow pointer 1, and you will find yourself back in the monastery. Go down to the seashore for another wild ride on the stallion to Birdman Island. Go to the dead tree on the left of the curving wall ruins and click the crystal from the wise man on the branches. Move it around until the lines in it are a glowing red, then click your left mouse button for a trip through space to the far side of the moon. Click on the earth to return. Ride the stallion back to the monastery, then click on the weeping face of Aine in the chapel porch to return to Atlante. Check the wise man to see if there any new conversation subjects.

City of the Maya

From inventory put the triangular stone that you got from the barrel top into the planetarium on the hotspot next to yellow pointer 2. You will be transported to an unnamed Mayan city-state in the distant past, which as usual for the Mayans is at war with another city. You arrive in this scenario in an open grassy field, where you are Tepic, a cousin of the royal family, who has just returned from scouting the enemy and has found that the situation is desperate. All will be explained in lengthy conversations soon to follow.

Look around. There are many stone buildings, prominent among them are two pyramids on either side of a sunken ball court. Go to the set of steps on the left side of the pyramid on the left. Ascend these steep steps, where you will be greeted by the king's brother, who has aspirations to be king. The fat guy in the fancy headdress is his toady, the High Priest of the Jaguar god Tezcatlipoca. Ask each of them all that you can in order to learn the dire happenings that are besetting the city.

Go to the other end of the portico, enter the pyramid, approach the ceremonial fire, and talk to the priestess. Ask her all you can, then take the bandages she gives you into the building to the king. Give them to him, then talk to everyone. As you leave, someone will give you the bandages, which now have the king's blood on them. Return them to the priestess, who prays as she puts them into the fire. The wrong god replies.

Click on her again for more conversation. However, save the first query square, the one in the upper left showing the jaguar, for the last question. The priestess will offer to send you on a mission to Xibalba, the land of the dead; click on her again, then on the thumbs up sign to agree to go. A video will take you there and you will have a conversation with the bat god, guardian of this place, who is hanging upside down on a post. He has three round spots strikingly displayed on a wing; with this prominence, it must be something to note. Click on the bat to finish all conversation, then click on the base of the post from which the bat god is hanging and you will return to the priestess for more conversation.

Go now to the pyramid that is across the sunken ball court. Go all the way to the top. There is a fire burning in a vessel, which if you click on it will return you to the wise man in the ship Atlante, so don't do that. At the bottom of an obelisk there is a square that has a strikingly different color than the rest of the stone; approach and click on it and inventory tells you that you have picked up an obsidian foot. Turn around and observe the pattern on the top of the stone altar. It is readily recognized as the big dipper constellation; remember the location of the seven stars. Go down the stairs to the first level of the pyramid interior.

Explore this level. You will find a guard in front of the stairway down to the next level; he will not let you pass, but he has a pronouncement: "The Jaguar's number is the Bat's multiplied by itself". In three corners of the passageways you will find plaques placed on the stone walls. One of these is the Jaguar puzzle that you must solve in order to have guard let you pass, the other two are introductions to the Mayan numbering system, which you are going to have to learn in order to solve the puzzles in this pyramid. Enough is presented so that you can infer anything additional that is needed.

One of these plaques gives the elementary numbering system: there are five columns of four squares, and below each column are tiny human figures. It is readily evident from this that a dot is 1, a bar is 5, all in the lowest square of a column. They apparently have no symbol for zero; luckily you won't need one. The other instructional plaque shows three columns of again four squares, below the first are 19 tiny figures, below the second are 20, and below the third are 21. From this you can see that the second tier of squares has a value of 20 for a dot in it. Bars are below the dots.

In a third corner is the Jaguar puzzle. It too is a column of four squares, here each square has a 7x4 matrix of holes to accommodate any arrangement of dots and bars up to that for the maximum decimal number to be represented; this would be 19, since 20 is a single dot in the second tier square. On the left side is a cup of balls, each representing a 1, and on the right side a cup of sticks, each representing a 5. The guard has told you that the Jaguar's number is the Bat's number squared, and you know the bat's number is 3, having noted the three dots on his wing while you were in the land of the dead, so the Jaguar's number is 9. That one is easy, a bar and four dot's in the first tier of squares. Take a stick from the right cup and put it across the bottom row of holes in the bottom square, then pick up four balls all at once from the cup on the left and put them in the row of holes above the stick. The guard will now let you pass to the next level down.

The passageways on this level, the second, are more complicated than the level above. When you explore them you will find another guard barring the stairway to the third level; he announces that "The Jaguar's number multiplied by itself is the Snake's". In the corridor opposite him is a plaque with more mathematical instructions: another set of three columns of four squares with tiny figures below each column, the first set 39, the second set 40, and the third set 41. Comparing these numbers with the Mayan symbols shows that the value of 20 found for a dot in the second tier of squares is in fact a multiplier.

Continue exploring the passageways until you find another puzzle. It is the Snake puzzle, and in this one you must put the Mayan 81, the square of the Jaguar's 9 according to the guard. Again, pretty simple: 4 dots in the second tier is 4x20=80 and a dot in the first tier makes 81. Put the 5 balls for this arrangement in the first and second tiers of the puzzle and the guard allows you to pass down the stairs to the third level. Move ahead and you will come up against a door. Look to the left and you will see a small square on the wall; click on this square and the door opens. In the revealed room is a statue of a crocodile, and on the wall in front it is another math illustration. It is the same three columns of four squares as before, but there are no tiny human figures on this one because there is not room for them. From what you know already the number represented by the Mayan system in the first column is 399 and you may infer from previous illustrations that the next two columns are then 400 and 401. With one dot in the third tier of squares in the second column, it thus means that the multiplier of that square is 400.

The crocodile puzzle is below the head of the statue. The other inference to make from the foregoing puzzles is that the crocodiles number is the square of the snakes, 81x81=6561. The value of a bar in the third tier is 5x400=2000, 3 bars there will be 6000. Putting a dot there adds 400 to make it 6400. Putting a bar in the second tier adds 5x20=100, three dots in the same tier adds 3x20=60, and one dot in the bottom tier adds 1 to give the value 6561. Perform this indicated placing of bars and balls and you will be able to get a second obsidian foot from the mouth of the crocodile statue.

Move to the wall to your left, the one opposite the door you entered, and if you look closely you will see two squares that are blacker than the wall; your cursor will confirm that you found each of them. Put the obsidian feet in the these two squares, then take them out again. Click on the wall between the squares and you will exit the pyramid with the feet in inventory. Return to the top of the other pyramid and talk to the priestess again. When you have asked all you can, some of it repetition, click on the formless object on a pole in the corner, presumably a bat, and you will be returned to the land of the dead.

Talk to the bat god again to find out once more what you must do to find the serpent god Quetzalcoatl. First you must build the Rainbow Bridge. Turn left from the hanging bat until your forward movement cursor appears. Click to move ahead, then look directly downward to find a hotspot. Click on that and the Rainbow Bridge puzzle appears. This puzzle is a 3x3 set of miniature jungle squares with sections of tan path in them; these squares must be rearranged to make a continuous path so that the tiny figure in the circle in the lowest square can run around the puzzle gathering blobs of color to make the Rainbow Bridge. You may click on any of the nine squares to pick it up and move it to any of the other eight locations, then click to set it down and the square that is replaced moves to the vacated location. You may rotate a square by quarter turns clockwise using the right mouse key. (If you want to leave the puzzle to reset it, use the Esc key.) When you think that you have solved the puzzle by providing the tiny man a complete path to travel the puzzle and reach all the colors to build the bridge, click on him to send him on his way to do this. There are strange sounds each time he gets a color blob. If you have made a mistake he will be stopped and you must try again. Here is a hint: do not move the lowest square containing the tiny man.

This is not an easy puzzle, but try to solve it. If you can't do it, here is one way to do so: along the left diagonal edge (slanting like this: /), label the squares from bottom to top X1, X2, X3; the next row to the right from bottom to top Y1, Y2, Y3; the row on the right will be Z1, Z2, Z3. Move the squares as follows (R signifies rotate):

1. Z1 unchanged 2. X2->Z2; R2 3. Y3->Z3; R3 4. Y3; R2

5. Y1->y2; R1 6. X1->Y1 7. X2->X3; R1 8. X1; R3

When the puzzle is complete and the tiny man in Z1 has run the entire path and built the Rainbow Bridge, the puzzle disappears and you are back in the jungle on an island, having crossed the rainbow bridge, and there on your right at the edge of the river is the dugout canoe that the bat god promised. However, you do not yet have what you need before you take the canoe out on the river. You must enter the jungle, which is in fact a maze, where you will have to find seven stars on the ground in several places. A few stars are in plain sight if you look carefully, others are partially hidden, with a couple that are quite difficult to locate. It is not easy to navigate this maze and find the stars, but of course it must be done. It is not a complicated maze, but views of jungle foliage tend to be hard to differentiate. There are sixteen nodes where the seven stars might be, but there is none with more than one star.

When you have collected all seven stars, you then need to find a location in the maze where there is an obelisk like the one on the top of the pyramid, and very nearby a duplicate of the big dipper altar, but with many more holes. Put the black obsidian foot in the obelisk, then put the seven stars in the altar top to duplicate the big dipper constellation. With this accomplished another obelisk appears. Put the gray obsidian foot in this new obelisk and the Jaguar God Tezcatlipoca will come out of it and speak to you, then the obelisk will turn and Quetzalcoatl will emerge. Talk to him all that you can. In order to get the chulel you need from him, you must find and bring to him some skulls that the Jaguar has hidden. He gives you a feather for protection. Take the feather and return through the maze to the dugout canoe.

Move out onto the river and paddle six times in either direction (it takes twelve strokes to circle the island), where across from the island in which is the maze will be the darkest jungle. Enter the jungle and you will come to a giant spider web suspended between the trees. You must take from the spider some insects it has captured in the web. Climb onto the web. You are safe from the spider if you stay at the edge of the web. If you get caught when challenging the spider the result is not mortal, you will be thrown off the web and you have to try again. Look for the wedge shaped section of the web that has no webbing in it and get to the left of it. Move toward the spider to entice it to come toward you, then turn around, go back to edge of the web, cross to the right of the clear web section that the spider can't cross, and head for the center of the web to get the caterpillar that is captured there. Pick it up and move quickly to the edge of the web and jump off.

You must do this once more to get another insect. Proceed as you did before, but this time when you get to the right of the clear web section, you can't run for the insect because there is another spider in the center of the web as well as the one to your left. Go toward the second one to entice it toward you, then go to the right and then to the edge of the web. Walk all around the web until you are again to the right of the empty section. If you look back you will see that one spider is on the edge looking at you, the other is facing the edge of the web on the left side of the clear section. Go one more step around the web past the clear section and both will be on the edge chasing you, but you can outrun them to the web center to get the other insect. Scoot out to the edge of the web and jump off.

Now that you have both insects, go back to the canoe and go to the right on the river for three paddle strokes, then go into the jungle three steps opposite the island, and there you will find a big frog. This is Chac. Give the two insects to Chac, in return for which you will get two cryptic statements that do not seem to have much real relevancy; one refers to an occurrence that has already happened. Return to the canoe and back to the spider web.

This time when you climb to the web the spider is a bigger edition of the other two, who if you click on her states that they are her daughters. Behind her you can see two skulls in the center of the web. You should have entered the web at a section that is one to the right of the clear one. Put the green feather from the serpent god on the edge of the web to the right of the clear section, where it changes to a translucent button. Go look at it, then immediately cross to the other side of the clear section. Now toward the center of the web you can see a sword. Get it and whack the spider with it. You can do this as often as you wish, but she recovers each time. Once is adequate, however, and apparently she is confused enough that if you act quickly, you can grab the skulls, run to the edge, and jump off.

It's back to the boat and paddle the six strokes to get to the maze entrance. Either way you go, at the sixth stroke your cursor gives you two choices to move ahead; take the one next to the island. Go through the maze to the obelisk with the serpent god and give him the skulls. In a short remarkable video he makes a joint skullful of this mysterious chulel. Take it and return to the canoe. Go onto the river and left one paddle stroke. Go ashore and talk to the bat god, then click on the base of the bat's post to return to the priestess in the pyramid. She tells you to take the chulel to the king. Enter the king's chamber and try to contain yourself during a very contrived mawkish ending to this scenario, during which the priestess makes you a gift of a triangular stone. You are then returned to the wise man on Atlante. A glowing green triangular stone is now in position 2 of the planetarium in place of the one that you put there to start your journey, and which is now back in your inventory. The wise man may have a new query square.

Click on the green triangular stone in the planetarium by yellow pointer 2, and you will be returned to the field by the pyramids. Go to the steps of the king's pyramid, then turn back so you can see the tree beyond the building to the right. Click the crystal from the wise man on the branches of this tree and move it until the lines inside it are red. Then left click your mouse and you will go for a space trip to the other side of the moon. Click on the earth to return. Move to the other pyramid across the field and beyond the ball court. Climb to the top and click on the firepot to get back to Atlante.

Space

The space trips around the moon after completing each of the China, Ireland, and Mayan tasks may be regarded as preliminary, or practice runs, and you must now make an extended space trip that will modify the spherical crystal the wise man gave you. Go above deck on the ship and face forward. Put the crystal on the bow so that the lines within it turn pulsing red, then click the left mouse and you will go to the far side of the moon as before. This time swing to the right a short distance and click on the bright star (the sun?) for passage to its hot molten core. Click on the right edge of the core to move around it and then off into space to stop in a group of asteroids. Move slightly right and head for the larger of a star pair. You then stop, hovering in space, surrounded by near stars of varying brightness, and with the starry firmament in the background.

If you look at the crystal in your inventory you will find that it has changed from a sphere to a multifaceted shape with a hexagonal outline, the transformation probably occurring when you went through the space cloud and the warbling sound was heard. This was the object of this space tour, so you can now return to Atlante. Swing a little to the left and the cursor will tell you that you can move into some greenish brown space mist, which will take you back to the asteroids. Turn past the double star and click on the yellow-brown planet to go beyond the molten star core and observe anther planet in the distance. Click on this planet and return to the moon, and thence to earth and the deck of the ship. Return below deck to the planetarium.

Place the three stones from inventory onto the three vacant planetarium hotspots by the 4, 5, and 6 yellow pointers. Each stone will go into only one of the positions, but you must note the succession in which you place them. They become the same brilliant green of the other three stones, and all six stones have different filigreed markings. Put the transformed crystal in the center of the planetarium and you will see a video of Ten jumping into another sort of space to emerge from the bottom of a vortex and land in a lotus, where he is surrounded by six large red curtains, each having a different one of the same filigree markings as the green stones in the planetarium. Should you click on a curtain a small white ball emerges from a lotus in front of it and does continuous figure eights in the air, but you should not do this at random.

The game gives no apparent indication of what you are to do next, so here it is: in order to send Ten to Shambala you must click on three of the curtains in the proper sequence, and this is to be done twice. The curtains to be used in the sequence are the ones whose patterns match the original three stones that you acquired and have just placed in the planetarium. The curtains have folds in them, so the patterns are distorted, and the curvature of the stones hides some of the edges of the patterns, thus you might experience some difficulty in making a match. The sequence in which you click on the curtains is that in which you placed the last three stones in the planetarium. Correctly done, Ten is drawn back up through the vortex and lands in Shambala.

If the matching of the curtain and stone patterns proves difficult, a trial and error solution should not take long since only three curtains are involved. You can click on the swirling stars above for a reset, in which case Ten is drawn back up through the vortex to the planetarium so that he can jump in again and you can try a different sequence of curtains.

Shambala

This is a strange place. It appears to be two small islands floating in air under a sunny though cloud filled sky. Move from the island on which you arrived to the other one nearby, which has a pond where fish are swimming above the water surface. Go toward the tree with the lavender foliage, then keep moving around the edge of the pond to come upon a lady, Rhea, sitting on a rock waiting to talk to you. Click on her for many query boxes to appear, and for a long, rather enigmatic conversation with her as she attempts to tell you what is and has been happening.

After the completion of her somewhat tortured tale, return along the pond edge almost to the lavender tree, then leave over two rocks and begin a series of short visits to many of the places that you have been before in the course of the game. In each of the places you are to look for an item that has figured in the story, though not one with the location in which you find yourself. The sequence of these visits is pseudo random and will include much repetition unless you find the different exits among the ones at these locations. There may be someone with a message. There are sixteen items to collect, but you only need the star; of course you can try to get all sixteen if you enjoy looking for them. When you have picked up the star, keep sequencing until you are in the Irish monastery room in which is the large book that was so prominent in that scenario. (Suggestion: if you find yourself in the Mayan king's room, click on the opening in the ceiling.) Above the book is a window that has two small bottles in it; click the star on the window and there will be a somewhat startling noisy video showing Ten being transported by a strange craft to the underwater ruins of Atlantis.

Atlantis

Apparently Ten has no problem existing under water. Here you must undergo a rather mazelike search for the gates to Atlantis. Your cursor is now a gold ring, except for the travel cursor. Keep clicking on the latter when it occurs, and be on the lookout for a pair of pillars--neither round nor square, but a definite pair--on the side of the hills that surround the site of the ruins where you have landed. You will recognize them when you see them.

Go through the pillars and look for a large crystal two clicks to the right. When you click on it, it enters your cursor ring. Now you must find the so-called octopus, a black sphere with many tentacles. To find it, look for a portico with a stylized tentacle on the wall behind the pillars. When you find it, save your game and turn right to view the octopus. You must attack this creature by clicking the crystal on the base of the active tentacle to cut it off, and the active one keeps changing. The crystal must be in an energized state to do this, as indicated by its being bright, and which takes a moment.

The way to attack is to keep rapidly clicking the crystal on the base of a tentacle that you think will be the active one. You can take a number of hits, but if the beast overcomes you, you will find yourself at the point in which you entered the water after the wild ride from the monastery. You know that you have defeated the octopus when it becomes bright and squirts a cloud of ink at you. The inference of this last bit of action is that the Light, as represented by the crystal, is wielded by Ten, the Bearer of the Light, to defeat the Dark, which is the black octopus.

Endgame

You again find yourself back on the ship Atlante, and the wise man gives you back your crystal. (How did he get it?) Place it once more in the center of the planetarium, and you are off to the moon again. Follow the same path to the molten core of the bright star, to the right of the rotating core to the asteroids, to the double star and to the space mist. Now instead of heading into the space mist as you did before, swing to the right to find a small black disk surrounded by a bright halo. Click on it to travel to some red clouds, turn right to some scarlet clouds in which is an irregular white area. Move through that area to the final video. The conclusions that you draw are your own.

GameBoomers Walkthroughs and Solutions