“Still Life” ~ lasers-puzzle.
(Micro-walkthrough)
Len Green 28th May 2005 lengreen@hotmail.com
By far the main call for help to date in “Still Life” (and maybe criticism?) on the various Games Forums has been over the ‘lasers-puzzle’. The solution is not too easy to describe in words. Hence it has only been able to help by sending save-games.
IMO, this is less than satisfactory since (amongst other legitimate reasons) some players have problems or dislike having to use the save-games of other gamers!
The following is an attempt to enable all players to overcome this puzzle themselves without too much difficulty. It should be possible to finish without ANY particularly fast &/or hurried actions. Also, it can be completed without the necessity of more than say a couple of replays (due to natural mishaps).
My thanks to Dennis for permission to use his graphic which I’ve extracted from the “Still Life” walkthrough written by MaG on the GameBoomers Forum.
It has been an enormous help to me personally. It also provides a visual verification of each of the following series of steps, together with their rationale.
(1) Use the Up/Right/Left keyboard arrows ONLY … and not your mouse at all! That way you can keep your eye all the time on the spider-robot movements. (Also, the mouse-clickable arrows on the screen are quite quirky, whereas the keyboard arrows aren’t!)
N.B. Clicking the Up arrow does not (generally) cause the spider-robot to move UPWARDS. It moves it forward one square in the direction it was facing at that time! Right click causes the spider-robot to turn to ITS right … left click similarly!
(2) In the ‘dangerous’ portions of the trek, remember the moves by heart, so that you only have to look at & concentrate entirely on the screen &/or the keyboard arrows. This is generally very easy since there are only 2 or 3 moves to remember each time!
However, in one place ONLY there are more moves to remember … 8 in all. However, if you repeat these (if necessary a few times) to yourself, you can easily remember them … you always have as much time as you like to do this during the safe/rest period(s).
(3) In the following, the safe moves in which you can take as much time as you want, are marked with lower case bold blue colored letters and not underlined:- i.e. u ; r ; l.
The dangerous moves, which should follow each other with no pause or hesitations, are marked with upper case bold red colored letters and underlined … U ; R ; L.
(4) IMO, the main cause of failure is not knowing (more or less exactly) WHEN to start each of the 4 ‘difficult’ sections. These depend each time upon the movement of the lasers, and are described here (as best I can) in bold pink colored italics … they are constantly periodic & repetitive, and fortunately not random.
(5) [A] Any time ……….
u ; u ; r ; u .
[B] Immediately after the two lasers cross one another ……….
U ; U .
[C] Any time ……….
l ; u ; u ; u .
[D] Observe the square above the one you are at rest on now. Observe a laser beam arriving on that square and moving upwards. Just after it starts its upward swing ……….
U ; R ; U .
[E] Any time ……….
l ; u ; r .
[F] THIS IS PROBABLY THE MOST DIFFICULT SECTION, BY FAR !
Observe the square to the right of the one you are at rest on now. Observe a laser beam arriving on that square and moving downwards. Notice how about 2/3rds of its downward swing it sweeps past the top left corner of a grating (on the rear wall). At this moment ……….
U ; L ; U ; U ; R ; U ; L ; U .
[G] Any time ……….
r ; u ; u ; l ; u ; u ; l ; u ; u ; r .
[H] Observe the square to the right of the one you are at rest on now. As soon as the laser hits the middle of this square ……….
U … and keep your finger on it to the fiery end !!
ADDITIONAL HELP/ASSISTANCE … IMPORTANT.
****
It helps to turn the music completely off for
this puzzle and increase your speakers' volume substantially … that way you can
hear the clicking of the spider's legs … which is very helpful.
****
Before starting each section, apart from
‘learning’ the moves by heart (so that you really don’t have to look at the
keyboard at all), it’s worth while carefully watching the ONE ONLY
relevant laser in each case a few times, in order to clearly see its ‘orbit’
& adjust to its rhythm.
**** The trickiest part probably is to CONSTANTLY watch {& listen to} the spider (only !). You must not pause AT ALL between each of your keyboard clicks. However, occasionally you may quite likely find yourself being ‘over-eager’, and clicking BEFORE the spider is ‘ready to react’ … but if/when you see this, it can generally be rectified immediately !!
