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This is really the part of the game that sold me on 9 the most. The first time I hit the temple and found the Tomb, man, goosebumps.
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Jan 23, 2017 07:22
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So from that last note, it sounds like Murtagh somehow focused so hard he stopped existing in the other layers, effectively "disappearing" from them?
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Jan 23, 2017 17:57
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Part 25 Submachine 9: The Temple  Time for the next part of the Temple. Last time, we found Murtaugh's long-dead body and took his Golden Seal. ♫ Thumpmonks - Submachine 9 - Temple   The Golden Seal goes on this device, which, if you remember, was next to the stairs down into the Temple. Looks like we need another.   The first course of action, now that we got another Karmic Seal, is to finish this puzzle up in the Pyramid.   With both Karmic Seals in place, in another Layer this lid opens, giving us access to the Brass Valve.   Right next to it was this Karma lever we made appear last time. Let's switch it.  We could've done this right after we found the Bowl that made the lever appear down here, but I wanted to show what it actually does. Something changed down in the pipe.   The part with the dead-end pipe going down is now flipped, as indicated by the T on the lever.  Up here we find the third Secret sitting on the ground.   To progress, we use the Brass Key we found while exploring Murtaugh's Tomb on the locked gate to the far right of the Temple. Even though this game has a rather complicated map and a lot of backtracking, progression can only happen in the order Mateusz wants you to learn about the story.   More dark caverns.   This looks suspiciously like the other side of the Temple. Let's see if we can make out the ancient lettering...  Nope. No. I won't believe this. It can't be true.   quote:- Why does this sociopath talk only to Elizabeth?   Another cow statue, but this one has a switch. We'll push it right away and continue exploring this Tomb.   RTL Through the arch with Elizabeth's name on it, we find a device on which we can finally use our Brass Sphere. We've been carrying that thing around for two updates, we found it on the first floor of the Pyramid.   This opens up a Karma Portal which takes us to a part of the Pyramid we haven't been to yet - the top (4th) floor which is just two screens wide. It's blue, like the 3rd.  Nothing in the 'air vent'.  But to the right we get the Climbing Rope.  Nothing in this 'air vent' either so let's quickly go back to the Tomb.   To the right is this statue. The game doesn't give any indication to what it is. Could it be Liz, doing science? I guess I can't delay it any longer - let's go look at the sarcophagus.   ELIZABETH, THE MERCIFUL THE HEALER, THE MOTHER I really love the symmetry that's going on here. Let's open it.... crap I never got the second Stone Eye, did I? Time to backtrack, again.  First of all, the switch on the cow statue near Elizabeth's Tomb opens up a hatch in Murtaugh's cow statue, with the fourth Secret.   Remember this device with the rope we saw on the bottom level of the Pyramid? Yeah, the Lever Handle we found one floor higher fits on here. I could've done this a while ago but I completely forgot about this puzzle when I first passed it.   Once we release the rope, some weight pulls it up through the vent. This makes a rope drop in the other room with the same Eye of Horus symbol on the wall, which is one floor up, on floor -2.   Climbing up, we find ourselves in the last unexplored part of the Pyramid, the very right side of the first basement floor. Only took three updates to fully explore this place.   And in the left room, we grab the second Stone Eye from the ...statue? That looks like it has a metal claw? I actually never noticed that before, both Stone Eye statues kinda look like partially-melted robots.  Click for large In case you want to see what the entire Pyramid looks like, here it is.   We can now open the coffin in Elizabeth's Tomb.   And the second Golden Seal is ours.   We use it to activate the machine near the middle.   Which moves the statue to the left, revealing a ladder further into the depths.   It's quite deep. Assuming there's no weird Submachine shenanigans going on, we're quite a ways below the surface now.  We end up in what appears to be another large cavern. Before we find out what this new place is about, let's first get the final Secret.   It's hard to see but we can go left from the place we ended up in, and there's a tile on the roof that points out there's something on the floor in Layer 5.   We bring the Brass Scale up here to this device in the Pyramid.   We can tip it one way or the other. Tipping it to the right gives us access to the hole in Liz's Tomb.  Which is blocked off by sand. We can't do anything here yet.   Tipping it to the left opens up the hole just to the left of Elizabeth's Tomb. This puzzle is for finding a Secret so of course there's nothing in the game explaining this, you'll have to find it by yourself.   In this hole we can push a rod into the wall.   We run all the way back up, tip the scale the other way to close the left hole and re-open the right one. Pushing the rod made a thing fall out of the wall here, together with the last Secret. Now that we got all Secrets we can approach the end-game of Submachine 9.   We use the Brass Valve to remove the only thing keeping us from falling into the depths.   And, because it seems to be a long way down, this is a good place to use our Climbing Rope. I'm going to end this update here, even though it isn't that long yet. We've still got quite a bit to go. Next time, we'll find out what's down there, and we'll see if the reward for collecting all Secrets can shed some light on the mysteries so far. Carbon dioxide fucked around with this message at 15:46 on Apr 9, 2017 |
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Jan 28, 2017 20:12
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The secrets in this game are really difficult to uncover. The missable one is especially mean. Looking forward to seeing what's hiding down below...
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Jan 28, 2017 23:46
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I'm impressed how much of a sense of depth they managed to convey given their tiny viewport.
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Jan 30, 2017 04:28
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Part 26 Submachine 9: The Temple Welcome back! Last time, we climbed down into a deep section of the Temple under the Pyramid, and found yet another cavern. We also got a climbing rope ready so we can climb down. As soon as we climb down, a cutscene starts. I suggest you watch it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MzgRU8c1oag   We're descending past an enormous statue of the god Shiva, who was mentioned in the beginning of this game. ♫ Thumpmonks - Submachine 9 - Shiva  The drumbeat music is unlike anything we've heard so far and gives you a feeling of having found something important. Anyway... we're at the end of the rope, unable to climb back up... and we haven't reached the bottom yet. I'm afraid there's only one way to go and that's a leap of faith.   RTL Luckily, the floor was just off-screen. Let's see what's to our left.   quote:- The greatest mystery and misconception of the doctrine is that Murtaugh gained his powers.   RTL Further to the left, it gets progressively darker, until the game doesn't let us continue. To the right, then.  To the right of the statue, we find another device of some kind. The circle looks like Karma, but we can't do anything with it.   The tile on the right part of these... scales, I suppose, has a tile indicating there's something in Layers 2, 4 and 6. But all the Layers look the same in this screen. Let's explore some more first.   A pillar hinting us to Layer 3, and a dead end on the next screen.   In the third Layer, we find a floating stone slab with a Karma Portal.  Hey... is that... Submachine 5 posted:  Interestingly, this Mover only exists in Layer 3. In all other Layers, there's just a black void, with nothing but a Karma Portal to take you back to the Shiva Section. Pulling the lever reveals the three Wisdom Gems we used to power up this thing in the first place, back in the Root.   We'll grab all three of them and get the gently caress out before this thing falls completely apart. Now, we can solve this Layer puzzle.  Wisdom Gems apparently only exist in one Layer, too. We put one in the device in Layer 2, one in Layer 4, and one in Layer 6.   The other side of the scales opens up, to reveal the Turquoise Button.   Which goes into that annoying hole in the Navigator, which you've probably been wondering about for two games now. The Navigator text now shows eight Layers. But we've been told there's only seven Layers... so what will this button do? Only one way to find out.   Holy crap, this feels weird! That lightning is completely frozen. It just... sits there. Let's look around this strange Layer.   More frozen lightning on the right side.  Going left, it seems to be coming from this Karma device.   RTL And it seems to really like Shiva's foot.   RTL Just going towards the white light...   RTL The lightning lets us continue into the darkness. If you jump back to another Layer from here, you're just stuck in a black void, until you jump back to Layer Eight.   RTL Seems we reached the end of the line. The only thing left to do is to click the knob.    After some hard to describe eerie sounds play, the game ends.  But we aren't quite done yet! We still have to get our reward for finding the Secrets.   Jumping right back into the game, we find ourselves in the Temple, above the ladder towards the Shiva statue. But it looks like the way down is blocked off. By the way, according to the wiki, Mateusz has said in a forum post way back, that the red sand isn't actually sand. It's a sort of solid, some kind of ancient resin that is slowly taking over parts of the Submachine. We're in a post-game state now. We can now explore the eighth Layer in the Temple and Pyramid, because we keep the completed Navigator. However, in most rooms, the eighth Layer looks exactly like all others, no frozen lightning or anything. There are a few exceptions, mostly in rooms that already had Layer puzzles in them.   In this screen in the Pyramid, where we assembled the Karmic Seals to get the Brass Valve we needed to finish the game, we find another Brass Key in Layer 8. Looks like the lightning is coming through that specific hole in the floor.   Remember the room in the red area of the Pyramid that had a different pillar or pedestal in each Layer? Layer 8 is the only one in which there's nothing there at all. (It's the same room, we opened the left wall at some point.)   Then, there's one more place. This was the room that had a tile with IIIIIII on it. Now it's been updated to show that yes, there's nothing in the seven first Layers, because the secret is in the eighth. The cracked wall is gone, and we can go into a back room now.   Here we need the Brass Key we just picked up, to get to another Karma Portal. ♫ Thumpmonks - Submachine 4 - Bonus Area   RTL Hell yeah! I've missed that music. It's been a while since we last heard it. This is Nataraja, a common depiction of Shiva where he is dancing.   We have to put the 5 Secrets in his 'outer' hands one by one, every time you put one in, another hand opens. After the fourth, a small lid opens on his headgear, where the final Secret goes. Once you put in all 5 Secrets, five Karma Portals open up. Let's visit them in what I feel is a logical order.   Each portal leads to a single room with a secret Note. 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. But apparently, that was because his powers prevented him from 'seeing' people. These two Notes tell us that at some point he saw what he had done, repented, and started trying to fix things. I wonder what more we'll learn about him in Submachine 10.   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. And tacked on to that, a message about how we the player finally understand enough of the Submachine to be able to leave it entirely. We aren't quite there yet, though. For now, let's just get out of the Temple.   RTL There's one more screen to the left of the statue.  Which we can use to get back to the main menu - not that there's anything new there. In any case, that was that. Next time, let us find some more answers in Submachine 10: The Exit. Carbon dioxide fucked around with this message at 15:44 on Apr 9, 2017 |
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Feb 4, 2017 14:10
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In other news, last week a new big update for Submachine Universe, the large open-world Submachine exploration 'game' dropped, version 4.0. There are some significant changes: - Mateusz has released it as a downloadable game in his Submachine HD engine. This gets rid of the horrible loading times the Flash version of this game had. This HD Submachine Universe is and will continue to be completely free. - He has added new content and will continue doing so for the forseeable future. You can download it for Windows and Mac OSX here. I am not going to letsplay Universe, but I will talk about it a bit at the end of this LP.
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Feb 4, 2017 14:15
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Oh no, just what I needed: to be sucked into Universe again.  I've always loved how the games intertwine. Taking the portal to the mover with the wisdom gems is completely unexpected but such a cool little callback. That said, how did one of those portals get there to begin with? In fact, there did they all come from? Should we assume Murtaugh's been making them? But isn't he dead? If so, were they all placed preemptively so that we'd be able to follow? When you start thinking about the questions in this game, you realize five more pop into your head. I'd better leave it there for now.
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Feb 4, 2017 17:00
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 Some more news In preparation for Submachine 10, I've reached out to Mateusz Skutnik, the developer and designer of the series. I asked him if he would be okay with answering some questions asked by the readers of my LP. He told me to get back to him with questions once I finished Submachine 10, and then he'll decide if he'll go through with it. So, no promises. But we the thread will try it anyway! With one update a week, it'll take at least a month before I finish Submachine 10. During that time, please post any questions you might want to ask Mateusz in the thread - or if they are spoilery, PM them to me. Ask as many questions as you like, I'll collect them and let Mateusz decide which ones he wants to answer. And that also means you, reader who usually doesn't post!
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Feb 4, 2017 18:15
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Hmm. Well, if it's a question, I have to ask; what's the most interesting urbex-related thing you've found that you couldn't fit into Submachine?
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Feb 5, 2017 06:01
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Here's a question: Why use hindu and buddhist theming? Karma portals, Shiva...is it just for flavor? Oh, also: if you could redo any section of any game in the series, which would it be and why?
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Feb 5, 2017 08:38
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Carbon dioxide posted:Hey folks, Remember when I said that Submachine 9 was the largest Submachine yet? Well, those 400 images corresponded to about 35 minutes of raw video (after practice runs so I knew the route). I just finished recording the raw video for Submachine 10. It is nearly 2 hours long. To keep a balance with the other activities in my life I tend to spend no more than a few hours per week on this LP, so hopefully I can capture all the screenshots next week and get the first update out the week after. E: Also, feel free to keep sending in questions for Mateusz! I'll collect them and send them to him as the LP comes to an end.
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Feb 26, 2017 19:52
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Carbon dioxide posted:E: Also, feel free to keep sending in questions for Mateusz! I'll collect them and send them to him as the LP comes to an end. While I doubt this will get a straight answer, I may as well ask: What is the exact chain of events and circumstances behind the Submachine(s), how did everything happen, why did they happen, what are the Submachine(s), and what was actually going on throughout the games? For a more likely to get a response question... If you could go back and change one thing about each Submachine game, what would it be (if there are any)? Did your vision on what was going on and what you planned to have happen change over the course of creating the games?
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Mar 3, 2017 14:15
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Part 27 Submachine 10: The Exit  Click here to play the game yourself. It's time for the final game in the main series. This one was released in December 2015, which was actually only a month before I started this LP. It feels like ages ago. Memory is a strange thing.  Let's get this show started. The game starts with the strange device we found in the Layer of Light at the end of the last game.  Clicking on it reveals it's a kind of portal, taking us on a trip down memory lane. ♫ Thumpmonks - Submachine 10 - Containment   Shiva drops us off in this area, the Northern Garden Docks.  Two things of note in this first screen: the floaty stones in a radial pattern that look like they should house a Karma Portal only reveal a small blue dot if you bring your mouse near. It doesn't seem to do anything. And any floating rocks can be pushed around by the mouse in this game. It's hard to control and doesn't actually have a use, but it's a neat little detail.   Time to explore. Be warned: this game is as large as several previous games combined. This LP is still quite far from done.   There's a screen on the stand in the middle:  quote:We the King welcome you in Northern Garden docks.   There seems to be something anchored here. This place isn't quite a sea dock. By the way, the screen on the stand next to the anchor has the same message from the king, but the stand to the right is different.  quote:Power source.   Up here we grab the Light Sphere, which we'll need shortly.  The cables go down the hole, but the device here doesn't seem to do anything yet.   To the right, another blue dot, and a stand that takes our Light Sphere.  When we click on it, we discover another convenient way of travel.     We take the stairs and explore the right side first. This room has a docking schedule on the wall, and a very convenient item, the Backpack.  This game still has the 10-item inventory limit, but there's so many items and so many ways to go through this game that more often than not you'll hit the limit. The Backpack gives you 36 additional inventory spaces. An optional item, but one you really don't want to go without.   Further to the right, some kind of pod and then a strange vending machine.  quote:Please enter ship ID number  The stairs going down from the pod lead to nowhere.   The left side of the upper floor has these levers. Only one can be down at a time. After playing around with them for a bit, I decide to pull down the leftmost lever and go outside to see what has changed.   Ah, the ladder moved to the leftmost dock. There's nothing up here though.   We need to move it to dock 3, the one with the anchor.   Up here we find a very old looking ship. It's dark inside, but we can see enough to pry something off the wall.   Conveniently, it's the Ship ID Number. Having no other options, we take it straight to the vending machine inside the building.   We get a Bottle Fuse, which goes in the underground device. We've barely started the game, and already we're running around like crazy carrying items everywhere.   Anyway, with the Bottle Fuse in the power source, we can power up the cables and also the ship.   RTL Now we can more fully explore the Captain's Ship, as it's called. This place is dirty, covered in weird moss and there's rust everywhere. I hope it doesn't collapse under our feet.   To the left and up the ladder, let's stop at the first landing.   RTL The telephone has a tiny animation of the dial turning, but it's so rusty it doesn't do anything anymore.   The three levers just show the axes when you look through the scope. Apparently this is a reference to the Mover in Submachine 5, which also had a scope with x, y and z axes. I actually didn't know that was in there when I played Sub5.   Anyway, climbing to the top of the ladder, there's another sort of control room.  We pick up the Door Valve here and backtrack to the ship's entrance.   To the right, we immediately run into another fork in the path. Well, let's go up first.   RTL  quote:Insert captain's ID card.  The leftmost room just has a red light. Let's return to the fork and explore the right side of the ship now.   drat... I thought there was a dead guy in there, but it's just a suit. Phew.   RTL We come up in another part of the ship.  It's incredibly helpful to notice and grab the Ladder Piston here right away. Otherwise you'll just get stuck later and have to explore everywhere to find the missing item.   To the right, we use the Door Valve on the hatch and climb through.    At the end of the long tube we find a working Karma Portal. Let's get out of this dirty ship! ♫ Thumpmonks - Submachine 10 - Mettle   We appear at a rooftop in a completely different place. One of these days we're gonna fall to our death when leaving some misplaced Karma Portal...   Climbing further down, we find ourselves on what seems to be another roof. Removing the lid and dropping the ladder down lets us continue.   Welcome to the Angel Ruins. Peeking into the hole at the bottom, we find the first Secret in plain sight. We just don't have any way to reach it... This game has 10 Secrets, but it'll be a while before we can get most of them.   We open up the door and climb down the stairs, where we're greeted by a statue of St. Cristopher, the patron saint of travellers. Appropriate. But it's kinda strange to run into imagery of yet another religion in Submachine.  To the left we find a door that's closed shut and a strange machine.   To the right we find something that vaguely looks like a Portal from The Lab. We'll get back to that in a second. Further on, St. Alexius of Rome, another patron saint of pilgrims and travellers.   Further to the right, we find something interesting in the pod. It's a disabled Sub-Bot. Sub-Bots are otherwise referenced in Submachine Universe and in forum posts by Mateusz. They are maintenance bots created by the Subnet, that travel through Portals fixing things. In fact, there's evidence that the oldest Portals were created for Sub-Bot travel, not for humans.   Further to the right, it looks like the world has been falling apart. It's not obvious but we can climb down the wooden structure in the left screen.   RTL Where we find a ladder that takes us even further down.   RTL At the end of the line, we find a device that seems to be missing several parts.   So, what about that Portal device? Well, this is what's known as a Binary Portal. You can read the three top buttons as a binary number. Our current location, the Angel Ruins, are at binary coordinates OOO. In this game, all eight 3-bit coordinates are valid. So this is where the game opens up wide, and gets difficult. There's suddenly so many places where you can go, and of course you have to go to one place to collect items or hints to solve puzzles in another place. If you don't know what you're doing - and even if you do - it's easy to lose track.  So, join me next time as we get into the actual meat of this game. Carbon dioxide fucked around with this message at 15:43 on Apr 9, 2017 |
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Mar 12, 2017 21:07
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Well, things may be getting really interesting here. We are closing in to the exit, that called to us from first or second game, but was a lie there. But are we closing in to the answers?
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Mar 12, 2017 21:40
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The Binary portal device is a really cool addition even if it's not much more than a simple warp. I really liked using the Portal device in Sub4, 5 and Universe. It was a really cool feeling to slowly discover new locations as you go. The feeling isn't completely replicated here but it comes close at times. This entry is extremely long but is super interesting as a culmination. As someone who played the games for years it hits a lot of the right notes for me. We're in the home stretch now.
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Mar 12, 2017 22:45
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I imagine the Christian imagery showed up because it's not urbex if there's not a tumbled-down church here and there.
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Mar 14, 2017 04:09
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A couple questions I'd like to ask Mateusz: Is there a conventional Earth like the one that we know, or has humanity in the Submachine series been living adrift in these strange, floating worlds of the submachines forever? Did you ever sketch official character art for some of the characters like Mur and Elizabeth? Did the submachines exist before humans? If so, then were the submachines ever meant for a different non-human civilization?
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Mar 15, 2017 07:18
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Part 28 Submachine 10: The Exit Welcome back! Last time we explored the entrance areas of Submachine 10: the Northern Garden Docks, the Captain's Ship and the Angel Ruins, where we found the Binary Portal which gives us access to many other areas. The Angel Ruins, our current location, is at Binary Portal OOO.   Our first stop is portal IOO, the Royal Storage Facilities. We're on some pillar, and when we start climbing down, it turns out to be quite tall. ♫ Thumpmonks - Submachine 10 - Woozy   RTL To the left, there's just another pillar.  Except, this one leads nowhere. Let's go further left.   Ah, one of the actual storage facilities.   The hatch further to the left is the entrance to Storage unit 32/1. But before we enter it, let's see what's left of here.   quote:Caution.   RTL It's hard to depict in screenshots, but this place loops. Go further left from the pod and you find yourself on the right screen again. The only escape is going back to the right.   Similarly, the ladder down also loops between these two screens. At least you're never more than two steps away from a normal part of the world.   This is Storage unit 32/1. See the 'arms' on the bottom of the left screen? Those are good to recognize because they denote the exit. All of the Storage units have a gimmick: they 'loop'. Similarly to Submachine 3, you can keep going in any direction forever and you'll keep finding similar rooms. But what's different is that every Storage unit only has a small number of unique rooms, so you'll quickly see old rooms again. Keep going in one direction and you'll find the exit again before you know it.   The room we ended up in has a Karma Fuse, and the one after that has another item lying on the ground. There is a method to the madness in that every Storage unit has a specific way the rooms connect and loop. It can be figured out by a methodical walk through a Storage unit. If you do so and take your time, you can find each room easily. If not, you can get stuck here for hours getting incredibly annoyed because you're not finding the items you need.   We pick up the Vector Finder, and in the next unique room we find a machine on the wall. In this first Storage unit, the way the rooms are connected are, as far as I can tell, completely random. Just pick any direction and keep going until you find all the rooms. In a way, this is the most annoying Storage unit, because if you don't know exactly what you need to find here, you may exit before finding all 5 rooms.  By the way, did anyone notice that Secret sitting next to the lamp over the right door?   The final room has a device that takes our Karma Fuse. Let's find the exit and get out of here for now.   To the right of the Binary Portal, we find the other, larger part of the Storage Facilities.   This is Storage Facility 33, and our first stop is down the non-looping ladder.   As storage unit 33/1 is hidden down here.   The gimmick here is rather simple. There are only three rooms, and regardless of the direction you pick, leaving room 1 takes you to room 2, leaving room 2 takes you to 3, and leaving 3 takes you back to 1.  The second room has a Loop Stabilizer hidden in it.   And the third has another Karma Fuse. Let's see if we can find the others, and then put them in the machine back in 32/1.   Up the ladder and to the right, we find Storage unit 33/2.   RTL Another gimmick that's very simple to explain but can take surprisingly long to figure out. From the entrance, every exit leads to an unique room. From all other rooms, every exit leads to the entrance room. So, including the entrance, there are 5 rooms in total.  The thing on the wall to the left seems to be inactive. But our Loop Stabilizer fits into one of the slots. If you guessed we need to find three more, you're correct. Well done.   The room to the right of the entrance has another Karma Fuse, while the room to the bottom has nothing of interest.  On top we find a disabled Sub-Bot that seems to be in reasonable condition. By the way, it took me a while to find everything in these annoying looping sections, and taking screenshots gets annoying too if you have no idea if you visited a room before or not. It might look like a smooth exploration in the LP, but believe me when I say it really isn't.   Outside and to the right, we find Storage unit 33/3.   Now this is where things get complicated. This unit has 9 unique rooms. That makes it incredibly easy to lose track of where you are. The room to the right of the entrance has a strange machine. It doesn't do anything yet.  Okay, so the simplest way to understand the gimmick of this place is to imagine a 5 by 5 room cross. The entrance is in the middle, and you can walk 2 screens in any direction without looping. This screen with the switch that doesn't work yet is to the right of the last screen we were in. If I walk off the end of the cross, so I go further right here, I loop back to the entrance.   To the 'south' of the entrance, some more rusty devices that don't do anything yet. When you step off the end of the cross, you appear at the entrance. However, when you step off the side of one of the cross arms, you appear in the room that is directly connected to the entrance on that side. For instance, if I go to the right here, while I'm in the downward arm, I end up in the room with the large machine to the right of the entrance.   RTL To the left from the entrance, we find a device with a knob that actually does work, and a Note next to the dead Sub-Bot.  quote:- So how did he escape after all? ...The Lighthouse, huh? Why couldn't we escape from there when we were there back in Submachine 2?   Anyway, we leave the knob in the single-dot position and go up from the entrance. Now the wall switch marked with a single dot has a green light, meaning we can flip it.   The top room has nothing of use. Anyway, did my explanation of the gimmick sound complicated? Believe me, if you don't know it or don't have a map, it's easy to get lost here. All rooms look alike and you also have to keep track of that switch puzzle.  The good news is that flipping that last switch turned a light green in the bottom room.   We turn the knob into the two position and flip the two-dotted switch.   And once more with feeling for the third switch.  My feeling at this point was "let's get the prize and let's get the hell out", but the machine still isn't activated.   We first have to return the knob to point down, and then the device opens.  We grab the 2nd Loop Stabilizer from it and get out.   Outside, on top of the ladder, we find the final Storage unit we can access, 33/4.   RTL This unit has the most devious layout yet. Like the last one, it has 9 unique rooms, and like the last one, there's a stable path you can take to get to every room. However, if you step off the path you appear right back at the entrance. The room to the left of the entrance has nothing of interest.   RTL There are two more 'stable' rooms to the left of that. One of them has another Karma Fuse. Because things weren't complex enough yet, going up from the entrance takes you to the same room as when you go left from the entrance (the one we just saw, with the big microphone), and going down from the entrance takes you to the same room as going right. So, from the entrance you can really only reach two rooms directly.   These are the two rooms just to the right of the entrance. The wall device doesn't do anything yet. From the entrance, you can go three rooms left and three rooms right. That makes up a total of 7 rooms.    In the room to the far right, we pick up a Picture with a symbol on it. The room also has the Long Stick, which we'll need later. So where are the two final rooms? Yeah, those are the real problem here.   This one is found by, starting from the entrance, going left exactly twice, then going up. We flip the switch right away.   This other one is found by, starting from the entrance, going right exactly twice, then going down. The problem with these is that they're the only rooms in any of the Storage units that cannot be found by just going straight into every direction from the entrance. If you don't know the layout, you'll need to try every single direction from every single room to find them. That can take a while. And it would be easy to overthink it and assume you need to do some complicated back-and-forth sequence to find the rooms at all. In any case, as you can see in the right picture, flipping both switches turns the lights on this wall device (right of the entrance) green.   We grab another Loop Stabilizer and get the hell out of here.   To the right of the Storage Facility, we find another temporal anomaly warning. Let's take a look at the place anyway, for completion's sake.   Just two repeating screens, with nothing in them. But, we found enough items to solve a few puzzles, so let's go do that.   We found three more Karma Fuses, so we'll put those into the device in 32/1, the Storage unit to the far left. We can now flip the switch in the middle.   This opens up a little hatch in another room, where we find the final Loop Stabilizer.   The three Loop Stabilizers complete and activate the device in 33/2.  Which actually opens up a Karma Portal. I happen to know that right now there's nothing we can do in the place beyond that Karma Portal. And it's also a place where I really don't like to go, so let's postpone that and go elsewhere first.  Next time, when we'll start by exploring the region of Binary Portal OIO. Carbon dioxide fucked around with this message at 18:13 on May 26, 2017 |
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Mar 19, 2017 22:30
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These looping traps were so difficult to work with. I was also unaware that the majority of their puzzles could be solved without going to other zones, so I found myself coming back here multiple times with more items to try and solve things. Blindly stumbling upon new rooms was a challenge since I wasn't aware most of them had patterns to follow.
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Mar 19, 2017 23:03
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I don't like the Royal Storage Area because it really is a pain in the rear end to navigate without a thorough understanding of the looping mechanics. On the other hand, it's connected to (what I believe is) the Submachine series's last glorious "gently caress You" to the player, which is hilarious even though I got trolled by it the first time I played Sub10.
ArchWizard fucked around with this message at 00:04 on Mar 20, 2017 |
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Mar 19, 2017 23:38
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That was all one subdimension? Holy crap this game is huge.
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Mar 21, 2017 04:06
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This is why I'm grateful to Carbon Dioxide for lp'ing this game, because I'm terrible at puzzle games.
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Mar 21, 2017 06:52
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Either tindeck is broken again, or they have deleted all my soundtrack uploads. Either way, none of the music links work right now. For the upcoming updates I'll just use lpix for the soundtrack. I'll leave the old ones be for now, I'll see if I have to do something about them later. E: It's just broken again, tindeck.com is down entirely now. Carbon dioxide fucked around with this message at 11:44 on Mar 25, 2017 |
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Mar 25, 2017 11:27
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Seems to be working again. Just checked my old uploads and one of yours. If you're worried about Tindeck's stability, I can recommend Clyp as a service. I've moved all my audio hosting over to there and there's no 100-upload limit like with tindeck.
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Mar 25, 2017 16:00
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Part 29 Submachine 10: The Exit Last time, we explored the rather annoying Royal Storage Facilities. I hope we can make some more progress this time and visit more than one area. Let's start by jumping to OIO. ♫ Thumpmonks - Submachine 10 - Radiator   RTL In any case, this new area is called the Resin Mine, and the first thing we find is this huge drill, which went straight through the floor tiles. ... And no, I do not know why the music tracks have these rather unusual titles.   RTL We can release one of the drill clamps, but for the other, the handle is missing.  quote:Release both drill clamps before operating the drill.   The other Drill Clamp handle isn't far, it's in the pile of resin blocking our way further left.   RTL We attach it, release the clamp, and now we can pull the lever on the left.   This turns the lamp green, meaning we can pull the handle to move the drill out of the hole. Before we climb down, I realized we can't go much further without exploring to the right of the entrance Portal as well.   Where we find another hole. Lots of resin in this Resin Mine, isn't there?   At the bottom of the shaft we grab the Range Confirmator.   quote:Power all range confirmators before operating the hatch. This game has a handful of direct written hints such as this one, some more necessary than others. I think Submachine has been moving away from those as the series went on, but with a game as complex as this, I suppose it's a welcome compromise.   Back to the big-rear end drill. Down here there's a weird circular light effect.  The cause is in this side shaft, an already enabled Range Confirmator. That would be the first green light.   Climbing down further, I once again find myself wondering who made these tunnels and for what reason. It looks human-made instead of it being a part of the Submachine's plan.   To the left we find a Range Confirmator socket for the one we're holding. There's also a hatch that won't open.   The circular light effect now appears here, as well.  Above the right hatch, we find the third Range Confirmator socket already.   This hatch has a handle with which we can open it, so let's go on.   We're completely blocked from going further, but at least we find a Air Lock Handle.   RTL This lets us open the hatch on the left, where we find the final Range Confirmator.   We can crawl a bit further left, where we find a hard to see, easy to miss Picture. Believe me, having to go search for this later on because you missed it is not fun.  It has a symbol, similar to the one we found in the Storage unit.  We place the Range Confirmator, backtrack out of the drill shaft, into the other hole, where we can now pull the handle.   The cable is released and then locked into another position.   The large hatch on the other side has opened, and we find a Karma Portal. A second area done, luckily not all areas are as big as the Storage Facilities. Anyway, let's take the leap this time.   Recognize this place?  If not, the name of this track will help. ♫ Thumpmonks - Submachine 10 - Submachine 4 Redux   It is with great pleasure that I welcome you back to the Rooftop of The Lab. The ladder to the Attic is broken, and the background is completely black now, but it's the same old Lab. As we grab the Force Field Plasma Canister for our inventory, the forcefield turns off, letting us continue.   The window here still has a metal plate bolted to it, but someone put a Light Sphere transporter here.   Inside, this seems to be another part of the Lab's Research Base. Another one of those Sub-Bot pod things, and to the right a ladder, and a Note.  quote:- I've found my grave today. A proper tomb, in fact...   RTL Down the ladder, we find the broken Sub-Bot, and a Ladder Step on the chair, which we'll take.   To the right we find some wall device that tries to scan us.   quote:Exploration teams and restoration staff only. We'll have to come back later.   For now, we'll backtrack through the Resin Mine, to go a new Portal destination, OOI. ♫ Thumpmonks - Submachine 10 - Kill Catch   RTL This is the Iron Pyramid, and once again we start by going left. That thing on the wall doesn't do anything in its current state.   The only way is down.   To the far left, there's this Anubis head. Clicking on it makes it turn.  And then makes you teleport to another Anubis head with a wall on the right. We won't explore this area just yet, instead we will take the Anubis teleport back to the left wall.  This device is to the right of the lower end of the ladder. We can't use it yet. This is all there's to see on the left side of the Portal.   To the right from the Portal, there's this ladder going both up and down. To the top of the ladder, another Picture.  This one has two symbols - hieroglyphics? - on it.   Going left from the top of the ladder that's to the right of the Portal takes us to this other ladder. Are you still following? This place isn't too big but it has a bunch of very similar rooms.  Anyway, here at the very top of the Pyramid we find another picture, more hieroglyphics.  To the left of THAT ladder, there's just this box.  Where were we? Ah yes, the ladder to the right of the Portal. To the right of that is this thing with hieroglyphics on it.  We got two Pictures, with two hieroglyphics each. Both of them have a bird on it, and the four symbols on each of the cubes are unique. I turned them so the bottom two match one of the Pictures, and the middle two match another. We'll just need another hint for the top symbol to solve this puzzle.   Taking the ladder all the way down, we find another wall device similar to the one next to the Portal. It's similarly useless.  And at the end of this corridor, there's the Anubis head we teleported to before. Yeah, those are just a quick way to go from one side of the Pyramid to the other. They can be confusing for a moment if you think they bring you to a separated part of the Pyramid, but they're harmless otherwise.  That's the Iron Pyramid done for now. Shall we explore one more location today? Yeah, why not. IIO it is. ♫ Thumpmonks - Submachine 10 - Extranet   RTL This area is known as the Karma Studies Facility, and you'll find out why soon enough. For some reason, when I was recording this, I apparently had a surprising fondness for going left.   To the far left, the building is crumbled. But we can use the Force Field Plasma Canister to create, well, a light bridge.  Doesn't take us anywhere useful, though. Let's instead take a look behind the door we just passed.   In this study there's a Note, and there's nothing useful hidden in the cubbyholes.   quote:- We're in a loop.   And on the other side of the room is the telescope. The view is strange - why would there be green dots out in the void? But if the note is trying to say the microscopic world in this place is the same as the macroscopic world, it doesn't really work because the patterns are completely different.   Downstairs, yet another Sub-Bot, and hidden quite well under the stairs, a Triple A Battery. Which will turn out to be a surprisingly important item. It's always funny how in puzzle adventure games, the most innocuous things always turn out to be important.   To the right, we find a second Vector Finder. I also enjoy opening the little doors on the Sub-Bot pods whenever I can, even though that serves no purpose whatsoever.   That's it for the left side. To the right of the Portal, the first thing is another door.   I... just need to move... some stuff out of... the way.   Much better. So what kind of experiment is going on in here?  Okay, some dots under the microscope.   We put the Karma light on... and now the dots form a dense cluster. Interesting. Further experimentation shows that turning the light off makes the dots scatter again.   To the left is another door which leads to yet another corridor.   In the back room, we find another device like the one back in the Storage unit. It's similarly inactive.   To the left, we find a third Vector Finder in the cabinet. Perhaps there's an even better prize behind door number two?  Oh.  The magnifying glass (does this thing have Karma in it?) just gives us a close up of the human skull behind the dish, in case you were interested in seeing that.   Back to the front of the building, what's left is the area further right.  Instead of taking the stairs, you can sidle along the wall to go to this dead end.   There's another part of this Facility behind the door downstairs.  Ooh, so many choices. Let's go left first.   quote:Dear Murtaugh.   RTL The door to the back on this side takes us to this room, where we can't do anything for the moment.   Skipping the middle door, there's one more to the right.   It takes us to this interesting device. First, let's grab the fourth Vector Finder from the floor.   Secondly, we discover that the Karma in this device seems to 'heal' the shattered piece of wall. We know that Karma, especially the Karma Portals, can destroy things, so this is quite the finding.   Finally, behind the middle door is one of those Karma Portal devices. It's not active, but there's a bunch of Vector Finders in the things on the floor. We'll plug ours in as well.   Crap, we're one short, to the back left. Well, that means we'll just have to come back once we find it. See you next time, when we'll take the Portal to new and exciting places. Carbon dioxide fucked around with this message at 15:38 on Apr 9, 2017 |
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Mar 25, 2017 18:54
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Lets see if we can start a new page before your next update, the sheer amount of images at present is staggering.
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Mar 26, 2017 01:13
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Yeah, sounds like a good idea. There's still a few posts to go, but I think I left you a few things to discuss in the latest update, and otherwise you can still send in questions for Mateusz.
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Mar 26, 2017 08:28
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Honestly, we already knew that there's some intelligence inside Submachine. The fact it's Karma-powered just gives more power to it. Time travel, on the other hand, raises further questions. Like, had we travelled in time, accidentally? How exactly it's mechanic works? Have we had already escaped? Will there be time-travel themed Submachine?
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Mar 26, 2017 09:28
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Im not sure why but this town area was one of my favourite area's in this game. Maybe because it was nice to see a more normalised area compared to everything else?
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Mar 26, 2017 14:09
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Does leaving the light on in the microscope change anything in the telescope view?
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Mar 27, 2017 03:32
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I don't remember the microscope or petri dish actually being involved in anything, though I could be misremembering. That AAA battery is stupidly hard to notice by the way. It's so tiny and is mixed in with a bunch of other mess.
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Mar 27, 2017 03:46
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Delvio posted:Does leaving the light on in the microscope change anything in the telescope view? The microscope with the green pixels doesn't have a light. The one with the dots that are forced to the center by the karma light has no effect on the telescope or the other microscope. FPzero posted:I don't remember the microscope or petri dish actually being involved in anything, though I could be misremembering. You are right. I guess the dots on the petri dish are just an early version of the 'healing wall' experiment on the other side.
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Mar 27, 2017 07:25
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Yeah, it seems to me that the Submachine net having its own intelligence was obvious a while back. When we had reached the core of the net, there were turrets set up to shoot any 'invaders' (humans) that tried to pass, so whatever the submachine net is, it's not being ran by humans, so an AI is responsible. My question is whether it was always like that however. Is this world just a world first created by an AI, and humans happen to be living in it? Also the implication that what could be seen in the sky and a microscope being recursively linked/looped together is kinda horrifying. I don't think I want to live in the Submachine Series... 
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Mar 27, 2017 08:11
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I like referring to the Submachine as a whole as an organism. It's not a robot or a mech or a machine any more, it's a living thing that probably doesn't even notice us. Like how I'm not terribly hostile to bacteria myself, but my white blood cells sure as gently caress are.
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Mar 27, 2017 19:19
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That's got to be weird, seeing your future mummified body. Anyway, it seems that the submachine is healing itself from the damage that Mur caused with his Karma portals, so it should be able to heal from all of the other damage the player has caused it.
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Mar 27, 2017 19:38
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The submachine's been hinted to be alive for a while now, if it wasn't outright stated in some of the other games. It's been expanding and changing in unexpected ways. But the thought that it's sentient is much more unsettling.
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Mar 28, 2017 00:03
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How have we seen Karma interact with other objects, anyhow?
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Mar 28, 2017 05:48
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Well Karma can make portals, as well as break and apparently repair things. And #9 was all about using that Karmic Water to create structures and objects to use. It basically does whatever the plot requires it to do.
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Mar 28, 2017 06:20
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| # ? May 16, 2024 10:40 |
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This game really, really gets the whole "exploring an abandoned, weird, somewhat human but just a touch incomprehensible environment" thing down. It reminds me of Zork Nemesis a bit, actually.
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Mar 29, 2017 13:38
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