Myst V: End of Ages Demo (Mac/PC) Walkthrough v0.6 by Robert Kosten 30.08.2005 CHANGES: v0.6: Added conversion image URLs. v0.5: Added note about retreating from the slate, expanded on the symbols, etc. v0.4: Corrected stupid error in naming Arab number "roman" *prft*. v0.3: Clarified rotating stones. v0.2: Corrected mistake in D'ni-B to Bahro conversion. INTRODUCTION This is a quick writeup on the necessary steps to fully complete the demo for Myst V. If I missed anything (or the Mac Version differs!), please email me at: me@robertkosten.de HINTS I've always liked walkthrough to contain a hints section, so I could quickly look up how to solve a puzzle by getting stronger and stronger hints, so here it is: Q: What do I do with the slate? What to do at the beach tent with the holes in the roof? - There's a similar slate below the tent. - Try drawing that onto your slate. - Drop it on the ground and step away (rather far, the Bahro are shy). - If the Bahro just shakes his head, you might have that upside down. - The rain, it falls through the holes in the tent! - The bowls fill up, will they spill over? - Look, four mirrors! - II, ((II)), # & (#) Q: How do I get "upstairs"? - Need a ladder, eh? - Look in the area with the drying fish. - The cliff features a rope here... - Pull it. Q: What to do at the big rock? - Have a look inside. - Compare what you see to your window. - Think "decoder ring". - Each window offers a translation from D'ni-B (the round symbols) to Bahro (the strange/mixed symbols) and vice versa. - Leave only one window open run to the other side of the rock and peek in. - If you have, say four symbols in D'ni-B, you could translate them to four symbols in Bahro. II="two rows of three dots" ((II))="power symbol" #="three lines" (#)="two vertical + one horizontal" Q: What to do at the small rotateable rocks? - Rotate them? - Set them to the "correct" "values"? - They have a mark on the lower half, facing away from the big rock, turn the upper half, so that the "correct" symbol rests directly above it. - Starting from the ladder, enter counterclockwise: "two rows of three dots", "power symbol", "three lines" and "two vertical + one horizontal". Q: What next? - Climb back down and have a good look in your immediate surrounding. - There's a hidden cave entrance nearby. - It's to the righ of the ladder, if facing the cliff. Q: Any easter eggs? - Yep. - Draw the representation of this ages puzzle on the slate. - It's a big circle with four smaller ones around. - Let the Bahro do its thing. - Use the bubble and link to the new location. WALKTHROUGH After starting the game you might want to check the configuration first, as not all settings are saved to disk, some might require a restart etc. Settings and exit (as well as a journal recording all speeches) are drop-down icons on the top of the screen, similar to Uru's, which were at the bottom instead. You start in Direbo, apparently the "hub" age of Myst V. If you turn a round immediately you can explore a little before triggering the first speech/cut- scene, but there's enough time afterwards anyway, so make a few steps toward the bubble and listen to Esher's first speech (Notice a. how he seems a bit out of place here, this scene will probably not be in the final game, but is only here as introduction to the demo, b. that he uses a piece of cloth on his shoulder to link, bearing the symbol of the watcher, as known from Uru, and c. the way he pronounces "D'ni", quite unusual). After he left you can have an undisurbed look at Direbo. The bridges are closed and the gates can only be operated from one side, by pressing the blue button on the pedestral to the left of each gate. If you have seen enough enter the one accessible bubble an pick up the stone slate (Using it in Direbo has an effect on Noloben, they seem to be coded to a specific age, which explains the four slates that can be seen in concept art and screenshots). Now use the small "button/icon" on the left, beneath where the slate was and you'll be linked to Noloben. Esher is at the beach to your right, go over and listen to his second speech. Further along the beach is a small tent-like construction, featuring four holes in the roof, four small bowls arranged around a big stone and finally something similar to the slate tucked below the whole thing. Bring up you slate and copy the design onto it (be careful, it's upside down!), put the slate to the ground and step away from it (rather far, the Bahro are shy). A Bahro will appear and, if you did it correctly, cause rain (Speculation has it he just moves you a quantum step to a version of Noloben where it rains currently...), so the design was three falling raindrops! (You won't have to redraw any successful symbol, they're saved on the slate in one of four slots) If you do it wrong the Bahro will shake his(?) head and leave, sometimes taking the slate with him. Make sure to step away from the bubble then, because he wants to bring it there... Some symbols are rumored to cause him to scream (the "power symbol" is cited very often, but I was not able to cause that yet) or even sing, but those appear hard to replicate (Probably the way one person draws them is similar to the "right" symbol, from the recognition algorithms point of view...) The rains pours through the holes in the roof of the tent, filling the bowls. Wait till the rain stops and look at the reflections in the water, they clearly mark four symbols from the D'ni-B numbering scheme (see Appendix), which you couldn't have isolated from all that graffiti otherwise. They are, clockwise from top left: 4:#, 12:((II)), 2:II & 9:(#) Notice the "shadows" these bowls and the middle stone have. That helps with orientation later! Optionally you can now continue along the beach to the right and follow through a tunnel, which leads to stretch of beach otherwise inaccessible. Here you can actually enter the water to reach another island, featuring a kind of door, which is closed and won't open in this demo (We can still get inside, see at the end of this walkthrough). On it a tree with a few familiar symbols can be seen. Return to the bubble and place the slate inside, as you can't carry it with you now anyway and just dropping it to the floor empty causes some bugs when picking it back up later, in my experience. Continue to the left of the beach, where a destroyed boat, some drying fishes, etc. can be seen and have a hard look at the cliff, there's something atop it and a rope dangling down next to that. Also notice the hidden cave entrance a bit to the right of that rope, you'll need it later. Pull the rope and a rope- ladder descends (Would be hard to carry a stone slate up there, right?). Climb up. On top you'll see a big rock surrounded by four small ones with movable tops. (The holes in the ground you can see are either from snakes or air-vents, don't bother) The big rock is probably the hut talked about in Uru and it acts as a decoder ring between the D'ni-B numbers from the reflections and the Bahro numbers that can be found on the four rotating stones, simply open a single window and peer through another on the other side of the rock. The symbol above the "lit" window is the D'ni-B number corresponding to to Bahro number on the window you left open (See the Appendix for a full list). Your four numbers from the reflections translate as "power symbol", "three lines", "two vertical + one horizontal" (bunny ears :-) ) and "two rows of three dots" respectively. The building seems to have a lens on top, which will probably be useful for opening the door on the second island in the full game, but not in the demo! Back to the rotating stones. Each of these controls a rotating section of corridor in the hidden cave below. No combination lock, you could tough your way through by brute forcing, once you realise the four sections are controlled in sequence from the right of the ladder, counter-clockwise, but luckily we know the right settings already (Only one of the stones features the "power symbol", so it's not too difficult to get the sequence right. The haredst part about this puzzle is being sure you decoded the numbers correctly!). They feature a mark on the lower half, facing away from the big rock. You'll have to turn the upper half so the right symbol rests over this mark. Start from the ladder and go to the right rotating stone and set it to "two rows of three dots", continue counter-clockwise and set "power symbol", "three lines" and "two vertical + one hoizontal". Climb down the ladder and enter the hidden cave to it's right. You should have no problem passing the tunnel (the snakes are harmless and rather quick), and end up inside the big rock/hut. DON'T simply step inside, because the demo will end then. Remain in the doorway and have a good look. Optionally you can now (Technically not only now, but I think this is an experience best delegated to the end of the demo. Sometimes it appears only to work AFTER you've visited the optional island with the tree door.) exploit a bug/easter egg in the demo. Return to the bubble and pick up the slate once again. This time draw a big circle, surrounded by four smaller ones (Think X not + for locating them. Should remind you of this ages main puzzle by now). Drop it to the floor and let the Bahro do it's magic. Step back into the bubble, which will now offer a new link on the right, bearing exactly the symbol you just drew. Link there and welcome inside the small island, where you stand immediately in front of another bubble. You can see K'veer's interior quite cleary, but sadly linking, etc. are broken... But you can go back. Click the immaterial slate and it will be lowered and turn solid, then click right beneath it, where Direbo's symbol would be. APPENDIX For completeness sake I include the (not yet) full D'ni-B to Bahro numbers conversion necessary to solve the demo. This is pretty tough to read correctly, because the viewing angles make a whole lot of difference, so please double check this and mail me if you have something to add :-) I will present the arabic number, the D'ni-B number (The system is strongly reminiscent of the already known base-25 one, I'd call D'ni-A, following the tradition of Linear-A and -B), constructed from lines (I,II,H,#) and up to three circles, represented by parentheses, and finally the Bahro symbol, as verbal description, because ASCII is insufficient for that. Arabic D'ni-B Bahro 1 I A circle with a dot inside 2 II Two horizontal rows of three dots each 3 H A thick square with a dot inside 4 # Three horizontal lines 5 ( ) A pipe with two vertical lines ("pride.gif" !) 6 (I) Three vertical lines crossed by two horizontal ones 7 (II) A triangle 8 (H) A vague S-shape with a dot up-right and a hollow do down-left 9 (#) Two vertical lines crossed by a horizontal at about 1/3 10 (( )) A horizontal line with a blob at the right and three dots below 11 ((I)) A thick dot 12 ((II)) A circle with a vertical line on top, like on a power button 13 ((H)) Two circles connected by a horizontal line 14 ((#)) Two quarter-notes in a horizontally mirrored 69 15/0 ((( ))) Four lines forming a caree/sharp/# You might want to check the following URLs: http://web.interware.hu/frenzy/myst_v/nol_gl_en.jpg http://web.interware.hu/frenzy/myst_v/nol_gl2_en.jpg THANKS Dennis Winkler, Rainer Kesselschläger and a few others pointed me to a grave mistake in the D'ni-B to Bahro conversion, thanks a lot! Morwyn, for telling me where to elaborate :-) kuku kuku for reminding me abour arabic numerals as opposed to the roman alphabet. Joe FLood for reminding me to expand a few things about the slates usage. Norfren for allowing me to link to his excellent D'ni-B to Bahro conversion images!