I am now in the camp of “fun game…but frustrating”.
I am not a fan of such randomization.
I just got the Laboratory on day 9 or 10 and there was a note in the lab that someone could not access the lab until later. Are rooms locked until a certain day threshold?
I have:
turned three valves that turned on three blue flames outside
learned what the broken lever does, but I never seem to find it
learned for sure how to open the west door(left on the map) of the Antechamber, but rarely find the special key required to generate the room I need
accessed a whole heck of a lot of rooms
I wish there was a “I suck” difficulty setting for those that need, you know, maybe 3-4 pairs of dice each run or some other little bumps.
Here is my general strategy now. Wondering if it isn’t the best.
Place an outside room in the shed(?) and try to pick either a new room or the one with best bonuses.
Build the lower levels outward for the most part, trying to collect keys, coins, gems, and hopefully special items or keys.
Advance northward, but now I realize to NEVER place anything by an Antechamber door unless I know for sure which direction I will maybe gain access to.
I like the Sledgehammer, Lockpicks(save keys!), etc.
Just keep doing what you’re doing here. You’ll unlock something interesting!
It shows up in various places.
The gym and the workshop at least, and I think sometimes buried. But it’s luck of the draw.
They can be hard to find! I just ended a run where I knew (from the security room) that there was a disk around, but I searched and searched and couldn’t find it.
Your strategy seems reasonable. Unlocking new rooms when you get them is pretty key.
Oh…I am missing something that I am just realizing how dense I am. How do I use the security room to identify the items in the house? It says it does that. I have turned on and figured out the computer. Is it an option in there?
Have you gotten your allowance yet? That helps. There are several things you can do to increase it. I think I’m at 12 gold now.
At times I think it’s best to do a short preparation run with the “tomorrow” rooms, the coat check, the shrine, etc. to give yourself a really nice run the next day.
There are some puzzle boxes around the house. There’s one in the Master Bedroom, at least, but there are a few more. They have 9 squares on the top and corners that you can click. Click the squares and they’ll change color according to some rules–figure it out and it’ll open, and you’ll get a token that gives you a permanent +2 daily allowance.
There’s another token in… the garden room with 4 doors and a statue at the center. Forget what it’s called. There’s a way into the center, and a token there. If I recall right, the instructions are in Her Ladyship’s Chamber, but it might be another bedroom.
I think there’s one or two more I’m forgetting. But you won’t miss the tokens when you see them. They look distinct and you just have to pick them up for the upgrade.
BTW, I haven’t seen anything at all relating to radiation, except for the reading on the computer in the bunker. Never seen anything that looks like radioactive materials, etc.
I do have one idea, though:
In the lab, there’s a puzzle with the periodic table. It tells you a thing to do, which I haven’t done yet because I need to power it up first. I haven’t done that yet either but I just need to get the right combo of rooms.
It’s a lab machine, so possibly it has something to do with radiation?
Finished on day 49. Still a ton of unfinished puzzles! There’s a “trophy” for finishing it on day 1… uh, I guess that’s theoretically possible if you get incredibly lucky. I wonder if the game is such that it uses a fixed random seed, so that if you do things in exactly the same order each time, you’ll get the same draws? That way you could eventually map out a “golden path” that is the same each time you reset.
I got really lucky on the final day. Was almost ready to give up, due to having few open rooms left and still missing some key pieces… but it came together in the end.
There is something that’s potentially a great help once you approach day 50, assuming you usually put down a particular room. I didn’t end up needing it but I’m glad it was there as a backup.
I believe there is not. I’ve seen, but not read, building guides that say they can get to the Antechamber(not the end, just the chamber) 75% of the time or so…if you have the write options available. I’m saving those in case I truly just can’t get it.
OK, I assume the Observatory? What happens? Spoiler-box if you wish. I have a mere 5 stars there now, I believe.
I had a good run, did not make it inside the antechamber(still have not).
I now have a +4 allowance.
I also have upgraded my spare room to a spare bedroom.
Despite ending in mostly failure, I consider it decent. I opened the time locked safe as well, which was downright annoying. I’m never opening it again unless truly desperate.
Anyway, a huge day(about an hour long real life time) and most of the mansion filled in.
Yep. When you get to 50 stars, you can spend them like dice rolls. There are some ways to accrue stars faster than 1/day, so depending on your game you might reach 50 stars a bit early.
Yeah, very little point to do more than once. The gem isn’t worth it.
I’ve found only three more safes. I did figure out the codes for those. According to a different puzzle, though, there should be 8, so I’m missing a bunch.
BTW, one way to really run up your allowance is to get the outer room that boosts the number of dirt piles, and then get lucky with the lab experiment where you combine “dig up an empty pile” with “add +1 to your allowance”. Quite the boost!
Major(??) update in terms of my progress, but I have not yet reached the Antechamber.
Since it is mainly a two person discussion, I’ll post openly, but try not to out-right say everything.
I did choose “The Tomb” as my outdoor room. I always try new rooms because at bare minimum, I want to read any documents and look for clues, etc. in them. I consider a day at least somewhat useful if I draft a new room, which I am still finding(got the Pool and Locker room today, too).
Uh…have you seen the Tomb? It is massive…bigger than you even realize.
I solved a pretty big puzzle of sorts down there that also helped me understand the purpose of some signs I’ve seen in the main house.
Got a second upgrade disk and made my main goal getting a computer, which I did and upgraded my Courtyard to give two gems each visit.
