If you’re an aficionado of point-and-click room escape games, then you’re probably familiar with the Japanese game designer named Mya who goes by the handle Neutral. While she’s hardly prolific (seven full and a handful of mini-games since 2007), her games are known for being visually elegant with puzzles that are (sometimes very) challenging but fair, and completely free of bullshit pixel-hunting.
Her last full game, “Vision”, was in 2008, and I was worried she was through. Nope. Elements. Enjoy … if you’re into that kind of thing …
Thoroughly enjoying it, but I seem to be stuck now.
I’m left with a piece of paper that has a spiraling arrow on it, and what seems to be a switch blade that is tied closed. The things that I have to open still are a box with 16 buttons arranged in a 4x4 grid, a panel with 8 triangles around a circle, and the cupboard with the machette in. I also still have to work out what the round lamp does. Also, there is a screwdriver that is chained to a door. I know how to solve the lamp pattern, but I’m short one light bulb.
I spent quite a lot of time in this game, completely stuck, just wandering around clicking on anything and everything hoping that I had missed something. My wife has gotten used to the loud, diabolical "A-HA!!"s coming from the other room, but I don’t think the dog trusts me any more.
Nice thing about the Neutral games … once an item has no further use, it disappears from your inventory. Also, if you can place an item somewhere and the game allows you to take it back, it’s probably because it can be used somewhere else as well.
Had I known how elaborate this game was I probably wouldn’t have opted for a Sharpie marker as my note-taking tool. Used up seven pieces of paper by the time I was done.
What’s bugging me are things that look like they should be interactive, but aren’t. Like, on the wall opposite the door, I can’t look at either of the two top shelves.
I’ve gotten the marbles, used the binoculars to see the top clue, and really have no idea what to do here. I have 4 codes - 3 are tetris-like shapes each with a 4-digit code, and the 4th is the key with a 5 digit code. I’ve placed the marbles where they need to be, and tried all the combinations (assuming the pattern is 1-9 from the top left). Any ideas where I’m going wrong?
Each spot in the pattern corresponds to a sigil. You need to use the shapes/codes you already know to figure out which spot of the 9 goes with which sigil. I started by finding the shapes/sigils each one had in common ot figure it out. If you need more help, I can elaborate.
Thanks for this - I’ve never tried this type of game before, so it’s a cool find.
I played through a couple of the easier ones on that site, with minimal hints - getting used to the genre is making it a bit easier.
Can you recommend any other of these games of this quality? It looks like Neutral doesn’t have that many up there, so I"ll have to go looking elsewhere eventually.
I find most of my browser games through review site Jay is games, where you can sort by genre, then either date or rating. I really enjoy the escape games from developer Tesshi-e (yes, all the games have an English language option). While they’re not as involved as the Neutral games, they’re fun, they’re nice to look at, and there are a* ton* of them.
And yes, a familiarity with the conventions of the genre is a must. So, for instance, if you ever go up to a painting on a wall and find that it wobbles when you click on any of the corners you can confidently think to yourself "Ah yes. One of those.
And if you ever see any two things that bear a vague resemblance to each other, you know that one of them is a clue (or at least, part of a clue) for the other. Also be on the lookout for any sources of three or four digit numbers.
