Adventure Gamers - Forums

metamorphium - 14 December 2015 06:56 AM

unless nitrogen mysteriously explodes (no it doesn’t)

metamorphium - 16 December 2015 02:29 PM

Noddy - 16 December 2015 12:05 PM

Mobot seems to think otherwise, did you not employ a scientific advisor during development?

I did for many things. However, exploding nitrogen was a nonsense which I ported even from the old J.U.L.I.A. It’s Hydrogen in German version now.

Well, in your defense: nitrogen IS used in most explosive compounds as it’s what makes the other combustible/volatile elements unstable enough to actually explode. There’s a reason why it’s nitroglycerine and why the N in TNT also stands for Nitro…

Becky - 02 January 2016 11:06 AM

I still am guessing madly, but I’d add a name to Noddy’s Suspicions: SHE could be Rachel Manners. Apparently Rachel was imprisoned on the probe by Lark after the first Ambrosia expedition (at least, that’s what I remember from one of the datapads in Xenophone). So, JULIA essentially kept Rachel imprisoned for 60 years until she desperately needed her. Intriguingly, Rachel doesn’t ask JULIA anything about this after the truth is discovered. I should probably remember this from the beginning of the game—is Rachel also suffering from partial amnesia?

I believe [spoiler]that Rachel was incarcerated before the events on Ambrosia, at least there are several datapads on both Xenophon and Phaidros that implies that it happened earlier, even if exactly when and more importantly the reason for it, hasn’t been revealed yet.
She also isn’t suffering from amnesia, she just wasn’t around to witness the events, at least absolutely nothing have been said about her having amnesia.
Neither of that however means that she couldn’t be responsible for everything that has happened, just that she couldn’t directly have killed the crew on Xenophone.[/spoiler]

Becky - 02 January 2016 11:06 AM

Izno—Marita Robinson is the Forum Administrator at GameBoomers, and a prolific walkthrough writer, so yes, “Robinson” and “Robinson Crusoe” are sheer coincidences.

Ah, I didn’t know that.

Edit:

Becky - 02 January 2016 11:06 AM

Finally reading it triggered the Mind-o. I would very much like to know how Lark was chosen to lead the expedition. Judging from what happened, he was not particularly qualified.

Indeed he wasn’t, but more about that will be revealed later in the game

You got your hint right, you’re just overthinking it a bit You don’t need anything else to hack into his datapad

Noddy - 03 January 2016 03:06 PM

Thanks! Got it now. I’m surprised that you can’t use the SD card hacker for this one, thought we’d hacked more complex but maybe not?

Actually it doesn’t have to do anything with password strength but rather if strong cryptography is used while storing the info in the datapad. If you choose strong cryptography, it’s impossible to hack it via simple hacking means regardless if the password is long or short.

I’ve done all I can on Ambrosia for now. I’ve also done all I can on Phaidros as well. And I’ve fully upgraded Mobot.

I don’t think there’s anything left to do that doesn’t require visiting another planet first, so I’m ready for the green light on Thursday.

Still haven’t unlocked a new Mind-o-Matic. Thought I’d get one for Phaidros. Maybe later.

I’ve been thinking about the alien’s three punishments: could it be that the first punishment involved another sentient race that annihilated/nuked Xenophone - which would be the alien’s original homeworld - about 500 years back? The second punishment would then be that same other race that tracked the remaining aliens to the lake on Ambrosia and poisoned the lake and of course the third punishment is our crew landing and opening fire on the Ambrosian aliens.

As for the prophecy of Ith, my guess is that “the place in the mist” is that mist-covered moon of Hermes. Maybe the other sentient race is there?

As for why the communications with JULIA keep messing with the individual planetary missions, I really hope it’s not a case of JULIA being an evil AI but rather that the conspiratory “SHE” that’s potentially behind everything refers to either *us* (Rachel - which could provide a great twist if done right) or more simply: the Yamabushi lead that financed this entire probe operation (did any of the datapads mention an actual name or sex?).
Or maybe it’s that other sentient race that’s messing with us? Curious to find out more. And I’d like to know what went wrong on Zenobia, so I’m hoping we’ll be going there next.

Very much loving the game so far. The puzzles are all really logical, well clued, and even though some require a bit of trial-and-error (like the datapad passwords that lack one digit), so far they’ve all been right up my alley. The story so far is also very intriguing and doing a great job of pulling me into its mysteries.

The game is easily exceeding my expectations!

I am also done with Ambrosia, and I too find the puzzles in this game to be logical and actually fun to solve.

I’ve played adventure games where the puzzles were at best a chore, but this is not one of them. 

This game is a great adventure game to start off 2016. The length is good also, not too short like most of the games I played last year.

Noddy - 21 December 2015 05:22 AM

I’m changing my mind - the latest one is killing me! 

Just you wait! In one week you can see what a really challenging construction puzzles are.

Having completed the second construct I think I’ve arrived at Izno’s cut-off point.
When J.U.L.I.A. became the CPT I said that there were 2 specific puzzle differences between the original and Amongst The Stars, one of which was made simpler. Well, the translator puzzle was this. In the original this puzzle was very similar but vertical instead of horizontal (no problem there of course) but it was timed - and viciously so. I did have a short email conversation with Jan about this during the creation of the remodelled game asking if this was staying timed or not. I know I wasn’t the only person querying this. My main concern was the logic in it being timed as the psychologist part of me said “no way would something like this in reality be created as a timed methodology of learning an alien language - or any language come to that. Jan responded that, as a translator, oh yes it would. (I did refrain from emailing back “oh no it wouldn’t!” After all, it wasn’t panto season at the time )
As we have seen Jan did drop the timing for this puzzle but, in doing so, it became very easy which was a shame. This is no criticism BTW as I don’t see how else he could have done it.

Here’s a pic of mini-Mobot doing some work:

This bit annoyed me which I don’t recall it doing in the original, which is strange.
At this point not only can’t we get into the men’s dorm but also we couldn’t get into the server room. The first was because of a damaged door and the second we didn’t have the door code. Why couldn’t I just cut my way in instead of having to find the door code. It’s what any good logical thinking Mobot would have done

I have now also completed the this part myself, and I have to say that Ambrosia was every bit as beautiful and interesting as I remembered it.

This translation puzzle however did give me quite a bit of headache:

[spoiler]At first I just tried solving it by trial & error, but when it kept resetting every time I picked the wrong words, I soon realised that wouldn’t work. So instead I started writing down the different signs and the correct answers when I got it right, hoping that I would be able to actually decode the language myself, and I’m not sure if that would have worked if I had kept at it, but suddenly I realised that I was over thinking it, and it was really just a visual puzzle, where you have to match the top and bottom part, so the connectors to the yellow points in the middle was the same - and I have even played the game before [/spoiler]

TimovieMan - 03 January 2016 06:41 PM

I’ve been thinking about the alien’s three punishments: could it be that the first punishment involved another sentient race that annihilated/nuked Xenophone - which would be the alien’s original homeworld - about 500 years back? The second punishment would then be that same other race that tracked the remaining aliens to the lake on Ambrosia and poisoned the lake and of course the third punishment is our crew landing and opening fire on the Ambrosian aliens.

That is also my own take on it, but there is also another equally plausible explanation, that I quite like:

[spoiler]The Ambrosians could have destroyed Xenophon themselves in a nuclear war, and then have been saved and relocated to Ambrosia by a benevolent alien species, and they could themselves also be responsible for poisoning the water on Ambrosia, in some kind of similar manner.
The Ambrosians doesn’t remember the actual events, and have instead turned the whole thing into a myth, see it as punishment for their pride and have based a religion around those punishments, so the actual events are wide open for interpretations.
If we follow this thought, then it could also mean that Ith was an Ambrosian who was kidnapped by the aliens, and then taught how the Ambrosians could live in harmony with their environment without constantly destroying it, and then send back to Ambrosia to start a religion around those teachings.[/spoiler]

It might even be possible to explain everything without the need for a different alien species. Remember that once upon a time, the Ambrosians were far more technological advances then they are now, so the benevolent alien species, could simply be Ambrosians that had parted from the rest of the species, lived on a different planet and evolved in a different direction.

And if we look at what happened to the humans on Xenophon and Phaidros, then it happened after the crew had opened fire and killed many Ambrosians. So it could very well be that this benevolent alien species regardless of whether they are also Ambrosians, decided to wipe out the humans in order to protect the Ambrosians from the humans.

Now of course we also have to take into account that there is a reason this whole space mission was undertaken. Back on Earth they detected a signal that they traced to this solar system. It seems unlikely that a benevolent alien species who are protecting the Ambrosians would send out such a signal, but it could have been done by the ambrosians themselves while they were still living on Xenophon and before their demise.

It is of course also possible that there is an entirely different explanation for everything!