Puzzle-Making Practice: "Lost in Space" (RESULTS)

[cat]

Welcome to another installment of puzzle-making practice, where you decide the solution!

The Rules!

Participants respond to the set-up by writing entries that must do the following:
1. Use at least 3 of the provided elements (inventory, NPCs, a piece of the room like a cabinet or faucet etc.)
2. Give a step-by-step walkthrough of your puzzle solution.
3. Don't add new elements. For example, if the room is a forest, breaking a thin branch off a tree makes sense unless the host said the trees were huge and tall. But adding a hollowed-out stump with a bear sleeping in it is too specific. Assume all important elements have been mentioned by the host.
4. Keep any dialog elements summarized rather than typing out the whole conversation (for example, "threaten the mailman", "ask the child for advice", and so on, instead of giving every spoken line).

Each contest runs for two weeks to allow for a good number of entries, and then it switches to voting for one week. The participant whose solution gets the most votes gets to come up with the next scenario! (Please also provide a link to these rules).

Voters use the criteria of:
a) how logical the puzzle seems
b) how creative or unexpected (but still sensible) is the use of elements
c) how satisfying is the solution (Is it too simple? Way too complicated? Or just right?)

WITHOUT FURTHER ADO:

LOST IN SPACE

You wake up from a loud alarm tone. What happened? You get up and look around the room.

- The door to your room is sealed. The door controls indicate decompression outside.
- Through the window you see many escape pods heading to a close-by planet.
- Your own escape pod is still attached to the ship, the door is closed.
- The bathroom door is sealed as well.
- There are two beds - yours and your comrade's who is working the current shift and hopefully in one of the pods you see outside.
- A maid robot holding a spray bottle and feather duster is standing in a corner, turned off.
- On your desk you see a photo of your cat and a multitool with ion cutter, magnetic screw driver and laser toothpick.
- On your comrade's desk you see a photo of her and her partner sitting on top of Mount XuhPlym27.
- In the closet there are a few sets of spare uniforms.
- On the walls, close to the ceiling, there are several vents.
- Embedded into a wall, there is a food replicator.
- Next to it there is a large touch panel. On closer inspection you see the following menus, some of them having a (!) mark to indicate an error.  There is also no uplink to the stellar-net, you are restricted to the local system.
  - Food replicator (!)
  - Maid bot (!)
  - Climate control (!)
  - Galaxypedia
  - Pong
  - ጸᛗᡇΘஇᐆ
  - Escape pod (!)
- You are wearing your space pajamas.

Your goal is to leave the ship using the escape pod.


Instead of the rather inventory heavy puzzles from previous rounds, I wanted to try something different. Be creative about what causes the malfunctions of the control panel (Password required? Something stuck somewhere? No power?). I'm looking forward to your puzzles!

Entries accepted through July 7th.

Good luck!

[cat]

*beep* *beep* *beep*

The alarm continues - you better get going!

[cat]

*beep* *beep* *beep*

Running low on oxygen - only 3 days left!

[RootBound]

I really want to enter something, just need to make the time to sit down and think through it. Thanks for the reminder.

[heltenjon]

I have this thread in an open tab. The plan is to write something. 

[cat]

*bump*

Do you need an extension?

[Creamy]

I gave it a shot. Here's the SLAPSTICK APPROACH:

Spoiler

After an understandable panic attack and lots of swearing at those lousy quitters, you pull yourself together and try to assess the situation.

You access GALAXYPEDIA on the TOUCH PANEL.
Although you can't access the stellar-net any more, you can still browse the manual and the chart of the ship that are embedded into the local system.
You see parts of the ship disappear one by one on the chart as you click on them ("Oops, seems like the part of the ship you try to access doesn't exist any more.")
You're baffled to still be alive in a ship without control room, engines or steering system.

Most of the menus on the touch panel indicate "INSUFFICIENT POWER" when you try them because the solar panels are filled with holes the size of bowling balls.
However, "Maid bot" shows a different warning: "open-ended strike due to vexatious behavior".
You realize she has her own battery and may still be running.
when you click on "vexatious behavior", it plays a video record of your cat peeing on the leg of the maid robot.
You can try to apologize but it falls on a deaf ear.
You go fetch the PHOTO OF YOUR CAT, then you put it in front of the camera of the control panel.
You renew your excuses with an awkward cat imitation.
She doesn't really buy it but - oh well, since cats can't speak that'll do. The MAID ROBOT turns on and wakes up.

Speaking of your cat, you can hear it move through the vents on the walls if you put your ear to them.

In the closet there are a few sets of spare uniforms. One of them looks special and belongs to a female comrade.
On the desk you see a photo of her wearing it on top the notoriously climate hellish Mount XuhPlym27. Seeing how she endured the acid rains and lack of oxygen with a smile, you suspect it's one of those all-in-one protective fancy suits. You should be able to go outside with it. Only, it doesn't seem to be working right now. A closer inspection reveals it's lacking a battery button inside.

You pick up your MULTITOOL on the desk. You use its MAGNETIC SCREW DRIVER on the FOOD REPLICATOR to open its front cover. You can spot the POWER CABLE behind it. Use the ION CUTTER of the multitool to sever it and give the extremity of the power cable to the MAID ROBOT. She plugs it into her belly button and the FOOD REPLICATOR lights up.

On the CONTROL PANEL, select FOOD REPLICATOR. Most of the dishes on the menu would require too much energy, but you can make some BISCUITS AND MILK.

Take them and ask the MAID ROBOT to go near the VENT, use your diplomatic skills to convince her to let you climb on her shoulders and put the BISCUITS AND MILK near the opening.
Your cat approaches to eat them but retreats when you try to grab it.
Ask the maid to lend you her FEATHER DUSTER and wave it in front of the vent.
The feline instinct kicks in and the cat comes play.
Gently grab it.
More diplomacy will be required to avoid a brawl between the cat and the maid as you go down.

Your cat has a necklace with a tag that plays its name and address when it's pressed. Open it and pick up the BUTTON BATTERY inside.

Put it into the ALL-IN-ONE UNIFORM. Put the suit on and try the different modes: deep-sea diver- lion tamer - astronaut. Incredible how powerful those button batteries became in the last decade!
With the suit on, you can feel your strength increased tenfold.
Use the MAID ROBOT as a battering ram and smash the door. She may resent you even more but you're way past that now.
You head out and discover that the ship has been reduced to a couple of boxes loosely connected by dangling cables. The maid and yourself follow one of them and reach the escape pod. Inside, you release your cat from the suit and the maid robot powers the pod the best she can.
You can't wait to give the others a piece of your mind as you head to the close-by planet at a snail pace.

[close]

[RootBound]

*bump*

Do you need an extension?

Um...... yes please.

[heltenjon]

Get ready for the MAID OF HONOUR APPROACH

Spoiler

OPEN DOOR
You die. Restart.

EXAMINE EVERYTHING
The door is a no go. Only a fool would try to exit that way.
What planet are the pods escaping to? You wonder.
The photo of the cat and the multitool is funny. You pick it up and find the real multitool behind the photo. Yay! Multitool obtained.
The photo of Linda and what's her name...Obeguyuna? Clever way to hide her password.
Ah, uniforms! You grab one. Uniform obtained.
The vents aren't working. Well, you aren't staying, so that's not the immediate problem.
The panel shows that most of the stuff aren't working. Bummer!

OPEN DOOR TO MY ESCAPE POD
The door won't open. Dammit, there was an error message on the touch panel.
You type in your cat's name, which obviously is the password, but get only a message telling you to try again.


It's getting harder to breathe. You better do something about those vents.

EXAMINE VENTS
They are too high for you to reach, but they look dirty.

LOOK UP ALIEN LANGUAGES TRANSLATION ON GALAXYPEDIA
IDENTIFY « ጸᛗᡇΘஇᐆ»
TRANSLATE
Minigame – matching words and symbols
You discover that this will reactivate the Maid bot with factory settings.

ACTIVATE « ጸᛗᡇΘஇᐆ»
User? Password?

EXAMINE MAID BOT
She is produced by ACME Interstellar Unlimited.

LOOK UP ACME INTERSTELLAR UNLIMITED ON GALAXYPEDIA
By scanning the tables of products, you discover that the same inventor is behind Intergalactic Pong and the Maid bot.

ENTER INVENTOR'S NAME AS USER
The machine plays a somewhat familiar tune, but fails to start the Maid bot.

LOOK UP MAID BOT AND PONG ON GALAXYPEDIA
You read some trivia about Pong. There are some catchphrases shouted randomly throughout the game. And...the inventor has put himself in the high score list.
You also read about the Maid bot. And the factory settings. Oh my.

PLAY PONG
You notice the inventor's initials followed by a number on the high score table.
You notice a certain catchphrase being shouted at the same time as the familiar tune is played.

ENTER « ጸᛗᡇΘஇᐆ» AGAIN
User?
ENTER THE CORRECT CODENAME FROM THE HIGH SCORE TABLE
Password?
ENTER CATCHPHRASE («YOU BETTER PING THAT PONG!»)
The Maid bot is now activated.

USE PANEL TO MAKE THE MAID BOT CLEAN THE VENTS
Sorry, only factory settings are available. She will only clean dirt visible at 3 or above on the Wischemer-dirt scale.

USE FOOD REPLICATOR
It's not working
EXAMINE IT
There are visible screws on this thing.
USE MULTITOOL ON FOOD REPLICATOR
Minigame – fixing the food replicator using all the options on the multitool
The food replicator now works.

USE FOOD REPLICATOR
You can order various types of food, but you need to get the blueberry pie and make a mess with it before the Maid bot whirrs into action and cleans up your mess.

THROW BLUEBERRY PIE AT VENTS
It slides down, making a blue trail. The Maid bot hovers, spraying and cleaning.
It seems to have also cleaned the vents!
There is a pleasant humming from the control panel as the Climate Control is active.

USE CLIMATE CONTROL
The air is now breathable. Good thing, too. You've been holding your breath for the last fifteen minutes.

As the Maid bot makes a final sweep, you notice that it's not your escape pod outside the ship doors. It's Linda's!

ENTER PASSWORD AND LOG IN AS LINDA
Her password is easy, it's obviously XuhPlym29. Two on top of XuhPlym27. Doh!
But...it's not working. You remember that she has used face and body recognition for login along with the password. You need to look the part. (Check the picture of her.)

SWAP UNIFORMS
It's a first step. You put on one of Linda's uniforms.
EXAMINE LINDA'S BED
You find some jewelry, which you put on. Still not good enough.
USE MULTITOOL ON BATHROOM DOOR
The screws aren't visible through the dirt.
USE FOOD REPLICATOR
USE BLUEBERRY PIE ON BATHROOM DOOR
The Maid bot cleans up, and you can see what to do.
USE MULTITOOL ON BATHROOM DOOR
You enter the bathroom. Some makeup is here.
Minigame – match your appearance with Linda's from the picture.
You manage to open the door with a combination of password, clothes, makeup and jewelry.

ENTER POD
Destination?

LOOK UP PLANET ON GALAXYPEDIA
It seems the escape pods are heading for New Botswana.

SET COURSE FOR NEW BOTSWANA
Ok. Insufficient power.

USE PANEL
You deactivate everything, freeing up enough power for the escape pod to run.

You win! The escape pod is on a course to beautiful, lush New Botswana.

The Maid bot shakes her head because she is left behind here. She performs an advanced shake move on her spray can and uses it on her duster, which transforms into a space motorcycle. She guns it into open space, grabbing your space pajamas as a souvenir on the way..

[close]

[cat]

*bump*

Do you need an extension?

Um...... yes please.

*beep* *beep* *beep*

In your closet, you find an emergency oxygen tank. This will give you 3 more days to leave the ship.

[RootBound]

All right, somehow this became part puzzle solution and part second-person POV short story, but I don't have time to edit it, so... here you go.

THE COOKING AND CLEANING APPROACH

Spoiler

First you need to get your head in the game. You change into one of the UNIFORMS hanging in the closet, which gets you out of panic mode and into professional mode. You grab the MULTITOOL and add it to your inventory. Time to assess the situation more closely.

You investigate the error messages on the TOUCH PANEL. The news makes the situation even worse. The errors are as follows:
-Maid bot has suffered radiation damage, and the core processor is dead. In the current situation this means there's no way to repair it.
-Climate control inoperative due to the room being sealed off to stop decompression. This means the VENTS will be blocked. It also means the room has limited air, and you can't simply wait for rescue. You need to find a way out soon.
-The escape pod has a leak. It has no air, and will bleed away any air put into it. You'll have to plug the leak before the escape pod will be usable. It also means you need a spacesuit in addition to the escape pod. Things have gone from bad to worse to hopeless.
-The food replicator needs to be rebooted. Well, at least you can enjoy a last meal.
-You note that the alien glyph option which changes the menu into the language of the alien crew members works just fine. You speak both languages, so it doesn't really matter.

You reboot the REPLICATOR to have it make your favorite meal. Maybe if you eat something, you'll be able to think better. Scrolling through the food menu, you notice a lot of alien dishes. You can read the names of them, but aren't sure what they are. You use the GALAXYPEDIA to get a better idea of what these dishes are.

After going down a rabbit-hole of alien food and culture, including the chemistry of various alien food ingredients, you realize something: if an alien gelatin used in desserts is mixed with Earth sugar syrup, it will crystallize into a quick-setting sturdy rubber glue! Perfect for sealing the leak in the escape pod!

You use the REPLICATOR to make a jar of SYRUP and a jar of alien GELATIN. You'll need to keep them safe and sealed, however, so you use the replicator again to make SAUSAGES. You carefully remove the casings from the sausages and pour your small jars of ingredients inside them, then tie them tight.

But how to get at the leak? If you manage to open the doors to the escape pod, the room's air will get sucked out through the leak, and the pod still won't have air. Even worse, the increase in pressure might cause to leak to get bigger! You need another way.

Resistance to your fate seems futile. Your eyes wander around the room, until they finally rest on the MAID BOT.

It's dead. But what might be inside?

You use the MULTITOOL to carefully unscrew the outer humanlike shell of the MAID BOT.

Inside you see the OPTICAL DEVICE that the bot uses to detect things that need cleaning. It also has a number of small COMPRESSION TANKS as well as a COMPRESSOR UNIT. Many WIRES hold everything together.

A plan starts forming in your head. You couldn't, could you? That would be insane. But if it's your only option, maybe it's not so insane after all.

Two of the COMPRESSION TANKS hold cleaning fluids. They won't be useful. But the third is EMPTY. And that's exactly what you need.

You take the OPTICAL DEVICE to the WINDOW, through which you can see the side of your ESCAPE POD. You use it to scan the escape pod and locate the leak. There it is! A pinhole in the pod floor.

Now comes the tricky part. You use the REPLICATOR to make more GLUE INGREDIENTS. Piece by piece, you reassemble the humanlike outer shell of the maid bot into a SUIT OF ARMOR on your own body, sealing the seams with the your homemade alien rubber cement, and using the OPTICAL DEVICE to make sure there aren't any leaks.

It works! You've built yourself a SPACESUIT! With one catch... there's no air supply. Even if you could compress the air in the room down into a tank, there's no breathing apparatus to get the air into the suit. You're just going to have to hold your breath until the job Is done. You're also going to need a safety tether. You braid the WIRES to the foot of your bed, and tie the other end around your ankle.

You hook up the EMPTY TANK to the COMPRESSOR, and start feeding all the room's air into the EMPTY TANK. You won't be able to breathe it yet, but you'll need it later.

You take a few deep breaths while there's still air in the room, and then place the maid bot's empty head, now a HELMET, over your head. You SEAL yourself into the suit with the your rubber cement. The COMPRESSOR beeps. All the air in the room has been put in the tank.

You have to move fast.

You use the MULTITOOL ION CUTTER to remove the window from your room, opening it to the cold vacuum of space. There's no going back now. Since the room is already airless, nothing inside gets sucked out. You carefully climb the wall of the ship onto the wall of the escape pod, and make your way under it to the leak. Your GLUE INGREDIENTS are beginning to freeze. You work quickly, using the multitool LASER TOOTHPICK to puncture the sausage casings and spread the glue ingredients over the leak in the escape pod.

You pull yourself back inside along the wire tether, your lungs starting to hurt from the lack of air. Once inside, you untie yourself from the tether, and use the ION CUTTER on the exit doors from your room. Behind them are the manual doors to the escape pod. You turn the handle, straining with the lack of air, but manage to get the door of the escape pod open.

You're not home free though. You take the AIR TANK you compressed the room's air into and bring it into the pod. You close the pod boors behind you. You open the air tank and let the room air back into the pod.

But you still can't breathe! The helmet on your suit is sealed!

Ever so carefully, you use the LASER TOOTHPICK to open a slit on the rubber cement seal around the helmet, feeling yourself get light-headed and faint, lungs burning, time running out...

But it works.

You breathe.

You're inside the pod. You can make it to the planet.

You breathe.

You breathe.

You breathe.

[close]

[RootBound]

Well there doesn't seem to be a poll yet but here are my thoughts:

@Creamy

Spoiler

Your entry made me laugh out loud multiple times, but also had some clever bits. Nicely done.

[close]

@heltenjon

Spoiler

Very fun. I enjoyed the repeated use of blueberry pie. Makes me feel like maybe I took the prompt way too seriously. 

[close]

Overall:

Spoiler

I liked Creamy's the best.

[close]

[cat]

Sorry for the delay, I set up a poll.

Thanks for the great entries, everyone!

[Creamy]

Two very different approaches here

@heltonjon

Spoiler

I could never crack Linda's password since the wording is so Anglo-Saxon but I admit it was pretty clever.
And the zealous cleaning bot was hilarious (in my mind at least).

[close]

@RootBound

Spoiler

The cooking-crafting number at the beginning seems pretty easy-going.
In typical Rootbound fashion, it gives way to a spine-tingling second act.
For a terrible scuba diver like me, the number of things you must accomplish in apnea is daunting.

[close]

[heltenjon]

heltonjon

Spoiler

I could never crack Linda's password since the wording is so Anglo-Saxon but I admit it was pretty clever.

[close]

Ah, sorry. That's unclearly written by me. The idea was that the character knew the passwords all along, not that the player had to guess them.

[heltenjon]

Slapstick Approach by Creamy:

Spoiler

The solution comes off as quite logical. I assume the player character will drop a hint about why getting the cat is so important (because the battery is known to the character, but not to the player). I like that both the cat and the maid become characters, and the use of the maid's battery was cool and unexpected. There's also good opportunities for humour here, especially on behalf of the poor maid. Escaping at snail pace had me laughing. I'd feel quite satisfied if I had solved this - the only thing would be that the other options on the panel didn't do anything. Also, my cat doesn't eat biscuits. (Then again, dunking biscuits in milk is also foreign to me.)

[close]

The Cooking and Cleaning Approach by Rootbound:

Spoiler

This one works well as a short story, but will it work as a game? There will need to be some hand-holding for the player to discover how to make glue and to make the mind leap that they could be sealed in sausages. (Couldn't we simply empty the tanks of cleaning fluids and use those instead?) This could still work, if the options are limited and the player character thinks aloud or gets hints from the Galaxypedia about what to look for. Will the chemical reaction necessary to make the glue still happen in the vacuum of space? Given that we're talking about alien substances, I'll accept it. I love using the maid to build a space suit, and I'd be incredibly satisfied if I'd figured all this out myself in a game. There are lots of stuff to do with little air, so I fear it would be time limits of some sort. I normally don't like that, but Rootbound's pulled that off before, so I'll give this the benefit of the doubt. I like that you explain all aspects of the control panel, and I like the engineering and tinkering required to make and destroy stuff in order to survive. I think this would make a hard game, though, but it's hard to say from the way you wrote it. (But very nice writing at the end there!)

[close]

The solutions are quite different, one is a comedy and the other relies on invention all the way. Both could be made into satisfying games.

[cat]

Creamy

Spoiler

I like that it is centered around the cat 
I also like the idea of using the button battery to power a space suit and apologizing to the maid bot. It's the most logical puzzle chain without being to easy or too simple.

[close]

heltenjon

Spoiler

I like the idea of linking the maid bot and pong, but I think it was a bit too complicated. The same applies for the password. I also liked dressing up as Linda. I laughed at the photo of the multitool. Language is weird.

[close]

RootBound

Spoiler

I like that the alien text is simply a translate button. I thought about what this could be and this didn't come to my mind. I also like combining galaxypedia knowledge and the replicator to generate superglue. The later parts of the story don't feel solvable to me anymore.

[close]

[RootBound]

Looks like we have a winner! Congratulations @Creamy, well deserved!

[heltenjon]

Congratulations, Creamy! Nice one! 

[cat]

Congratulations, @Creamy ! I'm looking forward to the next round