Adventure Game Studio

I've got The Gods Book, Noted the buttons and I've got the lead of William,
I've tried doing the Gods in book order, but no leads, a little hint perhaps?

Amber's reference to 'William' is actually in regards to a famous author. You may find one of his books in the library, which will contain another clue as to how to unlock the Greek Gods puzzle

When looking at the statues and then opening the gods book, I'm stuck swapping between the two whenever I click exit.

I've got the gods book, shakespeare and the "damn V" note (which seems to reference _V_enus/Aphro or _V_ulcan/Hephaistos, who does not appear among the statues.) I further think that the pink line corresponds to a secret connection (not passage!) between the statues and the upstairs room containing all the stuff... Either I need to find another hint or I'm to dumb to solve this one :-)

I was under the impression it was a map of the top floor, the pink line connecting the red Tapestry area in the hall to the broken grandfather clock in the top left room.

Although there was some tension at first, it soon became obvious that the killer wouldn't actually attack you as the player (except in one restricted situation), and this rendered the menace later in the game less effective. Also, how could the killer get from room to room without running into you? Of course, you have to make a design decision whether this is something you care about, and it would have led to a quite different game.

After finding Amber, I went into the moose room, and investigated it. I almost didn't notice the buttons by the statues, but instantly saw that they were some sort of code puzzle. The moose head seemed incongruous, and I wondered if it might open a secret passage (no joke). After talking to Amber, I went upstairs, and having seen the Shakespeare hint, picked up his book with the piece of paper. Since I knew it was a hint for the statues, I instantly guessed that "V" was Venus (knowing that Aphrodite was called Venus by the Romans). I didn't figure out the rest of the puzzle. I looked at the other books, but didn't think to pick up the one on mythology. Therefore, I was stuck, and only got any further when I read in this thread about the "Gods" book. After finding and reading it, I had another look at the statues, and "Diana, Appollo, Mercury, Neptune, Venus" was pretty obvious. Cool puzzle, by the way!

OK, so I got the key and got into the locked room. Locking out the killer before he could open the door was a really frustrating puzzle. It wasn't clear what you were supposed to do (I tried hiding under the bed and in the closet, and escape through the window), especially since the thing by the door wasn't recognizable as a bolt. I thought it was a light switch, and it was only by trying to turn off the light that I discovered what it was for. I probably had to reload this bit five or six times before I managed to survive. Timed sequences, man. Don't do them!

The diary entries didn't seem to have anything to do with the plot, so I already suspected it was something in the dates. However, I couldn't find anything to do after I left the room. I walked all over the house (trying to cut stuff with my shard of glass), and only ended up in the room with all the clocks by exclusion: It was the only room that hadn't been used for anything in the game yet. Having concluded that, cutting the tapestry was relatively straightforward. I didn't have any trouble opening the safe. Wasn't there an article on code puzzles that used the "calculate date of birth" (or wedding day) as an example?

OK, this is where I got thoroughly stuck. I couldn't figure out what those pink lines meant. I had two interpretations: that they showed some sort of connection between the grandfather clock and the red painting (which didn't explain the second line), and that they represented the hands of a watch (set at 10:00), and I would have to set one of the clocks to that time. Of course, neither theory led anywhere. Then I went around the house using the locket and the combined note (the only new objects I had) on everything I could think of, to no better effect. Then I reasoned that the moose head was the only other thing in the house that hadn't been used yet, and I tried everything on that. It was when I tried using the pen to pry the amethyst off the locket that I accidentally used it on the combined note, and found that I was at least in the right room. Now, finally, I was allowed to mess around with the moose head.

It really confused me that the moose eye disappeared when it fell out. I wanted to pick it up. Since prying out the amethyst with the pen hadn't worked, I didn't think to use the glass shard (the pen still makes more sense to me) for a long time. I tried stuffing everything into that eye socket, and even using the shard to cut the head open. Also, the fact that the eye socket itself was a non-hotspot was frustrating. OK, the locket had to be involved somehow, and prying the amethyst off was the only thing that made sense (dammit), so finally I tried the glass shard. Problem solved, game over.

OK, so in summary, I got stuck at these points in the game:

-Picking up the book on mythology
-Cutting the tapestry
-Drawing on the note
-Using the glass shard to pry the amethyst off the locket

These things acted as red herrings for me:

-The clocks
-The red painting (because the one of the pink lines seemed to point to it)
-The moose head (before the final puzzle)
-That white globe thing in the living room. What was that?

I put a timed sequence because I wanted to test the feature in AGS. Sorry :D And I also thought it would increase the tension abit and break up the gameplay monotony, because otherwise you were just wandering around room to room with an invisible killer that never did anything.

You didn't bump into him at all (except for the room) because I wanted to make it a game where you never get to see your attacker - things get scarier when you let your imagination run wild.

And Amber's room, which was mentioned in the ending, is the same room in which the killer tries to break in.

Doh... I forgot to remove the GUI during the Gods puzzle... that would have solved everything. Will fix that.

The use of the pink lines might become more apparent when you have the other piece of the map

So when exactly did the killer stick Amber's body in the locked room, and where was it in the mean time? OK, so I'm overthinking it.  :P

About where he put Amber's body in the meantime... oops, that's a plot hole... *sheepish* :P Let's pretend he carried it around with him wherever he went.

A bit of a nod to Mourier en Mer perhaps? "He's coming up the stairs!" Nicely done with the door thumping and the shadow in the doorway.

I particularly disliked that the moose head was non-interactive until the pink lines were joined up. On the other hand, I did like the gods puzzle, but that's probably because I solved it without the book.

Sorry about the moosehead. The reason I had was that since she didn't know the passage was in the dining room, she wouldn't think to be more thorough with her searches. But once she knew that the passage was in that room, she would go out of her way to search everything, and that's why the interaction with the moosehead revealed different results once you joined up the lines.

(after being a real idiot and overseeing the hint of the "6 (six) digit code and entering the safe combination as auggested by the diary: 06161944...)

The described ritual destruction of Amber's body sounds a bit like unnecessary violence. If it would be possible to replay the game and try and succeed in saving Amber this would be a good "50:50" alternate ending. So it is just unsatisfying - at least for me

I'm in the locked room and I know I have to lock the bolt but it is rusted, I would just try everything but I Inadvertantley save with about ten seconds to go, and I can't be bothered continuially reloading to try one more action again and agian.

on the left side of the screen, on the cabinet with drawers there is a white object, which is a flask of baby oil. So when you are trapped in the locked room, just walk quickly to left get the flask, use it on the bolt and then push the bolt shut

If you open the mythology book the same time as looking at the statues, you can't get back to normal screen again, and 'exit' for the statues takes you to look at the open book, and 'done' with the book takes you to close up of statues again ?

i got william shakespear book and gods book but not longer(i also have the note)

For the gods puzzle, you need to push the buttons in order of of their ROMAN names (refer to the book for the Greek God's roman names) and then push the butons in order: DAMN V (Diana, Apollo, Mercury, Neptune, Venus)

The music and sfx. It really set the mood of the game. I also think the encounter with the Stranger was very well needed to make sure that the player understood that he was dangerous. The massive banging on the door was dramatic!

This might be a more personal preference, but the kind of puzzles that are based on codes, in this case the gods, doesn't really appeal to me. It reminds me of Myst, a game I highly disliked due to it's lack of clues. However I have to admit that this one was clever with the confusion involved with the Greek and Roman names of the gods. This leads me to the next thing I don't like, looking for books in libraries. 5 days a Stranger had the same problem. I dont see what this kind of look at a lot of similar items to find on special leads to more than frustration. Still the William clue was kind of good...

The volume of the music in the background, made it really difficult to hear the clicks when I pressed the buttons for the gods puzzle. Eventually, the only way I could play it, was to wait for a lull and hope that the sound I heard was right. So it took a couple of trys to get it right.