CHAPTER FOUR
As this chapter begins you play Rhoxanna Zhu, a superhero.
Rhoxanna's Apartment
Get the soup from the shelf. Open the cabinet to meet Yoda's cousin, who will be your sidekick. Leave the apartment and go up the stairs. In the hallway outside Mika's apartment, you can now go north and west after picking up the matches. Go north first to return to the area seen in the game's opening cinematic.
Security Hall
Look at the security panel by the door. The puzzle here is sound-based, and you can figure out which buttons to press based on the tones. Go south, and from the hallway outside Mika's apartment go west. You'll start in a minigame you can play if you like; after losing once a button appears to skip the minigame if your prefer. Rhoxanna will be in a hallway outside the security office. Sometimes one of the diminutive red beasties from the minigame "follows" Rhoxanna back to the "regular" world, which seems to increase the odds the game will suddenly crash for no apparent reason-- so be aware and save frequently. I couldn't find any purpose to interacting with the grate or the pipes. Talk to the panel next to the door to gain entry.
Security Office
Watch all the video surveillance records on the machine. One of them shows (with audio) Professor Emeritus entering the security code to lock the door to his office. You can listen to the tones repeatedly until you memorize them. The way I solved the puzzle was by alt-tabbing out of the game and using a sound recording program to record the tones as they played in the video. Return to the hallway outside Emeritus' office.
Hallway
If you didn't get the tone sequence on your own yet, use the security panel and press:
Bip Beep Boop Borp Borp Bip Beep DONE
Go inside.
Emeritus' Office
Open the middle drawer of the cabinet on the left to get scissors. Talk to Logi and ask him about the ceiling fan. Give him the cans from your inventory he'll ride the fan to shake them up. Put the cans under the cabinet drawer on the left (where Emeritus put The Book of Secrets during the opening cinematic). Leave and return to the hallway outside Rhoxanna's apartment.
Outside Rhoxanna's Apartment
Touch the thermostat-- Rhoxanna doesn't want to do this. Give the scissors to Logi and ask him to do the job, creating some wires. Take the wires and return to Emeritus' Office.
Emeritus' Office
Use the wires on the cans under the drawer, then touch the wires a second time; Rhoxanna and Logi will move outside the door. Light the end of the wire with the matches to end this interlude.
Beach
Mika wakes up on an Island of Evil. Use your vacuum on the little vampire dude in the corner to get some blood. Pick up the nearby board. Use the path between the rocks to go west.
Switch Door
If you'd like put the board in the water for some dialogue, but I found no other effect. Use the Levitate spell on Mika to cross over the water-- or use the Freezerman spell on the narrow part of the water to freeze the stream (either way is equally valid). The white machine here toggles the destination of the door between someplace inside yet another evil lair and RON Main Street whenever you touch the machine and press the "Prev" button. As for the "Set!" button, I couldn't determine its purpose. If you didn't previously light your candles, go through the door back to Main Street. Light your candles in the fire. If you didn't previously mix a can of "coral" plus "dove white" paint, do that now in the Yahtzeebrand. Return to the island through the door inside the Yahtzeebrand. If you did both of these things earlier when I suggested, you really have no reason to go back to town. In either case, when everything I just mentioned is done go back (east) to the island Beach and then go up the northern path.
Guardians
Use your crystal ball on the eye of either guardian statue to disable them both. Head north.
Doorstep
Touch the door-- this situation should seem familiar. Put your candles on the doormat, then your bowler hat. Add cinnamon, your vacuum filled with blood, ashes (from the cigar), and the oil-filled sponge. If you accidentally combined the oil-filled sponge with anything else in your inventory, causing it to disappear (bug?), you should be able to use the Switch Door to go to Storage Room near the elevators (see below). If you enter the Storage Room for the first time without a sponge, a tin can will be on the shelf; use the tin can on the bucket of oil to get an alternate supply of oil. In any case once your reagents are assembled in the hat, Mika will cast her spell. Touch the door again-- this time, the password is "Fishy Fishy." Go inside.
Entry Area
Look at the smoke alarm. Use your bag of marijuana on the pot of ashes. On the left side of the screen, take the "Tigers" sign. Go west.
Factory
Mika encounters a Borgnine-bot, who chases her throughout the fortress during a cutscene. Once you regain control of Mika, quickly use the fridge magnet on Borgnine to dispatch him (the second of what I felt were categorically unfair puzzles in the game). I believe the "guy" Ernie here refers to is meant to be Thakbor. Recall at the start of the game Mika was told by the fortune teller that her "quest" was to give the fridge magnet to Thakbor-- who isn't otherwise in the actual game, and thus never "got" the item he was "supposed" to get. Mika will return to the Entry Area. Go east to the Pit Entrance.
Pit Entrance
Put your toilet paper over the entrance to the Tiger Pit. Put your fire extinguisher on the metal thingie poised over the pit. Use your paint can on the toilet paper so the pit is "hidden."
Factory
If you still have the purple teletubby-weeble-wobble thingie, use your knife on it to obtain a purple triangle thingie. Put the purple triangle in the big triangle on the eastern wall to allegedly stop the machine from making any more Borgnines. Go through the door to the north.
Cosby Map Area
Mika meets Cosby here, and during a poignant cutscene he knocks her out. Mika wakes up in a jail cell.
Cell
A mouse darts into a mousehole, and some matches are on the ground nearby. Pick up the matches. In a minor pixel hunt, use the knife on the mousehole to get some cheese. In another minor pixel hunt, click using the talk icon around the bottom portion of the door; when dialogue starts, Mika will ask the guard to open the flap so she can get some air. Talk through the door again and ask the guard to let Mika out-- and then badger him about it until you get the dialogue option to tease him several times about being scared and he'll open the door. Use your electromagnet on him once, and then leave the cell.
An alternative method of getting past the guard would be to use an onion from Mika's inventory either before or after the door is open (if the door is closed, use it on his leg visible through the slot in the door); this will cause him to cry and rust away. He will drop a key that unlocks the cell door if the door has not yet been opened (the key vanishes after unlocking the door, or otherwise is merely yet another item to lug about). An oddity is that if pursuing Option Path 2 below, one must do this before constructing a hot dog since that consumes Mika's only onion. Yet when Mika uses her onion on Cosby's sidekick to make him rust away, the item likewise disappears from her inventory as if all used up-- but apparently Mika keeps an extra secret onion in her pants at all times (no wonder she can't get a boyfriend) so the hot dog can still be made even if she appears to lack an onion. In any case, if you talk your way out of the cell the whole onion debacle is an unnecessary distraction, so perhaps you should just ignore the whole thing and get on with other business.
**OPTION POINT: OPTION PATH 1
If due to your previous actions you're on Option Path 1, the game is nearly over. Do the following:
Entry Area
Go through the Factory and return to Cosby's Map Area-- luckily, Cos' is busy elsewhere. Notice the two signs in the upper left corner-- take both signs, then return to the Entry Area.
In Mika's inventory, combine the "Tigers" sign with the "Extinguish" sign to get a sign that reads "Extinguishers." Put this sign onto the spot on the wall where Mika got the "Tigers" sign. Go west into the Pit Room, and put the "Reality" sign over top of the "Caution" sign. What a devious trap Mika has set! Return to the Entry Area.
Light the ash and marijuana filled urn (using the matches) to make some smoke, then fan the flames with the red cloth in Mika's inventory. Cosby will show up to investigate and then run to get a fire extinguisher. Adios, Cosby! Sit back and watch the ending.
Using "Option Path 1" as outlined here, I ended the game with:
--126139 of 333332 points
--6 of 11 power-ups
--Bonus Items Found: Magic Sword, Picture from Space
--Bonus Modes unlocked: World's Worst Maze, Random View Replay, and Make the News.
Note that many power-ups can be obtained from winning the various minigames. Though I enjoyed playing these, for various reasons I wasn't able to finish most of them-- therefore I likely missed out on several power-ups for that reason.
**OPTION POINT: OPTION PATH 2
If due to your actions in Chapter Three you're on Option Path 2, you've still got a lot of playing to do. By retaining the hot dog components rather than giving food to the fellow in Float Art, a large section of the game is opened that would otherwise be unsolvable. Use the sugar in your inventory on the tomato in your inventory to get catsup. Use the "transform cheese" spell on the cheese from the mousehole repeatedly until you have cheeze-whiz. If you haven't yet done so combine the jar of cocktail weenies in your inventory with the hot dog bun; otherwise, combine the cheese-whiz with the weenie in a bun. In either case, enjoy the movie as Mika prepares a hot dog.
The game seems to have some sort of serious error in Option Path 2 regarding Cosby. Though the author's failure to plan for this potentiality seems forgivable later, at the moment you may end up rather frustrated. A bit later you'll find some marijuana you could bring back here and use to light the ash pot as in Option Path 1. However, I found that if in Option Path 2 I lit the ash pot prompting Cosby to search for a fire extinguisher, shortly after his demise in the Tiger Pit the game consistently crashes with the message:
"An error has occurred. Please contact the game author for support, as this problem is caused by the game rather than the interpreter. (ACI version 2.20.154)
(Room 147 script line 94)
Error: MoveCharacter: character not in current room"
One would have to pursue this series of events before freeing Habib and Emeritus, since after that action occurs the door in the Storage Room is locked and Mika would be unable to return to Cosby Island.
In any case, the point here is-- don't light the ashes, and leave Cosby alone. In this path, we've bigger fish to fry.
Leave Cosby Castle and return to the island beach where Mika crashed her boat. From there, go west to the Switch Door. Press the "prev" button on the machine so the door's target is the Storage Room on some other island run by some other supervillain, and enter the door.
Storage Room
Warning! A can of catsup is on the shelf. Leave the can of catsup alone. You don't need it, since you had catsup you made from tomatoes and your hot dog is already prepared. However, the matter is more complex than this-- if you pick up the can of catsup, apparently due to some bug in the game Mika is immediately and forever-after unable to don the lead mask. Since wearing the mask again will be required to resolve the game in this path,
if you pick up the can of catsup here YOU'RE SCREWED. Trust me, just don't do it. Instead, go west.
Elevator Room
There are two elevators here. The left elevator has three possible destinations throughout the island complex, while the right elevator goes to a radioactive jungle zone. To use either elevator, press the yellow button beside it and then walk into the elevator when you hear a "ding." The display is buggy-- sometimes the door opening animation doesn't play, but the door is open anyway; just listen for the "ding." In any case, before fiddling with the elevators go west.
Rock Hall
You can play an optional minigame here by pressing the slot/button on the left. During the minigame, I found if Mika lets herself get hit once and then stands all the way to the left 49 rocks in a row will usually miss her but she'll have to move out of the way for rock #50 to win the minigame and get a power-up. In any case, touch the console halfway down the hall on the left. When the computer display comes up, touch the leftmost panel to move it out of the way and reveal some wires. Touch these wires if you like for an inexplicably odd cutscene (perhaps indicating Mika is dazed from mild electrocution). Touch the edges of the display to go back to normal game view, and go back to the Elevators.
Elevator Room
Call the elevator on the left and walk inside when the door opens. Pick the middle destination.
Roof
For now, don't worry about other things going on in this area. Walk east into the next room and then up into the blurry brownish tube thingie. Mika will appear in the Detention Area.
Detention Area
Talk to the Sombrero repeatedly until he doesn't offer any new information. He wants a hot dog.
If you haven't already, combine the sugar in your inventory with the tomato from the other island to get some catsup. Use the "transform cheese" spell on the cheese from the mouse hole repeatedly until you have some cheeze-whiz. If you haven't already done so, combine the jar of cocktail weenies in Mika's inventory with the bun; otherwise combine the cheeze-whiz with the weenie in a bun. In either case, a movie plays as Mika prepares a hot dog.
Each time Mika talks to the Sombrero he floats down toward the floor, so talk to him a few more times until he's almost resting on the floor and then give him the hot dog. Mika will chat with Habib and Emeritus. Touch the computer on the left side of the game screen, and when the display comes up "minimize" the security logon to reveal a virtual desktop. Click on the recycle/trash bin and look at the right file to see a password list. The password for this particular terminal, according to what's shown on the other screen, is fortunamajor. Touch somewhere off the screen, and then use the computer again and click on the "entry code" box to enter the password and open the cell door.
You may now switch between playing Mika and Habib. Switch to Habib. In Habib's inventory is his toolbox; use this item on Habib and several tools will appear in his inventory. Select the screwdriver and use this on Habib; several different tips for the screwdriver will appear in Habib's inventory.
Before either character leaves, have Mika give the giant earwax in her inventory to Habib (use the wax on him). If Mika has no spare earwax because you didn't do as I suggested earlier in the final moments of Chapter Three, then you'll have to do an extra step here. Otherwise, switch characters to Habib. Have Habib leave using the western exit from the room. He'll be in the Window Room.
Extra Step If You Previously Thought You Were More Clever Than the Writer of this Walkthrough
Have Mika leave the cell area by going west. Light the candles on the shelf with the matches in Mika's inventory. Return to the cell area. Switch characters to Habib. Have Habib leave using the western exit from the room to enter the Window Room. Take the lit candles from the shelf.
End of Extra Step for Wiseguys
Go east. Habib will end up on the roof. Get close to the guard and switch without getting
too close, or else the guard will arrest Habib and send him back to the cell. In that case, though, since the door is left wide open Habib can just walk out of the cell and try again. Once Habib is on the roof, a good spot for him to wait is in the middle-northern corridor near the door/energy barrier. Switch characters to Mika.
Detention Area
Have Mika leave by the western exit to the room. Walk east to access the roof. Have Mika walk south and then east a bit to use the elevator door along the southern wall of the roof.
Elevator Room
Hopefully you were able to follow my earlier advice regarding the lead mask, and Mika has been wearing the mask all along during Chapter Four. If not, you've reached the moment of truth-- try to have Mika wear the mask. If this doesn't work, you're screwed so reload your save game from Chapter Three and try again. If Mika is able to wear the mask or is already wearing the mask, press the yellow call button for the rightmost elevator and enter the elevator when you hear a "ding."
Radiation Jungle
If you like, gather a batch of wild marijuana from trees on either side of the elevator structure. The general objective here is to kick rocks from the rock pile near the southern edge of the screen into the holes near the southern edge of the screen. This will distract the guard near the switch on the roof, allowing Habib an opportunity to work his engineering magic on the switch. An important practical consideration here, given all the difficulties associated with the mask, is to keep in mind that if you touch Mika herself with the hand icon she'll take off the mask and be forced to flee the radiation in this area. If that happens, you very likely won't be able to put the mask back on and return here-- so you'll have to reload from a previous save.
Click using the hand icon on the pile of rocks. Mika says she doesn't want to touch them. Click on the rocks again and Mika offers to kick the rocks. There are three large holes in the ground-- kick one rock into the very southernmost ("middle") hole. Mika wonders if Habib heard the rock fall; return to playing Mika. Then kick one rock into the westernmost hole; "something happens." Finally, kick one rock into the easternmost hole; Mika again wonders if Habib heard the rock fall.
The guard on the roof should be distracted by this last falling rock and wander away from his post-- allowing Habib time to approach and fiddle with the switch on the roof. With Habib as the active character, use the hand icon on the switch; after Habib comments that he did something or other, have him walk away before the guard returns.
The energy barrier blocking the middle-northern path on the roof is now down, but in theory no one should yet be ready to proceed to this newly available area. Have Habib travel to the Rock Hall.
Rock Hall
Touch the computer security panel to bring up the display. Touch the exposed wires earlier revealed by Mika. In Habib's inventory, put the philips head on his screwdriver and use the screwdriver on the handle in the lower right corner. At first this will seem not to have accomplished much, but be patient. Touch the handle, then touch the red "key" that appears. Touch the wires on the left again to hot-wire the security station, then exit the display. The door at the north end of the hall is now unlocked, so enter it.
Bedroom
If you like, read the sign on the far left side of the bedframe. However, this isn't necessary since you're following my groovy walkthrough; the sign merely says the forcefields may be deactivated with an Orb of Kaltos. Use Habib's Orb of Kaltos on the yellow circle to the left of the grate. Touch the orb to bring up an interface screen. Touch the purple plug on the right, and then on the green/white area of buttons on the left:
1) Touch the leftmost white button, then the middle white button, then the rightmost white button;
2) Touch the top and then the bottom button in the leftmost column of buttons;
3) Touch the top and then the bottom button in the middle column of buttons.
This will lower the forcefields around everything. Put the flathead tip onto Habib's screwdriver and use the screwdriver on the dice atop the table on the right. Use the wax (or candles, if you instead have those) on the dice.
Habib has some mercury in his multimeter. Sadly, I could find no way to break the multimeter. In theory, doing so and applying the mercury to the dice would make the next section easier.
In any case, switch characters to Mika. Touch Mika with the hand icon and she'll take off the mask, prompting her to leave the jungle (walking into the elevator doesn't work).
Elevator Room
Use the left elevator to travel to the roof. Approach the brown thingie in the now-unlocked passageway created when Habib fiddled with the roof switch. You may want to save the game here. In any case, your epic journey beyond the edge of reality is almost over. Touch the brown thingie/portal.
Throne Room
At last, the ultimate source of evil is revealed. After the cutscene, if you'd like to look around the Throne Room move quickly to left and stand next to the vending machine-- all the fireballs will miss you. You can also get a final power-up here by touching the wall next to the vending machine. When you're ready to fight the final battle, walk toward the throne dodging fireballs as necessary.
Fight it out!
Mika battles the King in a turn-based fight whose central mechanic is dice rolls. Read the on-screen instructions, and then just fiddle around with things until you figure out how to beat your opponent. I think you should choose "item" repeatedly until you've consumed all your power-ups, as this boosts your speed and attack value. After that, try different strategies of magic and physical attacks until you win. Habib enters the room briefly. When you're ready to leave, walk south to return to the roof and then make your way to the Bedroom. Once there, enter the hole in the floor previously covered by the grating.
Surreality
After this... er, things get weird. However, don't panic. Wander about to find the exit for each room, which is generally opposite from your entry point. In other words if Mika appears on the left, walk right. If Mika appears down low, walk toward the top of the screen. When you see Habib and Emeritus, you're about halfway through these areas. Along the way is a locked door, but I after all the time I spent playing this game I was too excited to approach resolution to care much about it beyond trying the green gem as a key (which didn't work). Eventually you'll make a startling discovery; after that you'll want to walk into various black-hole sorts of portals and encounter a familiar face. Talk to this person to start the end-game cutscene.
Though I'm certain I've not played remotely as many adventure games as most others here, I have played my fair share-- and
Edge of Reality is in my opinion one of the very most difficult games I've experienced that was at the same time plausibly solvable. Let's be honest, many of the "classic" "hard" AGS games simply cannot be won by even better than average players without a walkthrough because they are both inherently and pervasively both unfair and irrational. Though I'm very fond of games such as
Infinity String and
Emily Enough, in my view these fall squarely into that category.
Edge of Reality, with only a few exceptions, is a different breed. Congratulations to the author on making such a fine game!
Using "Option Path 2" as outlined here, I ended the game with:
--333333 of 333332 points
--8 of 11 power-ups
--Bonus Items Found: Magic Sword, Picture from Space
--Bonus Modes unlocked: World's Worst Maze, Random View Replay, and Make the News.
Note that many powerups can be obtained from winning the various minigames. Though I enjoyed playing these, for various reasons I wasn't able to finish most of them-- therefore I likely missed out on several power-ups for that reason.
The "Bonus Modes Unlocked" are worth a look if you enjoyed the game. Random View Replay is rather strange, as the game itself remains the same but the animation used for the player-character changes (to Michael Gower, to a Blue Cup, to whatever other sprites are present in the game) whenever moving to a new area or sometimes merely when walking.
One inventory item I never found a use for was the Green Gem, described as:
This beautiful gem is quite possibly the most powerful relic in the universe.
If anyone knows whether this item has any function or what that function may be, please comment below. Perhaps this item is similar to Mika's fireproof panties-- having it prevents something from happening rather than actuating anything, and I never noticed because I was always carrying the gem after I obtained it. I probably missed a few other items and/or interactions here or there (for example, Habib's multimeter) as well-- but since I've outlined above how to resolve both endings in the game, anything I overlooked must surely be in the "bonus" category.
**End of walkthrough by Endocore for
Edge of Reality by Blake Speers**