How to Escape? It's both a question of existential navel gazing to be pondered as you listen to bongo drums at your local dimly lit indie coffee house, and the title of Vitamin Hana's latest escape game. As usual, you're locked up somewhere and, also as usual, you have to try to find a way out by solving puzzles and gathering items. Just click around to explore and interact, and remember to examine your inventory up close by clicking something you're carrying, and then the "About Item" button. Though its title might imply desperate futility as you scrounge for an exit, like most of Vitamin Hana's games, How to Escape? is definitely not going to monopolize your time longer than it takes to shotgun a cup of your favourite beverage. It's short, well designed, and just the right thing to give you a break from your work... and if you figure out how to escape from that, let us know.
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Walkthrough
Opening the Green Box under the Fishtank
Go through the door.
Note the expressions of the fish on the painting, as well as their colors.
red = happy
blue = angry
yellow = sad
Now go back and click on the green box. Match the colors to the expressions of the fish.
The expressions cycle through surprised, angry, worried, sad, sleepy, happy.
Click blue (the leftmost one) once, yellow (the middle one) three times, and red (the rightmost one) five times.
Take the fish food.
Opening the Left Drawer
Go through the door.
Inspect the potted plant. You may want to note the number of green balls.
Take the stick sticking out of the plant. It has a water droplet symbol on it.
Maybe we should make it wet? Go back and click on the top of the fish tank, then dip the stick in the water. Some square dice symbols should show.
Open the left drawer with the combination.
435
Take the spackling knife.
Opening the Green Box inside the Left Drawer
Looking at the lock, we see three colored balls. Didn't we see green balls in the potted plant? Maybe we can find more colored balls.
Blue:
We can see blue balls inside the fishtank. Count them.
Red:
The knobs on the drawer happen to be red. Count them.
Counts:
The counts should be
Blue = 3
Green = 6
Red = 2
Enter the counts into the box by color.
362
Take the magnet.
Opening the Right Drawer
Upon inspecting the symbols, it seems as if we want a sequence of fish.
But there are a lot of fish. What can we do to pick out the correct fish?
Feed the fish by dumping the fish food into the tank.
Leave the room and come back.
There should be three fish that are eating. Note their colors (and patterns if you wish)
Orange, Green, Purple
Enter the colors and patterns into the right drawer.
The colors cycle: red orange-yellow purple black orange gray green blue
Click the buttons 4 times, 6 times, and 2 times respectively.
Take the crowbar.
Finding the Door
First, uncover the wallpaper on the other side with the spackling knife.
The exit is blocked by wooden planks! Luckily if you've been reading the walkthrough in order, you have a crowbar.
Use the crowbar on the planks.
Darn, the door is locked. Maybe we need a key?
Take the floss.
Opening the Door?
Well, there's a key in the fishtank. But apparently we don't want to get wet or something.
Maybe we need to combine the floss and the magnet to create a device that can fish the key out of the tank.
Combining is a bit tricky, but what you need to do is to first inspect the magnet, then apply the floss on the magnet.
With the magnet-on-floss, go to the top of the fishtank and fish out the key.
Let's get out of here! Use the key on the door.
Wait, there's a stone wall? Noooo!
Opening the Metal Cabinet to Finish
There is a metal cabinet that we haven't used yet. And there's some colored symbols, that look like the patterns on the fish, on the stone wall. Maybe that means something.
black, red, blue, yellow
Upon inspection of the metal cabinet lock, it requires directions.
Check the directions that the indicated fish are facing.
left, right, up-right, down-left
Take the hammer.
Break the stone wall with hammer.
Escape!
Thanks for the walkthrough, Phenomist. Just a little nitpick, though: it's a bit of a "wall of spoilers" effect currently. You need to lose the second level of spoilers. What I mean is, you have something like this:
Part A
Step 1
Step 2
Part B
Step 1
Step 2
It would have been more readable as this:
Part A
Step 1
Step 2
Part B
Step 1
Step 2
The next level of readability would be to label all the "Step 1", "Step 2" spoilers as well. A general guideline is to never have two consecutive spoilers: always put some text in between, even if it's a cryptic label that won't make sense until after you've done that step. This really helps people use your walkthrough: those who would read the whole thing anyway have the same number (or slightly fewer) spoilers to open, but those who only want help with one specific part can easily find that part in your walkthrough, without being, well, spoiled for steps they haven't gotten to yet.
I really love Vitamin Hana for their short-but-sweet escapes. While short, they always pack a good amount of puzzles which are always easy to follow. Sometimes combining items can be a pain (why can I only combine these two when I'm zoomed in on one particular thing, but not the other?!), but that's usually my only nitpick.
And of course
I loved the mental image of that little girl in her cute dress and hat smashing through a brick wall with a hammer.
Overall quick and enjoyable But i do have one complaint:
Ok, i'm an incredibly strong little girl who can knock down a cinder block wall with a sledge hammer, but I can't reach into a fish tank and just grab the #$%!* key with my hand. I realize that this kind of puzzle shows up a lot in escape games, but its a trope and it's lame. Stop making me use magnets and string to get stuff I can just reach and pick up. Maybe make the piranhas or something. OK I'm done.
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Walkthrough Guide
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Walkthrough
Opening the Green Box under the Fishtank
Go through the door.
Note the expressions of the fish on the painting, as well as their colors.
red = happy
blue = angry
yellow = sad
Now go back and click on the green box. Match the colors to the expressions of the fish.
The expressions cycle through surprised, angry, worried, sad, sleepy, happy.
Click blue (the leftmost one) once, yellow (the middle one) three times, and red (the rightmost one) five times.
Take the fish food.
Opening the Left Drawer
Go through the door.
Inspect the potted plant. You may want to note the number of green balls.
Take the stick sticking out of the plant. It has a water droplet symbol on it.
Maybe we should make it wet? Go back and click on the top of the fish tank, then dip the stick in the water. Some square dice symbols should show.
Open the left drawer with the combination.
435
Take the spackling knife.
Opening the Green Box inside the Left Drawer
Looking at the lock, we see three colored balls. Didn't we see green balls in the potted plant? Maybe we can find more colored balls.
Blue:
We can see blue balls inside the fishtank. Count them.
Red:
The knobs on the drawer happen to be red. Count them.
Counts:
The counts should be
Blue = 3
Green = 6
Red = 2
Enter the counts into the box by color.
362
Take the magnet.
Opening the Right Drawer
Upon inspecting the symbols, it seems as if we want a sequence of fish.
But there are a lot of fish. What can we do to pick out the correct fish?
Feed the fish by dumping the fish food into the tank.
Leave the room and come back.
There should be three fish that are eating. Note their colors (and patterns if you wish)
Orange, Green, Purple
Enter the colors and patterns into the right drawer.
The colors cycle: red orange-yellow purple black orange gray green blue
Click the buttons 4 times, 6 times, and 2 times respectively.
Take the crowbar.
Finding the Door
First, uncover the wallpaper on the other side with the spackling knife.
The exit is blocked by wooden planks! Luckily if you've been reading the walkthrough in order, you have a crowbar.
Use the crowbar on the planks.
Darn, the door is locked. Maybe we need a key?
Take the floss.
Opening the Door?
Well, there's a key in the fishtank. But apparently we don't want to get wet or something.
Maybe we need to combine the floss and the magnet to create a device that can fish the key out of the tank.
Combining is a bit tricky, but what you need to do is to first inspect the magnet, then apply the floss on the magnet.
With the magnet-on-floss, go to the top of the fishtank and fish out the key.
Let's get out of here! Use the key on the door.
Wait, there's a stone wall? Noooo!
Opening the Metal Cabinet to Finish
There is a metal cabinet that we haven't used yet. And there's some colored symbols, that look like the patterns on the fish, on the stone wall. Maybe that means something.
black, red, blue, yellow
Upon inspection of the metal cabinet lock, it requires directions.
Check the directions that the indicated fish are facing.
left, right, up-right, down-left
Take the hammer.
Break the stone wall with hammer.
Escape!
Posted by: phenomist | December 7, 2015 12:54 PM