Even a mad scientist is not immune to the siren call of cravings for caffeine and sugar. In Mad Head, you play as Keithan, a school kid who probably has wiser things to do in the middle of a school night, you must supply an unnamed scientist with coffee and a chocolate chip cookie before he will show you his latest invention. Collecting this midnight snack may seem a simple endeavor, but don't be fooled - coded messages, rigged slot machines, vending machines, and more await in your path.
Like many of CarmelGames' creations, this adventure is controlled exclusively using the mouse. Throughout the way you will need to identify objects from the background that you can pick up and use, as well as clues from your environment. Use items on each other in the various rooms to progress, and just maybe find out what that tantalizing red button upstairs does!
Walkthrough time!
Mad Head
The Doc has summoned you to his lab... to get him his supper?
Exploration 1
Note: Some of the clues in this game do not change the cursor. I'm not naming all of them in this section, so keep an eye out for them.
You start off at the lab entrance, facing a screen with blinking lights next to a candelabra which provides pointless lighting. There's a slot machine with room for a three-digit code in the corner of its screen. Apparently you'll need to find pear, apple and orange digits. Next to that, there's a coffee machine, but you don't have the 3 silver coins needed to buy the coffee.
Go up the stairs on the right. On top of the stairs, there's a painting with airbrushed splotches of red and white, but Keithan knows there's a hidden message in there.
Go in the right door, which leads to the bathroom. Though maybe it should be called a death-room, with all the dangers around. Click on the sink, and Keithan mentions something stuck in the drain. But you can't get to it, because the cupboard under the sink is locked with a three-digit code in sinister red= digits. On the right side, a box is locked with a two-symbol code. (It's not a binary sequence, you just have to find two symbols and put them in.) Open the drawer below that and take the red filter glasses.
Back out and go through the left door, where Doc is waiting for his stuff. He's holding on to a finger-on-a-stick hovering over a button you can't press. Next to him, a cookie machine has a numeric keypad with 1323 etched into the corner. On the table next to that, one single die has three faces colored. (The other three faces may also be colored, but you can't tell.) In the upper-left corner of the room, a poster matches the colors blue, green, red with the numbers 1, 2, 3.
Go all the way back to the first screen, and now take the door on the left. In this storage room, a world map hangs on the wall with Switzerland and Japan circled in red. Below it, there's a panel with three buttons colored blue, green and red. There's a door to the left of that with no handle, and there's also a key under the cupboard on the right which you can't reach.
Mysterious door
Unlock the door by pressing the panel buttons in the order determined from the books in this room.
The books are Red, Blue, Green, Green, Red.
So press the Right, Left, Center, Center, Right buttons, and the door slides open.
Exploration: Hidden room
This room is full of more dangerous things, and more candles. The safe on the wall needs a three-digit code to open (green digits this time). There's also a locked chest on the table and a T-square on the floor in front of it.
Squared
Use the T-square to retrieve the key under the table in the next room, and then use the key to unlock the chest and get a note.
Nations
Use the clue from the world map to unlock the box in the bathroom.
Switzerland's flag has a cross and Japan's has a circle.
So click the buttons 4 and 6 times. There's an alarm clock in the box with a red hour hand and blue minute hand. You can click (carefully) on the hands to adjust them.
Clock
Use the clue from the ship's wheel in the storage room to set the time on the clock.
The red crystal is attached to the right spoke and the blue one is attached to the upper-left spoke.
So click the red hand 6 times and the blue hand 21 times. A silver coin springs out of the clock.
Red splotches
Use the filter glasses on the painting on top of the stairs, turning all the white parts red.
The gray parts now appear black, and form the outlines of various fruit.
(You can also solve this without the filter glasses, by removing the red color channel in an image editor. Just tilting the screen back was enough for me to see the code.)
Fruity
Use the clue from the painting on the slot machine.
The black outlines form three pears, an apple, and three oranges.
So enter 313 in the bottom-left corner of the slot machine screen, and spin it.
Jackpot! You win a silver coin.
Light up
Use the clue from the chest to open the safe in the hidden room.
There are 3+2+2=7 candles, and 7 times 50 is 350.
Enter 350 to open the safe and take a wrench.
Red digits
Use the clue from the warning sign in the bathroom to unlock the cupboard under the sink.
Enter 280, and the door opens up. Now you can reach the drainpipe.
Use the wrench on the pipe to open it and take a silver coin.
Coffee
Now that you have three coins, use them on the coffee machine to get coffee.
Cookie
Go back to the Doc's room, and enter the code for the vending machine according to the clues in the room.
On panel: 1323
Convert to colors: BRGR
Convert to dice faces: 5363
Enter 5363, and a cookie pops out.
Ending
Give both the coffee and cookie to Doc, who presses the button. Click through his dialogue (yes, all of it) to finish the game.
Thanks KK. That was a cool game.
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