Spaceship:Puzzles Distress Signal

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[edit] The Distress Signal and the Idiot

[edit] Top Line

The player must solve a simple quiz to unlock a crew member's locker which contains your long missing distress signal. After repairing the device you launch it into space to realise he's converted it into a firework display.

[edit] Verbose Description

This idea of this puzzle is to introduce more character to the puzzle solving of the game by building the puzzle around one of the absent crew members, so you get to understand a bit about them through the puzzle solving process. Also this is a wild goose chase through a series of challengeing including a quiz and some wordplay (see the button part of the puzzle) all leading up to a punchline of a climax.

The player finds a locker sealed by a crew member obsessed with old Earth sci-fi and must pass a simple quiz to gain entry. Inside he finds a distress signal device that has been missing for some time. The device needs some simple repairs which the player carries out. Then upon launching the device the player discovers the crew member has converted the signalling device into an automated firework display.

While below I've listed the simplest steps needed to complete the puzzle I think it's worthwhile if this is implemented to spend some time adding in lots of random pieces in the crew member's locker with interesting descriptions to flesh out his character.

[edit] See this puzzle in context

Not linked to any goal. Should be available as soon the player reaches the appropriate rooms.

[edit] Which rooms are implicated in the puzzle?

[edit] Which objects are involved in the puzzle?

[edit] Is this puzzle essential to the plot, or is it a secondary objective?

Secondary (basically a goose chase)

[edit] What actions do you need to take?

Examine locker
Open locker
Use locker panel
- Solve sci-fi movie quiz
Open locker
Examine locker
Take distress signal
Examine signal
Use signal
Examine shirt
Take red button
Use button with signal
Use signal
Go to Captain's En-Suite
Use signal with washbasin
Use signal
Go to Airlock
Use signal

[edit] How many turns do you have to complete the puzzle?

Infinite

[edit] What text appears after each action is completed?

Examine Locker
- This is Johnson's locker. The ship's fool. He grew up on an unhealthy diet of sci-fi films and seems far too divorced from reality for comfort. He joined the crew because he was desperate to go into space and pretty much no-one else would take him. At the time you assumed the tedious crushing reality of space haulage would shatter his resolve but so far there's been no sign of progress.

Open Locker
- You tug at the door, surprised to find the locker is actually locked. All of these things come with a standard programmable security panel but you've never seen anyway use it. There's no privacy out here so what's the point.

Use Locker Panel
- Oh great, you should have guessed. It was never going to be easy with Johnson. It's a quiz, a classic sci-fi movie quiz. Three question to open the door. How contrived, how typical of him. (See below for quiz stuff)

Examine Locker (open)
- Looks like he took most of his junk with him. Inside you find his film collection, some kids action figures, and wait a minute, what's that tucked away at the bottom. That's your distress signal. This went missing months ago.

Examine Signal
- An expensive distress signal device you acquired back when you first bought the ship and were a lot more concerned about safety. You should be able to launch this outside and it will send off a high powered signal that can be detected by civilian patrols, military vessels, cruise liners, and basically all the respectable authorities you normally avoid. You don't know what Johnson's been doing with it or why he's painted fire coloured lightning bolts down the sides. There should be a simple red button to activate it, but it seems to be missing.

Use Signal (buttonless)
- You can't get the signal working without a nice big red button.

Examine Shirt
- A white shirt lies on the bed of one of your absent crew members. Looks like Kowalski's bed. For some reason there's a big patch of what looks like blood soaked all across the middle of the shirt and one of the buttons. What happened here?

Take red button
- With a little force you pull the blood soaked button free from the soiled shirt.

Use button with signal
- Perfect, a big red button that's exactly what "devices" need to work properly.

Use Signal (unpowered)
- You press the button, and after a feeble whizz and clunking noise the screen displays an error message "LOW POWER". You sigh at yet another failure then remember why you'd bought this overpriced thing in the first place. It's powered by a micro aqua fusion energy core, you just have to immerse it in water and it'll absorb enough to fuel too power itself for over a few hours. That should just about be long enough.

Use Signal with Washbasin
- You fill the basin with water and dip the distress signal slowly until it's completed immersed. You cross your fingers hoping it's not broken down after years of neglect and god knows what Johnson has been doing with it. After a few moments you hear a reassuring charge noise and lift it out of the water. The screen now reads "FULL POWER".

Use Signal (powered)
- You press the red button again, a loud piercing beep chimes three times and the screen reads "CANNOT LAUNCH IN ENCLOSED SPACE".

Use Signal (powered and in airlock)
- See below...

[edit] What words do you read when you complete the puzzle?

You throw the signaling device out into space unsure exactly what to expect. After drifting slowly away for a few moments its simple navigation thrusters kick in fixing it to a stationary position. It begins to shake in an unnatural manner until suddenly the top of the device explodes open and bright streams of light pour outwards. The device begans to hover back and forward like an excited bee, spreading light patterns across the black emptiness. It takes you a few moments to realise what it's doing. Using what must be some kind of coloured phosphorous liquid it's simulating a firework display. You did NOT expect this.

It's takes nearly 5 full minutes for the display to reach it's epic climax in which the words JOHNSON RULES spread out in 50 feet glowing blue light fill your entire vista. All of which confirms your worst fears, that this is why Johnson had the device hidden in his locker. All of the useful signaling apparatus inside the device have been ripped out, as he's been spending his spare time converting it into the spectacle you see before you.

Seething with rage you try to bury your anger beneath thoughts of what you'll do to Johnson if you ever see him again.

[edit] What words do you read if you don't complete the puzzle?

No time limit

[edit] Help! I'm stuck! Give me a hint

(opening locker) I don't have any way of looking up answers to these question out here. If only I had the internet.
(finding button) The signal needs a big red button. Where else can you find buttons?
(getting device working) I need some water to get this going. Think think... where do I do all my best thinking?
(launching device) Need to find some way of getting this out into space.

[edit] Special development instructions:

To open Johnson's locker the player must solve a simple quiz, answering three correct answers in a row to 3 random questions from the following (acceptable answers in brackets):
- Name the computer in 2001 (HAL, HAL9000, H.A.L., H.A.L.9000)
- Complete this tagline: "In space no one can hear you _____" (scream)
- Complete this quote: "where we're going, you don't need ____ to see" (eyes)
- Name the paranoid android (marvin, radiohead)
- Complete the sequence: "4 8 15 16 23 __" (42, forty-two)
- TO-DO: Add more classic sci-fi film questions