Spaceship:Puzzles The "Shut that door! It's blowing a bloody gale through here!" Puzzle
From TextAdventure
[edit] Puzzle Design Template
[edit] Top Line
- Doors. A vacuum. Learning to listen.
[edit] Verbose Description
This puzzle sits just after Goal 1 (see the Synopsis). After repairing the Captain's Quarters door with the fuse, the captain presses the door release stud intending to walk to the upper deck corridor that sits on the other side. I am assuming at this point, as a precaution, the player has put the spacesuit on. The meteorite strike should have caused the ship to issue a partial depressurisation alert, which is being "transmitted constantly round the ship via a shipboard announcement, intertwined with a loud siren".
However, as the door is released...
"There is a massive rush of air, and a sound not unlike a champagne cork escaping from a bottle. It is clear on the other side of the door is a vacuum, and as the two rooms equalise in pressure the Captain is flung through the door where he hits his head against a bulkhead, the door snapping shut behind him. As the Captain comes to he realises it is pitch dark, the power is out and he is lying on the floor. His suit alarms warn that the pressure in the room is less than 10% atmospheric normal. Thankfully the door was closed in time. The Captain realises that rapidly allowing the two rooms to equalise in pressure could tear the ship apart and that he must repressurise the ship in a controlled manner before returning to his quarters." [This ties into Synopsis Main Goal 4].
However, "The captain also relises he has no idea which way is which. The thin atmosphere carries a faint trace of the blaring siren but the lights in the corridor have gone out and it is an inky black. Utterly dark. Curiously the emergency bulbs also seem to have failed.... how could that be? Ah. The Captain remembers with a start that he used them in his portable hydroponics kit last Thursday while trying to grow a particularly impressive space fungus... "
The player can then examine the room further.
"With increasing horror the Captain realises he cannot know which of the door studs he can feel on the wall will open into another depressurised compartment, and which will open back into his quarters. Regret, and a little self pity courses through the Captain's veins, until his Captainly genes re-assert themselves. The Captain softly curses the the fact that utilitarian Company ship design did not extend to producing corridors with any points of orientation usable in the dark"
So this is something of a puzzle.
Depending on the finalised Map, the Captain has about a 1 in 5 chance of killing himself, unless he can work out which door is which. So, assuming the entire ship is depressurised apart from his quarters the player needs to work out a way of distinguishing the door that has an atmosphere on the other side. If the player gets stuck and randomly presses a stud, they should die every time (see Deaths section). Nobody said life was fair.
The Solution
The clue was in the initial description about the siren and depressurisation alert. The player should realise that the description of the dark upper deck corridor also mentioned the faint sound of the siren (only just audible through the thin atmosphere that crept through the door before it was shut behind him).
Obviously sound carries best in a thicker atmosphere, and not at all in a vacuum. The fact that the Captain heard the siren through his space helmet 5 minutes ago would suggest it is thin enough to hear through now. To find the door with an atmosphere on the other side, therefore, the player needs to press his spacehelmet against each of the doors in turn until one where the sonic vibrations of the siren carry through the door. This is, therefore, the door with the remaining atmosphere, and this is the door that should remain shut until the ship is repressurised. The player can then exit via any of the other four doors, because once he orientates himself in the darkness he knows which of the doors is which.
[edit] See this puzzle in context
Integrated above.
[edit] Which rooms are implicated in the puzzle?
Captain's Quarters
Upper Deck Corridor
[edit] Which objects are involved in the puzzle?
No objects
[edit] Is this puzzle essential to the plot, or is it a secondary objective?
Essential
[edit] What actions do you need to take?
Wear the spacesuit
Open the door.
Examine the Upper Deck Corridor.
Listen at each door in turn.
Press stud to open door.
[edit] How many turns do you have to complete the puzzle?
Essentially one. Get it wrong, and yer' dead.
[edit] What text appears after each action is completed?
Integrated above.
[edit] What words do you read when you complete the puzzle?
"The door opens, and there is a light surge as the remaining atmosphere from the Upper Deck Corridor disperses further, however it is clear that the room on the other side is not pressurised. The Captain breathes a sigh of relief and allows himself a couple of moments to bask in his own smugness"
[edit] What words do you read if you don't complete the puzzle?
If they step into the corridor without the spacesuit - it all goes a bit Total Recall. A typical vacuum based death. Probably including bulging eyeballs and bits of the body bursting.
If the player accidentally presses the stud back to the Captain's Quarters the rapid uncontrolled repressurisation of the upper deck causes the ship to implode, killing everybody on board, including the space gerbil (which the company are especially displeased about).
[edit] Help! I'm stuck! Give me a hint
I'd go along with another general idea that critical descriptions should be highlighted in a different colour. I'd make sure the siren was highlighted as being a critical element of the puzzle.
[edit] Special development instructions:
The parser will have to recognise any input from the player with listen, door, helmet, or combination of words that suggest the player has got the idea when trying to find the door with the atmosphere on the other side.
