Bioscopia (walkthrough)

Bioscopia      
 

After the introduction, enter the door. It closes behind you. Step forward, look right and find the ladder. Climb up and open the door by turning the crank. Straight ahead, go to the First-Aid cabinet and take the Phosphor Rods. Turn right and approach the inactive robot. Connect the black and yellow wire. The robot drops a key. Take it. Step back and look in the filing cabinet on the floor. Take the X-Key. Exit this room, climb down the ladder, go back into the street and turn right, facing the circular door.

Administration Building

Go F3 LF, and unlock the left side of the double-door with the key. Enter, and go into the first room on the right. Read the book. The surveillance monitor doesn’t work because the electric power is off. Go to the device to your right, open the slide to reveal a puzzle. The object is to match the leaves with the seeds. There is an Oak leaf and acorn, a Maple leaf and winged seed, a Lime-Tree (Linden) leaf and frizzy seeds, and a Copper Beech and Beech-nut pods. The positions are randomized with each occurrence of the puzzle.

Open the door by pressing the center button, open the next hatch with the lever on the right, and take the Plasma. Be sure also to take the Bucket. Exit this room, turn right, and go to the center of the circle and turn left. F2, L, and enter the room. Go around the desk, open the drawer and take the Red Key Card. Turn around and insert the card into the slot into the machine.

The zero indicates that the card has not been ‘charged.’ To charge it, you must take a bit of a quiz. The questions are mostly easy, but some can be tough. The good news is, that you don’t lose anything for a wrong answer. For help with the answers, you can consult the Big Brain machine in the opposite end of the room. I could make a nice long list of the likely questions and give you the answers, but Hey! This is Edutainment, right? A little reading won’t kill you. The card will only hold five charges, each of which is used to unlock a door somewhere. Inside all the areas you can unlock are more charging machines, where you can refresh the card. In case you run it empty, and can’t open any doors, you can always get back to this one and renew the card. That’s all to do in this room. For fun, on the way out, find the menu in the bookshelf. It’s not important.

In the Sewers

Exit this building to the street. Turn right, looking toward the original entrance, F1, and look down at the manhole cover. Enter the sewer, and at the dark area, use the Phosphor Rods to illuminate the tunnels. Don’t worry, it’s not a maze. Go F3, L, F3, R, F2 and open the door. Enter, go around the (?) crystal ball, and find the door on the other side of the room. Enter. Go left and find the console area and put the Plasma in the tube. Back up, turn right and pull the lever. You have restored the electric power. You can see the crystal ball through the round window, if you like. Exit this area, back into the street. If you are curious, the surveillance monitor is now working, and you can see into several areas that you will eventually visit. Climb back up that original ladder, and inside the room, look right to find a machine. Pull the lever, and the green light comes on. What have we done? Something good, I hope. Go back into the street, and up to the round (B-01) door. It’s open just enough to slip through. Straight ahead, if you look up, you can see the tower where she is trapped. Can’t get there from here.

You may or may not see a robot walking around the far side. He may be going left, he may be going right. Ignore him, he’s harmless. Turn right and go forward until you see a wooden door on the right. Go to it and use the key card to open it. 

The Stomach-Pump Room, for lack of a better name

To the left is a machine that looks like a big iron stomach. I have often heard of a ‘cast-iron stomach’ – just never thought I’d really see one! To the right, is a card-charging machine and Big Brain. Straight in from the entrance is another door that is ajar. Slide through, and go to the far side of the room. Find the two hotspots, one for the stairs on the left, and the other for the door on the right. On the right, see the robot, and look down at the floor to pick up the red object. It is called DNA-4. Now go up those steps. To the left of the locked door is a device. You can examine close-up, the funnel area at the top, or the spigot area at the bottom. Use the empty bucket on the spigot to fill it. Go back downstairs to the Iron Stomach. Pour the liquid into the funnel, and wait for the process to finish. (Digestion?) Then take the bucket back, and use it on the spigot on the lower portion of the stomach. Now go back upstairs and pour the finished product into the funnel. (I don’t even want to know what that stuff is. I hope it’s oil. Actually, it looks like baby food, after it’s been processed by the baby!) Open the door by pulling one of the chains. Read the book for a clue. There is a picture of a machine, and a temperature: 37°. That’s Celsius, of course, and represents normal human body temperature. In the opposite corner is an oven (?) vent hood (?) that yields a red block: Enzyme 2. Turn left and read the book. Code for kitchen door is 2009.

The Engineer’s Room

Exit this area, and to right, another five steps to a metal door. Use the smart card to get in. (Don’t forget to recharge its memory while you are inside.) Now this area is a little weird to find your way around. Look for the free-standing room divider panels, and go through the gap between them. You will find three desks, each with an object within. A book shows the formula for antibiotics: Mould, culture medium and a pipette with microorganisms. Other objects are a green DNA-3 piece, and a 35 mm slide. You can put the slide into the projector (DIA) to see it. If it’s a clue, I am unable to interpret it. At the back of the room is a small elevator. You can’t ride it up or down, but you can send it up or down while you are not aboard. Send it down, and step across it to find a ladder. Up you go, into the next room and turn left. Uh-Oh, Poor fellow looks a bit undernourished. Take the blue Enzyme 1 piece. Sort of looks like it would mesh with the other enzyme. Turn around to see the bookshelves that appear to be made out of an old barrel. Close-up, they reveal the titles. You need to click on six titles that have to do with cells: in any order, they are Nucleus, Endoplasmic Reticulum, Mitochondrion, Chloroplast, Dichtosome, and Cell Wall. Into the kitchen you go.

The Kitchen (Where, oh where has the cleaning lady gone?)

Go forward toward the other door, then keep turning right, all the way around the stove. In the open cabinet, find a piece of paper with a clue: Green=Paddle, Yellow=Study, Blue=Outer Gate, and Red=Elevator. Whatever that means, I’m sure we’ll find out. (Below the boarded-up window, you can look close-up at what appears to be a soap dispenser, but can’t take it.) There’s nothing else to do in this room, except use the code to exit into the dining area. Use the code 2009 to open the door. If for any reason you want to return upstairs, it’s possible to return via the ventilation shaft you came down. These buttons turn both ways, so it’s quick and easy. Two clicks on the upper left, and one on the lower right will do it. Step in and immediately turn left.

The Mess-Hall (Using the term loosely)

Open the trash can next to the refrigerator, and take the Circle 1. Open the fridge and take the Mould. Look at the dart-board in the other end of the room. The ‘3’ is grayed out. Is that a clue? I’m not sure. See the machine near the kitchen passthrough? That was pictured on one of those clues. Put the two enzymes in the rectangular area, set the temp to 37, and press the button. Presto! It created a new key-card for you. This one will open those big round doors, and it comes fully-charged. Don’t forget to recharge it yourself, after using it. Exit this room through the wooden door by flicking the switch next to the door. You will be able to re-enter it from now on.

The Microbiology Department

Turn right, and go to the next door, the one with black and yellow striping around the perimeter. Use your new smart-card to open it. Proceed to the next building. You can’t seem to get in, but there’s that blue symbol, that stands for ‘Outer Gate.’ Turn right, go forward twice, and find a window you can climb through. On the table is a device with buttons and a joystick. You can’t do anything with it, but on the far right, in the shadows, is the yellow DNA-2 piece. Near the door is a machine with six sliding levers. You are expected to know which represent Eucytes, and which are Protocytes. No idea? Turn around and consult Big Brain. You learn that Protocytes are simple things like bacteria, and Eucytes are multi-celled animals like walkthrough-authors. Whenever you turn the Brain on, there is a circular menu, with Cellular Biology at the top. Select that, and then the topic dealing with Protocytes and Eucytes, the third line down. Learn what the terms mean, and you will be able to set the levers. Actually, it’s the first three down and the second three up. Easy, huh? Don’t get smug. The fun’s just beginning. When the panel opens, you are confronted with the four symbols you have seen before, and switches next to them. It seems we can turn on or off, the access to the Outer Gate (Blue), the Paddle (what’s that? It’s actually a locked door upstairs;) the Study (the switch seems to be locked off and won’t operate;) and the elevator. The door to our left seems to be locked. Here’s the catch. You cannot select more that two switches.

Getting into that Upstairs Lab

So let’s do this. Turn on the power to the elevator (Red) and the Outer Gate (Blue). Exit the window, and come in through the front door. Straight ahead is the elevator. On the way to the elevator, turn right and observe the yellow symbol next to the door. Aha, so that’s the Study. Go into the elevator, and go up by pressing the top of five buttons. Also press the middle button, to lock the elevator power in the On position. Straight ahead is the airlock we need to unlock. To the right is another machine where you select Eucytes etc. The symbols are the same, the sequence is changed. This time it’s 1, 4, and 6 up; and 2, 3, and 5 down. Open the panel, turn off the power to the Outer Door (Blue), and turn on the power to the Study (Yellow.) Go back downstairs, enter the study, and turn on the Paddle (Green.) Exit the study door, just to your left. Eeek! A Robot! Don’t worry, he’s harmless. Just click on him and he goes away. Return to the upstairs, and go through the Airlock and into the laboratory. Straight ahead, on the table, read the note: "Gas Setting 2." (Don’t take much note of that clue – it seems to be a Red Herring.) On the left side of the table, take the Flask, and on the right side, take the Culture Medium.

For a shortcut, here are the buttons stepwise:

1. Downstairs, turn on blue and red
2. In elevator, turn on red (middle button.)
3. Upstairs, turn off blue and turn on yellow.
4. Downstairs, turn on green.

Exit the building through the window. You can exit via the door by activating it if you wish, because now that the puzzle is solved, you can turn on all the switches, but you won’t need to come back here.

The Botany Department

Back on the circular street, find the door with the horizontal Y. Into the next door, you find a gardeny area. A couple of fresh slips of Kudzu would do very very well here. One wooden path leads to a metal ball covered with vines. Reminds me of my back yard. We probably will have to develop a way to get rid of the vines. Go into the building, and answer a simple quiz on flower parts to gain access to the elevator. At the top, read the book on the little table. taking note of the entry for May 30: "Heating the fertilizer made a substance that caused the plants to wilt." A plan is born. Beyond the book is a control box with three valves. The left one is Hydrochloric Acid. Leave that one alone. The right one is Ammonia. Leave that one alone too, although that is a component of fertilizer. Turn on the center valve; Water. Enter the elevator, and rotate it to the left. You are trying to get the plant to grow. In addition to the water, it needs CO₂ and Mineral Solutions. Turn on the gas, press the button for Solutions and grow the plant. Observe the formula for sugar on the leaves. Then, go back into the elevator, rotate it right, and look at the machine as you exit. Great. Another quiz. If you studied the chapter on photosynthesis, you would recognize the process. The equation says 6 carbon dioxide molecules and 12 water molecules, together with sufficient light, and some help from a living plant, will yield a sugar molecule, 6 waters, and 6 oxygens. Pretty useful stuff. To correctly complete the equation, insert C₆H₁₂O₆ on the left; 6 O₂ in the center, and 6 H₂O on the right. Pull the lever to turn on the green light. There is a brain machine behind you if you need some help, and a card-charger to the left of the terrarium if you feel like answering some botany questions. Take the fertilizer from the round hanging safe. Take the elevator down and depart.

The Lecture Hall – Genetics Department

Back on the circular street, go left and find the door with the inverted Y8. Inside the next building are several things to do. Charge up that card before you forget. Look for the hanging monitor in the far corner. Turn it on, and hear a Lion roar, and see a graphic of the sound waves. Next to the card-charger is the door to the lecture hall. Go in, and find the main desk. Push the button to see a clue. It’s not very obvious, but it depicts the sequence of steps in Mitosis (cell division.) You can get the same information in clearer form from the Brain Machine. Now: careful! This takes a bit of maneuvering. Go to the back row of seats, and turn left. If you see a paper airplane on the seat, you are in the right row. Go forward once, then observe the cursor as it points down. It changes from a short finger/back of hand, to a long finger/palm side if you search directly over the seat. (If you looked carefully coming down the first ladder, you saw the same hands.) The short one turns you around; the long one lets you look down. Look down and take Circle 2. Okay, return to the other room, it’s time to step into that round elevator and go up.

Looking around, there’s what looks like an electric chair, an electrified tunnel, and a control panel, probably for the tunnel. The control seems to be inactive, and you can’t get through the force field, so let’s get brave and sit in that chair. Click on the device overhead, and find out that it’s even worse than an electric chair, it’s another microbiology test. This one is related to the clue in the lecture hall. You will see three of the five steps to Mitosis depicted, and you must choose the correct labels underneath each one. The questions are randomized each time you get into the chair, and they are also scrambled when you choose a wrong answer. Here are the steps and a description of them:

1. Prophase: The chromosomes shorten and a spindle forms.
2. Metaphase: The chromosomes line up along the center of the spindle.
3. Anaphase: The chromosomes split, and separate toward opposite ends.
4. Telophase: The cells divide into two
5. Interphase: The time between divisions, when the chromosomes double and the cells develop.

Answering the questions correctly puts an end to the test, and turns on the control panel. Here, you must identify the four components of DNA and use them in the correct order. This puzzle is a bit unfair, because one can’t determine which switch goes with which other switch. We can learn from the Braniac that Adenine and Thymine always go to together; and Cytosine and Guanine also; but this seems to have very little to do with the puzzle on the machine. The sequence on the dials has to be G, T, A, C. Thus it appears that the two middle dials go together, and the two outer ones. Even so, only one solution is allowed, though it would be logical to permit any correct combination, of which there are many. After all, that’s the way genes work. Anyhow, go through the glass tunnel. Find the freezer, open it and take the blue DNA-1 piece. From the freezer, go left and enter the small room. Place the flask on the holder to the left, and pour the fertilizer into the funnel. It heats up, transfers to the flask, and you can take the Wilting Agent. Exit this building, back to Main Street, and go right to the Horizontal Y door.

Back to Botany

Through the next door, and find the metal ball smothered with vines. Use the wilting agent on the plants. Don’t cringe when they make that strangling sound. Yeech! Open the device, and use the four DNA pieces to further open it. Take the Ball. Before you leave, take careful notice of the sequence of colors. Starting at the top, and going clockwise, the colors are Violet, Blue, Red, Yellow, Green, Blue, Yellow. Leave here, and to back to the street. (You have charged your smart-card recently, right?)

The Zoology Department

Turn right, and find the door with the color-lock. Use the ball to activate the lock, and press the colors in sequence to open the door. In case you are color-blind, you can open it this way: Think of the switches being at the 2, 4, 6, 8, and 10 o’clock positions. Press 6, 2, 10, 4, 8, 2, 4. Inside, find another Robot. He won’t hurt you, but he is in the way. He needs to be disabled somehow. Turn around, and look at the wall to the right of the charge-machine, and find an open entrance to the ventilator shafts. About five steps in, there is a toolbox with a screwdriver you can take. Pick it up and continue on. A couple more steps, and you can look into a room on the right, that is blocked by an inoperative fan. Another step, there is a room on the right that is blocked by an operating fan. Perhaps there is a way to turn it off? Another step, is a hanging monitor that displays a sound-wave graphic and plays a frog croaking. Continue on, and you will exit the shaft behind the robot. Use the screwdriver on his back. You have switched him off, and he topples to the floor. One step forward, and you can pick up the Y-Key. Couple of steps toward the exit, turn left and see the monitor with a graphic and picture of an Eagle, but no sound. Step over the robot again, and you can enter the metal door. Inside, see the dinosaur, just for fun. Look left to see a door that opens by means of the beetle-puzzle. Shades of Riven! Some study is necessary here; what it wants is the number of species known to exist in each insect group. There is a Brain-machine right behind you. Actually it only needs one correct answer, but there are a dozen questions and a dozen answers, so that makes 144 possible combinations. Let me give you a couple, so when they appear, you have the answer: Lepidoptera – 110,000. Isoptera – 2,000. Diptera – 85,500. That should get you in. Check the hanging monitor to hear the Eagle and see the graphic. To the right, see the image on the blackboard for a clue. Note the number on the Bee’s dance. (225°) It’s worth a look at the Brain, just to see the description of the Bee’s dance. Turning toward the door, see the control panel on the wall. Turn the switch off. This stops the fan in the ventilator shaft. I hope you’re collecting these animal sound-clues as we go. You can exit this building, take the street to the right, and find the XY door.

The Human Biology Department

Inside the building you find a card charger, a locked cabinet, and a puzzle. The six images represent the acetylcholine process whereby signals are passed through the nervous system. To read about it in the Brain, go to Human Biology/ The Nervous System, and forward five or six pages. The images are randomly placed each time you start the puzzle or answer it incorrectly, so here are the descriptions. Number them accordingly:

1. Two cells; single vertical arrow.
2. Two cells; double arrow from left.
3. Two cells at bottom, releasing their contents
4. Empty; red particles transmitting signal
5. Empty, receptors are pointy
6. Two cells, no arrows, red particles outside, returning.

Number the images correctly, and the locked cabinet opens. Take the Syringe. Now go into the next room, straight ahead to the device in the center of the room. Open it, and see the Robot Arm. That arm is just crying out for an injection. Use the syringe to give it a shot in the arm, and it releases a wrench. Take it. To the right of this device, find a book lying on the chair. It tells of a secret lab, and the code to get in: 1804. Insert the slide into the projector, and see another Bee’s dance, and a second number: 135°.

Back to Zoology

Now that you have a wrench, go back to the color-lock door, and crawl into the ventilation shaft. You can enter either end of the shaft now, it’s a bit shorter to go through behind the robot. Use the wrench on the bolt by the fan, and enter the room. Go to the circular device on the floor. The two rings must be set according to the clue on the blackboard. Outer ring 225° and inner ring 135°. This is the first time I have ever seen an azimuth ring labeled counter-clockwise. You have found the swimming pool. As soon as you are standing on the deck, look up and to the right, and take the Nylon Cord from the hook. Then go forward, to see another monitor with an animal-sound clue. It shows the Lion, and plays the roaring sound. At the other end of the pool, find the valves for Oxygen, Hydrogen, and Air. Turn on the air. Look to the right, and put on the Diving suit. Now you can go for a swim. Into the water, and turn right toward the propeller. Use the nylon cord to stop the machinery, and you can get through to the secret lab. Straight ahead, open the safe with the code, 1804. Take two items from the middle shelf: the Pipette and the Circle 3. Up higher, find the monitor with the frog and graphic of its sound. Look around some more and find the book you can read. That’s all here. Head back to the XY door.

The Human Biology Department, Revisited

Go into the main room. If you wish, you can show the slide in the projector. Go all the way to the back of the room to do the animal sounds puzzle. The three animal pictures you have seen are Frog, Eagle and Lion. Select them in any sequence, being sure NOT to use the reddish images, rather the more true colors. In the center, select the graphic that matches each animal, and on the right, select the correct sound. Click on the ‘speaker’ to play the sounds. (If you happen to be deaf, there is no way you can complete this puzzle without the help of someone who can hear the sounds.) When all nine selections are correct, the door will open. Inside is the machine that will create the desired antibiotic. Open the little drawer on the left and use the Mould on it. In the center drawer, place the Culture Medium, and on the right, the Pipette. Step back once, pull the lever, and turn the spigot. Take the finished Penicillin.

Back to Administration

Exit the building, and at the street, go right and find Door B-01, where you first came in. Go into the (Administration?) building, (Whoops, there’s Robbie the Robot again) and into the room around the left-hand corridor. Straight in from the door is a machine. Use the penicillin on the machine and pull the lever, sending up the penicillin. You get an immediate e-mail, saying she’s much better, thank you. Check the surveillance monitor in the other room. It’s a clue to the final puzzle. Write the numbers down, they differ from game to game. I believe the graphic showing the angles to set the circles does not vary.

The Final Puzzle

Go back outside, through door B-01, and once to the right. Look toward the center to find a device. Open it, set your four numbers, and place the three circles in the center. Rotate the circles by selecting the appropriate button, and pressing a right or left green arrow. The inner circle goes to 12 o’clock, the middle circle to 3 o’clock, and the outer circle to 8 o’clock. When everything’s correct, press the red button and enjoy the closing scene.