Cesky: |
Thirteen Ghosts
As an ancient
legend tells, Josef Becher hid recipe for
his original herbal liqueur Becherovka into old spooky
house standing somewhere on bank of the Elve river.
The recipe quard thirteen not very friendly ghosts.
They permit entrance to those only ones
who know solution of their rebuses.
They stone on the spot that one who is unsuccessful.
Nobody ever returned from there yet. Maybe you?
"Thirteen Ghosts" is a game full of puzzles. Your task is to solve 13 puzzles given to you by the spirits, the guardians of the Carlsbad springs. The game was created in Peter for the Becherovka Game 2003 competition.
This game has not become particularly popular - yet I consider it the best and most elaborate game I have ever created. I have put more creativity and care into it than into any other game. It took 3 months to make. The game contains 13 different rooms with different looks and contents, accompanied by different musical accompaniments.
One of the challenges was the specification that the size of the game in zipped form could be a maximum of 5 MB. This was achieved despite the considerable complexity of the game environment, thanks to well-optimized texture compression, the use of music in MID format and good optimization of the complexity of the 3D objects, mostly created on the fly. Individual rooms are decorated with ancient paintings. Surfaces are often enhanced with multitextures.
After starting the game, the game's splash screen opens, where you can select the language "Czech" or "English", load a saved game and set options for display settings. The game can be run in either windowed or full-screen mode, in different video modes and with different quality (depending on the speed of your computer). You can switch between window and fullscreen at any time during the game with Alt+Enter (this is a default feature of programs in Peter).
When you start a new game, the introductory story will play.
At the beginning of the first room, the control keys will appear.
Control:
- F1 ...
bring up the help window
- Esc or F10 ... bring up the
menu
- arrow keys ... move around the room
- PgUp/PgDn ... look up/down
- F5 ... quick save game
- F6 ... quick load game
At the beginning, you can move freely around each room to view it. If you approach the exit door, a ghost will appear and give you a task, then a puzzle will open in front of you. When you solve the puzzle, you will find yourself in the next room. After solving the last puzzle, the final recipe for Becherovka will appear.
During the game, press Esc or F10 to bring up the menu from which you can save, load or quit the game.
| 1 | 
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The task in the first room is relatively easy. You have to assemble the broken window. |
| 2 | 
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The second room is the library. There is an extensive collection of trilogies, but it is already very disorganized. Your task is to find the trilogies that belong together. |
| 3 | 
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In the third room, the ceiling painting broke. You have to put the segments of the painting together correctly. However, be careful that the painting is not rotated (i.e. the figures must be correctly upright), otherwise the ghost will not recognize the solution. |
| 4 | 
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In the fourth room, rotate the tiles. More specifically, you can only rotate 9 tiles at a time, so it can be a bit more difficult. |
| 5 | 
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In the fifth room you will get to a wild party. You have the task to fix the lighting of the room - you need to connect all the bulbs to one wire. The snag is that the length of the wire is limited, so you have to choose the most optimal path. This scene is interesting in that some people solve it right away, while others find it an impossible task. |
| 6 | 
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In the sixth room you will find yourself in the attic. Your task is to stack a collection of 8 spiders in a box. However, make sure that their threads do not collide, they do not like that. |
| 7 | 
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The seventh room is the Casper Ghost Room. The devils from the box spat on him and now he can't get them all back in the box. |
| 8 | 
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The eighth room is a very mysterious room. It contains a complex futuristic machine that has been dismantled. It is the mysterious Eye of Time. If you assemble the machine, you can use it to see into the past and the future. By the way, note that the clock on the wall shows the correct time. :-) And also note the function of the machine - the mechanical parts are really functional and form interesting complex gears, really realizable. |
| 9 | 
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The ninth room contains the signs of the zodiac and gems. By correctly assembling the gems, the room will light up. In this room, notice the floor - it is a shiny marble mirroring the room's environment. Anyone familiar with 3D triangle graphics knows that these graphics are fundamentally incapable of mirroring. The effect is achieved by the existence of a mirrored room under the floor, which is semi-transparent. |
| 10 | 
   |
I find the tenth room the most interesting of the whole game. It contains a working train track emulator with two trains, switches and semaphores. Your task here is to connect the sensors, semaphores and switches on the control panel so that each train passes through each of the stations at least three times. In this scene, you can realistically control the track and switch between different views of the track with the camera. You can even switch to the trains' internal camera to race around the track with the train. I would caution about this scene - there have been no reported cases of anyone being able to solve it yet. :-( (even just thinking up this puzzle took me almost a whole day) I was counting on more difficulty, so the control panel is also equipped with a hint button to hint the connection of one additional contact. Unfortunately, and perhaps surprisingly, all players so far have admitted that they eventually gave up on solving the puzzle and had to reach for the hint. |
| 11 | 
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The eleventh room is relatively easy. Your task is to put back together the cut tablecloth. |
| 12 | 
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In the twelfth room you will find yourself in the Pharaoh's Tomb. Your task is to build one large pyramid from two smaller pyramids. This scene isn't so much difficult for logical thinking as it is for focusing and maintaining your attention through mechanical repetitive actions. If the scene seems too difficult for anyone, I should point out that the resulting pyramid contains ONLY 10 layers, whereas the first test version of the game had 12 layers and was also manageable for test players. :-) (for a suitably longer time, of course) |
| 13 | 
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The thirteenth room is the last room. Your task is to assemble the broken pipe that feeds the bar's drink admixtures. In this room, I would recommend noticing the mirrors - like in room 9, the mirror effect is created by the existence of a second, mirrored room, similar to Alice Behind the Mirror. :-) After solving the last puzzle, the great Becher mystery is revealed. |
The game contains one secret cheat. It is described in the following secret text :-) :
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You can easily move between scenes 1 to 13 by typing ghost01 to ghost13 on the keyboard. You must use the top row of keys to enter numbers, not the numeric keypad.
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Download game Thirteen Ghosts - created in program Peter, EXE includes source files (EXE program can be opened directly in Peter)
Note: If the ghosts in the game do not speak, you need to install the L3CODECX MP3 codec into your system.
Miroslav Nemecek
