Awareness Rooms

Awareness Rooms

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Awareness Rooms, A logical Walktrough
By Baum_30
A guide explaining the process behind why puzzles are solved the way they are, since the currently existing one doesn't. (Nothing against you btw.)
   
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Introduction
Heyoo, so... this is my fiirst guide, my condolences to anyone who reads this.
The already existing guide doesn't provide explanations for the puzzle solutions, so I wanted to try writing up my own. (Also, as someone who wears glasses, this game is 100% accurate to my day to day life.)
This guide will go through the game step by step and tell you, how you're supposed to solve it.
Warning: This WILL make this game a lot less enjoyable.
This guide will generally assume that you raise your awareness on your own, however, I'll try to mention when your awareness should be at a certain point.
If you need some hints, there are some in the section below.

(Side note: This game uses the arrow keys, Z and Shift for basic controls. If you're setting up controls for something like the Steam Deck, you'll also need to add S and L, as well as the entire middle row of your keyboard. (Or, yk, map a button to open the on-screen keyboard)

Hope you enjoy. :)
Hints
This section will try provide you with somo hints.

Raising awareness:
To raise awarenss, you'll need to inspect and interact with objects, here are some notes on that:
  • Inspecting an object in different states (like open/closed) can give seperate awareness.
  • Inspecting/Interacting with objects after raising your awareness level can net more awareness.
  • Movable objects are generally identified as such, however, you can assume an object to be movable, when interacting does nothing, since you need to hold interact, to move an object. (A certain ornament might be a little troublesome to move, but rest assured, it can be moved.)
  • Certain objects have different interactions from different side. (Like a certain object, which you can stand on.)
  • If you're stuck on a puzzle, try inspecting everything after gaining full awareness, it's not necessary, but will give you very much needed extra details. (Like the oven in R1.)

Actual Hints:

R2:
  • The vault instructions are for the arrow keys, not for which direction to turn the knob.
  • Compare the torn paper to your keyboard.
  • The black notes don't exist on the keyboard, their colour is supposed to be unknown. Try turning up your volume.

R3:
  • That "ornament" looks heavy, it's only a matter of time until it'll fall off.
  • The candles don't look that big, they're only gonna last for a few hours. Do you really need the right now?
  • The S and L buttons in the chest correspond to S and L on your keyboard and mean "small" and "LARGE" respectively.
  • The chalkboard depicts the bookshelf.

R0:
  • The bathtub can be filled with clear blue water, after you put the plug in.
  • The cardboard box is the only one that serves a purpose.
  • The boxcutter can be removed from your inventory, by placing it back or by breaking it on one of the other boxes. It can be reobtained by picking it back up where you found it, similar to the matches.
  • The table in the bottom middle room has numbers on it, but it's too dark. Those damn plants are blocking all the light from the lanterns.
  • The brush is too dry on it's own to take up the colours.
  • The four lanterns in the middle all correspond to a colour. The yellow one in the bottom right lit up when you coloured the moon yellow in the bottom right room. Maybe you need to do something similar in the other rooms as well?
R1, INK
You find yourself in a room, comprised of vague shapes, you can't solve any puzzles in this state.

*This is your chance to get familiar with the games mechanic, raise your awareness to 100% and don't forget to take the ice from the fridge*

You now find yourself in a room with a light switch, a machine that asks you for a password, a piece of paper and both a fridge and an oven.
(This room is basically a tutorial.)

Inspecting the piece of paper, you will find nothing of use for now.
The machine on the wall asks for three umbers, each related to a different colour.
If you turn off the lights, you will notice a green 5 drawn on the wall.
As you may have noticed, something changed about the paper, interact with it again, to find a blue 0.
The red number is also drawn on the wall, however, you can't quite make it out. As the girl points out, you can move the painting. Hold down interact and move it to the side to uncover the red 9, which is our last number.
Go to the machine and input "905" to uncover a secret passage to the next room.

However, we're not done here just yet.
We still have that block of ice.
Luckily there's a conveniently placed oven in this room.
Put the ice inside to obtain the Star Stone.
We can now move on.
R2, RCA
We go through the passage and find ourselves in a hallway, interacting with everything, we find nothing of interest and move on.

We now find ourselves inside a big room, with what appears to be a big machine.
Looking around, we find a strange thing on the floor and that the door to the next room is locked. However, we also find three holes in the wall. One is star shaped, so we insert the star stone we found in the previous room.

*This should raise your awareness level*

As it turns out, the strange thing we picked up is a handle.
Trying to use it on the cabinet in the hallway doesn't seem to work, however, using it on the drawer reattaches it, allowing us to open it.
Inside we find the Sun Stone, which we will insert in the fitting hole.

This will power on a small screen in the top right of the room, which flashes instructions.
>> <<<< > <<
The only two things we can interact with (Aside from the torn paper, bacause that doesn't make much sense does it?) are the fire extinguisher and the vault. Lets try the vault, that seems to make a lot more sense.
(Now, it should be noted that the instructions are for which direction to press, not which way to turn the knob.)
Anyone who knows how vault locks work, should know, how to interpret these instructions, however if you don't, don't worry, it's quite simple.
The arrows instruct us on the direction to press, the amount instructs us on how many clicks we should hear / how many times we should pass over the red line, before changing the direction.
Press left until you've heard two clicks, then right for four clicks, then left for one click, then right for two clicks aaaand voilà.

Now that you've channelled your inner criminal, we can open the safe and obtain the Moon Stone. (Next heist is tomorrow, 16:30 at the Central Bank, I'm counting on you.)
Now place the Moon Stone in the last hole.

*This should raise your awareness to 100%*

With the TV powered on, we can now interact with it, which will play the following sequence of notes:
blue, black, black, orange(/red)

Below the TV we can find a keyboard. How to use it? Let's take a look at the torn paper in the hallway. The image seems to look like the keyboard we just looked at. Each keyboard key is labelled with a key on your keyboard. (Very clever game. :) )
(To formulate it more clearly: Use a, s, d, f, g, h, j to play the different keys.)
Now, there's another issue. The keyboard doesn't have any black keys (that we can play).
However, you (hopefully) aren't deaf.
Listening to the TV again. We can notice that all the notes get progressively deeper.
(A musician (or someone with better ears than me) might be able to match the black notes to the corresponding keys, but we're gonna assume you can't.)
From that we can deduce that the black/unknown notes need to be cyan, green or yellow, that all notes are played from right to left and that no note is played twice.
This leaves three possible combinations:
b, c, g, r
b, c, y, r
b, g, y, r

Trying them out, we find out, that the correct combination is:
blue, cyan, green, red.
(aka. g, f, d, a on your keyboard)

Playing this sequences will open the panel on the wall, which uncovers a key.
Using it on the door doesn't work. Going back to R1 and using it on that door doesn't work.
This leaves one option. The small door in the hallway.
Inspecting it, it reads: "fusebox".
We open it and pull the lever, which turns off the power for R2.
Luckily there are no haunted animatronics in this game, so we can go over to the locked door over in the keyboard room. The lock for which has been deactivated.

We go through and enter a wooden door leading to R3.
R3, GAP
We enter R3, which (in my humble opinion) gives of slight chapel vibes.
Looking around, we find that we cannot access the room to the right, becuase there is a big hole in the ground, blocking our path.
Going over to the left, we find ourselves in a similarly looking room, though this one seems to be better maintained.
We look around, and find something that the girl mentions she could stand on, upon interacting with it... she sure can. Interacting with it from the side allows us to push it. Lets try to push it over to that thing hanging on the wall. Nope, can't reach it.

*This should raise your awareness level (You can also interact with the "ornament" first, but in the end, you will have to interact with both.)*

Looking around the room we find a locked box and an apparatus asking for a three digit code, as well as a weird chest with two buttons in it.
Let's keep looking in the other room...
Hey...
Wait a minute...
What's that thing on the bookshelf?
Let's move the chair over and look at it.
Nothing much of interest, apparently we can move it. It's a bit janky, but now it stands on the middle of the bookshelf, that looks a lot better.

Now, lets continue looking around.
As we look around again, we find that we can now open the closet in the main room, giving us some matches. We can also now try to read some of the note. It talks about the left and right room and about the left being the present and something else the future. Very curious. Looking at the flower paintings above the doorways, that might mean, that the right room is a future version of the left room...

Ok, but what now?
Lets try lighting the candles in the left room.
Hmmm...
We can't really do much. Those buttons don't seem to be doing anything, we don't have a code and the key hangs out of reach.
And the future room is entirely blocked by that stupid hole.
Hey, wait a minute...
I could swear that hole moved.
Wait, why is the "ornament" missing?
Ooooh, it must've fallen off the shelf and made that hole...
But that means, that if we move it all the way to the right, we can enter the future room.
We do just so, and we can now properly enter the room on the right.

There's just one issue...
Apparently the girl needs glasses, just like me. Because she can't pick up the key without some light. Sadly she forgot her glasses at the restaurant last Tuesday and needs to get through this without them, which means we need to make some light.
A bummer the candles aren't here anymore.
Hold up, we can change that.
Lets go over to the room on the left and extinguish the candles we lit. (This gives awareness btw.)
Now we can grab some more matches and go back to the future to light the candles there.

We grab the key and look around the room. Nothing that's of interest right now. The lock on the box is rusted, so we need to go back to the present to open it.
Inside we find a lever.

*You should now have 100% awareness*

We go back to the main room and insert the lever into the metal plate on the wall and use it. This lowers the fence, we can now go inside the top room.
Inside we find a mechanism missing two parts, and a chalkboard depicting a bookshelf, as the girl comments.
The chalkboard shows the following, drawn onto a bookshelf:

2--->
<---1

Luckily there's still plenty of things we can solve to get the parts of the mechanism.
If we go in the future room, we can see the code apparatus toppled over on the floor. As the girl comments, someone carved "MNM" into the backside.
But... that can't be right.
Let's imagine the apparatus was still standing upright, then, it wouldn't read "MNM" but "323".
Heureka! That's the code.
If we enter it in the present, we can get a golden gear.
That's part one of the mechanism repaired.


But what now? (This is the first time I had to look at the walkthrough, but I'll try to explain the/my logic behind it.)
All that's left is that weird chest and the chalkboard.
The chalkboard supposedly depicts the bookshelf.
So... what similarity is there between the bookshelf and the chest?
Y' know what's odd about the bookshelf? Why are the books like that. When making a sprite, you'd either make all the books the same size, or make them vary in size, but like, you'd make more than two different sizes if you wanted to do the later, right?
These are just large and small.
Wait... large and small? Like... l and s?
Oh.
The buttons in the chest correlate to the size of the books. (Luckily the girl didn't move any of them.)
Now, if we remember the drawing on the chalkboard:

2--->
<---1

That means that we need to enter the book's sizes. First the bottom row, right to left, then the top row, left to right. (Though the top row is symmetrical, lol.)
That comes out to:

lsllsllll slls

We input the code and the bottom compartment opens, giving us a golden cog.
Great, lets repair the mechanism. (You can actually solve the puzzles for the parts at 50% awareness. Just like some of the puzzles in the next segment.)

We insert the parts and twist the cog twice. We room shakes and a loud bell rings out two times, before everything calms down.

Looking around, we find that the future room has been replaced by a small room, only comprised of a small table with a blue key.
Now, we venture back through R2 and into R1.
Did the blue door always look like this?
Upon inspection, we feel a call from the othe side...
We open the door with the key and venture forth into darkness...
R0 awaits...
R0, REM
As we awaken, our eyes slowly getting used to the darkness sorounding us, we find ourselves in R0.
The rooms are connected as follows:

# -- # -- #
.........I........I
# -- # -- #
I........I.........
# -- # -- #

(I will be labeling them 1-9, top to bottom, left to right.)
(Btw, I needed help for some of these originally, but I will try to explain the logic.)

5: The current room has a table in the middle, with a cloth drapped over it.
In the four corners, there's four unlit lanterns: red, blue, green and yellow.

4: As you go through the left door, you are hit by a wave of vertigo, before you find yourself inside another room, four boxes are on the floor, each feeling slightly different. There's another clothed table.

7: You move on to the next room, four rubbery things are floating about, blue, green, red and yellow.
In the corner is a clothed table with a white board on top.

8: You move on. The next room has four trees and a table. The lanterns are very dim, but are turned on.

9: You move on. Four colours, red blue, green and yellow are lined up next to a piece of paper.

6: You backtrack a bit and go to the right from the center room. You find a seemingly empty clothed table.

3: You move on. You look around the room.

*Your awareness level should now be raised*

You identify the large object in the room as a bathtub. Looking at it from the top, you put the piece of rubber into the hole and let water flow inside. It's cold to the touch.

2: You move on. In this room, there's two clocks, one showing minutes, one showing hours. What time is it right now?

1: You move on. It's even darker in here. You can make out some candles in the middle, you'll need to light them before exploring further.

6: On your way back to the main room, you find a boxcutter on the clothed table.

5: You notice the blue lantern has turned on.

4: You look at the boxes and use the boxcutter to slice open the cardboard one. You find a brush on the clothed table. You like it.

7: You swing the cutter at all the balloons, popping them. You press the button and they reappear.

*This should raise your awareness to 100%*

8: You notice there's something carved into the table, you move one of the plants out of the way and drag the table closer to one of the lights. It reads: "6:15".

9: You look at the colour palettes. Then at the unfinished painting of the moon. You want to finish it, but your brush is too dry to paint.

3: You dip your brush into the cold water.

9: You coat the brush yellow and finish the painting. This satisfies you.

5: You notice that colouring the painting in the bottom right room yellow has turned on the yellow lantern in the bottom right of the main room. You think, it might be like that for all the lanterns in this room.

7: You stab all the balloons except the green one.

6: You look one of the other boxes, you try to use the boxcutter, but it breaks.

5: As suspected, the green light has turned on.

2: You set the clocks to 6:15. Matches appear.

1: You light the candles and look around the room. there's four canvases, each with one of the suits in a deck of cards: spades, hearts, clubs and diamonds.
In the corner is a button. You persume it to serve a similar purpose to the one in the balloon room. Something annoys you...

3: You wash the yellow paint off the brush.

9: You coat it in red paint.

1: You paint the heart and diamond red, just how it's supposed to be.

5: You go back to the main room, every lantern should be on...
They aren't.
You notice that the blue lantern has turned off.

3: You go to the bathtub. The water is all filthy. You let it drain and refill the tub, with clear blue water.
As you turn to leave, you notice the brush poking out of your pocket. You decide to wash it off, before returning to the main room. Doing so seems to be the cause of the dirty water from before.
You once again pour in fresh water.

6: On the way to the main room, you notice, that there's a new boxcutter floating on the table. You don't need it.

5: You notice something has appeared on the clothed table in the middle of the room. You inspect it.
"What... is this?"
You interact with it...
It's presence scares you, you take your hand back at the very last moment.

4: You put back the brush to make space.

5: You feel like it's following your every move.

6: You pick up the boxcutter.

5: You dash at the... thing and slash at it with the boxcutter.
(Interacting or stabbing, it doesn't matter.)

*Your awareness should now be at 150%*

*Your awareness should now be at 200%*

*Your awareness should now be at 250%*

*Your awareness should now be at 300%*

*Your awareness should now be at 350%*

*Your awareness should now be at 400%*

*Your awareness should now be at 450%*

*Your awareness should now be at 500%*

*Your awareness should now be at 550%*

*Your awareness...
The real world, END


When you came to, you were in a very familiar room.

It had been a long, long dream.















But don't worry, the voice in your head is still here. :)
A teensie tiny small littel Afterword
Hey, huge thanks for reading.
Hope you enjoyed. :)
I worked on this for a good few hours, and it was honestly really fun.
Fun fact: The time in R0 is 6:15 and in the real world it's 6:45, meaning the time in R0 is probably the actual time.

I tried to speedrun the game, I got about 9:08. You know... they used to call me Dream back then. ;)



Also props to the one other person playing right now.
Maybe this guide comes out just in time for you.



Anyways, see ya.

*Your awareness should now be at 100%*
2 Comments
Born Again Gen 4 Aug @ 12:17pm 
Just a small add, in R2 you note the code is >> <<<< > >> when its actually >> <<<< > <<
That had me a bit confused but thanks for the guide
legopikmin 16 Jul @ 7:01am 
Thank you! I had solved everything on my own EXCEPT for the clocks puzzle in room zero.
I moved the plants and never saw the numbers, I must have had one just barely out of position or something.