Concept art of the Machine Room.
The Machine Room is an area accessible from the Back Hall. In order to access it, you must first find the key in the Guest Room. It is the fourteenth accessible area in the game.
You need to explore these rooms to activate the machinery that powers the elevator to the Prison.
The Machine Room is the area where tinderboxes 81-85 are found.
Tinderboxes
- Two tinderboxes can be found in a corner of the room with the levers. (81 & 82)
- Two more can be found in the room where you place the rods, close to the gear. (83 & 84)
- One more can be found in the room where you find the coal. (85)
Information
The Machine Room is a relatively narrow area, filled with pipes and machinery. This is a safe area, so Daniel won't encounter any enemy (Shadow excluded).
Activating the machinery
To activate the machinery you have to stabilize the steam pressure, insert the rods in the right holes, fill the burner with coal and put the cogs on their place. These operations can be done in any order.
- Stabilizing the steam pressure. You should find yourself facing a console with six levers with roman numerals above and below them. The trick o stabilizing the steam pressure is to arrange the levers in an order that add up to 8 at the top and 8 at the bottom. A correct configuration to accomplish this is (from left to right): Down, down, up, up, up, down. The solution to this puzzle is hinted in the note "Elevator Machine Instructions".
- Inserting the rods. The console has three holes and "Tractatio Fluxus" written above. After having gathered all three rods from the Study and Storage, the machinery can be powered from here using them. The Flow Cycle Rod found in the Study fits into the circle hole, the Trinity Stream Rod found in the Storage fits in the triangle hole and finally, the Four-phase Amplitude Rod found in the storage fits into the square hole.
- Repairing the machinery. Three cogwheels are missing from the machinery. Luckily, these can be found stowed away in different places in the Machine Room. The first wheel is found in the room where you insert the rods, on a small table in the corner. The second one is right in front of the door of the same room. The final one is in the machinery room, at the entry door's left. Once all three has been obtained, you just need to attach each wheel to the empty spuds on the machine, and they will fit in automatically.
- Feeding the burner. In a small room adjescant to the one with the machine, pieces of coal can be found scattered all over the floor. To fuel up the machine, three of these will have to be added to the burner found at the side of the machine. Once enough coal has been added, a message will pop up telling you that the burner is full.
Once all above tasks have been completed, all that is left to do is to pull the lever on the machine. If you've done everything right, the machine should start, and the elevator will function properly. When leaving the Machine Room, the Shadow will invade this section of the castle.
Trivia
- As Daniel explores this area the Shadow can be heard roaring constantly in the distance.
- Daniel kept the room locked and the key hidden in his own room, which nicely explains the lack of grunts here. It may be considered a reprieve after having to dodge multiple grunts in Storage.
- The three control rods have hints in their names as to where they should be placed. The Flow Cycle rod goes in the circle hole, the Trinity rod goes in the triangle hole, and the Four-phase Amplitude rod goes in the square hole (a square having four sides).
Walkthrough
Developer Commentary
- Immediately in front of you as you enter the level.
Thomas Grip: More on contrast
Thomas Grip: More on contrast (Click for audio)
"This is another one of those contrast levels. This time calming the player down for what will happen when the elevator is finally running."
"The map is still dark though, giving a bit of foreboding for what is about to happen."
- A final one can be found just outside of the room with the flow rods.
Marcus Johansson: Becoming the plummer
Marcus Johansson: Becoming the plummer (Click for audio)
"When I first started concept art for this level, I was pretty happy because I think it looked very interesting, with all the pipes coming from random places, and, going throughout the level."
"But I was also a little bit worried, because it looked so time-consuming to create all of the pieces, and placing them in the level."
"And then, I was right about that because it did take a lot of time to make everything fit together."
"But I also think it was worth it because it's a very interesting-looking level, and we also used the same pipes in the later levels."
"As for all the pipes in this level, I modeled and textured... I think there are twenty-six different pieces of pipes that I made."
"I had to import the wall pieces used in this level into my level editor as well, to make a temporarily little map, to check if the pipes were correct length and all."
"I also had to make sure all the pipes snap and align well at 0.25 meters in every axis, otherwise, placing all the pipes in the level would be nearly impossible."
"As for creating the texture for the pipes, it was pretty easy because, I went with a simple kind of rusty metal look. And, when that was done, I started with the pipework in the level. As you can see, there are a lot of pipes in this level."
"After this map was done, you can say I pretty much become the plummer of the team, and for some reason, I had most of the pipe-related levels scheduled to me."
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