AMBER: Journeys Beyond - Solution

Introduction / Start of Game / The Woman / The Child / The Man / Endgame

Introduction

You receive an e-mail from Joe, asking you to help Roxy, a mutual friend, who’s investigating ghosts in her isolated home. You drive up there, but just before you arrive, an astral apparition appears in the middle of the road! You swerve, driving your car into the lake. You awaken on the dock of the lake, carrying nothing.

Start of Game

Ignore your sunken car and the lake area for now. Walk up to the house. On the front porch is a mailbox. Open it, and open the package to read a letter and take an oscillator. Open the front door. Since the power is off, except for emergency red lights, head directly up the stairs, enter the doorless office, and pull the breaker switch to restore the power. Now you can explore the house.

The rooms of the house are as follows. The main floor has a living room, hallway, generator room, dining room, and kitchen. The upper floor has a hallway, bathroom, wartime bedroom (locked), office (including stairs and upper reading nook), balcony, and master bedroom.

In the office, go to the computer table and take the cassette tape (it’s just above the mouse). The computer is password protected, so you can’t use it yet. You may ignore the post-it notes. On the desk, open the upper drawer and read the BAR manual. Note the recommendations for a level of 6, and a frequency modulation of 8. You may ignore the blotter and corkboard. Go up the stairs to the reading nook and take the PeeK. The PeeK is a remote for the scanning device (currently on the backdoor’s doorknob), the BAR (in the living room), and the AMBER headband (in the generator room). Throughout the game, whenever the PeeK’s outline flashes, consult it to see what it has detected.

In the master bedroom, if you try to turn on the TV, you will see someone else’s point of view enter through the backdoor of the kitchen, race up the stairs and into the bedroom, knocking you out. This is spooky, but harmless. There’s a book in the far sidetable drawer describing dreams; interesting, but unimportant. The near sidetable drawer is empty. The closet and other drawers merely have clothes.

The bathroom is uninteresting, except that the fogged-up mirror will spell “JOIN ME” the first time you look at it.

Go downstairs. In the dining room is a sideboard. Open its rightmost door and take the weed killer spray bottle. Note the portable movie camera on the right end of the sideboard. Turn the camera around and open its cassette holder. Insert the cassette tape, then click on the lens. Click the “play” button to see and hear Roxy talk about her project. Note her recommendation of a gain of 5 for the BAR.

In the living room, there’s only three items of true interest: the book and phone on the center table, and the BAR in one corner. Read the book when you like. Go to the BAR and turn it on. Use the select and up/down buttons to set the level to 6, the gain to 5, and the freq. mod. to 8. Then slide the upper switch from SET to RUN. The BAR’s stylus should start detecting psychic activity, which the PeeK will confirm. You cannot take the BAR, but getting it going will add to the PeeK’s capabilities.

The PeeK will, in due course, show you: the backdoor of the kitchen shake; a fork twirling in the dining room; a spark of light emitting from the TV of the master bedroom, dropping a key into the near sidetable drawer; a stabbing knife in the kitchen; flying knickknacks in the living room; and blood flooding and filling the locked wartime bedroom. After you’ve seen the key appear in the master bedroom, go there, open the near sidetable drawer, and take the key. The key unlocks the wartime bedroom.

The wartime bedroom contains war posters, medals, etc. Of interest is the mirror, where you’ll see an image of a woman from the 1940s putting on her hat.

On the backdoor of the kitchen, there’s a scanner on its outer doorknob. You can take the scanner, put it on other doorknobs, and turn on and off the scanner by pushing its red button. The PeeK will take a few minutes to analyze the scan, and then you can replay it to hear a ghost’s voice. The backdoor, wartime bedroom door, and lakeside-shed door will all provide an interesting scan.

Go to the generator room, and put the oscillator into the odd device on the central table. There’s a depression for the oscillator on the far side, under the ornate arch. There’s also a small desk in this room, with a note on top, and a newspaper clipping in the drawer.

You should have time to explore some of the grounds as well. The backdoor leads to a patio, and there’s a garage beside the house. The garage’s sidedoor is padlocked, but the front left door of the garage will open. Go in the garage. Take the crowbar that’s hanging on a support beam. Roxy is lying unconscious in the upstairs part of the garage, but you can’t do anything to help her yet.

Eventually, you’ll hear the phone ring in the living room. Pick it up and listen to Roxy. After she loses contact with you, the PeeK will tell you that the AMBER is operational. Go to the generator room and take the headband from the device where you installed the oscillator. Wear the headband. Now you can hear the ghosts and enter their worlds! You may visit these worlds in any order.

The Woman

You must be wearing the AMBER headband, and the house’s power must be on before you can enter a ghost’s world. One world is accessed via the mirror in the wartime bedroom. Light should be spilling out from all directions from the mirror as you touch it. You will enter the world of a 1940s woman, named Margaret, who has shot herself to death in her bedroom.

The world is now black-and-white, the same bedroom in the past. You can do nothing for the dead woman, nor take her gun. A radio is playing. On one dresser is a small mirror, showing the modern bedroom you came from. The mirror image ripples like water when you touch it; you cannot go back. There’s a clock showing the time. Five jewelry boxes with faces will speak part of a phrase when you touch them. Touch the boxes in this order: upper-right, upper-left, upper-center, lower-left, lower-right. The boxes will say, “I miss you, Maggie.”

Opening the door will fill the room with static; clock ticking is heard. Clicking again will close the door. Maggie will say, “That was a waste of time”. Literally. Opening a door will advance the clock 15 minutes. This will become important later.

The radio is beside a bowl of wool and two knitting needles. There’s a closed dumbwaiter door behind them. The radio dial is at 62. Turning the dial fuzzes out the background; you can see other backgrounds! You can’t tune in the station/room that’s at 65, but turn the dial to 75, and you’re now in a kitchen!

Check out the calendar in the kitchen to learn that Ted is expected home soon. Examine the victory garden and the cake. There’s a clock above the sink (go to the victory garden and turn left). Go back to the radio, and push the U button to raise the dumbwaiter. Turn the dial to 62 (bedroom). Flick the free knitting needle into the dumbwaiter. Turn the dial to 75 (kitchen). Push D to lower the dumbwaiter. Flick the needle onto the radio as a new antenna. You can now tune in 65 (dining room).

The dining room has several knickknacks. There’s a two-page letter from Ted on the window seat you should read. On the table, there’s a letter to Ted, a box containing a marine clock, and a silly greeting card. Make sure you read Maggie’s letter close-up. The radio will eventually announce a new station premiering at 7:00 pm. Open and shut the doors to advance the time; a normal door advances the time by 15 minutes; the dining room’s double doors advance the time by a half-hour. When the time is 7pm according to the clock, dial the radio to 120 to get to the den (which is the generator room in modern times).

The desk in the den has more knickknacks, but the only important item here is the telegram in the wastebasket. Rearrange the pieces into a coherent whole (it’s a Sam Lloyd’s puzzle). The telegram tells Maggie about Ted’s death, which finally frees her to rejoin him at the end of a long tunnel.

You wake up on the floor in the wartime bedroom. The house’s power is off; and the PeeK blinks for your attention. The PeeK informs you that the presence has been isolated, but there’s not enough power to process it. Go to the office, and push the breaker switch to restore the house’s power.

The Child

You must be wearing the AMBER headband, and the house’s power must be on before you can enter a ghost’s world. One world is accessed from the inside of the lakeside-shed. Use the crowbar to remove the boards from the shed’s door. Light should be rising up from the shed’s floor. Stepping into the shed will pull you into the ghost’s world. This time, the ghost is that of a boy who drowned after he fell through thin ice on the lake.

It’s wintertime. Navigating the lake is very awkward. You cannot leave the lake area. The important surface areas are: the shed, the clown doll (stuck halfway into the ice), the boat, the fan, the bubbly hole in the ice marked with a “thin ice” sign, and a hole in the ice at the end of a car’s tracks.

First, free the clown. You cannot pull him out directly. Go in the shed and turn the winch twice to lower a pulley. Push the pulley, which will knock a bag of salt through the window. The salt will free the clown; the clown will now be underwater, under the hole in the ice where the open salt bag is.

You can get underwater either by entering the salt bag’s hole, or the car track’s hole. Entering the salt bag’s hole will take you to a toy duck, the clown, and a car. Enter the car, wipe clean the viewscreen, and drive it whereever you will -- the underwater area is a maze of rollercoaster-like pathways. In most cases you’ll end up at a group of stalagmites. (Car and clown disappear when you arrive.) In the center of the stalagmites are bubbles. Touch a bubble to travel to the surface; you’ll arrive at the “thin ice” sign. Entering the car track’s hole takes you to the top of a pillar, with a path to the stalagmites. There’s only two paths from the stalagmites, though: back to the pillar, or to your friend Teddy (a teddy bear). You can’t reach Teddy, but you might be able to spot the boat’s anchor far above him.

To rescue Teddy, go back to the surface via the bubbles, and go to the shed. Climb the vines on one side, and turn the weathervane to the west. Go to the fan and turn it on. Go to the boat and raise the sail. The fan will blow the boat west, lowering the anchor to Teddy. Return to the weathervane and turn it to the east. Return to the boat and raise the sail. The fan will blow the boat back to its original position, lifting Teddy. Teddy and the anchor are still underwater, of course.

Enter the salt bag’s hole to return to the clown and car. There are three paths to choose from here, and midway through the ride you have three more paths: nine paths in total. Note that if you go left, then straight, the clown says, “we’re never gonna make it, we’re too heavy” as the car jumps across a break in the path. Go straight, then straight again, to deliver the clown to King Castle. The clown tells you to get the bear. The viewscreen fogs. Clear it, and drive left, then straight. Without the clown, you successfully make the jump, pick up Teddy from the anchor, and drive him to the castle. You then enter the castle, following a bouncing purple ball into a jack-in-the-box portal to the afterlife.

You wake up on the floor of the lakeside-shed. The PeeK blinks for your attention. The PeeK informs you that the presence has been isolated, but there’s not enough power to process it. Return to the house; the power is off again. Go to the office, and push the breaker switch to restore the house’s power.

The Man

You must be wearing the AMBER headband, and the house’s power must be on before you can enter a ghost’s world. One world is accessed via a gazebo hidden in the trees behind the garage. Go the back of the garage, face away from it, and approach the path as close as you can. Spray the weeds with the weed killer. The path opens up. Follow it to the gazebo. Light should be pouring down onto the gazebo from the sky. Enter the gazebo, look up, and reach for the roof to enter the ghost’s world, the world of a gardener named Brice Walker. He has hanged himself in a greenhouse.

In the greenhouse, the only points of interest are Brice himself, and the doors. Look through the keyhole of the white door to see that someone’s been murdered with a knife. Leave the greenhouse via the glass doors. Follow the path through some weeds to a bee garden.

The bee garden has three hives, and three exits. Click on each hive to hear what the bees have to say about Brice. Fortunately, you don’t need to know what the bees are saying, since their buzzing makes them difficult to understand. Beside the exit back to the greenhouse, one exit leads to a clearing with a disguised shed, and another exit leads to a clearing with blue flowers.

The shed is disguised with a flat statue of a man and woman in a theatrical tableau. Surrounding the shed are small trees, all of which have a small mirror attached to one side of their planter boxes. Two of the trees on the far side of the shed must be rotated so the mirrors will line up. Inside the shed, look at the workbench to remind Brice that he is a gardener. Close the shed’s door from inside, and check out the hole in far wall near the floor. If everything is lined up, you’ll see signs in Mandy’s window reading, “Leave me alone, Freak.” (Note the pattern of window panels.) The board that the hole is in can slide to the left; if the mirror nearest to the holes is rotated back, you’ll see the gazebo through the other hole.

Return through the bee garden to the blue flowers’ clearing, and check out the heart on the bench. A tag nearby reads “Key to the Stars.” Click on the three nails in the heart until they all pull out. Inside is the number “321.”

Another exit from the blue flowers leads to the gazebo. The floor inside the gazebo is a closed octagonal wooden door. Push the red button around the back of the gazebo to open the wooden door. Underneath is a metal grate with a combination lock. Turn the dials to 321, and pull the grate open.

One level below is a shrine to Mandy. There’s a photo, and a letter from her where she tells him she hates him. Two levels below has Brice’s UFO photos, skymaps, luggage for when the aliens come, blueprints for the gazebo, and a metal door. Beside the door is a white flag, and two lines rope that goes up to the top of the gazebo, passing around a pulley at floor level. There’s also wet red paint or blood at floor level. Put the flag on the rope, then raise the flag, then lower the flag down into the red paint (or blood), turning the flag red, and raise the flag up to signal the aliens (see blueprint). A red flag icon appears in a glass in the door. Lift the panel below the flag icon to reveal six red buttons. Push the buttons in the same pattern as Mandy’s window panes (upper-left, upper-center, lower-center, lower-right) to unlock the door. Inside are paint cans, and Mandy’s dead body. Soon after this revelation, the aliens come to take Brice away.

You wake up on the floor of the gazebo. The PeeK blinks for your attention. The PeeK informs you that the presence has been isolated, but there’s not enough power to process it. Return to the house; the power is off again. Go to the office, and push the breaker switch to restore the house’s power.

Endgame

When you restore power after all three ghosts have been isolated, an electrical shock appears to kill you, knocking you to the floor of the office. In the afterlife, an angel tells you it’s not yet your time, and that only you can save your friend. Only one obstacle remains, and all you need is wisdom. (This isn’t easy to hear. You may have to replay this to catch it.)

Turn on the computer in the office and type WISDOM as the password. The computer enters a crisis-mode, and first asks you to align the three ghost signals it wants to process. Fiddle with the buttons until the stars stop rotating. Then the computer asks you to create a circuit diagram. Each column has maybe about six possible choices; it’s easy to line them up. You’ll want something that connects across the top row, down and back across the middle, down and across the bottom. The computer finally tells you to put the headband on the person you want to reanimate, and run away fast!

So, take off the headband, go to Roxy in the garage, close-up to her head, and put the headband on her. The headband will begin its fireworks, and the game will take you quickly outside. In front of the porch, you’ll turn around, and see the garage explode into smithereens. Out of the fireball and smoke, Roxy will walk unconcerned towards you, commenting on the close call, and thanking you for collecting the data for her. Calling the experiment a success, she asks where did you park your car? [Credits begin.]

THE END