7th Guest

I have a question if anybody knows the answer. In one of the bedrooms there is a "maze" puzzle (apparently) and a "bishop" puzzle. I solved the bishop puzzle which is the only puzzle that opened up when I clicked the hot spot, and the skull is still there indicating another puzzle but no other puzzle opens up. According to the walkthrough, you solve the maze puzzle first. I have not yet figured out the solution to the can puzzle but have solved everything else that I can. Nothing else is open for me to do.

My question is, have I hit a glitch with that maze puzzle or does it not open up because I didn't solve the can puzzle? I'm playing the GOG version.

Is this the 7th Guest 25th Anniversary Edition?

I don't have an answer to your question. I have played the original game but not the Anniversary Edition. I don't recall experiencing any glitches with the original game.

No, it is the original game. I did play it once before from a disc but do not remember much except I probably used the in game hint system a lot .

Just checked GOG again and apparently the original game was removed when the Anniversary Edition was released. Glad you were able to get it before that happened.

I used the hint system a lot, too!

You can be confident it's not a 'glitch'. There is likely another puzzle somewhere that needs to be done first. You might hunt for a different walkthrough though.

It's not really removed, but you have to buy the 25th Anniversary Edition to get it.

The "Legacy version" is one of the extras.

What's strange is they say they use ScummVM for the 25th Anniversary Edition, which you wouldn't expect for a new, remastered game.

Thanks, Jenny. That is better than having removed the original version altogether.

A Wiki page says the game uses a modified version of ScummVM. Interesting.

Tally Ho, if you are right, then the can puzzle must be finished first since that is the only other thing I can do. I was not really using the walkthrough to play; I only looked at it to see if it mentioned anything about certain puzzles needing to be done before other puzzles. I think the game booklet did say the cake puzzle had to be done before the door puzzle would appear but that's all I know. I may be actually using the walkthrough for this can puzzle soon though as it is making me crazy!

Marian, I bought it long ago apparently, as I don't have a date showing next to it on my list and for at least 5 years I have been putting purchase dates next to the games when I buy them (although it is possible I just missed doing that).

Thanks!

Marian, may I ask a big favor of you? I am still stuck in this can puzzle. I went on UHS hints and read 4 of the 5 hints which didn't tell me anything I didn't already know. I am afraid to look at hint #5. I'm getting frustrated with the puzzle but am not sure I'm ready to see the solution. Does hint #5 give the solution or just a hint, and if it is just a hint, is it so much of a hint that I'll know the answer from it? I don't feel that this puzzle should be so hard to figure out and that is why I'm not ready to give up yet I guess. It's making me !

That cans puzzle is nasty. You already know to arrange them into words. Yes, they are real ( possibly uncommon ) words.
Careful; if you google some of the finished words, the solution might pop up because it's been searched for years.
A teeny spoiler:

Thanks, Tally Ho. Let us know how it goes, oldbroad.

Thanks Tally Ho! I don't know if I even used that word at all yet as I don't think it fit with the other words I keep trying.

Will do Marian!

Well, getting bored with it now .

I found someone online giving this hint for the cans puzzle; maybe it will help?

Thanks Marian! I was not ignoring your but wanted to wait until after I went back in the game to see what I decided to do before I responded. I did not play it last night. So far I have confirmed the two small words on UHS hints and I only looked at the first clue in the library. I did think of some other words but still haven't figured it out and decided to wait another night before using any more hints/clues.

No worries - I did not think I was being ignored. Good luck!

So, apparently I did hit a glitch in the game as I still cannot solve the "rug" puzzle even though I have now solved the can puzzle. (See my original post.) The walkthrough says this:

"The rug on the floor of this room is actually the map of the maze beyond the kitchen so make a note of the route through the maze then solve the Bishop Puzzle."

Well, I did not get the "rug" puzzle. I DID solve the "bishop" puzzle though and there IS still a skull indicating another puzzle but it will not open (as I previously posted). I suppose I could go back to a prior save to see if the puzzle opens or not. I would have to replay some of the puzzles which wouldn't be so bad since I think I can do the couple I would need to do EXCEPT maybe the Bishop puzzle. That one I got by trial and error and am not sure how it solves. The others I figured out and have notes. For now I am fighting with some walls in the maze puzzle .

As to how I figured out the can puzzle, if you want to know, I went back to UHS hints for the 3 letter word, then I Googled and found Word Helper while searching words with only a y as a vowel. I eliminated words that had no available letter or were the wrong length and eventually formed a weird sentence that I tried and it worked! (There weren't too many words left to choose from .)

Strange. I have never known anyone who experienced a glitch with the original version of the game.

Glad you figured out the cans puzzle. As I have said before, I admire your persistence!

The maze puzzle is both annoying and boring so I don't know how long I'll deal with it. That rug puzzle was supposed to give me the solution to the maze puzzle (don't know if it would have if I just happened upon a solution) so I did go into a very old prior save and did the can puzzle which unlocked the door to get to the maze puzzle but I still cannot do the rug puzzle even in the earlier save and doing the can puzzle first. I could have redone some other puzzles but I'm not sure there is a reason to waste my time doing that so I'm done for right now while I mull it over. Maybe the GOG version just doesn't have that puzzle in it? I have played some other GOG game that didn't have all the puzzles of the disc version.

I have looked at the rug and taken note of the pattern and tried to see if that worked. So far it has not but I will probably try that again a little bit before using the walkthrough. I have had my fill of the game for now though!

All I can say is that the GOG version of 7th Guest used to have all the puzzles back when GOG used DOSBox to run the game instead of ScummVM. Also you may not want to trust the Map 100%. Check the Map in a walkthrough to see if there is a difference. I don't know if the "25th Anniversary" version is different, but Louis Koot has a good picture of the maze and the path through it that might be of use.
Go to http://pcgameswalkthroughs.nl/
Click the link to "English Page where you'll find my English walkthroughs"
Find the 7th Guest link in the frame to the left of the page.
Slightly more than halfway down the walkthrough he has a nice picture of the rug maze.


That's unfortunate if true. It sounds like GOG used the "updated" versions that are actually ports of tablet versions of the games that removed most of the puzzles and a lot of the hotspots and locations too. A lot of 1st person games originally developed by Kheops, Cryo, and Microids had that happen, though for a while at least GOG had the original version for PC and the stripped-down, de-puzzled, garbage version for Macs. Amerzone, Atlantis 2 and 3, and Road to India were victims of this as well as some other games.

Hi Jenny. I don't know whether my version is DOSBox or ScummVM. I don't remember how long ago I downloaded it. When I first open the game a small black box appears and then it loads midi drivers or midi something.

I don't know anything about the Map. I've not even looked at it. And I don't have the 25th Anniversary version at all.

I will take a look at Louis's walkthrough. I actually meant to see if he had one and then forgot to look.

The one game I know I played that was missing a (one) puzzle was Journey to the Center of the Earth. It appeared there was a puzzle to solve but I couldn't figure it out and looked at the walkthrough which states:

"Valley of the Spirits -

(This puzzle is not present in the download version) Go around starting on the left fork from the main path and find 6 holed stands with a leaf that can cover the holes. Number the stands as stand 1 on the left of main path going clockwise to stand 6 at right of main path."

I had played the Steam version of Amerzone and while I'm not certain, it did seem like there was stuff missing from that game version.

That could be either one.
If you look inside the game folder, and you see a DOSBox folder, then it's the DOSBox version.


I wonder if you have to look at the design on the rug before the puzzle is solvable.


I'm not sure if it matters. There may not be much difference.


That would have been removed for a different reason then. Possibly because that particular puzzle tends to bug out or possibly because the puzzle was awful. But it doesn't sound like they removed most of the puzzles because of it being an "updated" version where the new game engine can't handle puzzles.


I checked the description of that puzzle in MaG's walkthrough.
It's a sound-based puzzle and I wouldn't be too upset about them removing it.


If you play the old version of Amerzone alongside the new one you can see how much is missing -- not just puzzles missing. There are a lot more things you can look at and do in the old version.

It is ScummVM. It is a little unstable. This is the second time I've had a issue with the sound. The music stops and there is just noise like loud scraping or something. I am able to get to the menu and save and get out. It was okay the last time and I assume it will be this time also. I didn't go back in the game again to check. I'm afraid to look because if it didn't take my save I may scream. I managed somehow to get through the maze rather quickly tonight and was in the crypt when the game started acting up. I hope I do not have to do the maze again.

That doesn't surprise me much. ScummVM has supported 7th Guest for some years now, and GOG seems to prefer using ScummVM over DOSBox whenever possible, even when it's not 100%. It's probably easier to configure than DOSBox.


Yuck! I hate when that happens. I can't say I've had it with ScummVM though.


I wouldn't want to have to redo that maze again either.

If your version of the game has an installer that uses an older version of ScummVM, it's possible that a newer version wouldn't have the sound problem. Unfortunately I've read that saved games aren't compatible between different versions of ScummVM, so I wouldn't recommend trying to use a newer ScummVM version this playthrough. Maybe the next one, if you ever decide to replay the game.

Just an update.

Jenny, since I updated the game it has started up fine but the sound did mess up on me twice since then. One time when I exited out of the puzzle I was in, the music went back to normal.

I think the only puzzle I have available to me right now is the Microscope puzzle which I have been working on for a few days now. Tonight (if I counted right before the board cleared) I had 24 squares. I think I need 25 so was only 1 short.

So close!

No getting lucky this time. I've been trying everyday except yesterday to beat that microscope puzzle but today I finally had to use the solve option. The closest I came since my last post was 19 squares of the 25. And then I had to use a walkthrough to find the next puzzle. Wandered around a couple of times and never saw the hotspot for it.

Do you know anybody who solved/won that microscope puzzle/game?

I read somewhere that if you are using a modern (read: FAST) computer, it becomes impossible. That may or may not be true, but it should at least make you feel better!

It shouldn't be impossible if you are playing the game within an emulator (DOSBox or ScummVM, for example) on a modern computer, because emulators ensure that the game is running within a simulation of its native environment. But that puzzle was always a major pain anyway.

Over 20 years ago, they would tell you if you were using a "Fast" computer the microscope puzzle would be impossible. Back then "Fast" meant 200 mhz, a tiny fraction of modern computer speeds.

You can still find walkthroughs that tell you this, because the original walkthrough was written over 25 years ago, back around 1995 when a 200 mhz computer was a fast, top-of-the-line computer.

If you try to play the game using the original game exe on a 64-bit computer, the game will not run at all because it is a DOS game and DOS is a 16-bit operating system. 64-bit operating systems will not handle 16-bit programs outside of emulation.

Modern download versions of 7th Guest are configured to use either DOSBox or ScummVM.

With DOSBox what the game sees as the processor can be slowed down with Ctrl-F11 and sped back up with Ctrl-F12.
https://www.dosbox.com/DOSBoxManual.html#SpeedHelp

Most current preconfigured versions of 7th Guest don't even use DOSBox anymore.
They use ScummVM.

Games that use ScummVM don't use the original game exe at all. They replace the original game exe with the ScummVM exe, which won't be speed sensitive. I have no idea whether or not the ScummVM exe works well with the Microscope puzzle (also called the Germ-eat-germ puzzle and various other names), but if it doesn't, it isn't because of the speed of the computer. ScummVM is made to work on modern computers.

The only time the "Fast computer" problem might be relevant is if you're using a vintage computer from the 1990's with the original disc version of the game that was made for DOS.

Thank you, Jenny. You said everything that went through my mind when I read that, and then some.

Well, I don't feel bad about using the solve because all the places I looked at (which really wasn't many) all suggested to just use the solve.

Yes, definitely do not feel bad about that!

Finished. Yay!

Congratulations!

I solved it the second time I tried it, but I still don't know how I did it. Since then I've had much less success playing the same type of puzzle in other games, so I'm sure I'd have the same problem if I tried the microscope puzzle again.

Wow LadyKestrel! Kudos to you!