Antrim Escape Walkthrough

UPDATE: Game Hive released Antrim Escape v2.0 that contains an alternate exit. Read the original walkthrough before you go onto the alternate exit walkthrough.

Finally solved Antrim Escape. I have to say this is one of the best iPhone games I have played so far. And one of the best room escape game. The graphics just kick ass. And some puzzles are very well thought out and make good use of iPhone's hardware features.

I thought I would write a walkthrough for those of you that are stuck. But the amount of satisfaction from trying and trying and then being able to solve it is just undescribable.

I labeled the four walls according to the direction of the compass.
Each wall begins with items that you can pickup right away without solving any puzzle. They are marked "item" under each wall. The other objects are puzzles.

IMPORTANT: many of the codes and numbers you get in the game is different each time!  So the combination to the scrollbox is different for each person and different each time you RESET the game (in the welcome screen).

North Wall

1. Balcony Key (item)

2. Candle (item)

3. Pendant (item)

4. Plant

5. Clock

6. Left Drawer

7. Middler Drawer

8. Right Drawer

9. Map

East Wall

1. Silver Faucet Handle (item)

2. Fake Door

3. Painting

South Wall

1. Hammer Handle (item)

2. Cloth (item)

3. Coin inside the car (item)

4. Left Cabinet

5. Middle Cabinet

6. Right Cabinet

7. Drawer Handle

8. Crystal Ball

9. Music Box

West Wall

1. Balcony Door

2. Mirror

Balcony

1. Music Box Missing Piece (item)

2. Sink

Walkthrough

1. Tilt the iPhone upside down and you will see the chandelier on the top. Pretty sweet use of the iPhone’s feature!! Pickup the Yellow Gem.

2. While in the chandelier view, shake the iPhone to make the Red Key drop.

3. Use the Red Key to open the Right Cabinet on the SOUTH WALL and grab the rope inside.

4. Pickup the Balcony Key on the NORTH WALL and open the Balcony Doors on the WEST WALL with it. Also pickup the Candle and Pendant.

5. Pickup the Hammer Handle, Cloth, Coin inside the car and the Drawer Handle on the SOUTH WALL.

6. Pickup the Silver Faucet Handle on the EAST WALL and use it on the faucet head outside in the BALCONY.

7. In the sink, there is another Coin after you drain the dirty water.

8. Fill the sink with fresh water and soak the Cloth into the water.

9. Pickup the Music Box Missing Piece in the BALCONY and apply it back to the Music Box in the SOUTH WALL.

10. Play the tune of the Music Box: 1,3,5,5,2,4,4. You will get a Blue Key inside. (Update: in version 2.0, it is 1,3,5,5,4,3,2)

11. In the SOUTH WALL, use the Blue Key to open the Left Cabinet and pickup the Hammer Head inside.

12. Double tap the Hammer Head in the inventory to bring up the detail view. Then highlight the Hammer Handle and apply it to the Hammer Head.

13. Use the soaked Cloth to clean the Crystal Ball, and then BAM, break it with the hammer. Pickup the Coin and take note of the written time on the paper.

14. Use the time written on the paper to solve the Clock puzzle. A bird will mouth a Golden Key.

15. Use the Drawer Handle found in the SOUTH WALL to open the Right Drawer on the South Wall.

16. Inside is a compass, the code to open it is N.E.W.S. The Red marker is North. Turn to North, hit the button, then East and hit button, then West, and finally South.
(The N.E.W.S. message comes from the foggy Mirror on the WEST WALL by putting the Candle under the mirror – there’s a candle holder under the mirror)

17. Once you opened the compass, there is a paper with numbers written on it. Look carefully. They are numbers to open the Scroll Box.  Do NOT open the scroll and read in between the top&bottom lines and focus on the empty space between the black lines.

18. In the NORTH WALL, use the Golden Key to open the Left Drawer where the Scroll Box is inside. Use the numbers found in step14 to unlock it to get a Green Key and a Screwdriver inside.

19. Use the Green Key to open the Middle Drawer to get another Coin and a Letter Knife that is used to open the Pendant.

20. Use the Screwdriver to unmount the painting on the EAST WALL (click on the screws with the Screwdriver).

21. On the NORTH WALL, tap the vase of the plant a few times to find the two ‘X’ markings.

22. In the brick walls behind the painting, use two fingers at the SAME time to tap on 2 bricks – same ones marked with the ‘X’ on the plant vase. This reveals the coin box.

23. Up to this point, the Candle should have melted. There is a coin hidden inside.

24. With all 5 coins you found, put them into the coin box according to this:
- the years in each coin correspond to one of the books in the SOUTH WALL on the top middle bookshelf.
- once you match the year to the book, then use the book's color to match the position of the marbles in the SOUTH WALL small table. Make note of the position.
- Do this for all 5 coins and insert them into the coin box to reveal a sword.

25. Now we need to find the last gem – the white gem. Have the Pendant opened with the Letter Knife and make note of the Date on the lower right corner of the letter inside. This date corresponds to the (x,y) coordinates on the MAP on the SOUTH WALL. In this case, the "x" is the vertical bars on the map and "y" is the horizontal ones.  Tap the correct coordinates about 10 to 15 times to get the White Gem.  The reason to tap many times on the same spot is to prevent people from RANDOMLY TAPPING on the map. The game requires you to think, not go random. Every puzzle has a clue leading to the next.

26. Insider both gems into the Sword sockets and use the Sword to cut the 2 curtains.

27. Now, in the BALCONY, attach the Rope found in step3 to the handrail. Then attached the 2 curtains. And Voila.

AWESOME Game. Once of the best room escape I have played. Definitely good use of iPhone’s feature.

iPhone as Music Player in the Car

Top iPhone Apps

Have been searching around for iphone apps, mainly looking for games to play while I am on the go. And here are my top apps so far:

Urbanspoon:
This app is just plainly perfect for those that cannot decide what and where to eat. SHAKE your iphone and it will choose a restaurant for you based on 3 factors: location, cuisine and value. I have been playing around with it all day and I find that I didn't know there are that many restaurants in my area. Plus, there are user reviews on the restaurants (at least for popular ones).

Let's give it a try... Hmm..it's giving Ichiban, a Japanese restaurant. Sweet!! I guess I will be having dinner at there tonight. And just a click on the Map button brings me to Google Map.
On top of that, it is a FREE app!!!!


Antrim Escape:
This is one of the best game I have found so far. It is a room escape game where you are trapped in a room trying to find clues and solve puzzle to escape. I am totally a room escape veteran. Room escape games become popular online and is played in a web browser. However, as the iphone does not support Flash, you cannot load those games in Safari.

There is one other room escape game (Room Escape by 1026 Development) I have found in the Appstore, but the control are so poor and graphics are just too plain. Plus, the puzzles are way too easy.

Antrim Escape is free to try as a demo, but it you will need to purchase it for the full version.
The graphic quality is just AMAZING!! I mean I have been playing many, many room escape games in the pc, and yes, there are a few that has good graphics and hard puzzle such a Light and Vision, but the art style is very unique - photorealistic yet cartoon-like, at least for a room escape game. I am impressed. And the puzzles seems challenging as well.

I am all for free apps currently, but I am very tempted to purchase this game.


Flickr:
If you are into photography and love photo sharing, you would want this app. It is flickr for your iphone. Although you can accessing flickr with Safari, but this app makes viewing photos of your contacts much easier.


WeatherEye:
Another free app that tells you the weather. Weather data comes form TheWeatherNetwork, which I find it much more accurate than Yahoo (which is the stock weather app from iphone). And gives you the current weather, short term and long term weather. Also, there are sunrise and sunset info as well, which is useful if you are into taking some sunrise or sunset pictures.

Canon 50mm f/1.2L Review

Canon 50mm f/1.2L Review

Not only did I got a new iphone recently, but also a lens, the Canon 50L.
I have not been using it extensively enough to give a full review. But here's my experience with it so far.

The famous backfocusing ("design feature" as stated by Canon) for this lens is true because the lack of a floating aspherical element. I have tried multiple copies in my local camera store and they all backfocus consistently at close focusing distance: 45cm to about 150cm at f1.4 to f/2.8. However, shooting at objects farther than this distance or at f/1.2 or above f/2.8 would be fine.

However, this didn't stop me from buying this lens because with the use of a focusing screen, you can use this lens as a manual focusing lens. (like the Nikon 50mm f/1.2)
If you know the restrictions of this lens and worked your way around it, this is an excellent lens.

Using this lens and the focusing screen, I can nail the focus perfectly. And when the subject is sharp, this lens provides you with excellent contrast and amazing colour. I have shot with the 50mm f/1.4 before but the colour and contrast from this lens is just that amazing.

For some, the 50mm f/1.4 priced at around $400 is easily justifiable. But if you are looking for the best bokeh and colour, then you are with the heavily overpriced $1600 50L.

The bokeh at f/1.2 is so creamy that turns everything in the background indistinguishable leaving only your subject (even part of the subject is blurry), perfect for portrait shots, especially with 1.6x crop body giving an equivalent of 80mm. However, at f/1.2, the depth of field is very thin that any movement of you or the subject is definitely throw the shot out of focus.

It suffers some CA at f/1.2, gets better by 1.4 and gone by 1.8. I shoot on an XTi so I have not experience any vignetting, not sure about fullframe bodies.

Final Thoughts
I am switching to shooting primes. And the 50L is a good purchase (I sold my 70-200 f/2.8 IS to buy this lens). I find this focal length to be great for shooting portraits, some landscapes, low light indoor shots, and just any small objects. If it wasn't for the backfocusing issue, this lens will be one of Canon's holy grails in addition to the 85mm f/1.2. But with a focusing screen, it definitely helps a lot with the focusing. If you can get the focus, viewing the photo at 100% is razor sharp even at f/1.2 with some CA. I find that stopping down to f/1.4 and f/1.6 are the ideal apertures - enough DOF and kills the fringing. I am loving this lens that it will not come off the XTi for awhile.

Keeping Your Mails/Calendar/Contacts in Sync

Just discovered this great feature for iPhone. If you have been relying heavily on using Google mail/calendar/contacts to keep your things organized like me, you are going to love this iPhone feature. You can sync them with your iPhone wirelessly!

This is how to do it:
Go to Settings -> Mail, Contacts, Calendars -> Add Account -> Gmail
Then you just fill in your name, address, password (Not a new password. Enter your Gmail password!), and any description.

And now I can carry around all my neatly organized contacts, my favourite e-mails, and busy schedules in my pocket! Whatever I edit on my computer will be synced to my iPhone and vice versa!

The problem is, I have multiple Google calendars and it is only syncing the main one. I am going to dig into how to sync multiple Google calendars later.

3 years after 3 years

After my 3 long years contract with my previous phone, finally I renewed my contract and signed up for another 3 year contract!! But this time, I got an iPhone 3GS.

I love this phone. The community is so big and so many apps in the AppStore.
I just downloaded this free app call Tap Tap Revenge. I esp like the 2-player feature where each person hold one side of the phone. And the tracks are free to download.

I am going crazy searching for top apps!!... top free apps... :P