A Bonte Games Flashback: The Bonte Room

October 30, 2007

In the bonte games flashback posts I would like to look back on past bonte games. I often get mails from people asking me for hints, solutions or walkthroughs for past bonte games. The bonte games flashback will give me a nice opportunity to write down these solutions on my blog, and perhaps it might also be interesting for bonte games fans which of course you all are :) to get some inside notes on the games from me.

I'll start of the flashback series with the bonte room, the first bonte game that saw the daylight way back in December 2005.

The bonte room was my first attempt in making a flash game. Inspired by the popular escape the room games MOTAS and Crimson room, and all the escape the room games that followed, I really wanted to have a go myself at the escape the room game genre. The idea behind an escape the room game is very simple: you are stuck in a room and you need to find a way to escape. The bonte room is a very simple room as I just started with flash development: just 4 screens for each wall. I focused on the room's design and look, as I wanted it to look attractive and also I wanted to enter some life into the otherwise almost always very clinic escape the room games by introducing a living animal, in this case a little fishy. This introduction of animals and the interaction with it to solve the game, I would keep on doing in almost all my games. So there you have it: 'You find yourself dropped in a strange room, but are you smart enough to get out? No doubt!'

The solution of the bonte room was perhaps a little hard, judging from certain reactions I got, and my future games I didn't try to make that hard, but on the other hand, there still needs to be a challenge to make the game really attractive I think. I did get a lot of positive feedback on the bonte room. It was featured on the popular game blogs jayisgames and lazylaces, and the game even made it into a very popular printed magazine here in Belgium, Humo magazine.

Now if you haven't played the bonte room before then please stop reading here as I will continue to reveal the solution in just a moment! I hope you enjoy these bonte games flashbacks and please feel free to leave your comments! I'll keep on flashing back in the weeks to come on the past bonte games :) but of course there'll be new bonte games as well!

Ok, so here's what you've all eagerly been waiting for, the bonte room walkthrough by Bart Bonte himself :) Move the dog painting three times by clicking it, you will notice a small piece of paper sticking out at the bottom left. Collect the piece of paper, it reads: 'You won't get a drink when the lights just blink'. Turn left in the room, and you'll see a coke machine. As you try to get a drink, you'll notice the little green light for each drink will just blink, except for the powerdrink (fifth button)! Selecting another drink after the powerdrink just blinks again, except for when you select a diet coke (second button) after the powerdrink! Ok, so you already guessed it: you should find the correct sequence to light all the drink buttons. That correct sequence is: 5, 2, 4, 7, 6, 1, 3. This sequence should reward you with a powerdrink can! Collect the can! Now what could we do with that can. How about trying to feed it to the little fish: take a left turn into the room, select the powerdrink and click the fishbowl. You get a message that the fish would surely not survive this, wow this must be seriously strong stuff in this can!

Take another left turn in the room and there's an arcade machine! Let's play the 'dog hop puzzle'! To solve the puzzle you need to get all the dark dogs to the right, and all the light dogs to the left. The dogs can only hop one position forward or jump over one opponent dog. There are many solutions to this puzzle, so here's one possible solution: I'll give a sequence of the squares (with 1 being the first square on the left) you need to select (with the arrow buttons) when hopping the dogs (with the yellow button): 3,6,4,5,7,2,4,3,8,6,4,1,2,5,4,7,5,3,4,6,5. I hope somehow this was a clear way to explain the doghop solution :) So you when you completed this correctly, you should get a congratulations screen on the arcade machine. Notice the message at the bottom of this screen: 'DOGHOP - a one to one square game'. Well as you all know, nothing is happening for nothing in point and click games, so you'd better make a note of this message :)

Let's make a left a left turn in the room. Next to the fishing bowl, there seems to be a locker that obviously needs a code to be opened, but there's no code to be found in the room, except maybe for the doghop completion message 'a one to one square game'? That's right, sounds like one two one squared now doesn't it, so 121x121=14641. Enter the code 14641 on the locker and enter the large button to open the locker. Great, you found a rusty key! When you try the key on the door, it won't fit. Perhaps we need to get the rust off? Perhaps with the powerdrink? Perhaps we can do this in the fishing bowl, but we need to bring the poor little fish in safety first!

When you look under the red couch next to the arcade machine, you should find a small fishing net. You could catch the fish with it, but shouldn't we look for a place to put the fish first? Right! On the left side of the coke machine near the ground you should find a silver shiny tube. You can put this tube into the sink and fill the sink with water. Nice! Now you can catch the fish and put it in the sink, where it will swim happily ever after! Now you can safely poor the powerdrink into the fishing bowl and pop the rusty key in it. Once you take out the key again, the powerdrink removed all the rust, and the key will now perfectly fit the door! Congratulations, you have successfully escaped the bonte room!

As a bonus you can go and watch the fish now :)