Discovered Minkata a while back, but didn’t have the time to complete it. In fact, when I returned to the Cavern a few days ago, I were no less than five Ages behind. Er’cana still had its mysteries, Minkata’s desert was unexplored, I had played no games in Jalak Dador, and I had still not gotten a crew together for Delin or Tsogal.
Er’Cana wasn’t much of a challenge. Standard pull-the-lever stuff. Took me a while before I figured it out though, and the Age was absolutely stunningly beautiful. This is where I’d build my house, if the DRC would permit houses to clutter up the Ages. Was stumped for a bit regarding the pellets etc, before I realized they had absolutely nothing to do with solving the actual Age. By then I had activated all cloths, so I just retraced my steps – and lo and behold, a portal had appeared. Whoopie. One more ring-part-thingie.
(A bit of history, then: I’ve completed all Myst games except IV, and thus came to the Cavern with some experience under my belt, though I was, of course, impressed with how great everything looked in reality, as opposed to the computer-generated imagery of Cyan Inc… I finished the Journey once, when the DRC first opened the gates to Ae’Gura and the associated Ages. I then went through it again, when they opened up the caverns for more people.)
Back to Minkata. The clues were kind of transparent, but still I enjoyed the execution. The first two paths I followed to the letter. However, the margin for error was great, and what I was looking for was small. I began looking for ways to lessen the number of steps necessary. Through a friend who’s heavily into mathematics, I found my way – it involves mapping polar coordinates as x, y coordinates and calculating the endpoint by ways of sin, cos and other math stuff. I was intrigued – I might like math, but I haven’t studied it a lot, so I was very excited to find a way for me to learn a bit about polar coordinates, sinus and cosinus, etc just for fun… I mean, I COULD have done the same thing with a pen and a piece of paper, but… Wouldn’t have been the same. Anyways, I did the calculations, got my endpoint, converted the x, y to distance and angle, converted my distance to seconds, and set off. And was right on the money. Three paths traced, and a bit of math learned. Now I just need to measure the angles of the last path, do the math (this time for, what? A 14 leg path?) and be off my merry way.
Still haven’t played any games in Jalak, and I still haven’t done my Delin/Tsogal runs. Crud.
Be First to Comment