The Wonderland Board

Want to play Part 3? Then you are in the wrong place! Here is the link for The Hidden Archive: Part 3, Redeemer's Edition: LINK


SPECIAL THANKS TO COOKIE FOR BETA TESTING THIS, AND TO CLOUDRAC3R (Cadence) FOR HELPING ME TACKLE DOWN A HUGE DIALOG BUG THAT AFFECTED THE DEVELOPMENT (more details down below)

The Hidden Archive Saga
PART 1
PART 2
PART 3

This, without doubt, has been one of the rather more frustrating adventures to design and playtest. I'm glad to see it's done!

If part 1's adventure filesize was only 2.3 megabytes, and part 2 was 3.12 megabytes, then part 3 is bigger than the first two COMBINED (total of 5.7 megabytes holy). It has tons of content in there (26 wlvs and 62 dialogs), and the average time it took me to finish it was an hour and a half at first, then just an hour. Cookie has playtested this when it was in the beta stage and it took him roughly 7 hours to complete the level, but he was playing a more difficult and tedious version so that's another reason why it took so long.

For those who are new to The Hidden Archive story, here's a quick recap from part 2: You continue venturing into the archives and then your progress gets interrupted by someone, and you get sent to an illusion place called The Seven Stars Hotel. Shortly after escaping the hotel you end up dying so the story takes off from that point.

There are little to no traditional WA puzzles here: The Hidden Archive doesn't take a traditional puzzle design but more of a point-and-click type. Elements used will sometimes have a different function from that they are known for, and hints will be placed all around the level for you to understand and attempt your playthrough.

custom content: There's so much custom content, I've packed them all up for you, when you download the adventure you just need to drag and drop the files to your WAE3 folder and they will go where they belong. 1- bluearcade 2- brownish red 3- cyan 4- dark gray 5- light gray 6- Glass 7- platinumstar 8- portalcover 9- wall2 10- mtemple leveltexture 11- spectropolis leveltexture 12- portal leveltexture 13- swamp watertexture 14- wine bottle 15- arch 16- bridge_rope 17- c_bush 18- C_tree 19- column2 20- labcomp2 21- stairtriple 22- wall_double 23- model3 24-Goose 25-Teleporters0-15.bmp 26-bluestar 27-whitethwart 28-bluepillar 29-lizard 30-MS 31-!Mark. There's plenty more but let's leave it at that. :mrgreen:

Description: With the main character dead, Chief and Ria are already plotting for a replacement. An odd decision given that you were the "last" eradicator.

Nothing crazy or complex to worry about, the puzzles are simple and should take you a couple of minutes to solve, critical thinking is key and you'll be able to traverse easily!

IMPORTANT NOTE: The mechanisms in the puzzles are delicate, meaning that there's a tiny chance something may go wrong (despite testing it numerous times anything could happen). To minimize the risk of breaking a mechanism, make sure you give a half a second pause between each and every action (if you want to press one button then another), so that nothing breaks and causes you to get stuck, I can assure you that the chances of breaking the level are very low, unless you WANT to break the level, then that's another story. :lol:
You can also save beforehand or save in a previous level to make sure you have enough backups, just in case.

How to install: Download the file and just place it into your WA folder, everything is gonna go to its place and you're set!

Recommended to play on widescreen for a better experience!
Recommended to download my music pack for a better experience, I've updated it to Vol. 3! LINK HERE
Make sure you have the modded WA 10.3.2 to play part 3 or the adventure might MAV / hardlock you!


Known issues: During the development stage of part 3, I used an external dialog editor created by Cadence to write down WAE3's dialogs with easier and more accessible controls, such as copy/pasting, Caps key, etc. One of the big problems that happened is that a dialog had 8 lines of text (maximum allowed in WA's vanilla editor is 7) and this additional line has managed to copy itself into almost every other dialog out there (so basically, almost 60 dialogs had the same last line repeated in their interchange). Thanks to Cadence's hardwork, They sent me a decompiling program to undo the 8th line, and they even offered to fix and reconvert the dialogs all over again. With that said, there are some remnants, or "traces" still lingering around in a few dialogs, and honestly it feels like the whole adventure became one big steaming pile of mess, you will see a few words oddly placed alone at the bottom. Ignore them until I get a surge of energy to fix those dialogs all over again. :mrgreen:
UPDATE: SPECIAL THANKS TO MNIK FOR FINDING A PERMENANT FIX FOR THIS ISSUE, THE NEW VERSION 1.01 WON'T HAVE ANY WEIRD DIALOGS, WOOO

Codenames: Limbo, Icebreaker, Frozen_Fame, Astral_Projection, Darkness_Falls

[]DOWNLOAD PART 3 V1.01 LINK IS DOWN, PLEASE WAIT FOR THE UPCOMING UPDATE!! (message changed as of 24th March 2023


This one took the most time to make, and was very, VERY, painful, yet here we are. For those who play it, goodluck, and I hope you enjoy it!

VIDEO SOLUTION HERE These are a series of video solutions made by Jutomi, he worked really hard to get them uploaded on Youtube and I believe it's best to link it here for everyone, in the event you get stuck. Thank you Jutomi!

First winner

I can't wait to see the reactions of the others.

UPDATE: As of November 23rd, 2022, some fixes were implemented, for those 4 who downloaded the level please redownload the new, fixed version or just contact me on discord if you get softlocked and I'll provide you with the a workaround.

Changes:
The dialog virus bug has been solved completely, SPECIAL THANKS TO MNIK FOR HELPING ME OUT WITH THIS!!!
Fixed a bug where the !mark indicators do not deactivate in one of the sequences
Fixed a tile logic mistake in the night exhibit area where floors are acting as water.
Fixed a dialog in the temperature adjuster softlocking you.

Sorry about this, try to enjoy it!

Uh... There's apparently some missing object textures here? "darkgreymetal.png" was one mentioned, but it seems like there were others and the error text overlapped itself, making it unreadable...

rainbowmon wrote: Mon Nov 28, 2022 12:27 am Uh... There's apparently some missing object textures here? "darkgreymetal.png" was one mentioned, but it seems like there were others and the error text overlapped itself, making it unreadable...

Oh god, this level has been nothing but a disaster at launch.
I have uploaded the complete custom folder for you in the original post, this way you won't miss any important custom textures, I hope.

Sorry about that!

ab-47 wrote: Mon Nov 28, 2022 12:36 amOh god, this level has been nothing but a disaster at launch.

Can't be any worse than the Force of Urxon... which I still haven't finished fixing and is presently not 100%able due to a key being the wrong colour

(I'll get to it when I'm done procrastinating after finishing my coup collab entry after I'm done procrastinating after I'm done being busy after I'm done procrastinating.)

ab-47 wrote: Mon Nov 28, 2022 12:36 am

rainbowmon wrote: Mon Nov 28, 2022 12:27 am Uh... There's apparently some missing object textures here? "darkgreymetal.png" was one mentioned, but it seems like there were others and the error text overlapped itself, making it unreadable...

Oh god, this level has been nothing but a disaster at launch.
I have uploaded the complete custom folder for you in the original post, this way you won't miss any important custom textures, I hope.

Sorry about that!

Don't worry about it! Happens to all of us sometimes.

I'll get to playing this Adventure at some point soon; I may have just gotten an early Christmas gift a couple of hours ago in the form of Kirby and the Forgotten Land, so that may delay me a bit...

Alright, I got through quite a bit, and now I'm at a rather interesting puzzle that I'd like to ask for clarification about:

The player character is frozen, and in order to free them, I have to adjust 5 different machines, each with different rules. A 6th machine tells you that 1. All rules are true except for 1 per machine which is false to throw you off, and 2. The encrypted rule is always true. Makes sense, except for two things... The fuel machine doesn't have any encrypted rules, and the rules for the Moo-bot machine aren't formatted the same as the others (and also didn't have an encrypted rule). My question is - does the bit about one rule being false apply to those two machines as well, or is it just the three machines that do have encrypted rules?

rainbowmon wrote: Thu Dec 08, 2022 5:24 pm Alright, I got through quite a bit, and now I'm at a rather interesting puzzle that I'd like to ask for clarification about:

The player character is frozen, and in order to free them, I have to adjust 5 different machines, each with different rules. A 6th machine tells you that 1. All rules are true except for 1 per machine which is false to throw you off, and 2. The encrypted rule is always true. Makes sense, except for two things... The fuel machine doesn't have any encrypted rules, and the rules for the Moo-bot machine aren't formatted the same as the others (and also didn't have an encrypted rule). My question is - does the bit about one rule being false apply to those two machines as well, or is it just the three machines that do have encrypted rules?

Got it, though I'm not sure if the heat receptors were the intended solution or not - A and D were up, while B, C, and E were down. Ultimately, that part of the puzzle felt like I was either missing something, or there wasn't enough information, because I essentially had to trial-and-error it. I'm not even sure what the fake rule was - based on the combination I used, there's two rules that could've been the fake.

And that's a wrap! *WOW*, that Adventure was *INSANE!* Some very creative puzzles (my favorites in this series so far), and A BOSS BATTLE?!?!?!?!?!?! I was *NOT* expecting that!!!!!!!

Amazing work; can't wait for part 4!

Hey rainbowmon, I read your messages while I was at work and decided to recheck the dialog just now. I can see the confusion this has caused and should have made it more clear that the bullet points are the "rules".

Basically: For the first machine, it will mention that one rule will always be false (red color is always false in the other 3 machines), and one is encrypted (green) and you can manage to understand what's the hidden message.

The second machine (temperature) requires a specific temperature. With the information we have, there are too many rules that can't be verified unless we check the others as well, so let's leave this one out and check the next one.

The third machine (rotator) mentions that the best angle is at 0 degrees, however the first rule says that 0 / 360 will aim towards left. We want the machine to aim DOWN, so by following the encrypted rule (3 question marks which means it's a three digit number, so 180, 270, or 360) and the last rule (keyword: ATLEAST), then it has to be 270 degrees, because 360 is gonna aim left.

FOURTH MACHINE (RECEPTORS) IS WRONG, I WILL FIX THE DESCRIPTION ON THE UPCOMING PATCH, SORRY ABOUT THE CONFUSION. IF YOU NEED TO KNOW WHAT THE ANSWER IS, IT'S A AND D

Fifth Machine (Fuel) so the rules here are no longer applied and I thought using white color only will show that this is just valid statements, but looks like it wasn't. First fuel (birch) type says that the temperature should be 1400-1550 C, we still don't know what temperature will we use so let's keep that on hold. Next fuel (Sycamore) is obviously out of the option because it needs receptor C, so that won't work. Last fuel type is ironwood and it needs two or more receptors to be ON in order to work, so this means we are better off picking this type of wood over the first one since we have one valid statement that applies.

Sixth Machine (Moobot map) is basically arranging the moobots in a way where the green moobot has to be next to the turret on its right or left, and you ultimately have to make the shoot count 1 only, because making it -1 will freeze the player further, 0 won't do anything, and +1 will burn the player.

Although it has been tested numerous times and had Cookie test this extensively, lots of changes happened and ultimately it just feels ridiculously perplexing. Then again, it was just an attempt for something I wanted to do, and I'll try to avoid doing such puzzles next time. Enjoy the second half of part 3, I believe things get better (and more creative) from there.

Thanks for the in-depth explanation! Already beat the Adventure, but as for the one puzzle I was having trouble with, I think what messed with me was this:

You mention that "E must always be ON when B is ON" was the false rule, but it being false doesn't explicitly rule out E - it just means that it doesn't HAVE to be ON when B is ON. Moreover, B never gets fully ruled out - while can't have A ON if C is ON, it could still be A, B, D, and E, because, again, the false rule being false doesn't explicitly rule out B and E being ON together, it only rules out that they have any kind of link.

Ultimately, I actually really liked this puzzle in general, I just feel like that specific part could've been better.

rainbowmon wrote: Thu Dec 08, 2022 6:45 pm

rainbowmon wrote: Thu Dec 08, 2022 5:24 pm Alright, I got through quite a bit, and now I'm at a rather interesting puzzle that I'd like to ask for clarification about:

The player character is frozen, and in order to free them, I have to adjust 5 different machines, each with different rules. A 6th machine tells you that 1. All rules are true except for 1 per machine which is false to throw you off, and 2. The encrypted rule is always true. Makes sense, except for two things... The fuel machine doesn't have any encrypted rules, and the rules for the Moo-bot machine aren't formatted the same as the others (and also didn't have an encrypted rule). My question is - does the bit about one rule being false apply to those two machines as well, or is it just the three machines that do have encrypted rules?

Got it, though I'm not sure if the heat receptors were the intended solution or not - A and D were up, while B, C, and E were down. Ultimately, that part of the puzzle felt like I was either missing something, or there wasn't enough information, because I essentially had to trial-and-error it. I'm not even sure what the fake rule was - based on the combination I used, there's two rules that could've been the fake.

HOLD UP, Cookie just sent me a message and it looks like I removed a very important rule during the beta test (which explains the mass confusion this has caused)

I will be reuploading a fixed version once I find more issues with the level. To those who are playing: sorry about the faux pas that I dropped myself into!

In the meantime, this is the CORRECT solution to the receptor puzzle is this: The receptors A and D should be ON

If you don't want the solution and want to try to tackle it down with a correct set of rules, here you go: https://imgur.com/a/3DtzHLg

Hey! I finished uploading this (and am linking it) before Part 4!

So, as you already know, Ash, I've completely broken this one a couple of times and you yourself broke one of your own puzzles

Nevertheless, here is my playthrough of it. Should you come out with an update though, I'll probably record a bonus 17th episode (always teenage primes with these, eh?) to cover them

And, in spite of all that, this was an absolutely FANTASTIC adventure! Sure, Part 2 might've been slightly more enjoyable, but the creative concepts behind all of this and the sheer amount of background machinery that must've gone into this is nothing short of absolutely remarkable! Thank you - absolutely breathtaking!

And with that, my video solution (well, playthrough anyway):

WARNING: Video titles may be spoilers

Part 1 - Darkness Falls

Part 2 - Burst of Light in the Night

Part 3 - Laser Light Show

Part 4 - Faulty Wires

Part 5 - Wire Testing

Part 6 - Running the Marathon

Part 7 - Growth Spirit

Part 8 - Light Mechanism

- - - - - - - - - -

Part 9 - Miscalculations

Part 10 - The Monster's Collection

Part 11 - The Ice Machine

Part 12 - The Night Exhibit

Part 13 - Xu 'n Vava

Part 14 - Pillar Boss Fight, 1/2

Part 15 - Pillar Boss Fight, 2/2

Part 16 - Bathroom

P.S. If you felt like linking this post to your OP so others can more easily find this help yourself; otherwise feel free to leave this alone or ask me to better cover it up xD