Dreamfall: The Longest Journey Hints

How do I use the lockpick?

• 1 of 12: First, you need to walk up to the lock and use it from your inventory like you would any other inventory item.
• 2 of 12: When you do this, you'll start a new mini-game.  It's a different game than the one you saw at Reza's apartment, but like that game, the solution is completely random every time you play it -- even if you back away from the puzzle and try it again.  So I can't give you a precise solution that will work every time, but the following hints will give you a general strategy.  (Fortunately, there's no penalty for giving up and retrying, and there's also no time limit on this one.)
• 3 of 12: The basic idea of this game is that there are two rows of 4 symbols each, with 4 overlapping wheels in between.  You want to line up the symbols on the wheels with the adjacent symbols on the fixed rows, so that your solution looks something like this:
  
     A     B     C     D  
  
     A     B     C     D
  ?  *  ?  *  ?  *  ?  *  ?
     E     F     G     H
  
     E     F     G     H 
  
  The stars represent the center of the wheels.  The letters are all of the symbols that you need to match up between the wheels and the rows.  The question marks in the remaining symbols are not critical to the puzzle solution, and don't need to be set in any particular way.  (The symbols are, of course, actual symbols in the game itself, not letters.  It's possible, and quite likely, that the same symbol will appear in more than one space on the rows, and that's okay, as long as you match all the symbols, however many times they appear.)
• 4 of 12: Clicking on any of the wheels will cause it to rotate counter-clockwise once.  Notice that each wheel overlaps with each adjacent wheel in one place, and you can use this fact to move symbols across the puzzle from one side to the other. 
  
  If you want to move a symbol to an adjacent wheel to the left, just keep rotating the first wheel (the one on the right) until the symbol you want is on the left side of that first wheel -- overlapping the second wheel (on the left).  Then click on the second wheel to move the symbol into its desired position.  Repeat as necessary to move a symbol all the way across the puzzle from right to left -- turn the second wheel twice until the desired symbol is on the space that overlaps the third wheel to the left, and so on.
• 5 of 12: I prefer to solve these puzzles methodically, starting with the left wheel, and working to the right.  For example, in the drawing above, you'd start with the symbol A, moving it from any wheels to the right as described in the hint above.
• 6 of 12: Then, when you get to placing the symbol marked E above, you have to be careful that you have a way to keep A in place along with E.  To do this, rotate the left wheel once, so that you see:
  
     ?    
  A  *  ? 
     ?   
• 7 of 12: From this point, leave the left wheel alone until you're able to get the E symbol on the right side, as in;
  
     ?    
  A  *  E
     ?  
  
  Clicking on the left-most wheel 3 times will rotate it back into position.  You can now move to the next wheel to the right, placing B and F in the correct slots.
• 8 of 12: Eventually, you'll get a point where a symbol you need is trapped somewhere on a wheel you've already solved.  If this happens to you, don't worry -- you just need to do the mirror image of the strategy above.
• 9 of 12: For example, let's say that you're still trying to place F but the only F you can find is trapped on the leftmost wheel, as in:
  
     A     B   
  F  *  ?  *  ?
     E     ?  
• 10 of 12: Start by rotating the second wheel 3 times, so that B is now on the right.  Then, click the leftmost wheel twice, so that F is in the overlapping space (and still 180 degrees from B, which is where it needs to end up).
  
     E     ?   
  ?  *  F  *  B
     A     ?  
• 11 of 12: Click on the second wheel (on the right) once more to turn things right-side up, and then click on the first wheel two more times as well.  This will put everything on both of those wheels in place, as in:
  
     A     B   
  ?  *  ?  *  ?
     E     F  
  
  You can repeat this same process across 3 or even all 4 wheels if you'd like.  Just treat everything except for the final wheel in the chain the same way as the A/F wheel in the example above -- that is, click twice, turn the next wheel over, then click twice more on the first wheel -- proceeding from left to right.
• 12 of 12: With a little bit of practice, you should be able to get most of these puzzles.  Remember that there's no time limit, and no penalty for failing -- you can step back away from the puzzle and try again as often as you like.  As far as I know, every one of these puzzles is solvable, but if you get one that you just can't seem to figure out, feel free to restart and try again, as the next puzzle may be a little easier than the last.

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