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Return to Mysterious Island Hints
Solving Inventory Puzzles
The vast majority of the puzzles in "RtMI" are inventory puzzles. That is, you will need to find, and use, various items to perform some task, solve some puzzle, or simply to progress in the game. (That is one of the reasons why the inventory is so robust.)
To use items in inventory, you must have the items there in the first place. This typically means that one of your primary goals is to pick up everything that isn't nailed down. You may have no idea how or where you will use it, but it is far easier to pick up items as you run across them, than to have to go back and get them later.
Many situations will require that you combine items before they will be useful. This may require that you think "outside the box" -- i.e., use items for purposes other than what they were intended for. (An example that comes to mind, from the original Jules Verne classic "Mysterious Island", is when the men removed the faces from two watches, put them together with water inside, and created a lens -- and used it to start a fire.)
Most importantly, in "RtMI", there is often more than one way to accomplish a goal. Using the above example (i.e., starting a fire), think about how many different ways you might be able to do that -- either by conventional means (e.g., using a match), or not-so-conventional.
To take it one level further, the inventory "combinations" are not limited to two items. The inventory contains a "combining tray", which will allow you to combine 2, 3, 4, or more items, So if you can't seem to find an item you think you might need... consider how you might make it!
