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The Secrets of Atlantis Hints
How can I figure out a solution to the safe?
1 of 20: The first thing to do is pick a color and see how many notches each of its two control knobs will move the hands along.
2 of 20: Let's take the yellow hands to start with. Their controls are the leftmost two.
3 of 20: If you click on the right side of the top yellow control, the yellow hands will move seven notches clockwise (cw). If you click on the left side of that same control, the yellow hands will move seven notches counter-clockwise (ccw). (If, that is, the move isn't blocked by the knob barrier at the top of the display.)
4 of 20: Similarly, the bottom yellow knob will move the yellow hands five notches either way.
5 of 20: So, looking at it mathematically, you have the numbers +5, -5, +7, and -7 to work with.
6 of 20: Check the current position of the yellow hands and compare that to the position they need to be in, in order to point at the two yellow triangles that are on the border of the clock face.
7 of 20: Then use some simple math with the above numbers to see what moves would give you the plus value you need to get the yellow hands in place.
8 of 20: For instance, in the safe-clock's starting position, the yellow hands are close to their goal. They just need to move one notch cw in order to be in place.
9 of 20: So how can you combine the numbers +5, -5, +7, and -7 to get the number +1 (for one notch cw)?
10 of 20: You can't combine two of those numbers directly to get +1, so get yourself some new numbers to work with.
11 of 20: For example, if you combine -7 and +5, you'll get -2. If you combine -2 with +5, you'll get +3. Do you see where this is going?
12 of 20: To get +1, you'll need to combine +3 with -2.
13 of 20: Since a +3 is gotten by combining a -7 and two +5's, and a -2 is gotten by combining a -7 and a +5, you get this move set:
-7 + 5 + 5 - 7 + 5
If you add all that up, you'll get +1.
14 of 20: So enter those moves, remembering that -7 is gotten by clicking on the left side of the top yellow control knob, and +5 is gotten by clicking on the right side of the bottom yellow control knob.
15 of 20: Remember that you can enter your list of moves in any order. In the list above, you can't start with a -7 because that won't work. So start with a +5.
16 of 20: You still can't do a -7, so do another +5.
17 of 20: Then do a -7, the other +5, and the final -7. The yellow hands are set!
18 of 20: Now use a similar method to figure out how to set the white hands and the orange hands.
19 of 20: Note that their controls involve the same four numbers. In fact, the number of sides on the polygon shape that's on a control knob will tell you how many notches that knob will move the hands. (The top knobs all have heptagons (7 sides), and the bottom knobs all have pentagons (5 sides)).
20 of 20: SHORTCUT: All three of the sets of hands can be put into position by alternating their -7 and +5 moves until they're right.
