Lab Escape

How to play

The Academy's observatory-labs were sealed for the night and the owl has lost the keys. You are not trapped — you are opening the place back up, together. Every lock opens by USING a principle, never by remembering a fact. Nothing here asks you a question. You put the heavy weight on the long arm because a long arm lifts more; you wire three lamps side by side because sharing a line makes them dim. Do the thing, and the world reacts. How to play: tap anything to look at it. Tap an item then tap where it goes — or drag it, whichever you prefer. Your items sit in the strip along the bottom. Stuck? The owl helps, free and as often as you like: first a nudge, then she points, and if you still want it she will simply tell you. Twelve labs, each a different science and a different way of playing. The first six teach you to read a machine: Gearworks is levers and gears — you arrange. Lensworks is mirrors and prisms — you aim a beam of light. Currents is circuits — you wire things together. Tidewell is density and floating — you pour. Reagents is colour and pH — you mix. The Orrery is orbits — you launch. Then the second wing stops showing you the answer. Resonance hides the note you are matching and gives you only the pulse between them. Thermics asks you to warm one thing while the thing beside it stays cold. Lodestone's magnets bend the whole path at once, so you cannot fix one at a time. Keystone stands your bridge up and then puts a weight on it — rigid is not the same as strong enough. Chronometry is about time itself, and the heavy bob keeps exactly the same time as the light one. And in The Hidden Star you never see the answer at all: you choose which instrument to point at it, and the instruments are the eleven you earned. Each lab is about ten minutes (the first is shorter, the last six take longer) and ends with the dome opening onto the starfield. You keep an instrument from every lab on your shelf — twelve to collect, all earned, none random. No timer. No way to lose. Progress saves by itself, mid-puzzle, so you can walk away in the middle of a lab and come back exactly where you were — on this device as a guest, or across all your devices when signed in. The only score is stars: three if you finished a lab on your own, and you can always go back and do better.

Controls

• Tap an object to examine it
• Tap an item, then tap where it goes — or drag it there
• Tap the owl for a free hint whenever you want one