Side-Scroller Puzzle Adventure

1. Side-ScrollerPuzzle Adventure

2. Characters Rotius & Ærus

3. Prologue In a hospital room, Rotius walks to his dying wife’s bedside and holds her hand.

4. Prologue Rotius wanders through his house, which is now on a planet-ship he calls The Glass Sea. In his house, he finds love notes he shared with Ærus and a photograph of them moving in together.

5. Waking in the Dark With no memories of her life, Ærus wakes up on the surface of another planet-ship, full of machinery, to the sound of a mechanical dog barking. On a plaque, she finds what she assumes is the planet’s name: “The Cogwheel Kaleidoscope” and the number “047.”

6. Waking in the Dark On her planet, Ærus finds a ladder that leads down towards the planet’s core. On the way down, she comes across a side-room with a computer in it. When she come near it, it says, “File error. Inaccessible cognition directory for Ærusonyce Lawson.”

7. Waking in the Dark When Ærus continues down the ladder, she finds a lab at the planet’s core. Here she finds a switch that activates a set of machines leading back up along the ladder she came down.

8. Moving In Ærus follows the machines to the surface, where she finds a structure that looks something like a Sea Captain’s wharf shack. Inside is a box-pushing puzzle, reminiscent of moving in to a new house.

9. Moving In After completing the puzzle, Ærus goes back down to the core of The Cogwheel Kaleidoscope where she finds a switch. When she flips it, the machines unlock a memory of moving in with Rotius. The phrase “Wow, isn’t this place nice?” stands out.

10. Becoming Someone Back on The Glass Sea, Rotius wanders about the house, finding notes. Eventually he finds Ærus’s doctoral thesis, with acknowledgements to him.

11. Becoming Someone A second set of machines leading to part of The Cogwheel Kaleidoscope’s surface activates. Ærus follows them up a ladder to a scructure that looks like a university. Inside is a pattern-copying puzzle, reminiscent of learning from teachers in school.

12. Becoming Someone After completing the puzzle, Ærus heads back down to the center of her planet-ship where she finds the switch she used previously has been reset. When she flips it, memories of her Ph.D. program are unlocked. The phrase “I got into the Ph.D. Program!” stands out.

13. A Fine Date On The Glass Sea, Rotius wanders about the house, finding more notes in rooms that were previously locked. Eventually he finds the last anniversary card he gave to Ærus before her death.

14. A Fine Date The third and final set of machines activates on The Cogwheel Kaleidoscope. Ærus follows them to the surface where she finds a set of three massive spheres which make up an object-sliding puzzle, reminiscent of a game Rotius made up on their anniversary date.

15. A Fine Date After completing the puzzle, Ærus climbs back down to the center of her planet-ship where she finds the reset memory switch reset again. When she flips it, memories she remembers her anniversary with Rotius. The phrase “You make me feel young again!” stands out.

16. Intermission On The Glass Sea, Rotius wanders out of the house, onto the planet’s starry surface and finds that there is an exact copy of his house on the south pole of The Glass Sea. This house was previously locked shut, but now he walks in to find that it is old and run down.

17. A Final Date Inside the dark house, Rotius finds notes about dark parts of his relationship with Ærus. Eventually he finds their divorce papers.

18. A Final Date In the core of The Cogwheel Kaleidoscope, a recorded message is played for Ærus saying “Final data gathered; transmit from the surface tower.”

19. A Final Date Ærus heads back up the open ladder shaft to the ball puzzle, where the dog that woke her up is waiting. She calls the dog over so she can pet it, then it runs off and leaks oil onto an electrical panel. This causes the ball puzzle to start moving, and the dog become ill-tempered.

20. A Final Date The balls in the puzzle collide with each other, destroying the structure and its machines. Boilers blow, and steel girders break and block Ærus’s path. A small chunk of debris hits her, unlocking the rest of her memories of the anniversary date: While playing Rotius’ game, Ærus falls and hurts herself. Rotius responds, “You’re fine, get up or we’ll be late for the movie. You’re ruining our anniversary!!!”

21. A Final Date Ærus navigates the destroyed ball puzzle, which is now a game of hot-lava. She must use different objects and pieces of debris, in correct order, to get across what used to be the tracks for the balls, which are now filled with boiling water.

22. Losing Oneself In the dark house on The Glass Ocean, Rotius discovers more notes. Eventually he finds a termination letter from the university he teaches at. It says it is firing him for teaching about and running research projects focused on his “Mechanical Soul Formula.”

23. Losing Oneself Ærus continues along the surface of The Cogwheel Kaleidoscope to the university structure. The mechanical dog runs past her and jumps into a machine, destroying itself, but opening the door to the university again.

24. Losing Oneself The rest of the memory from the pattern-copying puzzle is unlocked. After Ærus expresses her excitement about getting into the Ph.D. program for Biology, Rotius says, “That’s great, now you don’t have to do that stupid vet program!”

25. Losing Oneself Inside the university Ærus finds several caged or injured robotic animals that she must free or find parts for. Also located throughout the structure are the starting points for the pattern-following puzzle, but now they cause the control scheme to change. This is symbolic for Ærus, as she is now fighting for her own dreams.

26. Moving Out Rotius wanders through the dark house, finding more notes. Eventually he finds a note from Ærus saying that she has gone to stay with her mother and will be back to pick up her things in a week.

27. Moving Out Ærus leaves the university structure and continues along the planet’s surface until she finds the wharf shack. Inside, she finds that one of the boxes from the box-pushing puzzle has knocked open the shack’s door. She pushes it inside, and finds that it is open and contains an old, hand-carved rocking chair.

28. Moving Out Seeing the rocking chair unlocks the rest of the box puzzle memory. Rotius says, “Wow, isn’t this place nice?” Ærus says, “Yeah… wait, where’s my grandfather’s rocking chair?” Rotius, “Oh, we didn’t need that now that we have this recliner, so I packed it into the shed.”

29. Moving Out Ærus breaks through the rest of the boxes and finds all of her furniture that was replaced by Rotius.

30. Moving Out Ærus leaves the wharf shack and goes to the net machine she woke beneath. On the machine is a transmit button, which Ærus presses, having realized that if she didn’t, she would be locked in time unable to leave the planet wihout Rotius’ help. The machine speaks the message, “Wait there, Rotius will arrive shortly.”

31. Candle In the Dark Rotius wanders through the house until he finds a newspaper clipping with the headline, “Renowned Machine Physicist Kills Wife With Ghost Machine.”

32. Candle In the Dark Rotius Wanders back out onto the surface of The Glass Sea, where once there were millions of stars reflected in its surface – now there is only one – Polaris, The North Star. Rotius places a beacon on this star, and the planet moves towards it.

33. Candle In the Dark Having realized the truth behind her memories of Rotius, Ærus heads down to the core of The Cogwheel Kaleidoscope to hide.

34. Candle In the Dark Rotius shows up and docks the balcony of the dark house with the shack. When he walks out, the planets are in a dark part of space, so he lights a lantern.

35. Candle In the Dark The light reveals several mechanical animals running around the surface of the planet, which makes him feel that something has gone wrong. Then he realizes that it must be the result of Ærus and her love of animals, and heads down to the core looking for her.

36. Candle In the Dark Ærus hides in the core, and waits for Rotius as he comes down the ladder whistling, or just saying the words to that tom waits hide and seek song.

37. Candle In the Dark Ærus must hide in different places in the correct order to get past Rotius and to the ladder.

38. Candle In the Dark Ærus climbs the ladder up to the computer room where a memory of her interrogation with the soul catcher is unlocked. The memory reveals that the computer recognizes her soul within a margin of error, and tells her that her soul will be destroyed if she cannot pass further evaluation.

39. Candle In the Dark Having recalled the function of the computer and the net, Ærus destroys the computer by throwing a wrench into its gears.

40. Candle In the Dark The computer loudly announces, "System error! Obstruction in mechanics sector 48M. System over heaaaatttttttiiiiinnnnnngggggg……….."

41. Candle In the Dark Rotius hears the computer and heads towards it. He sees Ærus climbing up to the surface towards The Glass Ocean and follows her up to the balcony of the dark house.

42. Candle In the Dark When he walks out onto the balcony, Rotius sees Ærus and says "Wait!" but she runs into the house. When he chases after her, he falls through the damaged roof of the house and into a dark room.

43. Epilogue In a flash back to the hospital room scene, Ærus is dying in the bed. Rotius comes into the room, takes her hand, and kneels beside her, saying "I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry. I can save you, you don't have to go."

44. Epilogue Ærus screams for help, unable to move in her injured condition. A pair of doctors run into the room and carry Rotius out the door and into the darkness.

45. Epilogue Ærus then appears standing next to her bed in her usual dress and women's vest, leaving the bed empty. She walks out of the hospital room and into the upper floor of the house.

46. Epilogue Ærus finds more of Rotius' notes scattered around the house, revealing the dangers of the machine world and his intentions for building it – capturing her soul and returning only the good parts of her memory so that she will be "happy" with him.

47. Epilogue Ærus also finds a note describing the reset mechanism, which says it is "to be used in the case of Kaleidoscopic failure."

48. Epilogue Eventually, Ærus comes to a door that is budged shut and, after a couple tries, manages to pry it open. Inside, she finds Rotius propped up against a wall, unconscious, and a bizarre machine with a lever and button across the room.

49. Epilogue Ærus checks Rotius' pulse, then goes to look at the switch. Labeled next to three notches on the lever are the words "Encompasing Recollection," "Problematic Recollection," and "Negate Recollection."

50. Your Mind’s Ending From here, Ærus chooses between the three different lever positions, or none of them. Each choice triggers one of four ending cut scenes which play intermixed during the credits.