Escape From Skull Dungeon
Game Details: Puzzle, 2020
Links: Moby Games, Steam
Walkthrough Updated: 10/7/2020
Suggested Listening: Caught Up in the Panic (Ash 25)
First Room
Action Sequence
Pick up the key and use it on the chest. Read the note inside the chest, then take the gem.
In the large room that is revealed, you need to carefully avoid the enemies. Make your way to the far right corner and pull the lever on the wall. Now cross the room and pick up the key, then use this in the lock on the door and head through. The door will close behind you.
Puzzles
Look in the bookcase to your left and you will see a book that reads as follows:
- Side wings down
- Front wings up
- Side wings up
- Front wings down
Look on the floor to see mosaics of four dragons with profiles matching these descriptions. Near each you will find an apple of a different color. Look on the wall to see four colored discs that can be rotated to show different colors. You need to rotate these to create the colors in the order of the apples: green, blue, red, yellow. Now you can click to look through the spyglass that has been uncovered here and get a view of an adjacent room.
Back in the first room, find a secret book on the left raised bookshelf and push it. This opens a niche to the left that holds another book. This reads as follows:
- I are alive and within reach
- II are gone casting no more
- IV aren't here yet ye seek
- III are above beware the switch
Look around the room to find 6 lit candles (alive and within reach), 3 unlit candles (gone casting no more), 4 candles hanging from the ceiling (above beware the switch) and 5 candles through the spyglass (aren't here yet ye seek). Go to the wall panel and insert the code 6345.
Go down the stairs into a smaller room below. Read the book on the table, which says:
- Don't trust the Dragons!
- They both lie.
Pick up the key from the dead knight in the corner, then go back upstairs. Use the key in the lock and head through the door.
Second Room
Action Sequence
Step on the small round platform, then run down the slope and into a small niche on either side to avoid the rolling boulder. After it passes, continue down and pull the lever. Head through the open doorway.
Puzzles
On the walls you will see two halves of a map. The half on the left has a plaque beneath that says "I always lie", and the half on the right has a plaque beneath that says "I never lie". Based on the message from the book earlier, both of these plaques are wrong. You can therefore step on the green spaces in the next room as follows:
Read the books at the white spaces, and work out which of the large banners on the wall corresponds with each:
- Back or forth it matters not (I) - sword (green)
- The feeble carry them, for they need it (II) - shield (red)
- Keeping the foe at arm's length is fine, but I prefer further (III) - spear (yellow)
- If you're good with this, you need not worry about the others (IV) - bow and arrow (blue)
Return to the entrance and count the number of colored test tubes: 5 green, 7 red, 6 yellow, 4 blue. Use the wall panel and insert the code 5764. Take the key from the chest. Cross the room again on the green spaces and insert the key in the lock. Head through the door into another small room.
There is a book on a pedestal here with a lot of writing:
- Hark thou lest ye blunder, tales untold but repeated, ye wonder.
- History calls and demands its repeat, a matter of honor forgotten in a bleat.
- Listen not to the trickster for they lead to despair, in death and duty even love does not dare.
- The order of things you will foresee, a solution presented just in time for tea.
Pick up the four Shakespeare books and place them in the correct order on the shelf above: Hamlet, Macbeth, Othello, Anthony & Cleopatra. In the next room you will find a pressure plate to stand on - this will lower a gate and release an enemy that will start to chase you around. If you want to trap it for a while, raise the lever on the wall when it is standing on the square platform (but this is only temporary).
There is a book on a pedestal that contains a word puzzle to solve:
The colors are based on the apples that are speared within the iron maiden when the enemy initially appeared. Adjust the spinning cubes on the wall so they read APEU. Quickly go through the opening and it will close behind you.
Third Room
Action Sequence
All you have to do here is explore the maze. There are multiple levers than you can pull to open and close doors, and there are four unlit candles. Light all 4 of these and the doorway to the next room will be opened.
Puzzles
Read the book on the table in here, which says:
- A simple matter even a child could solve.
- One hundred words and one hundred stories, thinking long gone to see and smell, no more.
- Objects of valor and of violence, now void of flowers nor earthly goods.
- Will your journey end today pray tell, or will you surmise the truth?
Look around the room to find 9 books (stories), 7 skulls (thinking long gone), 9 weapons/shields (objects of valor) and 6 empty pots (void of flowers). Go to the wall panel and insert the code 9796. Go through the doorway that opens.
Fourth Room
Action Sequence
Run along the corridor between the swinging blades and you will reach a larger open area. Once the floating skull starts moving, look at the symbol on its forehead and find the matching book. Flip the lever beneath this book, then press one of the buttons on the pedestal in the middle to attack. Repeat this until the skull is defeated.