Looped In
You are a secret agent in charge of preventing a catastrophic time travel experiment which could end humanity. Can you stop it?
Trivia: Feb 12 1993, the day where the time loop experiment is happening, also happens to be the release of the movie Groundhog Day in the US. :)
Game Walkthrough (spoilers ahead!)
- After waking up in class, you receive a text, indicating that a new time travel experiment is going to happen today and you must stop it at all cost.
- Head over to the women's bathroom and check the last stall to find a briefcase
- In order to solve this puzzle, find the letter that is contained in the first word but not in the second (for ex S is in SOCK but not in CLOCK). This will reveal the word SMILE, a hint to help find your target.
- In the hallway, look at the pictures to find a character that smiles. You will identify Dr. Miller, head of Labs.
- In the hallway, you will find a blond character by themselves. Ask them about Dr. Miller and they will point you towards a pink-haired gentleman in the cafe
- Head over to the cafe and talk to the man with pink hair. Ask about Dr Miller, you will learn that her first name is Lucy, but she is not working today. You ask to see her desk or co-workers, and you are told that they usually hang out in the breakroom, and that Lucy provided a hint to find the code to the breakroom. It was too hard to decipher so it ended up in the trash
- Search the trask to find the paper left by your target Dr. Lucy Miller. The objective here is to find a 6-digit code. The scale on the right indicates that each orange weight weighs 10lbs (3 * orange = 30) while the global scale helps you find that the green weights weigh 25lbs (2 * green + orange = 3 * orange + 30). Hence the code 251025
- Head over to the breakroom, a room next to the library gated by a code. Enter the code 251025 and head inside.
- Talk to the character on the couch, you will discover that her name is Emma Stoned, a friend of Dr. Miller. After having spoken to her, the IT manager comes in and tells Emma that she needs to change her password as it's still the same default password PASSWORD123 as when she joined.
- You can now leave the room and head over to a computer. Enter the full name EMMA STONED, followed by PASSWORD123 to enter Emma's account.
- You can type INBOX followed by MAIL X with X being a number to read through Emma's account. You will discover that she has been stalking someone called Jay who has been acting weird. Her stalking provides Jay's locker position and code.
- Head over to the men's bathroom and go find Jay's locker, the 5th one from the end on the backwall. The code is 4827. By opening the locker you will find Jay's diary. Unfortunately that diary is encrypted.
- To decrypt Jay's journal, swap out letters by hover over a letter and typing the right letter on the keyboard. The letter turns green and gets locked in when it is found. The diary starts with "Thursday, Feb 2 1993".
- Jay has been finding some very suspicious activity in the lab facility, and is afraid something is going to happen to them. By snooping around, they indicate having found a secret digipad in the library, and a hint to crack the code: "Tally the blue, red and green"
- Head over to the library, you will see books over various colors. Count the number of blue books (12), the number of red books (13), and the number of green books (9). This will give you the combination 12139 which you can enter on the digicode in the back of the library.
- This opens a secret entrance to a small room used by the librarian. In the trash, you will find a hint to provide the password. The librarian has been increasing the default password number by 1 every month since he has been here (2 years). The default password being PASSWORD123, this means that he uses the password PASSWORD147 (123+24). The name of the librarian can be found on warning inscriptions in the library to leave the books alone (lest the code should change...): Jerry Lee
- Login to the computer as JERRY LEE / PASSWORD147. Read through the emails. You will discover that an experiment (#7) is meant to be triggered today, and that Jay needs to be taken care of. You also discover that Jerry had lost his lab facility pass, so Dr Miller has created a new pass for him, located in the girl's middle locker, code 8453.
- Head over to the women's bathroom, and open the 6th locker on the left to find the pass. You can now enter the lab facility to prevent the time travel experiment.
- In the lab facility, you discover Jay. His body is on an operating table, his brain is connected to a large machine, Jay is still alive.
- On the first computer desk to the right coming from the entrance, you will find a diploma for Stan Jones who graduated from Harvard in 1978. Hop over to that computer and log in as STAN JONES / HARVARD1978. Read through the emails. You will discover that they have been doing experiments using live patients, leveraging the computing power of the brain to drive the time travel experiments. This requires to inject a specific balance of chemical components, otherwise it would fail the experiment (this is what led to an explosion mentioned in the intro in the other facility). Someone has asked Stan Jones to check whether the formula on the board is correct.
- On the back-computer to the left is Mike Coop's working area. His desk is filled with pictures of his pet SPARTACUS. Hop over to that computer and log in as MIKE COOP / SPARTACUS. You will discover that Mike has found a formula that needs to be tested soon, named Experiment #7 - this is what he has written on the whiteboard. On Feb 1, he indicates that this is Dr Lucy Miller's 50th birthday.
- The email helps find Lucy's password, which is 02011943 (02 for feb, 01 for the day and 1943 for the year). Hop over to her computer and log in as LUCY MILLER / 02011943. Read through her emails. You will discover that they have identified Jay as the next person used for Experiment #7. You will also learn about the perfect experiment or the perfect loop, which is an experiment where none of the subjects experiencing the loop are aware that they are in a time loop. This is why all the staff organizing these experiments have left the building the day of the experiment. You also learn that Tom Smith is tired of the password change scheme and just uses his own name as password.
- Hop over to the last computer, and log in as TOM SMITH / TOMSMITH (attached). His emails indicate a safety procedure to kickstart an experiment. In order to inject chemicals into the brain, each of the 4 accounts in the lab need to enter the command OVERRIDE INJECT
- Either log out / log back in to all 4 accounts or just hop over from computer to computer to enter the command OVERRIDE INJECT. This will bring down a vial where chemicals can be injected to trigger an experiment.
- Here, the player wants to sabotage the experiment. He knows that the formula on the whiteboard is incorrect, so by entering the quotas listed on the whiteboard, it should prevent the time travel experiment.
- The whiteboard indicates the ratio 1 yellow, 2 green and 4 blue. The vial already contains 2 yellow, so you will need to add 4 green and 8 blue in order for the injection button to become active. Press the button to watch the ending...
- As you inject the solution into Jay's brain, it unfortunately triggers an explosion which destroys the facility and kills everyone inside it. However, unknown to the scientists working on figuring out time travel, it actually also did trigger a perfect time loop where the hero wakes up at the beginning of the game, ready to re-enter the loop and perform the same exact actions over and over again.
Fun Trivia / Deeper explanation
- The experiment is premeditated by the government, which has sent you as an undercover agent, knowing you would trigger the experiment rather than avoid it. Whenever the emails talk about "triggering Experiment #7", they refer to the player receiving the text to stop it at all costs.
- The experiment happens on Feb 12th, 1993 - which also happens to be the release date of Groundhog Day in the US. Perhaps what happens to Phil is the result of Experiment #7
This project is open sourced at https://github.com/nicolasbize/LoopedIn
Download
Install instructions
I highly recommend you play the Windows version, as the shaders aren't supported on Web - this does make the game uglier and breaks the immersion especially in the final scene.
Comments
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very nice ! but the Feb 10 1993 was not a Tuesday but Wednesday ;-)
I typed 4827 on every locker in the men's room and i cannot open the locker. I do not know why it is not opening in the web version
Reading the new "walkthrough section," I can see that the PC's password part near the end is not that well designed because there is no actual hint that you need to change the "Format" of the passwords to solve them (for example having a pasword being just plain numbers of values that can also be expressed by words (the date) and the one where you also have to include the University ) There were 2 extra password puzzles before those ones, and both of them used the joke "PASSWORD 123" + extra, which is misleading.
The new segment should make it clear about the formatting of the new passwords in some way.
Either way, I will continue playing the game to see what's next.
Yeah I completely agree, I ran out of time here but that part should definitely be a lot more intuitive. I'll try to think of a clever way to tweak this
Great game! I really had fun playing it. I wasn't able to solve one of the puzzles near the end, but I'll change that now that there's a "walkthrough section." (even If I didnt wanted to cheat)
PS: Don't add that section to the main page; it will ruin the experience for new players. It would be better if you add it as a downloadable file. also, instead of just telling the awnser, maybe just give a little hint.
Thanks for playing it! I've hidden the Walkthrough a bit more, hopefully it helps unblock people without ruining the experience for them. I'll probably have a youtube video showing the walkthrough as well
I DID IT !
I just used 2 hints!
It would be cool if....(spoilers)
At the end of the game you could have a second playthorugh where you now SOME of the awnser but at the moment of mixing the chemicals you put the wrong mixture in there
yes, it might clash with the time loop thing,but it would be a cool thing for players that already finish the game
haha i love it, i think theres a lot of fun mechanics you can do with time travel similar to the movie groundhog day