TraptionBakery Hints and Tips for the Flummoxed.

If you're asking yourself "What on Earth is all this?" then things are actually going according to plan, because TraptionBakery is supposed to be enigmatic.

Don't panic, relax. TraptionBakery is intended to amuse, relax, baffle and interest you for many days or weeks....after all, it wouldn't be good value if you could work it all out in, say, 20 minutes.

Just start with the basics, and have a look round the place:-
To zoom-in: click Left mouse button in the frame. To zoom-out: click the Right mouse button.
(You can zoom in or out by small amounts with the mouse wheel)
To pan/move the picture: put your mouse pointer somewhere in the picture, click and hold the left mouse button and move the mouse to move the view, then let go.
Press S to save your game. Press L to load a game.
Look-out for handles that turn blue when you zoom-in far enough. These are the ones you can operate (click and hold the left mouse button on the blue handle and move it slowly).
If the whole scene is blue then it means it is frozen - the game is paused. Click the left mouse button in the frame to thaw it - unpause.

You don't have to do it all in one go, 10 minutes here, 20 minutes there...have a ponder and come back to it, sleep on it maybe.

Although intended to be a quite baffling, everyone experiences a different level of bafflement, so I have prepared this little list of hints.
I'll update this list from time to time according to feedback ( jon @ properbostin . co . uk )

It will help a lot (and improve your enjoyment) if you can hear the sounds, and hear them in stereo. So position your speakers correctly or use headphones, so that you can hear where the sounds are coming from (especially when the soundscape gets busy).

Take your time. Chill-out. This is a relaxing ponderous game. Move levers slowly and carefully, at least at first.

Adjust the picture, before moving a lever, you may need to zoom in or out slightly or pan the picture to include things the lever might effect.

Then move the lever SLOWLY, at least to begin with, so you can see what other things it moves, and be observant -- this is vital for solving the puzzle.

One lever may need moving quickly, but even for this it is best to move them slowly at first so you can learn what might happen.

If you have an engineering head or a logical head then put it on... if not then pretend you have, and call yourself Isambard [Kingdom Brunel] or Ada [Lovelace] and wear an imposing hat, this is bound to help.

This is not an arcade game :-) RELAX :-) Move the levers SLOWLY :-)

The further down this list you read the more of a spoiler it will be... so only read down as far as you need.

You can actually bake a loaf of bread, as difficult as it may seem in the beginning.

Have fun learning how to operate each individual piece of equipment on its own. Once you can operate everything on its own, it's time to think about what order to use them in to make a loaf of bread.

Make sure the "AUTO PAN & ZOOM" lever is set to ON (i.e. make sure the lever is down). You will find it in the basement on the far right. (Only advanced bakers should switch this off.)

Have you found the handles that are in blue -- these you can pull, push or press as appropriate. Handles turn blue when you zoom-in far enough. Some need you to zoom-in further than others before they will turn blue and allow you to operate them.

( If you go wrong and want to start all over again with a clean slate: see the bomb on the left hand side at street level. )

For each thing you're going to operate, follow the pipes, follow the strings and cables, see where they go to give you a clue as to how things might work. Adjust your view so that when you do pull that lever or wind that handle etc, you can see what it effects.

See what is written on the equipment for more clues. The things written are not always clues however, so you will have to decide for yourself whether they are helpful or not.

If you have not seen anything written on the equipment, or you don't see anything turn blue, have you zoomed-in far enough? Have you had a good look around inside the factory?

Some stuff is just there to be intriguing and interesting and is not part of the puzzle... for example have you worked-out what the grain chute is made from? Have you worked-out the theme of the fallen weathervane? Have you worked-out what Mr. Jumbie's toy in the basement is made from?

The headless man has a vital task to perform when approaching the ships wheel.

Reminder: The further down this list you read the more of a spoiler it will be, so only read down as far as you need.

You ring the bell and the headless man will punch the "start pad" in front of him, but timing is critical. Look at things written on the helter skelter where he first slides down as a clue. He'll get a large part of the machinery going (but there are still other things you need to do to mill some flour).

Having trouble ringing the bell at the top of the helter skelter? Cock the mechanism: make sure the flap is flipped back (by flicking the ship's wheel) before the bell can ring. (The flap is at the end of the golf clubs).

Still no flour? Order some grain on the upper roof level.

Still no flour? Switch-on the grain tap (see on top of the mill stones).

Still no flour? Switch on the air power (follow the pipe from the bellows to find the air valve switch).

Still can't start milling? Then watch this video "How to Start Milling"

Two bananas must become air-borne (not at the same time as each other), during the flour milling and dough mixing process.

Bananas can be a real hoot.

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If you're enjoying TraptionBakery so far please leave a review on the Steam store page :-)
Many thanks, Jon.
~

Bananas have to be sucked off the conveyor.

For banana sucking... align things very carefully as bananas can only be sucked a short distance.

Squeeze hold and release the hooter at the right moment.

Mr. Jumbie, the elephant, likes bananas. He keeps-up the mixing bowl by standing on the pneumatic bellows (unless a banana distracts him to the right).

Don't forget to cock the dough hod (shopfloor level). It would be really annoying, wouldn't it, if you forgot to cock the dough hod and you had mixed the perfect dough and it just fell down the waste pipe and Mr. Jumbie eat it all? Really annoying. One might go as far as to say it was a design flaw, an accident waiting to happen.

To bake a loaf of bread you pretty much need to operate all the things in the main bakery area, and on the upper roof, that show-up blue... so that excludes things on the clock tower or under the clock tower, or in the basement. The alien space minkey equipment could be left alone, in theory, but because they accelerate time for you, if you did not use them you would have to wait a long time to see the results.

A banana bounces further off a moving wheel (a bit further left in this case, changing whether it goes down to Mr. Jumbie or lands on the salt shaker).

The scales built onto the mixing bowl are a great help when getting the right proportion of flour and water.

Look on the Internet or in a cookery book for a recipe for making bread. Find a recipe that uses weights only.

If you're not familiar with imperial measurements of weight find-out about pounds and stones.

Mixing for too long or not long enough makes dough too sloppy even if you have the ingredients correct.

Listen to the sounds of the dough being mixed -- you can hear how thick it is. (Or see the mixing-arm pistons).

Dough did not roll into hod when the mixer bowl tipped down? Observe where it fell, too stiff or too sloppy? Did you cock the dough hod?

The dough hod transfers the ball of dough from the mixing bowl to the knock-back piano. If the dough is too sloppy/sticky then it takes a long time to roll/slither out of the mixing bowl and will miss the dough hod moving across to collect it and so will fall into the bog. If the dough is too stiff/hard it will roll out of the mixing bowl too fast and will fall down the waste pipe before the dough hod swings across.

Still can't mix some decent dough? Then watch this video "How to Mix Some Dough"

Proving. By now your dough ball should be on the left-hand side of the knock-back piano. Bread has to be proved, it has to be left to rise for a certain amount of time. You must have remembered to put the yeast-in for the dough to rise.

If your dough ball does not start to resemble its parent (yeast monster in the jug) soon after landing on the knock-back piano then you forgot to add (vomit-in) any yeast, or you did not mix for long enough. (Maybe put the yeast in earlier.) Have you found-out how to make the yeast monster vomit-up some yeast into the mixer bowl yet? See what is written on the lamp shade. You have to make the poor little chap vomit.

If you have read the notice on the device to the left of the knock-back piano you will know it's a time accelerating device, this could reduce the time you have to wait around. If you hadn't read the notice by now how have you got this far without reading the signs? Careful with the accelerator ray: it's easy to go too far when time races by.

If your ball of dough becomes self-aware and escapes, then it must have been proving for too long... but you were doing very well up until then.

Knocking-back? There is a crashed flying saucer, together with clues on written on things on the piano (and its conveyor system) this should help when guessing the tune.

Watch what the squirrel likes as you play each note. As soon as you play a wrong note he'll go back in: leave it a few seconds after he goes back in before guessing the tune again. Be sure to get the first note right -- you'll notice he comes-out a bit further for the first note if it's the correct one. Each successive note you get right, the squirrel come-out a bit further.

Still can't do the knocking back? Then watch this video "How to Prove and Knock-Back the Dough"

If you manage to bake a loaf of bread then it's not game-over. You will be judged and you can endeavour to bake a better one now you are an expert at operating the equipment :-)

First Proving?

Second proving? Optional.

The bigger the loaf the lower the temperature and longer the baking time (standard backing rules)

Still having problems with baking? Then watch this final How-To video: "How to Bake the Loaf"

Min score = -99
Max score = +99

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