Planetarium Basic Help
Planetarium is a story-puzzle in twelve weekly parts. You can just dive in and enjoy the curious story, or you can attempt to solve the puzzles it contains.
Overview
Each Planetarium instalment consists of an illustration of a scene in the story, framed in a border with other puzzle elements and buttons. Clicking on the characters (or objects) within the illustration evokes text relating to that character — perhaps a dialogue they are having with another character, or part of the story narrative, or possibly a riddle that the character is presenting.
The Puzzles
There are thirty-six minor puzzles in Planetarium, three in each instalment. As you submit answers, you will build up a Table of Solutions which itself forms the major puzzle. You don’t need to solve any of the puzzles in order to enjoy the story.
You Must Register
You must register in order to enter Planetarium. Registration is free and instant and (if you want it to be) anonymous.
Planterium needs to be able to recognize you when you visit so it can grant you access to the right instalment. Also, it keeps a record of your solutions (if you are attempting the puzzles). To stop other people seeing your solutions, you need to provide a password when you register. Remember this password because you’ll need it every time you log in to Planetarium for the following twelve weeks.
At The End
At the end of the twelfth week your Table of Solutions will be frozen, which means you won’t be able to add or change any of your answers. Then you will be granted access to the complete set of Planetarium puzzle solutions with illustrated explanations. During this time, you can exchange messages with other Planetarium readers in the xiii Forum. A week later, your reader-name will expire.
How to Find Your Way About
Planetarium is in twelve parts, released weekly. This does mean that you cannot see future parts of Planetarium before they are released, even though they may contain clues or hints which are relevant to puzzles which are already released.
Parts are numbered with Roman numerals. Each part consists of an illustration of a scene in the story. Text relating to this part is revealed by clicking on the appropriate characters or objects. There is no penalty for “wrong” clicks, so it might be useful to experiment a little to see what you find by clicking on different things.
You can jump to any part of Planetarium by clicking on the bar of Roman numerals (although you may be prevented from seeing it if you have not reached that instalment yet). There is also a stylized arrow in every illustration which lets you move to the previous or the next part. The HELP and SOLUTIONS brass spheres appear on all Planetarium pages, either on their own or within the main puzzle illustration:
