The Omega Stone is a highly linear game. There are no optional actions that can be taken (unless you count being duped by a red herring into exploring something pointless). Unlike the Myst series that inspired it, there are few interesting details to be noticed. There certainly aren't multiple ways to solve any of the puzzles, and there's not much of a plot. There's no chance at all, basically, of your missing anything in this game. If you finish it, you'll have seen everything (probably multiple times). So The Omega Stone is not a game in need of my "travel guide" series of low-spoiler walkthroughs, which focus mostly on broadening players' enjoyment of games by pointing them towards interesting things they might not have thought of doing themselves.

But there's another kind of walkthrough that might be of great use to you, especially if you're playing with your kids, and that's the a walkthrough that distills just the fun parts out of this huge and difficult-to-navigate game. It's my opinion that games shouldn't waste their players' limited time doing things like walking back and forth over and over again, performing useless tasks, trying to read the game designer's mind and guess which puzzle to attempt next, and waiting for something to happen. In the final count we all play games for escapism, not realism; I can wait in line at my own grocery store, and have less than no desire to simulate the experience in a game. So here's my Non-Boring Guide to The Omega Stone, in which I tell you exactly where all the interesting parts of this game are and in which order to do them to maintain the highest fun-to-tedium ratio. There are no puzzle spoilers in this walkthrough. I tell you where the puzzles are and whether it's possible to solve them yet, but not how to go about it. If you're looking for the solution to a particular The Omega Stone puzzle, I recommend the excellent UHS site--you can only see one hint at a time there, so you can get the answer to one puzzle without ruining all the others for yourself. My walkthrough, bare-boned by design, is meant to help lead you past those sticking points that are the fault of the interface, bad writing in the game, or just your own uncertainty about what you're supposed to be doing next. Feel free to print it out and use it to help lend some added direction to your travels through The Omega Stone.

 

The Non-Boring Omega Stone Walkthrough

You can travel between the first five areas of these game at will (you'd think that the extraordinary travel times involved would be problematic in a game whose plot has you striving to avert doomsday before a prophesied date, but not so, you can go back and forth just as often as you like.) These five Ages (look, call a spade a spade, right?) can be solved in any order, but sometimes you need to visit one to get a puzzle piece you need for one of the others.

GIZA, EGYPT

This is where you start out, and it's the easiest Age to complete. There is only one puzzle to solve here and everything you need to solve it is within the Sphinx. There are also two scrolls here. Once you have the Giza disk and the scrolls, there is nothing else to do in Egypt. Gil's tent is empty and useless, there is no way to find Gil again (he'll return on his own at a predetermined plot point), and there's nothing else in the area.

CHICHEN ITZA, MEXICO

Where are the hordes of ecotourists and Spring Break students? Well, get used to it: all the wonders of the world are deserted in this game, because its AI can't handle animations or NPC interactions. Chichen Itza is a VERY long Age that relies intensely on searching out inventory objects in dark corners, but everything you need to solve it can, eventually, be found somewhere in the area.

1) Do not neglect to search Humph's vehicle. This is true throughout the game: it's not very logical, but he happens to have brought critical objects and clues for each location with him.

2) You can visit the archaeologists' camp. Again, it's deserted; the case of toilet paper in the corner is amusing, but all that you can really do here is read Gil's letter to you and the books he left for you. Sadly, the camera is useless for taking pictures of the Mayan hieroglyphs, because it can't fit them all in one page. You can take a screenshot, or jot them down; if you're curious, these are real Mayan glyphs, and I just used a Mayan linguistics book that was sitting on my shelf (those of you who aren't linguists in your day job may not have this as an available option!)

3) The big ziggurat (pyramid-like structure) is not very useful at first. The locked door at the base of it is a red herring; you can get it open, but there's nothing behind it except another locked door that you will never be able to open. There is also a covert entrance into the ziggurat further up that you can figure out how to unlock. Inside it is a puzzle, but you won't be able to do anything with this until you have some important inventory items from elsewhere in this area.

4) So where's the long part? Inside the Sacred Cenote dungeon. First you have to find it and figure out how to get inside it. This is easy and pretty neat, so I'm not going to spoil it. Once you find it, you are in for the pixel-hunting scavenger hunt of your life. Your general goal down here is to find the big wheel that will yield the Chichen Itza disk, the six objects you need to activate it, and two smaller wheels with the code for activating it printed on them. The big wheel and each of the smaller wheels is hidden behind an entrance that will only open if you solve a puzzle, and the six items--as well as six OTHER important items that are needed to solve one of the OTHER puzzles--are scattered all throughout this dungeon, usually in the darkest possible corners and sometimes behind secret doors you will need to find the mechanism for. Prepare for a lot of squinting. Oh, and though you only need six of the jade skulls, there are eighteen of them scattered around, and the other twelve are just there to distract you. You can probably sell them to a museum once you're done saving the world.

I can't possibly list every location where you can find an object down here, but I'm going to at least give you a list of rooms you're going to have to have visited before you can solve this Age. If you're stuck, be sure that you've been to all of these, and if you already have, these are the main locations to spend your time revisiting:

* The central room with four dark corners and three exits leading out of it. (Pay careful attention to the floor in here.)
* The Cenote itself (that's the big underground pool with light streaming down on it; you can dive into this pool, and stay underwater as long as you like with no fear of drowning. Explore carefully as there are many objects hidden down here.)
* The room with the rotating skull puzzle.
* The large room with the button puzzle on the floor.
* The room off the passageway that slopes up from the ceiling.
* The room with the impaled skeletons in it.
* The room with the big statue you can manipulate in it, and the niche behind the locked door in that room.
* There are also two hallways that feature large painted slabs of rock (one black, one red). These are important clues.

Note: You cannot die in this Age, but be sure to save just before ringing the bells; unless you're already familiar with Mayan glyphs, you will probably need to reload and watch the animation once or twice more to accurately jot down the vision you get.

EASTER ISLAND

Nobody home at this popular vacation spot either. This is a short Age but a very dangerous one. Everything you need to solve it can be found right here; there's an additional clue Gil has left for you on a memory chip, but it's an oddly pointless clue that only suggests to you that you use an inventory item any competent gamer would certainly have found and thought to use anyway. If you get stuck, the device for reading this memory chip can be found at Stonehenge and may give you the hint you need. There are three distinct ways to die on this island, so save frequently--in fact, some of the deaths are kind of cool looking, so even if you've figured out the correct solution to a puzzle, you may want to save before solving it and try messing it up just to see what happens to you.

1) There are only three useful areas in this Age, and only two of them can be reached at first. One is Gil's tent. Save before exploring anything in here. There are two important objects in this tent and some important reading material on the desk and also on the floor. Gil is asking you to do something on Easter Island that is highly illegal, unethical, and dangerous. If you've played Riddle of the Sphinx, you probably do not trust this manipulative SOB further than you can throw him, but in fact, obeying Gil here really is the only way to progress in this game and save the world. (Not that I doubt for a minute that I'll be the one who gets to go to jail for this afterwards while Gil claims plausible deniability, but maybe I can at least beat him over the head with the Ark of the Covenant first. But I digress.)

2) The second place is the row of Moai (stone statues). There's a puzzle to be solved here; solve carefully.

3) Once you've solved that puzzle you will get a new location to explore. It's fairly small, containing only one (very nifty) puzzle to be solved and the clues necessary to solve it. When you have the disk you can leave again. The police will not catch up to you no matter how often you return here, so don't worry about what you've done for the time being.

STONEHENGE, ENGLAND

The English Antiquities Trust has arbitrarily closed Stonehenge, so you once again get free run of the place. This Age cannot be solved without an object from Chichen Itza.

1) First, thoroughly explore Humph's RV. Gil has left two ridiculously arcane clues in here for you, and you can also play with his music box (though it won't open without an additional item) and amuse yourself by reading the labels on his coffee container and on Troy's medication. Save before leaving the RV. It is possible to die in Stonehenge.

2) There are four other locations it is important to visit in this Age: the Stonehenge ruins themselves, the fenced-in excavation site to the side of the ruins, the ramp leading under the ruins, and the nearby motorway. The mysterious subplot about Troy will never be resolved, so don't become invested in it; and the story about Shelley is fiction (and not very good fiction at that), so you'll never learn what happened to her. Your goal is to get into the fenced-in building, for which you'll need a key and a code.

3) Once you recover the one important object from the excavation site behind the fence, you are actually done with this Age. There is no disk here. The copious reading material scattered around this Age is mostly extraneous. Troy's two journals and the letter from his mom are long, boring, useless filler, and you will lose nothing just skipping them if you feel your eyes beginning to glaze over. The letters to Troy from Snelling are of some interest (particularly when compared against what Gil tells you Snelling said about Troy), but this subplot disappointingly lacks a satisfying resolution of any sort, so it's moot. The two books about Stonehenge are useless. The set-up about the amusement park and the protestors never goes anywhere. The coins hidden under the hat are useless. You can't pick up or do anything else with the videotape the woman left for you in the RV. The beeping thing on top of the RV is a red herring and it makes no difference whether you turn it off or not.

Important note: Unlike any of the other Ages in this game, you will need to return to Stonehenge multiple times regardless of whether you've finished the Age or not. Why? Because people keep leaving mail for you on the armrest of the RV. You will need to leave and return twice, to be precise, and each time there will be a critical object in one of the letters (one that you need to solve the Devil's Triangle Age, and one that you need to be able to travel to a new location.)

DEVIL'S TRIANGLE, MIDDLE OF THE OCEAN

This Age cannot be solved until you've brought Gil's memory chip back to Stonehenge to put it into his computer and extract a clue from it. Extremely annoying, but time is of no matter in this game, so pick up the chip, go to Stonehenge, translate the clue and come back.

Then save your game. It is possible to die here.

1) Well, there are actually only two non-empty locations in this Age, the ship (which contains nothing but the memory chip and a map that enables you to move the boat) and one underwater location (which contains one plot object.) The puzzle is figuring out where the underwater location is. Once you've got the disk you're done here.

ENDGAME

Wait a minute, now what? You don't have an access card for Atlantis. So where are you supposed to go next? If you're asking this question, let me save you a headache: go back to Stonehenge again. Another letter from Gil will set the endgame sequence in motion. It's linear from here:

1) Get Humph to take you to Bathelwaite Manor. Lord Bathelwaite will make you solve a series of puzzles, including the obligatory hedge maze, before you can continue on your path. Search his mansion carefully. You'll be able to come back here if you've forgotten anything, but it will be an immense waste of time and you'll already have to backtrack once for plot purposes, so you can save yourself a lot of hassle if you don't leave without first acquiring A) another disk, B) two more scrolls, C) a measuring spoon, D) one other object with skull decorations on it, and E) the information contained in a very important book (you'll have to copy it down, as you can't bring the book with you). There are a few other objects you need here, but it's impossible to leave without them (they're either needed for Bathelwaite's puzzles, or else Humph won't leave without them). The leaving sequence is actually rather annoying: first you have to talk to Humph, then give him both objects he requires, one after the other. He will claim that one of them is useless when you show it to him, but he's wrong; unless you give him both, you can't leave.

2) Get Humph to take you to the Super Sekrit Knights Templar swamp. It is very dark and hard to see the paths here. The important locations are a lake with mechanical trees in it, six sets of ogham stones (write down their configurations), a hut with a roaring fire inside, a big spooky tower, and a graveyard (with the obligatory tombstones of the game design team within). The first time you climb this tower, a bearded NPC may appear to rant at you whenever you knock at the door to the topmost level. His significance is unclear, and he doesn't always appear. You can keep knocking as much as you want, he will never carry out the threats he utters (eventually if you pester him enough, instead of intoning "Begone or SUFFER!" "Begone or DIE!" and so on, he will intone "You have the wrong ADDRESS! He lives next DOOR!", which is pretty amusing. (-: ) The second time you enter the tower, this guy will be gone and you can explore his room in peace. There are actually two optional sequences in this tower, though neither of them makes any sense: you can ring the bell (to no effect), and you can look out the telescope to see the bearded guy skulking around behind the stones (who he is or what he's doing is never explained). Make sure you copy down all the pages from the book on top of the tower, because you're already going to have to climb all the way up here twice more and you don't want to have to do it over and over just to keep reading the book (God knows why you couldn't have just brought the thing with you). Now just solve all the puzzles in order until you find yourself at an impasse, with five skulls and six slots to put skulls in. The sixth is back at Bathelwaite Manor, but you can't get it without bringing an item from this compound back with you. That item is a stone sword. If you haven't yet found a sword, you need to keep solving puzzles in the tower.

3) Go back to Bathelwaite Manor and use the stone sword on an appropriate object to open a secret door and find the last skull and a final piece of instructions. Don't bother trying to talk to Bathelwaite again, he'll just repeat his previous monologue.

4) Back again to the Super Sekrit Knights Templar swamp to solve the big complicated alchemy puzzle in the hut. This is a really cool puzzle (too bad that the interface makes it such a pain to execute). Don't pull the lever on the grate when the mixture is ready, since all that does is empty it and let you start over; light it on fire instead. Save first, of course. Sometimes you die if you use the incorrect mixture and other times nothing happens and you just have to start over; I was unable to figure out what governs this.

5) Once you have all six disks, return to Giza for a letter and an important item.

6) Now you can go to Atlantis and save the world. Actually, save your game first, do it wrong, and watch the Earth get destroyed. It's kind of cool looking. Gotta give props to a game you can lose that badly. Then save the world, and listen to Gil blather on unintelligibly for a long time. Maybe in the next sequel, the Toblers will figure out how to end a game on a less anticlimactic note. :-)

Congratulations, you've completed the game!