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Game Guide: Burn:Cycle
CONTENTS

1 Getting out of Softech
1 Inside the Core and the Heart
2 Lifter Pad Door
3 Lifter Take Off
4 Shootout over Softech

2 Getting to the Televerse
1 The Street: why doesn't the lift work anymore?
2 Karmic Church
3 Sum Zero Bar: Psychic Roulette
4 Sum Zero Bar: First Zip Encounter
5 Save Gala
6 The Hotel Exterior
7 The Hotel: Guard Box
8 The Hotel: Hallways
9 Cutter's Room: Safe
10 Cutter's Room: Getting out
11 Sum Zero Bar: Second Zip Encounter
12 Fixing the Lifter Engine
13 Shootout over the Street
14 Doc's Lock
15 What's that Green Ball for?

3 The Televerse and Beyond
1 Satori
2 Nirvana: The Tree
3 Comport: Code to Cortex
4 Cortex: Try Asky's Code
5 Comport: Rage Game
6 Nirvana: Back to the Buddha
7 Cortex: The Last Piece of Code
8 Vieilli's Televerse: Deactivating the Virus
9 Find the Head
10 Hotel: Kill Everybody
11 Orbital Port/Endgame
Act One: Getting out of Softech

1.1 Inside the Core and the Heart

Object: To get out of Softech Corporation and to the lifter pad.

You wake up inside the core of Softech, where you've just been stealing software. While you were wired into their system, there was some sort of power surge, and you wake up on the floor. In front of you the monitor reads Burn:Cycle.

Near the monitor is a strap-on heads-up display (HUD) unit. You need it to keep in touch with your accomplice, Kris, and find your way out of the heart of Softech. Put the cursor over it, hold down an action button, and move the joystick down to drag it into your inventory. This triggers a movie showing you putting on the display, and the HUD activates. Once you've put on the HUD, you can turn left or right to face the door leading out of the core. If you turn without putting on the HUD, you'll be shot automatically.

Once you're out of the core, use the mapping function on the HUD to find your way out to the lifter pad. The compass points in the lower right of the mapping screen show you the direction in which you must travel to move towards the lifter pad. Shoot the guards who stand in your way before they manage to hit you. If three guards manage to hit you, you're dead.

When you reach the lifter pad door, you're too late to save Kris, and the door shuts in your face.

1.2 Lifter Pad Door

Object: Find a way to open the door to the lifter pad.

Look in your inventory. Towards the left, there's a green splotchy-looking thing. Click once on this to see it up close. It's the time bomb that you cleverly brought with you on the raid. You can set the timer to anything from zero to sixty seconds. Make sure it's set for at least twenty seconds or so, then return to regular view. Take the bomb from inventory and place it on the door. You'll hear it ticking away.

You're now standing in front of a door that's about to explode. It might be wise to move away. Turn away from the door and move once in any direction. Wait for the explosion, then proceed through the gaping hole to the lifter pad.

Note that after you go through the blown door, if you try to re-enter the heart of Softech, you get shot automatically.

1.3 Lifter Take Off

Object: Get the lifter off the ground.

When you go through the door to the lifter pad, you see Kris' body. Move towards her. When you're standing nearest to her, a further click opens her jacket, which contains a Karmic Card and a Lifter Key. Take both these items, then move towards the lifter.

When you reach the lifter, grab the Lifter Key and move it over the key slot in the lifter door. This will put you in the driver's seat.

To take off, first select a destination. Do this by clicking towards the left of the lifter control panel, in the area with the screen that says SATNAV SYSTEMS. Here's a map you can scroll. Only two destinations are available: Urban Central and Ex-Urb Site. You can go to either, but for the direct winning path, scroll to Urban Central. When the location is selected, move right to access the powerup console.

There are three buttons on the powerup console: POWER, SYSTEM, and VTO. (VTO stands for Vertical Take Off.) Hit POWER first, SYSTEM second, and VTO last. Voila! You're up in the air.

1.4 Shootout over Softech

Object: Shoot all the mines that Softech security are aiming at you before you get toasted.

After you take off, a shooting game starts. Mines are flying at you. Aim with the red crosshair and lead your target. With any luck, you'll land safely in the Street.

Act Two: Getting to the Televerse

2.1 The Street: why doesn't the lift work anymore?

Object: Find out why the lifter doesn't work, then explore this new area.

When the lifter lands, you'll be in the Street. There are several places you can go here:

The Sum Zero Bar
The Karmic Church
The Hotel
The Landing Pad

You start on the landing pad.

First, get out of the lifter. You'll then be looking at the lifter from the outside. Click on the rear of the lifter to approach the engine; click again to expose it. On the left of the engine panel is a hatch with an OPEN button. Click the button to open the hatch, then grab the item you find sitting there and put it into your inventory. It's a burnt fuse. Like Cutter says, you'll have to get a new one.

Spend some time wandering around and familiarizing yourself with where things are. The only way you can die is by attempting to enter the hotel, so don't try it.

When you've had a good look round, go to the Karmic Church.

2.2 Karmic Church

Object: Solve the hexagon puzzle to download your data and receive credit.

In the Karmic Church, find the one 'booth' you can enter, and walk in to it. Approach the screen, and a movie plays, showing the parts of a hexagonal design rotating harmoniously. The parts are then shuffled. Rearrange the parts so that they rotate harmoniously again. Once this is done, you automatically start downloading the stolen information in your brain, and get paid for it. You now have credit.

Go back to the Street, and head towards the Sum Zero bar.

2.3 Sum Zero Bar: Psychic Roulette

Object: Win a game of Psychic Roulette and collect a prize at the bar.

Enter the bar and go into the Psychic Roulette room. Whip out that Karmic Card and put it into the Psychic Roulette kiosk. You then transition to the Psychic Roulette game, where you can choose whether or not you want to hear instructions.

In this game, you sit across from another player. Between the two of you is a ring of symbols. The object of the game is to choose three symbols to form a triangle. The symbols fly towards you. A click chooses the symbol currently flying towards you, and it's then shown with a white ring around it. After you pick, your opponent has a turn. His symbol is now shown with a red ring. If either of you pick a symbol that has already been chosen, you lose a turn. The first person to make a triangle wins. Note that all sides of the triangle must be even; there must be a space two symbols wide between each of the selected symbols in your triangle.

You have to win a game. The game is a bit taxing on the brain, so while you play it, the clock on the Burn:Cycle virus runs a little faster.

When you finish your first game, whether you won or lost, you end up in front of Asky. This is the guy who knows his way around the Televerse. If you've tried to wake up the guy sitting in the lounge in the bar, you may suspect that Asky can help you set off his alarm clock. Insert your Karmic Card in the slot on Asky, then remove it. You will now be able to talk to Asky in the Televerse via the bar tv.

Go ahead and play until you win, then go out to the bar.

At the bar, the barwoman cruises by and congratulates you. She then offers you one of five prizes. The one you really want is the fourth from the left ("metaNeural nanowetware" - blue package). Drag this one into your inventory.

2.4 Sum Zero Bar: First Zip Encounter

Object: Get the derm and the decoder card from Zip.

Go over to where Zip is sitting in the bar. (He's the guy sitting alone in the lounge area.) He's asleep, off in cyberspace. You've got to wake him up.

When you're looking at Zip sitting in the lounge, there's a device near him, on the lower right part of the screen. It's the bar tv. Click it and insert your Karmic Card. Read your incoming mail. It takes you to Asky, who then gives you software that allows you to wake up Zip. When you return to the bar tv, custom software appears. Click it, and Zip says hi from the Televerse and tells you he'll meet you back in the real world. Now you can wake up the little rug rat.

Approach Zip and click when the dialogue balloon cursor displays over him. He wants to do a deal. Give him the trashed fuse. He'll only take cash for a new one. You don't have any. Give him the prize you won at the Psychic Roulette. Now he's happy. He gives you two things: a derm and a decoder card.

You can use the derm, if you like. Click on it in your inventory, then click on the close view of it. It peels back. The medicine will help slow down the virus. (Actually, it adds about half an hour to your time remaining.)

2.5 Save Gala

Object: Shoot the bad guys before they kill you and Gala.

Turning away from Zip after receiving the decoder and the derm triggers a movie. You see your old pal Gala having a hassle with two tough-looking types. She tosses you a gun, and you'd better be ready to use it. Kill her two assailants before they kill you.

If you survive, you cut a deal with her and arrange for her assistance later in exchange for cash. She gives you a pager so you can reach her later. There's only one location in which she's useful. Use the pager in any other location, and she tells you to stop wasting her time.

2.6 The Hotel Exterior

Object: Get rid of the guard.

Go back into the street and approach the hotel. Stop when you can see the guard pacing back and forth in front of the building. Access your inventory and click on the pager. In the close view of the pager, click on the pager button. Gala comes a runnin' and takes care of that pesky guard. You then search the guard and find a communication device.

2.7 The Hotel: Guard Box

Object: Figure out the code to the guard's communcation device.

The communcation device is called the guard box. Pull out the decoder card from your inventory and insert it into the guard box. Scroll around until you find four numbers that neatly fit into the four holes in the decoder card. Or just cheat and enter 1965. Note that you do have to have the decoder card in the guard box before you can enter any numbers.

One other thing about the guard box: there's a button on the top right of the box labelled TRANSMIT. Hit this button, and an image of your face looking stupidly into the lens of the box get transmit to all the guard's buddies. Do this three times, and the guys finally figure out where you are and toast you.

Once you've cracked the code, information about the building comes up. Click on ACCESS, and Gala discovers a way to get in around the back.

2.8 The Hotel: Hallways

Object: Get to Cutter's room without getting blown away.

After Gala spots the way in, you end up at a space to which you cannot normally navigate. It's the rear service elevator. Go forward three times to enter it. Explore this area much in any other way, and the guards kill you.

When the elevator stops, hit the DOOR button to open up the door. Now you're in the hallway. Follow these directions exactly, and you'll end up in Cutter's room. Deviate, and you'll get shot by a guard.

Forward
Forward
Right
Forward
Forward

2.9 Cutter's Room: Safe

Object: Solve the combination on the safe and open it before it blows up in your face.

Now you're in. Approach the safe near the bed. View it up close. When you get close, audio normally plays, telling you that there's a light silicon explosive coating on the safe. Take too long, and it'll blow up. (In the pre-FPD, there's no audio, and no timer.)

There are three bands of lines on the safe. At the top and bottom of the safe are yellow, red, and green dots. The object is to scroll the graphics so that the top yellow dot connects with a single line to the bottom yellow dot, etc.

Save your game before you do this puzzle. You might not solve it in time. Keep trying. When you've connected all the dots, a button appears on the left of the safe. Click on it, and it opens up. The safe solution is:

Top segment:
Scroll 7 times using the right pointing arrow.

Middle segment:
Scroll 5 times using the left pointing arrow.

Bottom segment:
Scroll 11 times using the left pointing arrow.

Inside the safe are the following items:

Cash
Mystery green ball
Green smoke bomb
Lock breaker
See-through smoke heads-up display (HUD)

Take everything. When you take the HUD, you automatically start wearing it.

2.10 Cutter's Room: Getting out

Object: Find a way out of Cutter's room without getting shot by a guard.

Turn around to face the door through which you entered. Just to the right of this door is an air vent. Move to a close view of the vent and click on it to open it up. Drag the green smoke bomb into the air vent, and voila - instant smoke screen.

Now you have to use the HUD to see through the smoke so that you and Gala can find the exit. Just below the eyeholes through which you're seeing is a line that represents the visible spectrum. Above this line is a triangular pointer. The position of this pointer indicates the setting at which the HUD must be for you to see through the current density of smoke. Below the line is another pointer. This adjusts the setting of the HUD. Grab the pointer below the line, and the other pointer begins moving. Drag the below-the-line pointer around so it keeps pace with the other pointer. When the two pointers are close enough, you move through the smoke.

Keep doing this until you reach the end of the navigation sequence, then let up on the action button you've been holding. Now you're outside of the hotel. You pay off Gala, and still have cash left over to pay Zip. Head to the Sum Zero bar again.

2.11 Sum Zero Bar: Second Zip Encounter

Object: Get the new fuse from Zip.

Go over and talk to Zip again. He's awake now. Give him the cash he wants, and he'll give you a new fuse for your lifter. Now go back to the lifter pad.

2.12 Fixing the Lifter Engine

Object: Install the new fuse and fix the engine by arranging the mirrors so the beam bounces off of all four blue contact points.

Open up the back of the lifter again. Hit the OPEN button and drag the new fuse into the slot. Hit the CLOSE button, and the RAD HAZ panel opens up. Three little disc mirrors appear on a grid. To get the lifter working, rearrange these so that when you hit the TEST button, the beam bounces off the mirrors and hits the top, right, and bottom contact points. It's not easy. A very basic hint: when in the correct positions, the mirrors are near the center of the grid, side by side, in a row. The middle mirror is slightly lower than the left mirror, and the right mirror is higher than the other two. (If by some wild chance you find this easy, try doing it with only two mirrors. It's possible.)

Give up? We're leaving in a cheat hotspot. Want to know what it is?

Sure?

Ok. Put the cursor over the letter B in the text under the RAD HAZ panel. Push action button one, then two, then one, then two. The mirrors are now in the correct positions.

Once you've arranged the mirrors correctly and fired the test beam, you automatically take off. Be ready to shoot again.

2.13 Shootout over the Street

Object: Survive more flying mines.

This time, someone's shooting at you from the street. Lead and fire at the mines as before. If you survive, you end up at the Ex-Urb Site, i.e., Doc's.

2.14 Doc's Lock

Object: Use the lockbreaker you took from the hotel safe to open Doc's door.

Exit the lifter and maneuver over to Doc's door. It's locked. Drag the lockbreaker from your inventory and on to Doc's door. Press the button on the lockbreaker, and it opens up, exposing a system of arrows and colors.

The lockbreaker puzzle is a bit like the game of MasterMind. To the right, there are five percentage indicators. On the top, left, and bottom are three sets of numbers one through five, colored red, green, and black respectively. Click on a number, and a colored bar shoots out over the row it governs. The green numbers' bars shoot automatically to the percentage counters on the opposite side of the grid. To make the red and black numbers' bars reach the percentage counters, use one of the four types of arrows to the left of the grid. Drag an arrow into a grid block, then click the number that's even with the unpointed end of the arrow. The colored bar is redirected in the direction of the arrow's point.

The object of the game is to get all four percentage counters to 100%. When a colored bar hits a counter, it registers one of three values: 0%, 50%, or 100%. A 0% means that neither the color nor the number of the bar is correct; 50% means that either the color or the number is correct, and 100% means that both are correct.

The solution of the puzzle is different each time you play the game. You should be able to solve it fairly quickly by trial and error. When all percentage counters hit 100%, you've cracked the lock, and the door opens automatically.

2.15 What's that Green Ball for?

Object: Use Doc's devices to find out what that green ball you got from the safe is.

Enter Doc's. A movie plays, and he leaves to prepare the scanner. You can't follow him yet. Turn right to face the hologram contraption, and move forward to access it. It opens up. Drag the green ball into the contraption and move back. It closes. Now you can move towards the panel to the right of the machine.

Use the arrows on the right of the panel to move the 3D image around in the scanner. Fiddle with it until you see an image of the tattoo that you've seen on the back of the person who gets shot in the flashback movies. You can then move back into the main view of the room. Now that you've seen the tattoo, Doc has finished preparing the scanner. You can enter the scanning room now.

From here, Doc scans you into the Televerse, where an image of Kris greets you. You are now at the Pulse - the center of the Televerse. Unfortunately, the scanning process didn't quite catch all of you. You have three holes in you that need filling in. You have to figure out where your missing bits of code are and reintegrate them into yourself.

Act Three: The Televerse and Beyond

3.1 Satori

Object: Get to know your fear.

From your starting point in the Pulse, turn right. Find SATORI in this view and click. You're now inside of a sound sculpture.

There are no games in this area. Familiarize yourself with all the pictures and the dialogue bits associated with them. The next game requires this bit of research.

To get back to the Pulse from here or anywhere in the Televerse, pull up what used to be your inventory strip and click on the down arrow. This jumps you back directly to the pulse. Any stuff you were carrying before you got scanned into the Televerse is, of course, gone. You're just a piece of code now. Only the Burn:Cycle virus icon remains.

3.2 Nirvana: The Tree

Object: Let your fear be heard.

Here you meet a great big gold Buddha. He has a tree with leaves in his hand. He tells you that you must pick a leaf, but it must be the correct leaf, because all the others are virus and will kill you. His hint is that to pick the correct leaf, you must let your fear be heard.

The first step towards figuring this one out is figuring out how to get the tree to make sounds. There are three weights at the bottom of the tree that can be taken off and rearranged in different configurations. Play with the weights a bit. Just above the tree trunk is a hotspot that turns the cursor into red sonic waves. Click here, and the tree shakes and plays the sound of one of the leaves. Different configurations of the weights play different leaves.

Eventually, you'll find a configuration that plays a bit of dialogue that goes "The corporation authorized it...". The man delivering this dialogue is your fear. Picking this leaf solves the tree. You can pick it at any time, without messing around with the weights. It's towards the upper right of the tree. If you pick three incorrect leaves, you die.

Now go back to the Pulse.

3.3 Comport: Code to Cortex

Object: Get a code from Asky.

Enter the Comport. This is where your friend Asky lives. Had you tried to get into Cortex before, you would have found the door locked and a keypad next to it. Maybe Asky has the code. You ask him, and he gives you the numbers 001122. Go back to the Pulse, then hit Cortex.

3.4 Cortex: Try Asky's Code

Object: See if Asky's code will open the door to Cortex.

On your way to the door, you meet Kris. She walks through a wall and leaves a third eye design on it. This is a clue for later.

Go to the door and punch in the code. It doesn't do anything. Asky's information is a bit old. You'll have to find another way to crack this nut. Maybe you should let Asky know that his code stinks. Go back to the Comport.

3.5 Comport: Rage Game

Object: Re-integrate your anger into your body.

When you visit Asky again, he doesn't care much that his code didn't work. You're out of credit with him. Fortunately, a stray piece of your code that flaked off when you were scanned into the Televerse is hanging around near here. Unfortunately, it's your rage. Rage accosts you and pops you a good one on the nose. He then walks off.

Jump back to the Pulse, and you can see where he's headed. He's off to ride the waves of the Televerse, and he's not interested in coming back. Get him back into you, or you'll never be able to upload yourself into a new body. Rage turns into a yellow blob. Shoot him, and he reddens. Shoot him enough in a short space of time, and he's defeated and integrated back into you. Fail to do so, and he escapes, blowing all chances of your safe return to the real world. You die.

Once you've defeated him, you're back at the Pulse.

3.6 Nirvana: Back to the Buddha

Object: Figure out how to integrate the Buddha back into your code.

The Buddha is another piece of your code. The clue for how to integrate him was given when Kris walked through the wall and left a third eye. Put your cursor on his forehead and click. He should explode, integrating back into you.

There's a bug on the pre-FPD that sometimes makes this not happen. If the problem occurs, you'll hear an audio file play when you click his forehead. Should this happen, try turning around a few times, then clicking his head again. If it still doesn't work, go back to the Comport, wander around the Pulse a bit, then try again. He should blow up soon enough.

3.7 Cortex: The Last Piece of Code

Object: Pick up the last piece of code.

You still haven't cracked the code on the door to Cortex. That's because you can't. You need to find the last bit of your code so you can go anywhere you want.

When you approach the door that you haven't been able to pass through, a movie with Kris plays. She's the last bit of your code. She integrates with you, and now you can go through the door. Do so, and you finally meet Vielli.

3.8 Vieilli's Televerse: Deactivating the Virus

Enter Vielli's and watch the movies. Now move towards the screen with the maze on it towards the back of the room. It is, indeed, a maze. Towards the right of the maze is a circle with a red cursor on it. This represents Vielli's cure for the Burn:Cycle virus. In the center of the maze is the virus itself. It emits little agents that travel along the maze. Your job is to steer the cure to the virus in the middle without intersecting with any of its agents. If you hit an agent, your cure gets destroyed. Since Vielli only has five copies of the cure, you only have five chances to succeed.

A few helpful hints: 1) Watch the maze animate. It goes in loops. The paths extend and contract, so the places in which you can travel change with each animation loop. 2) The 'memory pocket' circles within the maze make good hiding places. The agents can't get to you when you're on the edge of one of these circles.

(Note: a bug in the pre-FPD makes the game solve itself if you let the intro audio play through. If you want to play it yourself, interrupt the intro audio with a press of both action buttons.)

Once you've reached the center of the maze, the virus is deactivated. You're no longer working against the clock. A movie showing what's happening in the real world plays. Your enemy, Dealey, busts into Doc's and kills Doc and Gala. He warns you that he's going to do harm to your body unless you come back and bring him the upload code that he needs. You're stuck. If you go back, you're surely dead. Vielli offers to upload you into a spare body in his lab in the real world instead. You agree, and wake up in a woman's body. Now you have to fulfill his request. Find his head and take it away before Softech discover it and plunder his thoughts.

3.9 Find the Head

Object: Find Vielli's head and leave the building.

The head's in the storage facility below the floor in the middle of the room. Call up the elevator down into the vat storage area. Click on the heads until you find the right one. When you click on the right one, you automatically move out of the vat area and back into the lab.

Now that you're out of the vat area, move towards the scanning equipment in back of you. Here you see your own reflection. Once you've seen the movie, you can leave Vielli's. You're going back to the hotel.

3.10 Hotel: Kill Everybody

Object: Survive long enough to blow town.

You go back to the hotel after Vielli's, but Dealey is waiting for you. This time, you finally kill him. The noise of the shootout attracts some guards, who you need to be prepared to blast quickly.

Once you've done this, you try to escape through the vent again, but the head in the case is too big to take with you. You leave it in the room, where the Softech agents will find it. Vielli won't be happy.

3.11 Orbital Port/Endgame

No games here. You just find out that Vielli actually wanted Softech to find his head. It contains a virus. When they try to upload the code they want from his brain, the virus will kill off their entire corporation. The game ends as you watch the lights of Softech go out, one by one.


The Burn:Cycle official game guide for the Philips CD-i.
Produced by Philips Interactive Media and recompiled by The Black Moon Project.
All copyrights held by their respective owners.


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