Missions, gadgets and puzzles in Treasures of Knowledge
Eight missions across more than thirty destinations, worked through a journal, a vest full of gadgets and puzzles that often want something fetched from another country.
Where the older games ran a warrant loop, Treasures of Knowledge runs missions. The 2001 Los Angeles Times review and the Steam listing both count eight, and the game’s scripts number them M1 to M8. The manual promises “over 30 destinations in countries on all seven continents,” Antarctica included.
Looking around
A player signs in by name (the list holds 256) and picks up where they left off; the Abort Mission button on Shadow’s vest quits and saves. Each location pans left and right, and the cursor becomes a magnifying glass over anything clickable. A click collects a clue, opens a puzzle, plays an educational fact or zooms into a close-up with more to search. Collected clues go into the Digital Clue Storage Device and come out on their own when needed; the manual’s example is a key that appears when you find its door.
Getting around
Travel runs through the Global Transportation System, a laptop map on which only the reachable countries light up, refreshed each time Carmen steals another treasure. Some countries are full of clues and some are dead ends, and Jules and Shadow’s chatter is how you tell. The Times traced one mission: a Maori mask goes missing, the agents fly to Moscow, find a clue inside Matreshka dolls, then shuttle through Thailand, Moscow, New Zealand, Mexico and Moscow again before finding the mask in Mexico.
The kit
Jules’s journal keeps notes, a stamp per country and sketches of the stolen treasures. Shadow’s vest holds the transport laptop, the clue device, the ACME Field Guide and the WorldWide Data Resource. The Field Guide catalogues gadgets and marks the ones found (the manual shows a Standard Issue Flashlight); Steam counts 15. The Data Resource covers 50 countries and all seven continents, with keyword search, a Glossary and a Talking Translator whose phrases include “Have you seen a woman in red?”
The puzzles
The manual’s hint section lists fifteen puzzle sites, and several need something fetched from elsewhere:
- Antarctica: a door lock keyed to PLATYPUS, set from a chessboard.
- China: three liquids, jars marked with Chinese-calendar animals, mixed to reveal a map.
- Egypt: five hieroglyphs in an order found in India.
- France: continent-shaped stones sorted by land area.
- Germany: five gear wheels to power a lock.
- Japan: matching pairs of Hanafuda cards.
- Jordan: a mosaic map missing four pieces, found via Mexico.
- Kenya: a sliding-tile door.
- Mexico: stone images in a pyramid, ordered by a silk scarf.
- Peru: panpipes, the tune spelled out by a note from Carmen and played backwards.
- Russia: four word dials that spell a password; the manual’s screenshot reads MASK.
- South Africa: five animals placed on a carousel by logic.
- United Kingdom: six horse brasses on a mantel, the sixth found in Italy.
- United States: a torn note to reassemble.
- Lost City: a scanner grid, then a door of gems and rings, using a coat of arms from Spain and a Professor’s clue from Greece.
The manual’s order of operations is your own head first, the Chief Com next, and its printed hints as a “last resort.”