I've solved this room. It took a lot of thinking, so I thought I'd provide some hints for other players.
General Hints
Swordpoint Maneuvering If you stand on the right edge with your sword pointing left and let the roach move towards you, you can "
balance the roach on your sword"
: if you move up or down, it moves with you. You can do the same thing on the left edge. This trick does
not work on the top or bottom edges: when you move, the roach moves vertically, not horizontally.
Force Arrows The force arrows
inside the square are the key to solving the room, because you can use them to 'pin' the roach temporarily.
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×Most of the arrows are irrelevant or even nuisances than can trap the roach.
The three marked here are useful:
AFAIK, you need to use all three of these to pin the roach to solve the room.
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×There is one more useful (AFAIK, vital) arrow not shown here.
The Hard Part It's relatively easy to kill any one of these snakes: just guide the roach into a snake chamber so that it blocks the snake until it dies.
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×The hard part is being able to move the roach somewhere useful after that, which you need to do for the first three snakes you kill.
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×And, as it happens, three of the snakes can be killed without losing control of the roach.
Specific Hints
Top Right SnakeClick here to view the secret text
×Maneuver the roach to the top right of the snake chamber, then use the sword-point trick to move it to position (2).
Bottom Right
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×The roach has to go into the chamber via the right-pointing arrow near (1) and has to exit the chamber via the left-pointing arrow 3 squares under the (1) marker.
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×When the roach moves off that exit arrow, it must move up and left.
Bottom LeftClick here to view the secret text
×It is not possible to keep the roach under control after killing this snake.
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×So you must kill this snake last.
Top LeftClick here to view the secret text
×This is the by far hardest of the four snakes.
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×Getting the roach onto the entrance arrow is hard enough.
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×How can you keep the roach from moving up (onto one of those up-arrows) when you need it to move left?
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×You need to put something on the up-arrow to stop the roach moving there.
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×The only thing you can put there is your sword.
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×Once the roach is in the room, how do you keep it under control?
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×You will need to be
below this snake chamber, on the bottom edge of the room.
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×You cannot move the roach into the chamber and get yourself into position before the roach kills the snake and escapes if you start anywhere near the top left chamber.
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×So you must get to the bottom edge of the room before moving the roach into the chamber.
I hope this helps someone. Cheers -- Chris[topher] Chittleborough
[Last edited by cchittleborough at 06-29-2012 11:50 AM]