____ _____ _____ _ _ _ _____ _____ _ ________
| _ \| _ | _ | | \ | | ___| _ | \ | \_\ ___|
| |_| | | | | |_| | | \| | |___| | | | \| || |___
| /| | | | _ | | |___ | | | | ||___ |
| |\ \| |_| | |_| | | |\ |___| | |_| | |\ | ___| |
|_| \_\_____|_____|_|_| \_|_____|_____|_| \_||_____|
____ ____ _____ _ _ _ ____ _ _
| _ \| __| _ | | | | | __| \ / |
| |_| | |__| | | | | | | | |__| \/ |
| /| __| | | | | | | | __| |
| |\ \| |__| |_| | |_| | | |__| |\/| |
|_| \_\____|____\_\____|_|____|_| |_|
Robinson's Requiem
FAQ
by Christian Schmidt (
[email protected])
########################################
INTRODUCTION
########################################
Welcome to this FAQ on Robinson’s Requiem! This is my third in-depth FAQ (the
first two were on Contraptions, a puzzle game, and The Machines, a top-down
shooter), next to a couple of small walkthroughs. It seems that I’ve comfor-
tably settled on chucking out a strategy guide once every three or four years.
Talk about diligence. With every FAQ I manage to finish, my admiration grows
for those guys who have a dozen or more to their credit. Amazing work.
I remember playing Robinson’s Requiem a few years after its release on the PC
and hating it: I had no idea what to do, and I kept dying. Frustrating. Yet
there was an undeniable fascination to the idea of exploring a strange world,
full of dangers, and trying to survive. I came back to Robinson’s Requiem more
than a decade later and stuck with it this time. Since there are no in-depth
strategy guides to the game on the net, I decided to create one. Here it is.
########################################
CONTENTS
########################################
ABOUT THIS FAQ ________________
Notes from the author
ABOUT THE GAME ________________
What is Robinson's Requiem?
GETTING STARTED ________ [1GST]
First steps on a hostile planet
THE WORLD ______________ [2WOR]
Getting to know Zarathustra
FOOD ___________________ [3FOO]
What to eat (and what not)
CLOTHING _______________ [4CLO]
Adapting to the environment
HEALTH _________________ [5HEA]
Treating and avoiding illness
COMBAT _________________ [6COM]
How to fighting effectively
EQUIPMENT ______________ [7EQU]
Items and their uses
QUESTS _________________ [8QUE]
Tasks and their solutions
Credits
########################################
ABOUT THIS FAQ
########################################
This FAQ is the most comprehensive collection of information on Robinson’s Re-
quiem. It provides answers to pretty much any question you might have, with a
heap of lists and data thrown in for good measure. Everything in here was
checked and often double-checked. Yep, that took lots of time. Don’t ask.
Regardless, there are limits to this FAQ:
* This FAQ is based on the PC version of Robinson’s Requiem. It will likely
be 99% accurate for all other versions as well, but I did not verify it.
There may be differences.
* This FAQ is based on the CD version of the game. Allegedly there are dif-
ferences in handling and difficulty between the disk and the CD version.
Most notably, the need to reselect the bow from the inventory every time
you fired an arrow was removed for the CD. I have not checked the disk
version. If you play it and find my assessments in this FAQ ridiculous or
misleading, then this might be the reason.
* This FAQ is NOT a walkthrough. There is at least one English language
walkthrough in existence that I know of, over at The Spoiler Centre
(www.the-spoiler.com). It can be wholeheartedly recommended. I dare say
though that you will find everything you need to know to finish the game
in this FAQ regardless, even if not in a step-by-step order.
Please note that this FAQ was compiled while playing Robinson’s Requiem at the
highest difficulty level and in full simulation mode (i.e. with illness and
environmental effects turned on). If you turn the difficulty and simulation
detail down, several parts of this FAQ will simply lose their relevance for
you, including most of the section on health.
_______________________________________________________________________________
/ A WORD ON LANGUAGE
Many things on Zarathustra do not have names, neither in the game itself nor
in the manual. That is quite appropriate f or an unexplored planet, but it po-
ses a problem to the FAQ author who has to call things by some name or other.
* The outdoor REGIONS are in part described in the AWE White Booklet that
comes with the game. The names used in this FAQ correspond to that book-
let, except for the Jungle, which is called Tropical Forest in the booklet.
Since that region looks nothing like either a jungle or a tropical forest,
I went for the shorter word.
* The CAVES don’t have any designations. I have named them after their pri-
mary inhabitants.
* Some CREATURES are explicitly named in the game (i.e. the Kagoo) or in the
White Booklet (i.e. the Fridays), but most remain nameless. I have hapha-
zardly tried to name those after their appearance (i.e. the "cave goril-
las").
All objects and medical terms / diagnoses use the game’s own words as given by
the Sesame computer.
Please note that I am not a native English speaker. You may trip over word er-
rors or grammatical mistakes. Sorry. I am not to blame for the occasional odd
word for objects or medical conditions, as they are lifted verbatim from the
game. Robinson’s Requiem is a French game translated into English, and this
translation seems to be shaky at times, too.
_______________________________________________________________________________
/ USING THE BOOKMARKS
If you want to jump to a specific section of this FAQ quickly, use the book-
marks from the "Contents" section above. Bookmarks are unique 4-letter-combi-
nations such as [6EQU]. To jump to the corresponding paragraph, use the
search function of your document reader / web browser to find those four
letters (without the brackets). If you search for 6EQU, you will get directly
to the Equipment section of the FAQ.
########################################
ABOUT THE GAME
########################################
Robinson’s Requiem is an action-adventure game created by French developer
Silmarils in 1994. In the United States it was published by Readysoft. Robin-
son’s Requiem was originally released for the Amiga, the Atari ST and the PC
and later ported to Macintosh and the 3DO. In 1996 Silmarils re-released the
game as a CD-ROM version for PC. Both the 3DO and CD-ROM versions contain
live-action video sequences and voice acting as well as a new intro video.
In Robinson’s Requiem, the player is one of 20 space prospectors who crash-
land on an unexplored planet called Zarathustra. The protagonist’s name is
Trepliev 1. His primary objective is to reestablish contact with his crashed
colleagues and find a way to leave Zarathustra. In order to do that, he needs
to explore the planet, adapt to its environment and learn to survive.
Robinson’s Requiem was unique in two ways.
First, it cleverly emphasized the survival aspect by introducing a simulation
of Trepliev’s health and physical condition. Trepliev 1 must eat, drink and
sleep regularly, can catch various illnesses, fracture bones or get poisoned
and infected. Dealing with such ailments is an important part of the game,
even leading to extreme measures: Robinson's Requiem is famous for being "the
game where you can cut off you own limbs".
Second, Robinson’s Requiem’s 3D graphics are based on voxel technology, which
results in realistically rolling landscapes and great field of view, but comes
at the price of limited level of detail and a "chunky" look, especially close
up. Upon its release in 1994 it performed badly on existing hardware.
_______________________________________________________________________________
/ WHAT DOES THE NAME MEAN?
The explorers in the game are called Robinsons in reference to Daniel Defoe’s
famous literary character Robinson Crusoe. He washed up on a uninhabited is-
land and resourcefully learned to survive. An appropriate term for a game of
exploration and survival in unknown environments.
A requiem is a clerical term for a mass for the dead, or for a musical piece
performed at that occasion. In a figurative sense, it stands for a final
farewell. An appropriate term for a game where death is found quickly and
easily.
_______________________________________________________________________________
/ WHERE CAN I GET THE GAME?
At the time of writing the only legal source to get the PC version of Robin-
son’s Requiem - other than second-hand traders or Ebay - is Good Old Games
(gog.com), a digital distribution website for classic games. It is sold bun-
dled with its sequel, Deus. One advantage of the GOG version is that it comes
with DOSBox pre-installed, a DOS emulator that you need to get the game run-
ning under Windows. It also includes PDF files of both manuals that originally
came with the game.
This FAQ is based on the GOG version of Robinson’s Requiem.
_______________________________________________________________________________
/ HOW DO I GET IT TO RUN?
Robinson’s Requiem is a DOS game. If you are using Windows XP or higher, you
will need the free e mulation software DOSBox in order to play the game
(
http://dosbox.sourceforge.net). Setting up DOSBox is a tad complicated, and
I won’t go into it here. You can get detailed instructions on the DOSBox web-
site.
_______________________________________________________________________________
/ IS IT TRUE THAT THE GAME IS VERY DIFFICULT?
Robinson’s Requiem has a reputation to be a darn complex game. This is largely
unwarranted. Many of the stories that circulate on the net, mined from the
depths of gamers’ memories, are strongly exaggerated. Take for instance this
user comment on Good Old Games:
"The games [Robinson’s Requiem and its sequel Deus] have an incredible
amount of micro-managing, as they monitor your heart rate, body tempera-
ture, artery blocks, several internal organ conditions plus need for
nourishment and dehydration. I wouldn't be lying if I told you pretty
much everything can be combined and used on yourself and other items.
The amount of medical conditions you must battle is mind baffling, I
wouldn't wonder if a medical school student couldn't come up with all
the cures you must invent in this game."
That is fiction. Playing Robinson’s Requiem does not require a university de-
gree. Most of all, its scope is quite limited. Not "pretty much everything can
be combined" - if only it were so! The game knows exactly 15 combinations, all
of them straightforward, using only a fraction of all objects in the game. The
amount of medical conditions is not "mind baffling", but small: less than a
dozen. The game simulates only a handful of vital signs, and the "cures that
you must invent" pretty much boil down to taking antibiotics and applying ban-
dages. Don’t be fooled into believing that Robinson’s Requiem is the sophisti-
cated survival simulation that some claim it is, and indeed Silmarils would
probably have like it to be. It is in fact a rather compact (but nonetheless
entertaining) action-adventure game.
Robinson’s Requiem IS challenging and sometimes frustrating, but not because
of its complexity or non-linear nature, but because it is largely based on
trial and error. In addition, it remains stubbornly obscure while you are try-
ing to figure out how to solve a particular problem, or even just what to do
next. During your first time on Zarathustra you will likely cheerfully explore
your surroundings, hear some coughing and palpitation after a while, and then
the screen turns black and you find out that you died. But how?? Even as you
learn about illnesses, it seems that they are rampant and arbitrary and impos-
sible to get rid of.
The opposite is true. Robinson’s Requiem is surprisingly forgiving. You won’t
have to deal with medical conditions nearly as much as you’d think. If you do,
the mechanics are simple and straightforward once you understand them. In fact
you will only need to know how to react to two or three basic conditions, and
that’s it. With a little precaution, most illnesses can be avoided entirely.
Learning how to treat and avoid dangerous conditions is part of the challenge
of the game. It is not a terribly hard challenge, but it does provide quite
some satisfaction to find out how to keep that flu in check or heal an infec-
ted limb. This FAQ provides detailed instructions on how to cope with each me-
dical emergency that you might encounter in the game. If don’t want your play-
ing experience to be spoiled, I suggest that you skip that part.
########################################
GETTING STARTED
####################################1GST
_______________________________________________________________________________
/ WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE DIFFICULTY LEVELS?
Robinson’s Requiem is meant to be played at the highest difficulty level in
full simulation mode, and I would recommend this even for players who are new
to the game. The game is not terribly hard once you understand its mechanics,
and those cause-effect relations are easier to get if you see their full im-
impact.
On the lower difficultly levels, enemies take less hits before they die,
wounds close more easily, it is harder to catch an illness and limbs don’t
fracture if you trip or fall.
_______________________________________________________________________________
/ WHERE AM I?
You are on the planet Zarathustra. Your ship crashed while approaching the
surface. You ejected just prior to impact and parachuted to a clearing in what
appears to be a tropical forest. That’s where you start out. Your mission was
to explore the planet and survive. That is still your objective, only that
it’s now a lot more difficult since all your gear is lost.
_______________________________________________________________________________
/ WHERE IS MY EQUIPMENT?
After your crash on Zarathustra, you start with nothing more than the clothes
on your body. From the list of equipment in the AWE White Booklet, you only
possess the underwear, jacket, trousers, shoes and backpack. All the rest you
have to find throughout the game. In fact, reassembling a complete set of equ-
ipment is one of the main objectives, since all items are required in order to
finish the game. You will find some key objects in the vicinity of the crash
site, but the rest is spread over Zarathustra.
_______________________________________________________________________________
/ WHAT SHOULD I DO FIRST?
Find the basic equipment that is necessary for your survival. North of the
starting point is the crash site of your ship. Find the medical kit between
the debris. On the large plain east of the starting point, in the vicinity of
the lake, you will meet your fellow Robinson Socrates 19. Talk to him, then
kill him with a few punches. Pick up the survival knife that he dropped and
loot his body for a battery, a gourd and matches. These items are indispen-
sable, and you have no other option to get them. With this equipment in hand,
your primary task is to stock up on food, water and firewood and start explo-
ring Zarathustra. Your long-term objective will become clear when you sleep in
the first night.
_______________________________________________________________________________
/ WHERE SHOULD I SLEEP?
Preferably somewhere safe, dry and warm. There is only one such place in the
game, and that is the Canyon. Temperatures never fall below a cozy 24°C/75°F
even at night, it never rains, and the local wildlife will leave you alone if
you keep your distance. Whenever possible, try to sleep in the Canyon.
In other outdoor areas, temperatures fall considerably during the night and it
may rain. Caves on the other hand are damp and cool. B oth will give you flu.
Your second best bet after the Canyon is to find a cave with a fairly mild
temperature, such as the one connecting the Jungle to the Swamps, and light a
campfire to keep you warm while you sleep.
_______________________________________________________________________________
/ WHO'S THE WOMAN TALKING TO ME IN MY SLEEP?
That’s Nina 1, an AWE classmate and fellow Robinson stranded along with you on
Zarathustra. She has telepathic powers and will contact you every night in
your sleep with short updates. Your ultimate goal is to find her and leave on
her spaceship.
Judging from her messages, Nina 1 is more than a bit unbalanced and possibly
psychotic, so she’s rather a woman you’d want to stay away from. You don’t ha-
ve any alternative though. At least her volatile mental state, supported by
the shaky translation, makes for some interesting reading.
_______________________________________________________________________________
/ WHAT'S THE POINT OF NINA 1'S MESSAGES?
Nina 1 gives you clues to the whereabouts of 17 of the 20 Robinsons on Zara-
thustra, including herself (effectively all Robinsons outside of the Jungle).
These hints are sometimes cryptic and usually of little practical use, but
they also help you understand what happened to those of the Robinsons which
you only find dead.
All in all, Nina 1 can contact you 17 times. The first message is always the
same; after that, the order seems to depend on which areas you’re exploring.
_______________________________________________________________________________
/ WHY OH DEAR LORD DO I KEEP DYING?!?
Don’t worry, you’re in good company. That question is familiar to every player
of Robinson’s Requiem. If you’re playing the game for the first time, it can
be immensely frustrating at times. But it is not that hard at all if you know
what you’re doing. Don’t be afraid to start over with a fresh game several ti-
mes. The more experienced you get and the more you know your way around, the
smoother the first few days on Zarathustra will be, which may give you the ed-
ge you need for the later part of the game. If you waste too much time and re-
sources early on, you’ve practically lost without knowing it yet. Playing
smoothly, knowing what to do in which order and minimizing resource consump-
tion, illnesses and travel time is key. On the other hand, you do get enough
medication to keep yourself alive for quite some time, so don’t let an occa-
sional infection stop you. You will need a certain amount of persistence to
triumph in Robinson’s Requiem, but keeping regular save games at different
stages of progress helps a lot.
########################################
THE WORLD
####################################2WOR
_______________________________________________________________________________
/ HOW MANY LOCATIONS ARE THERE ON ZARATHUSTRA
There are five outdoor areas (Jungle, Swamps, Canyon, Massif, Desert) and five
caves.
_______________________________________________________________________________
/ HOW ARE THE LOCATIONS LINKED?
Here is a rough sketch of how the five outdoor areas are connected through
caves. Note that the directions are NOT correct here, i.e. the Pteranodon Cave
is to the north of the Jungle, not the south. Unfortunately the maps in the
game do not connect in a completely logical way; or they might since caves can
run under other areas, but that is hard to lay out here.
|
V
---------- --------
Gorilla Cave --- JUNGLE --- Mole Cave --- MASSIF
| ---------- --------
| | |
-------- \ /
SWAMPS - Pteranodon Cave <-
-------- |
| |
\ --------
Tyrannosaurus Cave --- CANYON
| --------
|
--------
DESERT
--------
|
\
--- AWE Base
_______________________________________________________________________________
/ HOW DO I GET TO THE MASSIF?
Through the Mole Cave in the east of the Jungle. Remember that you can crawl
by holding the CTRL key.
_______________________________________________________________________________
/ WHAT ARE THE PEAK TEMPERATURES FOR EACH REGION AND CAVE?
Area Day Night Rain
---------------------------------------------------------
Jungle | 30°C / 86°F | 24°C / 75°F | 20°C / 68°F *
Swamps | 31°C / 87°F | 1°C / 33°F | -
Canyon | 36°C / 96°F | 24°C / 75°F | -
Desert | 60°C / 140°F | 0°C / 32°F | -
Massif | 16°C / 60°F | 2°C / 35°F | 2°C / 35°F *
* Before rain the temperature falls by -4°C / -7°F per hour.
Cave Temperature
----------------------------------
Gorilla Cave | 7°C / 44°F
Pteranodon Cave | -20°C / -4°F
Mole Cave | 5°C / 42°F
Tyrannosaurus Cave | 1°C / 33°F
AWE Base | 40°C / 104°F
_______________________________________________________________________________
/ HOW DOES TEMPERATURE CHANGE ON ZARATHUSTRA?
Each outdoors region has a maximum temperature during the day and a minimum
temperature at night. The maximum is reached shortly after noon (12:20), the
minimum shortly after midnight (0:20). You’d expect peak temperatures to last
for most of the day / night, but that is not the case. In fact they only last
for an hour, after which the temperature will slowly start falling towards
dusk or rising towards dawn. For instance, the brutal max temperature of
60°C / 140°F in the desert only burns at around 12:30, while by 14:30 it has
already fallen back to (still extreme) 52°C / 125°F. In effect, temperature
constantly changes linearly outdoors, while in caves it is always the same.
How much the temperature changes per hour depends on the difference between
day and night peaks. In the desert, the thermometer rises / falls by 4°C /
7/8°F per hour during the day and a whopping 12°C / 21°F during dusk and dawn.
In the Massif, the change is only 1°C / 2/3°F per hour during the day. In ge-
neral, temperatures drop and increase more sharply during the hours of dusk
and dawn. T hat is usually the best time to change clothes, depending on the
region you are in.
In case you’re interested, temperature changes are always initiated at the
turn of the hour, so that you’ll have 40° C in the desert at 8:00 and see it
rising to its target of 44° in the next minutes, where it stays for the rest
of the hour. On Zarathustra, temperature jumps. Not that this knowledge would
have any practical value, but well, there you go.
_______________________________________________________________________________
/ HOW LONG DOES THE NIGHT LAST?
The night on Zarathustra is exactly 4 hours long, plus one hour each for dusk
and dawn. Dusk starts at 19:00, dawn ends at 1:00. From 20:00 to 0:00 it is
completely dark.
_______________________________________________________________________________
/ HOW DO I LIGHT DARK CAVES?
Use a torch. You can create torches by combining a branch with resin. You need
matches or a campfire to light a torch. Once you get the halogen lamp, torches
will be obsolete. You can switch the lamp on and off in the USE menu. The
lamp’s key advantage is that it stays lit while you swim, while torches go out
as soon as you touch water.
_______________________________________________________________________________
/ IS THERE A WAY TO TELL WHETHER IT WILL RAIN?
Yes. Look at the weather indicator on your Sesame computer. It’s to the right
of the clock. If the little icon shows rain, it means that it will be pouring
in about an hour. Similarly, once the icon switches back to sunshine, you can
expect the rain to stop soon.
_______________________________________________________________________________
/ IS IT SAFE TO SWIM?
Yes. There are no hidden dangers lurking underwater, and Trepliev can swim for
as long as he wants to, even with full load. However, swimming will give you
flu, even in warm water; the colder the water, the more quickly the flu ap-
pears and worsens. If you stay in cold water for too long, Trepliev - inter-
estingly enough - dies of fever.
A more serious reason not to enter water, especially in caves, is that it ex-
tinguishes your torches. Swimming in the dark is not recommended.
The more relevant question when it comes to swimming is: Why would you? There
is only one point in the game where it is necessary to swim. All other bodies
of water can be ignored or bypassed.
_______________________________________________________________________________
/ IS THERE A WATER SOURCE IN THE SWAMPS?
Strangely enough for a wetland region, no. There’s an alternative source
though: You can milk the Stegosaurus in the camp of the Fridays by clicking
the gourd on its udder. The milk has the same hydrating effect as water. It
takes a while until the udder is filled again, so in practice you are well
advised to bring water with you when you explore the Swamps.
_______________________________________________________________________________
/ WHAT ARE THE GREEN BAGS IN THE SOUTH OF THE SWAMPS?
Possibly the weirdest enemies in the game, carnivorous plants. Due to their
dark green hue you can see them from a mile away, they are stationary, there’s
ample space to walk around them, and they only start biting if you stand next
to them for a few seconds, so the threat they pose is really minimal, unless
you’re moving through the Swamps at night and bump into one by accident. Their
bite is lightly poisonous. You can kill them with a few slashes of your knife,
but there’s really no point since the carcasses don’t contain anything useful.
_______________________________________________________________________________
/ WHY DO I GET KILLED WHEN I SLEEP IN THE SWAMPS?
The Swamps are haunted by a predator during the night. If you sleep there, it
will kill you. Visit the local natives to learn more about the creature. Once
you defeat it, the Swamps is a safe sleeping place at night.
_______________________________________________________________________________
/ WHY DO I KEEP SINKING AND DYING IN THE DESERT?
You stepped into quicksand. It’s deadly, and there’s no protection. You can
only avoid it. If you keep your eyes open, pools of quicksand are fairly easy
to recognize as checkered dark areas. Keep a safe distance.
_______________________________________________________________________________
/ I WALKED INTO ROUGH TERRAIN AND SEEM TO BE STUCK. HOW DO I GET OUT?
Unfortunately, the answer is: You can’t. Robinson’s Requiem has a few spots
where players can get stuck, either purposefully (falling into pits in caves)
or as a result of bad height mapping in the voxel terrain. Sometimes walking
crouched (hold CTRL) helps, but usually you’ve ended up in a dead-end and need
to restore a saved game.
########################################
FOOD
####################################3FOO
_______________________________________________________________________________
/ HOW DO I STAY WELL-FED?
Look at your Sesame computer regularly. The yellow bar indicates your energy,
blue is hydration. Don’t let either fall too low. Eating food replenishes en-
ergy, drinking from the gourd replenishes water. Always disinfect or boil wa-
ter before drinking it. Meat is more nutritious if eaten cooked (at a campfi-
re). Some food is poisonous or has medical effects. Some food also replenishes
water, especially meat, so always eat before you drink. Don’t overeat, this
may cause stomach problems. Eating a vitamin pill restores a fair amount of
energy. Save them for tight situations since they have no weight and don’t
spoil.
_______________________________________________________________________________
/ HOW CAN I FIND FOOD?
Forage, hunt or fish. You can find fruit and vegetables scattered around every
region, sometimes growing on bushes or trees. Some sources are inexhaustible,
such as the potato field and the Marshmalho bush in the Canyon. Fruit on trees
regrow every few days, such as the grapes in the Swamps and the apples in the
Massif. Veggies on the ground can be picked only once. Only one kind of mush-
room in the Desert is edible; refer to the AWE White Booklet that came with
your game to find out which. Some creatures’ carcasses can be carved for meat
with the survival knife, most notably tigers, buffalo and reptiles. The Swamps
and the Desert both have inexhaustible sources of meat through their reptile
creatures. As soon as you construct a fishing rod, you can fish in any body of
water. Be aware that some vegetables, especially cabbage and pumpkins, weigh a
lot. So does meat in large quantities. Be aware that meat first molds and then
spoils after a while.
_______________________________________________________________________________
/ HOW DO I CARVE CARCASSES?
Use your survival knife on the body. You can do that multiple times.
_______________________________________________________________________________
/ HOW DO I CREATE A FISHING ROD?
Combine a branch, a liana and the nappy pin to create the fishing rod. Before
you fish, combine the rod with an earthworm to add bait to he hook.
_______________________________________________________________________________
/ I CAN'T SEEM TO CATCH A FISG. WHAT AM I DOING WRONG?
Move to another spot on the same body of water. Whether you catch a fish or
not seems to randomly depend on the location.
_______________________________________________________________________________
/ I HAD A FISH, BUT IT VANISHED FROM THE INVENTORY! WHAT HAPPENED?
It molded. For some reason, fish turns into a slice of greenish meat when it
spoils.
_______________________________________________________________________________
/ WHY DID THE MEAT IN MY INVENTORY TURN GREEN?
Raw meat molds after seven hours. Surprisingly, that is not bad news at all.
Molded food loses a lot of its weight - down to 50g per unit from 300g per
unit for raw meat - but retains its nutritional value. There is a 50% chance
that eating it will give you benign food poisoning, which heals off by itself
or is easily fought with antispasmodics. So don’t throw away those green
chunks, they are still good food!
Note though that molded food will keep deteriorating slowly until after 24
hours it reaches the next stage, spoiled. The icon changes to a gooey mass a-
round the bone. At this point, eating it will give you critical food poison-
ing. Now’s the time to dispose of it.
One of the many quirky things about Robinson’s Requiem is that if you have mo-
re than one piece of raw meat, only part of your supply molds - 50% to be pre-
cise, plus one on the molded side if it’s an odd number. The other stays fresh
for 24 hours until the next stage sets in, at which point again 50% mold, and
50% of the molded meat spoil. If your started out with 10 pieces of meat, you
will find that after 31 hours you have 2 raw pieces, 5 molded pieces and 3
spoiled pieces in your inventory. Weird planet.
While meat in your inventory deteriorates, carcasses never do. As long as you
don’t leave the area, they are an endless source of fresh meat. Fruit and ve-
getables never spoil, nor do pills.
In case you wonder: Despite the fact that you can find salt and light fires,
meat cannot be preserved by cooking or curing.
_______________________________________________________________________________
/ HOW DO I COOK FOOD?
Simply eat it while you’re next to a campfire. The message should mention a
"hot meal".
_______________________________________________________________________________
/ WHAT'S THE BENEFIT OF COOKING FOOD?
The only food that benefits from cooking seems to be meat; it doubles its nu-
tritional value, replenishing a fair amount of energy with every piece you
eat. For all the rest, there seems to be no effect at all. Most importantly,
cooking food does not protect you against adverse effects. Things that are
poisonous stay poisonous no matter whether raw or fried.
_______________________________________________________________________________
/ HOW DO I LIGHT A FIRE?
Click on USE and then on the campfire icon. In order to be able to light a
campfire, you need one branch and either matches or a lit torch.
_______________________________________________________________________________
/ WHERE DO I FIND MORE MATCHES?
You won’t. The supply of 20 matches that you take from Socrates 19’s body will
have to last through the entire game. That makes it necessary to employ them
economically. Matches are used to light campfires and torches. The game is
clever enough to automatically conserve matches if there is an alternative
source of fire nearby. Make use of that. Light torches on campfires when pos-
sible, and vice versa. If a torch is about to go out while you still need
light, click on the "replace torch" icon in the USE menu to light a new torch,
provided that you have one ready. Be aware that campfires and torches go out
when it rains, and torches go out when you swim. Halfway into the game you
will find an alternative light source that does away with the need for tor-
ches. For campfires, you will always need matches.
_______________________________________________________________________________
/ HOW DO I PURIFY WATER?
Either use a disinfecting pellet (from the USE menu) or boil it by clicking on
the gourd in the USE menu and dragging it onto a campfire. When you move your
mouse over the gourd in the inventory, the description should read "drinkable
water". Both disinfecting and boiling have to be done separately for each wa-
ter container.
_______________________________________________________________________________
/ WHICH FOOD IS GOOD, WHICH IS BAD?
There are 25 different consumable things in Robinson’s Requiem, not counting
medicine. Not all of them are beneficial - remember that Zarathustra is a hos-
tile environment.
To give a rough idea of how much energy and / or water a piece of food gives,
I’m using the following scale:
+ minimal effect
++ small effect
+++ good effect
++++ strong effect
In general, food with minimal effect (+), such as water, needs to be consumed
in large quantities to quench hunger or thirst. Food with a strong effect (+++
or better) is usually heavy and limited in supply.
The practical value of a food item is determined by its nutritional value in
relation to its weight. By this aspect, most food is useless, or at least not
worth carrying with you. Artichokes for instance weigh 400g and give only
minimal energy and water per unit, so that you'd have to eat 10 of them to see
a good effect - completely impractical. The food with the best balance between
weight and nutritional value, as well as an unlimited supply, is plain and
simple meat.
For descriptions on where to find each item of food, check the EQUIPMENT sec-
tion of this FAQ.
___ SAFE FOOD ______________________________________________________________
Type Weight Energy Hydration Special Effect
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Artichocke | 400g | + | + |
Brassica Olerica | 2000g | + | +++ |
Eagle’s Egg | 800g | ++ | +++ |
Epileptic Turtle | 3000g | +++ | +++ |
Fish | 200g | ++ | ++ | Improved by cooking
Grapes called "The Nurse" | 100g | + | + |
Indeterminate Cucurbitacae | 2000g | + | +++++ |
Macrolepioda Rhacodes | 200g | + | ++ |
Marschmalho Ball | 50g | + | + |
Meat | 300g | ++ | + | Improved by cooking
Newton’s Apple | 80g | + | + |
Potato | 200g | + | ++ |
Pumpkin | 5000g | + | +++++++ |
Salt | 100g | | | Slows dehydration
___ UNSAFE FOOD ____________________________________________________________
Type Weight Energy Hydration Special Effect
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Earthworm | None | | | Food poisoning +2
Fruit of L’sk S’yk D’yk | None | | | Blood Pressure +2/+3,
| | | drunk
Fruit of the Ahrys-Ah | 200g | | | Food Poisoning +5
Majuarina Leaf | None | | | Blood Pressure +1/+2
Meat / Fish (molded) | 50g | ++ | + | Food Poisoning +.25
Meat / Fish (spoiled) | 50g | | | Food Poisoning +5
Mushroom | 200g | | | Food Poisoning +5
Slice of Cactus | 150g | | + | 1 in 5 chance of food
| | | | Poisoning +1 or +2
‘Snow White’ Pear | 50g | | | Food Poisoning +2
Wild Flower | None | | | Food Poisoning +.25
___ DRINK __________________________________________________________________
Type Weight Energy Hydration Special Effect
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Stegosaurus Olibrius Milk | 1kg/l | | + |
Water | 1kg/l | | + | Food Poisoning +2
| | | | if untreated
Whiskey | 50g | | | Warming effect: Body
| | | | Temperature and Pulse
| | | | rise, drunk
_______________________________________________________________________________
/ HOW LONG DOES IT TAKE UNTIL I CAN HARVEST FRUIT FROM TREES AGAIN?
30 hours.
_______________________________________________________________________________
/ IS THERE A DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE THREE KINDS OF CACTI IN THE DESERT?
No.
_______________________________________________________________________________
/ HOW DO I USE THE NOOSE TO CATCH AN ANIMAL?
I have no idea. Supposedly the noose should be used to catch the rabbits in
the Massif. However, this doesn’t seem to work, probably because there is no
bait in the noose.
_______________________________________________________________________________
/ WHY CAN'T I PUT BAIT IN THE NOOSE?
Again, I have no idea. One strange quirk is that once you place a noose and
pick it up again, it appears in the construction menu. I haven’t found out
what to connect it with though.
########################################
CLOTHING
####################################4CLO
_______________________________________________________________________________
/ HOW DO I PROTECT MYSELF AGAINST COLD / HEAT?
Adapt your clothing. In hot places like the desert, take off warm clothes and
wear a leafed hat against the sun. In cold places like caves, warm yourself
with fur clothes. Don’t stay in places with extreme temperatures longer than
necessary, and don’t sleep there. Be aware that the temperature in outdoor
areas changes in the course of the day, which might force you to adapt your
clothes accordingly; for instance, it can get freezing cold in the desert at
night. Light a campfire before you sleep in cold places. Don’t swim in cold
water unless you have a waterproof attire. In the Jungle and the Massif it may
rain. If it does, don’t stay outdoors, seek shelter in a cave. You need to sew
all protective apparel yourself. If you do not have adequate clothing yet,
stay away from places with extreme temperatures and try to find the resources
necessary to create protective gear.
_______________________________________________________________________________
/ HOW DO I CREATE PROTECTIVE CLOTHING?
With the exception of specific headgear, there are four sets of clothes in the
game: Your underwear (adequate in hot climate), your starting suit (adequate
in moderate climate), fur clothes (protection against cold) and reptile skin
clothes (protection against water).
A full set of reptile-skin clothes consists of jacket and trousers, and can be
sown with 18 pieces of reptile skin. Those are easily collected from the rep-
tile creatures in the Swamps, which respawn every time you leave and re-enter
the area.
A full set of fur clothes consists of jacket, trousers, boots, cap and gloves.
That requires 25 pieces of fur. Unfortunately, the big furred creatures in the
game - tigers and buffalo - do not respawn. Once they’re dead, they’re gone.
You can get 4 pieces of fur from the two tigers in the Jungle, 8 pieces from
the tigers in the Massif and 7 pieces from the b uffalo in the Canyon. That’s
19 out of 25 needed. The rest has to come from the rabbit creatures in the
Massif, which give one piece of fur each. Fortunately, the little critters re-
spawn.
_______________________________________________________________________________
/ HOW DO I HUNT RABBITS IN THE MASSIF?
Allegedly you are supposed to capture them with nooses, but I couldn’t get
this to work. You will have to do it by hand, which can be frustrating since
the little critters are very fast. Fortunately a single hit with the hatchet
is enough to kill them.
Your best bet is to position yourself in the middle of the clearing where they
live, follow the movement of one of them by turning around and wait until it
comes straight at you. When it is close enough, hit it. This requires good ti-
ming and a bit of patience.
_______________________________________________________________________________
/ I DON'T SEE ANY RABBITS! WHERE ARE THEY?
The number of rabbits is randomized between 0 and 3 every time you enter the
Massif area. If you see none or only one, it is best to walk back to the cave,
enter and exit straight away. Return to the clearing and check how many rab-
rabbits there are now. Repeat if necessary.
_______________________________________________________________________________
/ HOW DO I KNOW WHAT PIECE OF CLOTHING I WILL GET WHEN I SEW?
What you get depends on how many pieces of fur / skin you have in your inven-
tory. The game will always create the best piece possible. For instance, if
you have six pieces of fur when you start sewing, you will get fur trousers.
If you have four pieces, you get boots. For a full table of sewing require-
ments, see the EQUIPMENT section of this FAQ.
Due to a bug it can happen that all excess skins which would normally be left
over after you create a piece of clothing get discarded. To prevent this from
happening, either sew as soon as you have enough for the item you want or save
before sewing.
_______________________________________________________________________________
/ HOW DO I SURVIVE SWIMMING IN COLD WATER?
Wear a reptile skin jacket and trousers. Even with this protection, don’t swim
any longer than absolutely necessary. Apart from easily inducing flu, swimming
is also quite exhausting.
_______________________________________________________________________________
/ WHY DOES ONE OF THE BUFFALO IN THE CANYON ONLY GIVE ONE PIECE OF FUR?
Because it’s a calf.
########################################
HEALTH
####################################5HEA
_______________________________________________________________________________
/ IS IT REALLY THAT EASY TO DIE IN ROBINSON'S REQUIEM?
In order to compile this FAQ I tried to let Trepliev 1 suffer in as many dif-
ferent ways as I could think of, and in many instances I found it surprisingly
hard to get him to die. The brisk temperature of -20° C / -4° F in the glacier
cave for example doesn’t lead to hypothermia at all, contrary to what one
would expect. I put Trepliev in the cave naked, and the extreme cold let his
flu soar to the point where he had to swallow an antibiotic pill every ten se-
conds. That kept the infection in check, while Trepliev’s body temperature ho-
vered around a stable 36.5 degrees. I kept this up for several game hours
without problems - and that was without any clothes whatsoever! Not even ice-
cold water does the trick, as Trepliev can swim naked in it for hours without
coming even close to hypothermia.
Similarly, Malaria is not at all a killer disease. It can be pretty annoying
if it has broken out in full, but you have so many warning signs and so much
time for early treatment that you’d have to be pretty careless to let that
happen.
Your heart is surprisingly strong too, and in practice you hardly have to wor-
ry about anything related to blood pressure, let alone manipulate it medical-
ly. In all my time in the game, I haven’t even come close to a situation where
the syringe of atropine would have been useful. That also makes blood loss
less dangerous than it should be. While too much hemorrhaging can be deadly
of course, you’d expect it to let blood pressure drop sharply, but it doesn’t.
You can lose all your blood but for the last drop without risk of hypotension.
The lowest pressure level I managed to reach was 5/7.5, at which point you
black out, but don’t die.
Pain is another example: Intense pain can send you into shock. But this only
ever happens with self-inflicted pain, never as a result of battle. With aspi-
rin, morphine and anesthetic, your medical kit is literally packed with pain-
killers, but unless you’re amputating a limb or stitching more than one wound
at a time, you will never need them.
Trepliev’s stomach is fantastically durable. I let him eat 100 pieces of meat
in a row - that’s a whopping 30 kg (66 lbs) of food -, which made him burp a
lot, upset his stomach a bit (food poisoning "to be watched") and pushed his
weight up to a respectable 90 kg in the course of 12 hours. Other than that,
Trepliev seemed to digest the treatment exceptionally well.
Finally, infections are nothing but ridiculous given that you’re stumbling
through a foreign ecosphere: The only way to catch an infection is through
open wounds, and the only way to get wounded is in combat. 99% of combat
gashes give a benign infection, the lowest danger level, which will always
heal off by itself within seconds. You can easily play through the entire game</pre><pre id="faqspan-2">
without a single infection that would need medical attention.
_______________________________________________________________________________
/ WHAT IS DANGEROUS THEN?
The most common condition that can quickly escalate is fever. You need to keep
it in check with antibiotics or you will die.
Continuous blood loss is highly dangerous, which in effect means that combat
is nothing to be trifled with, as the only way to receive open wounds is
through combat. Multiple wounds can make you bleed to death in a matter of a
minute.
Death by starvation or dehydration is a constant threat and probably your most
serious problem overall. If you do not take good care of your water and food
supply, you will run into trouble quickly.
Being bitten by a venomous creature can kill you within a few hours. Food poi-
soning works slower, but is ultimately as deadly.
Falling is potentially deadly, especially in the high difficulty level.
Finally, some creatures can kill you instantly; dealing with them is obviously
very dangerous.
_______________________________________________________________________________
/ HOW DO I AVOID GETTING ILL?
Well, the truth is that you will get ill sooner or later, so you need to know
how to medicate yourself anyway. But you can - and will have to - take pre-
ventive measures to lower the probability of serious illness. In order of im-
portance:
* Don’t be bitten or wounded in fights. It’s simply not worth it to risk
an infection or a fracture. Both will seriously hamper your progress
and can start a downwards spiral.
* Always wear a ppropriate clothes. The first thing you should do when-
ever you enter a new area is adjust your apparel.
* Never drink water that’s not disinfected or boiled. Never eat spoiled
food. Some vegetables are poisonous or have side effects. Your only
chance to learn which is to try it and cope with the consequences.
* Take medicine preemptively. Swallow a quinine tablet every time you
enter the Swamps. Get an anti-venom shot before you face spiders. Eat
salt before you enter the desert.
* Sleep in the Canyon whenever possible. Alternatively, sleep in caves
and always light a fire. Don’t sleep outdoors in the Jungle or Massif
where there’s a risk of rain.
* Don’t overexert yourself. Don’t run too much. If your character starts
yawning, it is a clear indication that you should sleep.
* Don’t get wet. Don’t swim unless it is absolutely necessary. Don’t
stay in the rain for too long.
* While you have to stay fed and hydrated, you don’t need to keep both
levels always at max. That’s not very effective either. Just make sure
that the levels don’t fall too low.
_______________________________________________________________________________
/ HOW DO I RECOGNIZE ILLNESSES?
There are three ways to examine yourself, and you will need to use all of them
constantly.
Your SESAME shows reading of your vital signs - pulse, body temperature, ener-
gy level and so on. If anything is clearly out of the norm here, that is an
indication that you have a medical problem. Learn to read the Sesame and check
it regularly. Pay special attention to your three energy levels: blood (red),
food (yellow) and water (blue).
The MEDICAL VIEW shows Trepliev’s body. It is mainly used to see wounds, indi-
cated by red marks. As long as the mark persists, you continue to lose blood.
Each limb can only have one wound, each hand and foot one, the head one, the
chest three. In the worst case, Trepliev can have 12 open wounds at the same
time. Apart from wounds, the body screen can show two additional conditions.
If one of the eyes is white,it was damaged beyond repair. If there are red
spots on Trepliev’s chest, he suffers from food poisoning
