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+ The Old Guy's Gaming Guide To: +
+ PROTEUS +
+ COMPLETE WALKTHROUGH +
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So Proteus is, umm, well... Proteus is kind of like, umm... Let’s see: Proteus
is... available for PS3! I guess I’ll just get right to it then.
PURPOSE AND DISCLAIMER
If you haven’t plugged in this game yet, I’ll warn you right now: it’s a
unique experience. This is by far the shortest complete walkthrough I’ve ever
written, and I’m actually going to skip the table of contents. There isn’t
really a whole lot to the game, and the only reason I’ve even written the guide
is because you can earn 11 trophies. If you're having trouble with a specific
one, just Ctrl+F and type in the name of the trophy you need. It'll get you
there.
If you don’t care about trophies, there’s no reason to read any further, as
they are really the only possible objectives in the game. Just have fun
exploring, walking around, and looking at stuff. If you want the trophies,
I’ll attempt to provide a reliable way to get them all in the next few pages.
CONTROLS: As you’d expect, the controls are really simple. Walk around with
the left stick, look around with the right stick. Press X to sit down. Yes,
sitting down is a thing. You can take a postcard at any time with R1, which
acts as your save file (though a playthrough takes less than an hour so I
don’t know why you’d need a save file). That’s pretty much it.
ELEMENTS: Though the islands you’ll be walking around on are randomly
generated, there are a few common elements that will be in every level. Some
of them are central to trophies, and others make good points of reference, so
try to find them on each island when you first get there.
1) The Giant Tree- There’s one on every island: it’s the biggest one on the
map, and is usually close to the beach somewhere surrounded by smaller trees.
2) The Mountains- There are usually three of these on each island, and are
pretty easy to spot.
3) The Cathedral- This looks more like a castle turret or like a giant tree
that got chopped off halfway up. It will be four sided instead of round, and
there will be more than one on the level.
4) The Graveyard- Well, it looks like a graveyard. There’s one in every
level.
5) The Stone Circle- There is a circle of stones in every level, and walking
around it a few times will make the glowy fly things congregate in the middle.
If you walk into the center, you’ll move forward to the next season.
6) The Animals- Somewhere on a hillside will be some blobs that look like
animal statues. You’ll need them for a trophy later on.
7) The Cabin- Again, you’ll need to find this for a trophy later on, so look
for it when you get there.
8) The Path- It looks like there are many paths on the island, but it’s
really only one path with a bunch of forks that go back to the main path.
You’ll need to find this and walk it for a trophy as well.
I think that’s it for the common elements: other than that you’ll have
trees, plants, and some blobs that look like animals.
SEASONS: Though the time of day and weather will change automatically, the
four seasons are the defining stages of Proteus. You’ll start in spring, then
by using the stone circle advance through summer, fall, and ultimately winter.
You can spend as much time as you want in the first three seasons: winter,
however, is a different story. Snow falls the whole time, gradually covering
the whole island (even the mountains), so you’ll have a limited time to explore
the island before the playthrough ends.
NOTES ABOUT TROPHIES: There are 11 trophies to get in Proteus. Since the
names and descriptions are as bizarre as the game itself, I’ll do my best to
give you concise descriptions of the requirements for each one. 10 of these
trophies are fairly simple, but one of them is a real pain in the butt. We’ll
get to that one last. You’ll have to play through the seasons at least three
times, but each time only takes about an hour.
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+ SOME STUFF +
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Before you do anything else, walk around the entire island on the beach. Doing
this should immediately make your first trophy (Beachcomber) pop. The sun
will probably set while you do this, leaving you at night. That’s fine, as
your next goal is to find the Cathedral. Walk into it on all four sides until
the screen changes and you’re teleported to another tower. Keep doing this
until your trophy pops (The Hidden Door). Okay, two down, nine to go!
At this point it’s time to make a decision: the really hard trophy I talked
about earlier is called “Generall Historie of Plantes.” It involves looking
at every single plant in the game, during all seasons. If you want to do
this, read the section on it below. I’ve chosen to bang out all the other
ones first before tackling this one: it’s definitely the one that gives
everyone problems, so I would suggest dedicating an entire playthrough to
just that one trophy. You can certainly work an attempt in here, but I won’t
be mentioning it until all the other trophies are done.
Once you decide how you want to proceed, it’s time to get the trophy train back
on track. Find the circle of stones and step just inside the ring (not to the
center just yet). If time is flying rapidly, you’re in the right spot. As far
as I know, this can be used to advance the day/night at any time without
changing the season, and will be available any time after it turns to night for
the first time. Stand there for a little bit and your third trophy (The
Circular Ruins) will be yours. I think it takes about 2 minutes of just
standing there. All right, 3 down, 8 to go!
Once you have The Circular Ruins, go ahead and step into the stone circle to
change the scene to summer. Your first task will be to find a path: any
path will do. Walk all the way to one end of the path until it dead-ends,
then turn around. What you need to do is walk from one end of the path to the
other, INCLUDING ALL THE FORKS. Some will branch off and dead-end, some will
loop around back to the main path. If this happens, make sure you walk down
both of the paths. When you get to the end, you will get your fourth trophy
(The Garden of Forking Paths). If it doesn’t pop for you, you probably
missed a fork somewhere, so turn back around and keep trying until you get it.
Before you go any further into the next season, there is one more trophy to
pick up here in summer.
Unraveling the Landscape- This one is probably the second hardest trophy to
get, and I hope that I don’t mislead you in the following instructions. You
see, the trophy requirements are very nebulous for some of these, and it’s
pretty easy to accidentally get one part of the trophy and not even know you
did it. In order to get this trophy, you have to find every single “singing
stone” and make it sing. To make it sing, just walk closely past it in the
direction of the stone circle. Also included are the stones in the stone
circle, so get those first by walking clockwise (do you hear them singing?).
The biggest problem is finding all of the stones, because there are a lot.
They are all in lines radiating out from the stone circle, but not all of the
lines are complete. I suggest you approach it the following way: pick any
direction from the circle and walk to the beach. Then, turn left and walk
around the island keeping the beach on the far right of your screen. When you
come to a stone, look around and find the line, then trace it all the way back
to the furthest stone. Now, follow this line as far as you can and look in the
general direction for more stones. Keep the line going until you either get to
the circle again or run out of stones. Trace that same line back to the beach,
turn left, and continue with your search. Once you’ve gone completely around
the island, move inland a little and do the same thing. Eventually, you will
get them all.
I think this one requires a few more notes: first off, make sure that the
stone you think is the last one is really, in fact, the last one. I had one
that was on the back side of the mountain, down by the beach, and I could
barely see it. Second, there are a few stones up on the peaks of the mountains
that are not singing stones. They are by themselves, and not in line with any
others. ALL of the stones in the valleys and forests were singing stones when
I did this. Third, there are a few really short lines buried in the trees that
will probably be the hardest to find. Fourth, and most importantly, don’t
forget to get all the stones in the circle. Walk around twice if you have to,
because you don’t want to be wandering for hours only to find out that you
missed the one that was right in front of you. Anyway, your fifth trophy will
now be yours, and we’re actually ready to move to Fall, so jump on in the
center of the circle.
Your next trophy will be somewhat timed, but don’t worry if you miss it.
You’re shooting for the Lost Gods of Albion trophy, and to get it you’ll have
to visit some landmarks in a single night. As far as I know, these include
The Animals, The Cathedral, The Giant Tree, and the Cabin, though there may be
more places. I also think you need three of these. So, when it’s daytime,
walk around and plan a route that will get you there quickly from the stone
circle. When the sun sets, follow your path to each of the landmarks. If you
get there in time, you’ll see little scenes with stuff like the sky changing
color and ghosts and stuff. Get to three of them, and this trophy will be
yours. If you run out of night before you get the trophy, just stand in the
circle until it’s night again and try again.
Think Like a Mountain- Okay, get ready for the most exciting of all the
trophies in the game! Head on up to any of the mountains, and go all the way
to the top. There should be snow on them by now. Press x to sit down. Then,
sit there. Yep, that’s the trophy. Sit there on top of the snowy mountain for
15 or 20 minutes and wait for the trophy to pop. That will give you seven of
the eleven trophies in the game. Go back to the stone circle and change it to
winter.
You’re basically done with this playthrough at this point, so just walk around
and wait for it to end. For finishing your first playthrough, you’ll get the
Silent and Void trophy, making eight. Turning Back and The Further One Goes
are trophies you’ll get for your second and third playthoughs respectively.
So, just do that two more times (but quicker), and you’ll only have the
monster to worry about.
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+ GENERALL HISTORIE OF PLANTES +
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The Monster (Generall Historie of Plantes)- This is by far the hardest trophy
to get in Proteus, and is actually the reason I wrote the guide. It seems like
people either get this really easily or fail a bunch of times and get really
frustrated. Unfortunately, I’m one that has now failed a bunch of times, and
I’m really frustrated. I can’t seem to find a good guide out there, and the
game certainly doesn’t help at all. The idea is to find and look at all the
plants in the game, but nothing really tells you what it takes to “count” as
looking. Who knew this could be so frustrating? Plus, I’ve seen conflicting
opinions as to whether the weather affects it, or the time of day, or really
anything. So, here’s what I’m going to do: I’m going to record each attempt
and try to write exactly what I do, then delete all the ones that failed and
keep the one that made the trophy pop. Hopefully I’ll learn a few things and
not spend 50 hours trying to figure this out.
UPDATE: I finally got this on attempt five, and it looks like I’ll be able to
dispel some of the misinformation that’s out there as well. I guess it was
worth the effort after all!
ATTEMPT FIVE: Okay, I’m 100% sure that I looked at all the plants last time,
and I still didn’t get the trophy. I’m thinking that maybe it doesn’t count if
you don’t actually stop to look at the plants, so each time I find one I’m
going to get as close as I can and stop walking, then pan up and down to make
sure the whole thing is on the screen. I can say a few things for sure, but
there are still a few things that are ambiguous. First of all, you don’t have
to look at every plant in both day and night. There are a few exceptions to
this, but I’ll list them below. Second, the weather has nothing to do with
anything, so forget about keeping track of rainy and sunny skies. Third, you
do NOT have to go to the graveyard in the winter to get this trophy to pop.
There’s nothing special there anyway. Fourth, I don’t know how saving a
postcard and reloading works in the first three seasons, but I know for a fact
that you can save a postcard in winter, load it again, and get the trophy from
your loaded file. Be cautious, though: if you missed something in one of the
first three seasons, you can load winter all you want and still not get this
beast. Fifth, I still don’t know how the game counts the trees, even after
all this messing around. I’ll do my best below, though.
SPRING
Trees- Though there are a lot of trees on each island, I don’t think there are
that many different kinds. It all depends on how the game counts the trees,
and I think the big secret is that the colors are randomly generated and don’t
matter one bit. I think it’s the shapes that matter, and by my count that only
makes about 10 or 12 different kinds of trees. There are tall skinny ones,
jagged ones, really round ones, humped ones, and a few others as well. Also,
there’s the giant tree and the smaller ones surrounding it, so make sure you
find that right away. I would suggest spending 15 minutes or so just looking
at trees, just to make sure you cover them all in case the colors do matter.
Ground Plants- I found 8 different smaller plants in spring, each of which will
be around for most of the game. The first important plant to note is the
“seaweed.” It’s dark green, looks kind of like a “U”, and is only found on the
beach. The next 3 are all over the island in large quantities. There are
yellow things that look like plus signs, pink things that look like paper fans,
and light green bush thingies that are in random shapes. If you walk around
enough, you should also see two different types of long plants that look like
pixelated grass: one is light green, and the other one is dark green on the
bottom and light green on the top. The latter are just straight vertical
lines. The seventh plant, I think, is supposed to be a mushroom. Right now,
it is light pink or white and looks like a squatty capital “T.” Finally,
you’ll see little groups of blue squares that I think are supposed to be
flowers. In other seasons, there are actually two kinds of flowers, but I
only saw these blue ones in spring. Keep your eyes out, though, for a second
kind of flower since logic would suggest it would be there. That pretty much
covers it for the ground plants, but there’s one more thing we have to discuss.
Planimals- I don’t know if these ones count as plants or animals. They never
move laterally, but they do jump up and down and will disappear underground if
you approach them. I’m not 100% sure on how many varieties there are, but I’ll
give it my best shot. In spring, there are only two: dark pink ones and light
pink ones. They make noise and look like sunflowers when they’re scared.
That’s it for the flora of spring. I suggest you make a checklist so you don’t
forget anything, then start walking around. When you come to something you
want to count, get close enough so it fills most of the screen, then center the
camera on it. If you do this multiple times with each plant, one should count.
Get the seaweed first, then anything on your way while you find the stone
circle and the giant tree. If night falls, walk just inside the circle and
make it day again: it’s easier to see what you’re looking for in the daytime.
Be thorough with the trees, and take at least 30 minutes of spring to make sure
you get everything.
SUMMER
Trees- There are no more pink trees, but they will all be in the same place on
the map. Again, make sure you’re thorough with the trees.
Plants- The seaweed is a little darker now, but still in the same place. The
plus signs are now bigger plus signs, the paper fans haven’t changed, and the
bushes are a little darker. The mushrooms are still there and look about the
same. The light green grass is now bright pink, and the two-tone grass is now
brown and looks like a lower case “t.” The flowers are a little different, as
there are now two kinds. The pink stuff is pretty much everywhere, but keep
your eye out for little clumps of purplish flowers: they’re harder to find,
but still around.
Planimals- I think there are three to look for now: the light pink and dark
pink ones are still the same, but there is a third group that looks like it
has two arms waving at you. The only color I ever saw them in was the light
pink.
I think that covers summer. It only took about 30 minutes since I knew what
I was looking for. I walked around for one whole night to see if any weird
stuff popped up at any of the major spots (it will in the next season).
Other than the pink grass changing to blue, I don’t think there’s anything
special about nighttime in summer.
FALL
Trees- Again, the trees are the same, but the colors are very different.
Ground Plants- The plus signs will now be groups of little dark green bars.
The paper fans, bushes and tall grass is now a dark red, but they’re all still
recognizeable. So is the seaweed. The two-toned brown things are still the
same, and the mushrooms have grown a bit but are still there as well.
Flowers are another thing: there are red flowers, green flowers, and roses in
the fall. Red flowers are pretty common, so find them. Green flowers are
almost invisible in the daytime, but will glow a bright green at night. I
don’t know if you need to see them both ways or not, but I suggest you find
some towards the end of the night, then sit and wait until daytime. That way
you’ll cover yourself if there is an issue. Roses are only in one place: the
graveyard. They’re bright red and will glow at night as well. Here’s the
thing about roses, though: I don’t know if they show up until you first go
there at night. I think you have to activate the scene at night to get them to
pop up, then go back there in the day to see them in the daytime. Again,
you’ve already wasted probably 2 hours getting this trophy, so it’s worth the 5
extra minutes to go there and make sure.
Planimals- I saw the same two dark and light pink ones from spring, but they
are really hard to find during the fall. In addition, there are these little
things scattered about that look like little hands popping out of the ground.
I’ve seen some that are still jumping up and down, and others that are
completely still, so I guess this is what happened to the other planimals.
I think that’s it for fall, but I spent a good 45 minutes walking around, so I
may have gotten something and not noticed it. I don’t think any of the special
scenes have any bearing on this trophy (other than maybe the graveyard), but
you may want to walk around to the landmarks at night and see if anything pops
up.
WINTER
Since you’ve probably played through this a few times, you already know that
winter is a bit of a mad dash to see everything. You’ll only have about 4
minutes before snow starts covering all the plants that you were trying to
see, so plan your route before you start the winter. On the bright side,
there are far fewer plants to see.
As soon as you start winter, I highly suggest you tap R1 and save a postcard.
This is another ambiguous part of the game, as if you save during any season
it starts you back at dawn of that season. Does it keep track of the plants
you’ve seen? I don’t know. My logic would tell me that it would save
everything up to that point, but I have no way to find out. I DO know that
if you’re on track when winter starts and you save and reload a postcard, you
can still get the trophy.
Now that you’re here, it’s time to run for the gold! The two most important
things to get before the snow falls are the seaweed and the giant tree. So,
make sure you know which way the tree is before you jump in the circle to
start winter. Then run there immediately, stopping at the beach if it’s on
the way. As far as I know, there’s only one type of plant left, so you should
pick that up on the way. As for the trees, I think there are only about 4
kinds of those to worry about as well. (Tall and skinny, gnarled, still
alive, and giant). If you’re sure you got everything in the first three
seasons, reload your postcard and try winter a few times before you give up
and start again. I hope it pops for you quicker than it did for me, and
congratulations when you finally succeed!
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+ THE END +
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When I close my laptop tonight, I’m deleting Proteus from my PS3 and going to
bed. I’ve spent WAY too much time messing around with this game, and other
than posting this guide will not devote another minute to it. I’m sure there
are a few things in here that I got wrong, but I’m not willing to stick around
to fix them. So, if you find something that would make this better, I
encourage you to copy my guide, make it better, and post it yourself. There
is absolutely no copyright on what’s above: do whatever you want with it.
Thank you, whoever you are, for reading through this walkthrough: I hope it
helped you get through this, and I’ll see you in the next game!
