If you haven't played this kind of thing before, you will need to draw a map as you go along because as well as the sheer number of locations the layout will be too complicated to remember. This adventure game is LARGE: You will likely need about 5 sheets of A3 paper turned sideways ( landscape ) to do this, with each 'room' or location about an inch square. The zones are stacked logically on top of each other; Zone 1 is the northernmost zone and zone 5 the southernmost, so you can join your map sheets up will sticky tape as you progress, To start you off, your initial room should be drawn roughly in the middle of the first piece of paper. Zones A-D take place on the main "island" and Zone E takes place on a smaller nearby island, accessed through a time portal, but you can treat that as being 'South' of zone D.

As you explore and build up your paper map, take meticulous notes. As you explore each zone, as well as marking out any new locations on a physical map, you should write down the names of the locations and any characters or items found in that location. Because of the sheer number of rooms, we suggest also assigning the locations a numeric code starting, for example, with 1 for the start location ( The moorland hill path.) That will make referencing and finding locations much easier as your map grows in size.

Potential directions include north, south, east, west, up and down. You are advised to try all six combinations in each location in order to build up your map. There are only a small number of underground and above-ground locations - these are not very expansive so you are advised to draw these out on the *reverse* side of your paper map, and keep the top side as the 2-D "north south east west" grid of squares. Be reassured as well that the whole map is based on a 'logical grid,' and by this we mean that each step along a compass point will move you exactly one grid space in that direction. This is important because in some games for example, "go East" might take you along a long path and suddenly you are in a totally different part of the map, which is a) very confusing b) adds nothing to the game and c) makes drawing the map a nightmare - so this kind of thing has been deliberately avoided in Osmium Island. The only point in this game where a move 'magically' jumps elsewhere is the one location where you pass from Zone D to Zone E through the time portal. As such, as long as you start Zone E's map on a separate bit of paper you will be fine. It's of course not impossible that you might find one of the purely hypothetical Easter eggs which may, hypothetically, allow travel across time and space to a new dimension.

You are advised to run "Who are you" for every character you meet - this will cause the characters to tell you the item they seek, if indeed they are, and what they will swap it for. ( You can also find this out by attempting to 'get' an item they are carrying.) As you progress, be sure to write down what you did to get to that point in a "solution script," so if you die and have to restart the game, you can follow those steps to get back to where you were. However note there is a 'save' and 'load' option which will allow you to save the point you are currently at. Be aware that there are also items and characters that are not part of the solution, in other words, red herrings.

Lastly, each zone can be completed *completely independently* of the others, and this is the way we recommend you do it. So, for each zone, start out looking for locked doors and work out the steps needed to unlock all those locations beyond. At this point, you should work to uncover the deactiation items and clothing items needed to deactivate all the robots in that zone, before moving to the next zone. ( At some point during the door unlocking you will enter the next zone, so just step back in again if needed.) However as stated in the overview there's nothing to stop you just working to get keys to explore the entirety of the island, in order to just to see all the graphics and make your paper map. This is perfectly feasible as the characters do not move around ( this was going to be the case, but with 350+ rooms would have made the whole thing almost impossible. ) However you can't *complete* the game until you have completed the additional task for that zone ( see the overview. )