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Barrow Hill
Barrow Hill is a good first effort from Matt Clark. It can be quite difficult in places,
because it's not always clear what you are meant to do next. Also, it's easy to become disoriented
due to the instant transitions from one scene to the next. Anyway, I suppose that's why you're here.
This guide will help you to muddle through if you get stuck.
Tips and conventions
Firstly, this guide is written in English
as practised in Ireland. So no, those are not spelling errors. It really is 'colourful' where
I live ;-)
In the Options menu, turn on Inventory Descriptions. Makes it easier to identify some of the more
obscure items that you'll be carrying around.
Objects that can be acquired by your character will be marked in bold at the place where you
obtain them in inventory. Example: pick up the Sunglasses. If you discover that there is an
item you require later on in the game that you didn't pick up, just do a text search for it
starting at the top of this guide.
Make sure to get a close-up of every place in a scene that exhibits a magnifying glass icon when
you roll your cursor over it, and also to carefully check every scene to see if your cursor changes
to a 'grab' icon anywhere, meaning you can pick something up. If you miss an important object, you
won't be able to progress at some stage in the game.
And now, without further ado, the walkthrough.
After an introduction that has you driving into the English countryside, you abandon the car after
it stalls. Just keep heading straight forward (quite a few frames) until you come to a service
station/motel. There's a Mercedes there at the pumps, with its engine still running. Head around
the pumps to the front of the car, and you'll see some children's toys. Get a close-up, and recover
the Wax Crayon. To the right of that, you can also get a close-up of (what appears to be )
a pile of rocks with a pair of broken eyeglasses on it. Move your cursor around the rocks until you
find a Fungus Guide. In a rack just behind you are three buckets, one of which contains a
withered bouquet of flowers. In the right-most bucket you will find some Matches. Now you
can head into the service station building.
Access the door to the left marked OFFICE, and a terrified man in there is babbling on about
recent happenings. You don't learn much from him, and he won't come out of the office, so just
ignore him for the time being. Read the Pagan & Wiccan Magic leaflet. There's some information
in there that will come in handy later on.
Might as well have a good read about Barrow Hill on the bulletin board. At the bottom of the
bulletin board is a drawing of the
seven stones around the barrow, along with names the locals have given them, which from left
to right are:
Baligo, Melkah, Dolment, Hammer Stone, Henrik, Gavrok, and Cailleach
Go into the cafe next, then turn around and head into the area that contains a cash register.
Go through the door there to enter the kitchen. It's dark in here, and we'll need to get some
light before we're allowed to do anything. Just to the right of the entrance is a lantern. Click
on the base of the lantern to turn it around, open the fuel valve by turning the lever on top,
and use one of the Matches you got from the forecourt to light it. Pick up the lit Lantern
to acquire it in inventory. Turn around 180 degrees, and now you can see a fusebox on the wall.
Open it, flick the switch on the bottom of the fusebox, take out the fourth fuse, and use the bit
of wire you find up on the top left of the fusebox to repair the fuse. Then put the fuse back
into place and flick the switch on the bottom of the fusebox again. The kitchen is now lit up.
Wherever you find a radio in this game, and this is the first one you encounter, tune it into
15.3 and listen to the mellow voice of Emma Harry on Barrow Hill Radio. You can obtain a
Basket from a cabinet in the kitchen, and just underneath that cabinet is a box containing
some Egg Cups. Note that there is some apparatus in the kitchen that might come in handy
later on, most notably a cutting board with a mortar and pestle nearby, and a blender. Exit the
kitchen and pick up the note under the cash register. You now know the combination of room #2.
The combination varies each time you play the game, so you'll have to note it down. Head over
there and use the combination to enter the room.
Note: now that you have the Lantern, you may venture to places where your path randomly
becomes blocked by a huge sentry stone. If you touch this stone you will immediately perish. But
not to worry, your character is restored to a point just before this fatal move, and you have
the opportunity to turn around and get out of there. When you return to this area some time
later, chances are good that the stone will no longer be there.
On the desk to your left is a radio that you can tune into 15.3 to listen to Emma Harry again.
You hear Ben calling in from the service station office and spouting the same gibberish that
you heard from him earlier. Open the green box on the desk to obtain a Trowel. On the
right-hand side of the desk is a drawer that you can open, which contains a Mobile Phone.
Note the 'low battery' warning. We'll have to find a way to recharge it. Also some letters there
of interest. One from a C Morse, Peter's colleague, welcoming him to the site. And another from
what may be Peter's girlfriend, Lucy. You learn that the 'C' stands for Conrad.
On the wall opposite the bed is a
better area map (than the one
above the desk). Access the satchel on the bed to read Peter's journal. They've opened a trench
around each of the stones and are recovering pots and such. The trenches are numbered thus:
- Melkah
- Gavrok
- Baligo
- Dolment
- Hammer Stone
- Cailleach
- Henrik
- Outlying Menhir (refers to the sentry stone, so not strictly part of the circle)
Might as well put Peter's Mobile Phone in the base unit on the bedside table to recharge it,
then exit the room. Head just south of the service station to the playground area, and click
on the loose slat in the wooden fence to access the area behind the service station.
You can see Ben being his usual despondent self through the back window of the office. Through
a hole in the chain link fence at the bottom of the fence's door, you can gain access to the
mobile phone base station. Open up the panel, and you discover that this station operates in
a frequency range between 830 and 865 megahertz.
Pressing the following buttons
(717Mhz + 300 - 200 + 50 - 5) will re-activate the base station, at 862 MHz. Hit the red button
at the bottom right to lock your choice in. Then get back to the road, and head east all the way
to the end of the road till you come to a crashed jeep. There's a radio on the front seat of the
jeep, that if you tune into 15.3, you will finally learn the number of Barrow Hill Radio so that
you can call Emma Harry: 585-2131. On the ground there, you discover Conrad Morse's PDA.
Accessing it from inventory gets you an area map that you can access from within the game, and
you also learn that Conrad was staying in room #3 at the motel. Note his door combination. Also
on the ground there, in a close-up of a rock pile, you can find Conrad's driver's licence (but
I never found a use for any of the info on it). Take note of the details on the jeep's number
plate. Might come in handy later on: 4X 68578.
Assuming you've restored the mobile phone base station to functionality as described above,
I think that means we can head back to the motel and give Emma a call on Pete's mobile. But first,
there's a new place to explore just up the road from here (you can see a path leading from the
road on the map). Start heading back west, and take the first right you can make onto a path,
which leads to...
Climb over the fallen barrel, pick up the wooden box, and place it on the upright barrel to the
right of there. You can now climb up to a window to access the upper floor of the barn. Looks
like this place was occupied by people that were protesting against the excavations of the Barrow
Hill site. Advance forward until you fall through the floor, then use the Lantern on the ladder
and climb back up. You can pick up an Acorn from the window sill on the left (it goes
into your Basket), and read the diary of one Trevor Spencer. You can also view the stone circle
through binoculars, and there's a camera in a dish on the table that contains some rather
unremarkable photos. When you're done up here, head back down the ladder.
In a box you will find a Gas Torch, and on the floor next to a barrel there is a
Rubber Tube. Use the Rubber Tube on the gas cylinder, attach the Gas Torch to the Rubber
Tube, then turn on the gas. Finally, light the Gas Torch with the Matches to get rid of the
padlock, and make your escape from the barn.
Head back to the motel. Might as well go into the cafe on the way there, and use the Trowel on
the cash register to get some Pound Coins. Then enter Peter's room again. Sure enough,
the phone is charged now (if the green light isn't showing on the base unit yet, you'll have
to wait a while and come back). No signal in the room, but if you go outside into the forecourt
you can call Emma Harry. Whoa. Something happens to her dog during the call, and you can't
re-connect. While you're here in the forecourt, get a close-up of the rocks next to the rear
of the Mercedes. Pick up the Hair Restorer, then select the Egg Cups in inventory and pour
some Hair Restorer into an Egg Cup. You wind up with a Fish Offering. Oh goody, it looks
like we're going to be appeasing some angry gods. Next, use the combination you got off Conrad
Morse's PDA to enter room #3.
It's obvious upon entering the room that Morse lost it near the end. He's made weird drawings,
and left strange graffiti all over the walls. In a waste bin there are some torn bits of paper
that when assembled read:
My briefcase combination code is now reset. I've used a solution that can be found on
my jeep's number plate.
OK then, that would be 4 x 68578 = 274312. Once you've opened the briefcase, read the
bound excavation report (on the soil samples from trays 1 through 8). The samples indicate
the following, by tray number (and I've also correlated each tray with the stone it
belongs to):
- Melkah - traces of oil
- Gavrok - blackberry, gooseberry, and pear (twice as much blackberry as the others)
- Baligo - bone fragments from Melanogrammus Aeglefinus (haddock) and Gadidae
(cod)
- Dolment - for this tray, read the separate paleobotany report. They found traces of
three organic materials in there: seeds from the Quercus tree (commonly known as
the oak tree, so that's the Acorn you're carrying around in the Basket), seeds from some
small red berries, and fungus spores
- Hammer Stone - barley
- Cailleach - salt
- Henrik - traces of moisture (water?)
- Outlying Menhir - bone fragments and charcoal remains
Read Conrad's diary entry dated September 21st, which you can find under the pillow.
Looks like he's hidden one of the two seal fragments somewhere in the service station,
at GPS coordinates: 2778.446 by 7854.445. There are two more diary pages, one in the
shower and the other under the toilet seat. But you don't learn much from these.
However, in the desk drawer you will find a tape recorder. Recording #2 alludes to one
of the seal fragments being buried in a swamp. Ok, you're finished here now.
At about this stage in the proceedings, the next time you enter the service station, you
hear Ben coming a cropper. After the commotion dies down, when you look through the slat
in the office door, Ben is no longer there. If you then go around the back of the station,
there's a gaping hole in the wall, and no sign of Ben. Enter the office through the hole
in the wall and have a look at the tapes from the surveillance cameras. The bottom one is
quite telling. Some huge thing came through the forecourt just after those people got out
of the Mercedes, and turned them into piles of stone! Well, that's one piece of the puzzle.
Those piles of slag you've been finding around the place were once people. As a matter of
fact, there is a pile of slag on the carpet here that must have been Ben (har, har).
In the left-hand desk drawer you'll find some Batterys [sic], and in the
right-hand drawer some Paper. In the top drawer of the filing cabinet, you'll find
a note that gives you the combination to motel room #1. In the second filing cabinet drawer
is a bottle of whiskey. Note that it contains barley. Head outside through the back
door of the office, and have a look around. Use one of the Pound Coins you got from the
cash register in the mini casino. Keep pulling the lever until you come up with three bells,
and now you have some 50 Pence Coins. Continue rummaging around back there until you
find a halogen lamp Lens. If you look through the keyhole of a locked door, you can
see an old car in a garage. Hmm. Head back to where you found the Lens, and near there is
a ladder. Pick up the ladder, turn left, and rest it against a barrel. Then climb up to
the roof, head left, up another small ladder, undo the latch, and you can clib down
into...
Go into the garage office and, sure enough, there's an oil can on the desk. Pick up the
oil can, use one of the Egg Cups, tip some oil into it, and we now have our Oil
Offering. To exit this area, go down the ladder to the actual garage where the car is
parked. Undo the latch on the door there, and you can get back outside. Now go back to
the service station office, open the office door, and head for the cafe.
Behind a menu on one of the back tables in the cafe, you'll find a salt shaker. Pick it
up, use one of the Egg Cups on it, and now you have a Salt Offering. Go to the
drinks machine in the forecourt next.
Use the 50 Pence Coins to buy one each of the Pear Drink, Goosberry Drink,
and Blackberry Drink (I thought you might have to buy two of the blackberry drinks
to match the proportions in the paleobotany report, but no matter how many you buy only
one of each shows up in inventory. I suppose the portions will be obtained in another
manner). Next, use the combination you found in the office to enter room #1.
There's only one thing you need to get from here: the GPS Unit. Then head back to the
road, past the phone booth, and into that field guarded by the scarecrow.
Just in front of a three-wheeler you come upon the remains of Emma Harry's dog, Wincey.
Keep heading forward, climb over the fence, and follow some steps downwards. You arrive
at a swamp with a walkway that allows you to traverse it. Take the first right on the
walkway and continue on until you come to the Winnebago that houses Barrow Hill Radio.
Emma isn't here, but you don't find a pile of slag either, so maybe she's still alive.
On a shelf, you'll find some Mushrooms for your Basket. Assemble the parts on
the bed to build a Metal Detector, then open the battery compartment and click
on the Batterys in your inventory to power it up. No doubt this device will come in
handy. You can access Emma's laptop by entering the password 'wincey'. If you read her
Personal Blog, it seems that she may have unwittingly recovered a piece of the seal.
So the seal appears to be broken into three pieces:
- A piece hidden by Conrad Morse somewhere around the service station
- A piece Conrad has buried here in the swamp
- Emma apparently has a piece in her possession
About the only useful thing on the Internet Browser side of things is a page in
Favorites that provides translation from English to Latin for some plants and animals,
but we already looked this stuff up on the Internet earlier, didn't we? OK, exit the
Winnebago now and head back onto the swamp walkway.
Make the first right on the walkway, and turn to face right two frames after that to
collect some Cattail for your Basket. Continue on till you came to some ruins,
then enter them and activate the Metal Detector. At the back of the ruins the Metal
Detector needle registers something. Move a heart-shaped stone here, and you can use
the Trowel to uncover an Artifact Fragment. There's a cryptic note under the
fragment. This must be one of the seal fragments that Conrad Morse buried, the one
he mentioned that was buried in the swamp in his tape recording. Leave the ruins
now, cross over the walkway, and head behind the stone cross. Use the Trowel
to open the base of the cross. Read the diary entries by the priest in the book at
the top of the secret cache (after which you are none the wiser, as usual). Then
take the Metal Artifact from the bottom area. Exit the swamp now, and get
onto the road.
Note: you'll get a few calls from Emma Harry on Peter's Mobile Phone sometime
around now. She calls on occasions when you arrive back at the service station (I
think that's one of the only places in the area with decent reception. She's very
frightened but obviously still alive.
Head all the way back to your abandoned car (on the way there, you can collect
some Small Red Berries from the base of a tree to the right of the road when
you're amongst all those red reflectors). Just opposite the car, you can gather
some more Mushrooms. Now head up the road, and go up the set of steps to your
left. It leads to a forest path. Turn on your Lantern, and proceed a bit down the path
till you see some red mushrooms on your right. Pick one of these (I think they are
known locally as Dryad Slumber, the first one I could positively identify from
the Fungus Book) for your Basket. Turn around and head back down the steps. Cross the
road and try to enter what looks like a small stone hut. Clicking on the entrance to
it actually takes you up some steps. You have to then turn to the right and use your
Lantern on the entance to get inside.
There is a basket on a ledge to your left just as you enter St Anneka's Well that
contains a guest book. Read it till the end, and from the last passage you learn
that:
- Anneka is of the air and descended to us upon the ground
- The Henrik stone accepts a water blessing
Hmm. So how do we obtain a water blessing? Remember that Pagan & Wiccan Magic
leaflet you read earlier? The following passage is relevant:
The elements are represented by colour; read and orange for fire, yellow and
brown for earth, green for water and blue for air. Purple is used to represent the
soul.
Looks like we need to light the correct coloured candles at the well here. So use
your Matches to light the blue (air) and brown (earth) candles. Then use one of the
Egg Cups to collect a Blessed Water Offering from the well. There's more we
can do here. In a room off to the right you'll find a door with a circular hole in
it. The Metal Artifact we found in the base of the cross at the swamp fits into this
hole, and when you turn it, a secret cubby-hole is revealed in the wall just to the
right of there. Remove the ornate wooden box from the cubby-hole and open it. There
are a few scrolls inside, one written by the priest whose words you read earlier in
the diary from the base of the cross. There is also a
cryptic
diagramme which gives you an idea of what you are meant to do with two of the
stones on the lower part of Barrow Hill. We're heading up there shortly, but first
we need to pay another visit to the service station kitchen.
Once in the kitchen, head for the stove then turn right and use the Basket on the
cutting board there. We're looking to replicate the contents of dig tray #4. So put
the Acorn and the Small Red Berries into the mortar (bowl). But which mushrooms to
use? Well, the Pagan & Wiccan Magic leaflet referred to the Dryad Slumber
as having magical properties, so put the red-capped mushroom into the mortar as well.
Use the pestle to grind up the ingredients, and if you got the mixture right, you can
now collect a Plant Mixture Offering in one of the Egg Cups (note that if you
put incorrect or insufficient items into the mortar and grind them, you wind up with
a useless paste that can be disposed of in the waste bin right next to there so that
you can start over). Now head over to the blender on the other side of the room and
remove the lid. Put in one measure of Pear Drink, one measure of Gooseberry Drink and
two measures of Blackberry Drink. Then use one of the Egg Cups to collect a Fruit
Juice Offering. Next stop: the forecourt.
Activate the GPS Unit and have a walk around the forecourt. When you are facing the
fire extinguisher that is strapped to a pylon in the forecourt, the GPS Unit finally
registers! Now you can pull up the fire extinguisher and get the second Artifact
Fragment from underneath. Now head up the path next to the motel, go past the
mounds of dead protesters, and bear right till you come to...
On each of the four stones that border the left-hand side of the path, use a piece of
Paper, then the Wax Crayon. When you're done, you wind up with
the following
diagramme. This diagramme supplements the one you found in St Anneka's Well, and
I believe it is meant to provide a back-up solution in case you didn't find the cache
in the back of the stone cross in the swamp. Anyway, we have only prepared six offerings,
and we need to find the seventh. So keep heading up the hill until you come to a tent.
Turn on your Metal Detector, and head for the pile of dirt under the sifting tray. The
Metal Detector registers something here. Use the Trowel once again to uncover Conrad
Morse's lost whiskey flask, and empty the contents of the flask into one of the Egg Cups
to obtain your final offering: a Whiskey Offering. Now continue up the hill to
enter the stone circle.
Before you do anything else, save your game here! If you present the incorrect
offering to one of the stones then it's not exactly the end of the world, but you will
be inconvenienced by having to travel all the way back to where you obtained that
particular offering and prepare it all over again. Fortunately, starting from the left
and then going clockwise, the stones are in the same order as on George's diagramme
that you found at the bottom of the bulletin board (because it's quite difficult to
recognise them by sight). So starting from the left and working your way clockwise:
- Baligo, who is associated with the contents of dig tray #3, accepts the Fish Offering
- Melkah, dig tray #1, accepts the Oil Offering
- Dolment, dig tray #4, accepts the Plant Mixture Offering
- The Hammer Stone, dig tray #5, accepts the Whiskey Offering
- Henrik, dig tray #7, accepts the Blessed Water Offering
- Gavrok, dig tray #2, accepts the Fruit Juice Offering
- Cailleach, dig tray #6, accepts the Salt Offering
If you hear a clap of thunder when you present any of those offerings, and don't get
a nice animation, then you know you got that one wrong (you did save your game before
starting to make the offerings, right? :-) Otherwise, upon completion, all seven of the
stones will be projecting an aurora upwards. After completing the offerings, you get a
call from Emma Harry when you leave the circle. She has left the third Artifact Fragment
for you. In fact, it's right there on the path when you exit! Pick up the third Artifact
Fragment and head down the path till you can turn right. Then continue down that path
until you arrive at...
By now I think it's obvious what you are meant to do here, but anyway... put the Lens into
the opening at the top of the stone to the left of the altar stone. Then place the three
Artifact Fragments into the depression on the altar stone. Finally, touch the hand imprint
on the stone to the right. You can now collect the Restored Artifact.
Once you have the Restored Artifact, go back to the stone circle and access the trench
(you can only approach it from the left). Use the Trowel on the bottom of the trench, and
you drop through to the barrow chamber below. Place the Restored Artifact on the centre
of the altar to seal those demons in... until the next time. Your character leaves
Barrow Hill and drives home, while Emma Harry wraps up for the night.
See the metzomagic.com Review of Barrow Hill.
Copyright © Steve Metzler 2010.
All rights reserved.
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