========== GEAR WORKS ========== Table of Contents: 01 - Introduction 02 - Gameplay & Rules 02a - Level selection 02b - Placing gears 02c - Temperature/timer 02d - Poffins 02e - Items 02f - Points 03 - Tips & Strategies 04 - Level passwords 05 - FAQ 06 - Other junk ============================================================================== Version History: ============================================================================== 1.0 - March 2018 - First whack. ============================================================================== 01 - Introduction ============================================================================== Gear Works is a fantastic puzzle game for Game Boy (and other systems) that doesn't get talked about much. Yes, it's 2018 and I'm writing a FAQ for a Game Boy game. As of now, there is no other FAQ for it, so I'm writing it. The Game Boy version has been slightly simplified, compared to other versions. In this game, the Game Boy's resolution and "color" palette are used to their full extent. There are no wasted pixels in Gear Works. I often find myself holding the screen very close to my face when making detailed decisions about where to place the gears. ============================================================================== 02 - Gameplay & Rules ============================================================================== -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 02a - Level selection -------------------------------------------------------------------------- The premise of the game is that you're building clocks into world monuments. From the PC manual: A plan of the current monument you are working on will appear at the beginning of each level. The flashing rectangles in the monument correspond to the current level of the monument you are working on. Each rectangle represents one Play Area. There are 12 total monuments/levels, one for each hour on the clock. Each monument contains rows of rectangles, as many as 4 and as few as 1. Those rectangles represent individual puzzles you have to solve. (The game calls the monuments "levels" and the manual calls the rectangles "play areas." I guess I'll just call them puzzles.) Each row of puzzles shares a time limit. (See section 02d.) If the timer runs out before you finish a puzzle, you will lose a life and return to the first puzzle in the row. If you are in a row of just one rectangle, this is no great loss! When you complete all the rows from the bottom up, you see a picture of the monument with its newly installed clock, and you are given a password for the next level. This is very helpful in the later levels. When you complete all 12 levels/monuments, the game will loop back to level 1. The last puzzle in level 12 shows the word END in the background. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 02b - Placing gears -------------------------------------------------------------------------- When each puzzle starts, you'll see "white" gears already on the playfield. Gameplay consists of placing gears on the playfield until all the white gears are turning. You have infinite randomly-generated gears to place, but only so much space to put them! Gears come in 3 sizes. I'll refer to them as small, medium, and large. Every gear must be placed on a peg; you cannot place a gear where there is no peg. There are 4 ways to place gears next to each other so that they will mesh with each other: 000 000 A large gear will mesh with 00000 00000 another large gear when placed 00000 00000 on the same row or column, 2 000 000 pegs away. (1 peg between them) 000 A large gear will mesh with a 00000 small gear when placed on 00000 pegs diagonal to each other. 000 o ooo o OO A medium gear will mesh with OOOO another medium gear when OO OO placed on pegs diagonal to OOOO each other. OO OO o A medium gear will mesh with a OOOO ooo small gear when they are placed OO o on pegs immediately adjacent to o each other, on the same row or ooo column. o No other combinations will allow the gears to mesh with each other. There is no way for a medium gear to mesh directly with a large gear. There is no way for two small gears to mesh directly with each other. All chains and combinations have to be made using these four pairings. Gears will lock up if you place them in a way that keeps them from turning. If a gear is turning clockwise, all gears touching it will turn counter-clockwise. If you place two large gears next to each other, they will mesh and turn just fine. If you then place a small gear diagonally between them, they will mesh, but they will not turn. It's impossible for three gears meshed in a triangle to turn. This can also happen when two medium gears are placed diagonally from each other, with a small gear adjacent to both. This can sieze up your entire chain. This will cause the temperature to rise faster (see section 02c) and can only be fixed using a bomb. (see section 02e) You CAN place 4 gears in a square pattern (large gears) or a diamond pattern. (medium gears) Be careful when trying to complete a large chain of gears that circles back to itself; this is unnecessary, and it may cause gears to conflict with each other if their directions don't match up. Most gears can turn in either direction, so you typically only need to worry about creating patterns and chains that mesh well with each other. However, there are some large gears that can only turn in one direction, indicated by the tiny pixelly arrows shown on the gear. To place these gears, you can either study your placed gears to decide where to put the directional gear (this can be slightly time-consuming), or you can place it like normal and see if it turns. If it doesn't turn, bomb it. (this is faster, but of course it may cost you a bomb.) Crossing gaps: Many levels require you to place your gears in such a way that you can cross small gaps in the pegs. To cross a horizontal or vertical gap where there is 1 peg missing, you must use 2 large gears. To cross a diagonal gap (which really isn't a gap at all, but it can look like one in some levels) you can use 2 medium gears or a large and small gear, placed diagonally from each other. If a gap is too large to cross with gears, then you are likely looking at a level where two gears are linked to each other "behind the scenes," such that when you turn one, the other will magically start turning as well. Just link up all the gears you can reach, and you'll see that other gears are now spinning too. There's a point around halfway through the game where virtually all the levels start having these invisibly connected gears. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 02c - Temperature/timer -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Directly below the peg board, there is a temperature gauge that spans the whole width of the screen. It fills from left to right. When it reaches the far right side, you lose a life, and you are taken to the first puzzle in the row you were in. If you were already on the first puzzle, this is no big deal. If you were on the 4th puzzle in a row, you have to re-play the first 3 puzzles to try the 4th one again. The temperature gauge does not reset until you complete the entire row, so if you take too long on the first 3 puzzles, you will not have enough time to complete the 4th. This is why having 4 or 5 puzzles in a row is such a challenge. The temperature gauge acts like a timer, but some things can cause the temperature to rise faster, effectively eating up your time. If you place gears in such a way that your chain locks up, so that no gears are turning, the engine will heat up faster. Use a bomb to fix the problem as soon as possible. The manual says that the temperature rises faster when the engine is turning more gears. This suggests that you should link non-moving gears together, then finally link them up to the initial spinning gear later rather than sooner, too keep the temperature down. However, I haven't personally found this to be the case, and in fact some of my "coldest" clears have been done by building the entire chain directly off of the first spinning gear. Shrug. If a gear is rusty (see section 02d), the temperature will rise faster. I mention this only because it's in the manual. I've hunted for rusty gears using the oil can (see section 02e) but I've never found one. Sometimes I can't understand why my temperature is rising so quickly, and this may be the explanation. Whether or not it's worth the time to switch to the oil can and check for rusty gears is up to you. I never do it. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 02d - Poffins -------------------------------------------------------------------------- If you've played the game, then you've noticed that there are 2 creatures that roam around the peg board. These guys are called Poffins. The larger one will sometimes remove a peg from the board, so that you can no longer place a gear there. The smaller one will go to gears you've already placed, and will rust them so that the engine has to work harder to turn them. This causes the temperature to rise faster. (This is according to the manual; I've rarely had to deal with rusted gears, and I completely ignore this Poffin. I've had gears sieze up completely, and I assume it's because they got rusted, but there is no visual indication that a gear is rusted.) If you place a gear on or very near a Poffin, it will fall from the peg board. You can also attack them directly using the crosshair item (see section 02e). In both cases, the Poffin reappears immediately at the top of the screen, so the benefit gained from attacking them is marginal. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 02e - Items -------------------------------------------------------------------------- At the bottom of the screen you'll see four squares with icons in them. Press A to enter a sort of "item selection mode," where you can select one of the four icons with the d-pad. Press A again to select that item. The cursor on the play area will change depending on what item is selected. Press B to use whatever item is selected, then use A to switch back to the gear icon to continue placing gears. Gear: When the gear icon is selected, you are in the normal gear-placement mode, and the cursor will show an outline of the gear you are about to place. Bomb: A bomb can be used to destroy a gear you have already placed. Move the bomb icon on top of the offending gear and press B to remove it. Bombs are the only way to fix a chain of gears that is locked up, so it's important to conserve bombs as much as possible, in case you make a mistake. Crosshairs: With the crosshairs, you can take aim and shoot the Poffins off the board. This may be useful if you suspect the bigger Poffin might break off a peg you need, but when it starts pulling, it's too late to switch items and shoot him. But hey, if he's sitting on a peg that you know you're going to need, go ahead and shoot him. I hardly use this item, because it eats up valuable time, and the Poffins always reappear immediately at the top of the screen anyway. Oil can: According to the manual, the oil can is used to fix a rusty gear. Gears are rusted by the smaller Poffin. As far as I can tell, there is no visual indication that a gear is rusted. I've tried oiling every gear with the oil can, and I've never seen anything happen. You start with 5 of each item whenever you load up a level with a password. You gain more items, seemingly at random, every time you finish a puzzle. If you're like me, you just hope that you get more bombs between puzzles, and you ignore the other items. You cannot hold more than 15 of each item. Even if you die and restart a row, your item counts carry over, meaning that if you died because you ran out of bombs, you will start the row over with 0 bombs. Often it's worth it to just re-enter the password and get those 5 default bombs. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 02f - Points -------------------------------------------------------------------------- I don't really care about points; when I play Gear Works I'm just trying to get through the levels. But honestly, I don't know what I'd change about my gameplay strategy to try and maximize points. Maybe try and place more unnecessary gears? In the color versions of Gear Works (on different systems), different gears are different colors, and those colors indicate how many points each gear is worth. At the end of each round, all the gears that are turning are added up and put toward your score, shown at the bottom-right of the screen. Any gear that is not turning is subtracted, I think even 2x. On the Game Boy, you can see that not all gears are the same color, and I assume this reflects their point value. (I've never actually read the manual for the Game Boy game, but I've read it for Game Gear and PC.) I suspect there is a correlation between how many points you earn and how many new items you are given at the end of a round, but I haven't studied it or anything. ============================================================================== 03 - Tips & Strategies ============================================================================== - When you pause the game, you can still see the entire peg board, as well as all your placed gears, the outline of your current gear, and the image of your next gear. This means if you are having trouble completing all the puzzles in a row without running out of time, just pause the game between placing gears. You can look at the screen, decide where to place your current gear and next gear, unpause, place them, and pause again. You can complete levels much "faster" (with lower temperature) this way. - Learn to recognize when certain peg patterns require specific combinations of gears. For example, a small gear at the bottom of a single column of pegs can only be turned using a chain of alternating medium and small gears. Fill those areas quickly, because you know that you'll need those gears eventually. Since you don't know what gears you'll get later in the round, you want to be able to be more flexible with the more forgiving areas. - Try not to "commit" to a single way of completing a level. For example, you might not end up getting as many small gears as you're hoping for, so you should be ready to build many different kinds of configurations, dictated by what gears you actually get. - If a gear comes up that you don't need, try to think ahead and place it where you can still use it in the future. If you REALLY don't need it, try to place it where it will still turn, so that you'll gain points for it at the end of the round (and this usually saves space, too). If there's nowhere you can stash it where it will still turn and not get in the way of future gears, putting it somewhere where it won't turn is still better than using a bomb to make room for it. - Count on having lots of big gears. After the first few monuments, you'll find youself with very little "free" space in each puzzle. Always plan on using big gears wherever possible, because they sure take up tons of room when you're not ready for them. It's not fun to have to repeatedly bomb a big gear just so you have a spot to put the next one. In some later levels, the only way to complete a puzzle is to use big gears everywhere possible, and use small and medium gears only where big gears can't go. - You can end a puzzle on purpose by pressing A and B at the same time. This is helpful if you know you can't finish a puzzle, but don't want to wait for the time to run out. - If you run out of bombs and you fail a puzzle because of it, you'll have to restart your current row from the beginning, and you'll still have 0 bombs. Sometimes it's best to just reset your game, re-enter your password, and start the monument over with 5 bombs. If you were on the bottom row anyway, this is a no-brainer. Unless you have a whole bunch of lives or something. - If two gears (or two chains of gears) are turning, they don't need to be connected to each other. The only objective is to turn all the gears, not to create one large chain. You can save time and gears in some of the later levels by keeping chains separate, and this also avoids having to deal with matching up gears that are turning in conflicting directions. ============================================================================== 04 - Level Passwords ============================================================================== Here are the passwords for every level in Gear Works. But don't use these! It's very satisfying to play the game and get all the passwords yourself! Level 1 - 0000 Level 2 - 3518 Level 3 - 6382 Level 4 - 8427 Level 5 - 2385 Level 6 - 5924 Level 7 - 1267 Level 8 - 7208 Level 9 - 6532 Level 10 - 5012 Level 11 - 6511 Level 12 - 8562 ============================================================================== 05 - FAQ ============================================================================== These are questions that I frequently asked... myself, while getting the hang of Gear Works. If you send a question to the email address at the bottom of this guide, your question will be the #1 most frequently asked, and I'll put it here if it's legitimate. Why aren't these gears linking up? - Gears can only be paired in 4 ways, shown in crude ASCII art above. Learn those pairings well. The cursor will blink if you hold a gear over a peg where it will mesh with another gear. Why aren't my gears turning anymore? - There are 3 things that can stop your gears from turning: - You have placed the gears in a way that they cannot all turn; for example, you might have two large gears placed next to each other with a small gear diagonal from both, "between" them. Or you have two medium gears diagonal from each other, with a small gear adjacent to both. - You have placed a directional gear in a place where it cannot turn in its required direction. Check your large gears for one that has tiny arrows on it, and try bombing it. - In rare cases, I've had my gears sieze up, with no directional gears, and all matchups valid. I was able to bomb gears until I had pinpointed the problem in one single gear that simply wouldn't turn anymore, for no visible reason. I tried using oil on it, to no avail. The only solution was to bomb that gear. If this is the case, it's rarely worth the time and bombs needed to find the offending gear. Why can't I place this gear? It should match up perfectly with the other gears and I'm mashing the B button like crazy, but the gear isn't placing! - Honestly I don't know. I've run into this myself; I don't know if there are unwritten rules about situations where a gear cannot be placed, or if it is a bug in the game. I've even tried again with a different gear of the same size, and it worked. It's rare, but it's frustrating. Why did my temperature gauge fill up so fast? - The gauge fills up faster when your gears are siezed up and not turning. The manual says that the temperature rises faster when it is turning more gears, but I haven't found that to be consistently true. I still can't fully answer this question. How do I reach those other gears? - See the "crossing gaps" paragraph in section 02b. Basically, look for gaps that are small enough to cross using two big gears. Failing that, just turn all the gears you can reach, and one of them will be invisibly linked to a faraway gear, which will magically start turning. Why is B the main button? - No idea. ============================================================================== 06 - Other Junk ============================================================================== This FAQ was written by me; my name is Splain. This is my first FAQ, so I'm not familiar with any of the politics involved with other sites copying it or whatever. So, my official statement is that I don't care if this FAQ gets copied and put on other sites. It won't, but maybe if that happens, I'll learn why it bugs other people so much. There's a guy on Youtube called Zenic Reverie who recorded 7 long videos of Gear Works gameplay, which ended up being very helpful to me while figuring this game out. Thanks to him! Quick shout-out to whoever it was on the Gear Works dev team who made it so that if you lose all your lives and go back to the title screen, the game auto-fills the password with the level you died from. Nice! Comments or corrections can be sent to peoppozo.msn@com. But, you know, switch the . and @ around. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------