Quick Links
- Lights Out Solver - n.b., to solve the medium puzzle, use the solver, then "chase the lights" as described in the solving guides
- solving guide 1
- solving guide 2
- Please enter the locations and details for any Oyster Beds you find here
Sorted locations
Locations of oyster beds have been sorted by colour and size (although size seems to be irrelevant)
Principle
- Go for a swim
- Return to dry land
- Locate an Oyster bed and Dive
- Retrieve three Pearls
- Show your Necklace to the Instructors (you can do this before finding any pearls and it will still count)
The Test of the Oyster Catcher
- Requires Level 19
In the Test of the Oyster Catcher, you are to make a necklace from 14 pearls of varying sizes. Pearls can be obtained by swimming into water, finding a set of bubbles (which represent oysters), and then solving a small puzzle which will "catch" the oyster.
Swimming
Upon signing up for the test, you learn how to swim! You enter the water by walking straight up to it. Swimming is done similarly to running in that left-clicking somewhere will swim you there (but right-clicking won't stop you). Interestingly enough, terrain steepness is a factor in determining where you can and cannot move. If you're swimming in rivers or lakes, this should not be a big deal. However, this means you can't go too far out into the Red Sea or Mediterranean Sea. To get out of the water, click on dry land, or select the Stop Swimming option from your Special menu. Be careful: it is possible to leave the water in places where you can't get back in.
How To Dive: RIGHT CLICK on the water where you wish to dive
Note that the intended purpose of swimming is simply to get to the oysters. Right now, you can cross bodies of water by swimming. This has been confirmed as a bug. It seems not since a gm confirmed me it's ok to rely on swimming to hide cages on islands, crics along the coasts, etc. which should otherwise be a bug exploit.
Finding an Oyster Bed
You must have "Fountain Detail" in your graphics options turned on to see the bubbles (click yourself, then Utility, then Options: Video). Any setting above minimum will do, though the higher the setting, the brighter the bubbles.
An oyster bed will be visible from land. However, the visibility range is not that good - only 10-15 coords, and they are perhaps 5 coords out from land, meaning you need to be pretty close and right along the shoreline.
Oyster beds are represented by a grid of bubbles that can be of multiple colors (blue, green, white, plus off). Beds that give larger pearls are set on a larger grid and have more colors. Small pearls come from 5x5 grids of blue. Medium pearls come from 6x6 grids of blue, and in addition, the square you dive on does not toggle. Large pearls come from 6x6 grids which appear as blue and green - they toggle through a cycle of blue, green, and off as you dive. Huge pearls come from 6x6 grids which appear as blue, green and white.
Oyster beds occasionally appear on top of each other. Once you start diving, all but one of the beds will disappear. In some of these cases, the bed may behave oddly, with some bubbles "staying off" or "staying on" unexpectedly. It is unknown if these circumstances have any other effect. If two appear almost touching, diving in one will make the other dissappear.
In order to retrieve the pearl from the oyster bed, you must get rid of all the bubbles in the grid. This is accomplished by solving a puzzle. This puzzle is similar to the game Lights Out, in that you are given a grid of bubbles that are either "on" or "off" (the "on" position can have multiple states of being on, represented by different colors of bubbles), and you must turn them all off. Toggling one spot on the grid will also toggle all spots adjacent to it (with the exception of medium beds, which simply toggles all spots around the spot you dive in). Grid boxes are toggled by diving, which is done by right-clicking (SHIFT + Click if on a one button mouse. IE MacUsers). Upon completion, you will receive a pearl and 7 deben of oyster meat.
It appears that any given location yields pearls of different sizes, but of the same color. Most colors appear to cluster, with some colors only known to appear in particular regions. Exactly what colors show up where isn't fully documented yet. See the map link below for a listing of beds found and colors of pearls retrieved from them.
The bed will reset if left still for about two minutes. In addition, beds do despawn, so you won't be able to sit at a bed for hours on end trying to solve them.
Solving Oyster Beds
Oyster beds are very similar to the classic Lights Out puzzle, a version of which can be found here. Some oyster beds have a twist in that there are additional colours for the lights. The lights always cycle through colours in a very simple pattern. The basics of how oyster beds work can be found here, and when you have read that, you can find a comprehensive guide to solving any oyster bed.
Added note: I have re-worked an online solver to work with our current oyster beds. It can be found here. This solver will work with any bed/colors we have available in game. One note to add is the 6x6 1-color beds. Use the solver to find where to dive, then "chase the lights" from there. Quick solution every time. tat2mikki
Setting Pearls in the Necklace
In order to pass the test, you need to fit these pearls retrieved together and form a necklace. A complete necklace will require 7 small pearls, 4 medium pearls, 2 large pearls, and 1 huge pearl. There is a numbered slot for each pearl of these sizes (small position 1, small position 2, etc.).
Each slot requires a pearl of a specific color. You do not know what colors are needed for each pearl initially. How you determine this is by fitting a pearl into the necklace, then showing it off to the instructors at a School or University of Body. They will report to you the number of correct colors and pearls in the correct settings for each size.
If you inserted a pearl in the wrong slot, you can remove it through the test menu. There is a chance of breaking the pearl, with a higher focus giving you a better chance to keep it intact. At 0 focus the pearl will ALWAYS break. There is no reported number for a 100% salvage rate yet - even at over 80 focus you will break the occasional pearl, but ~50 is generally considered pretty safe. You may remove pearls that are placed in the right slot, but this is probably not something you want to do.
Huge pearls are not reported as such, and simply say whether or not a huge pearl is inserted. A specific color is not needed for the huge pearl slot, so you can use any huge pearl you find. The monument text said that different colors of huge pearls shall provide a different stat boost when the necklace is complete, but this is apparently not the case.
Advancement
As you insert pearls into their correct positions, your Endurance attribute will rise. The exact level of increase is a bit sketchy, but roughly estimated, you get a point for every other pearl you insert. This isn't exact, though, and there probably is a better way to describe the increase. Note that you will get a message in the main window saying when you get this endurance increase. This can be used as another indicator that you inserted a pearl in the correct slot.
It appears to be something along the lines of 1 point for the huge pearl, 1 point for each large pearl, 2 points over the four medium pearls, and 3 points over the 7 small pearls. Right now I have 5-6 small pearls, 2-3 med pearls, and 1 large pearl in correctly, and only 3 endurance points. - Nefer-Bast
I got two end points for adding just the huge pearl - Al-Bilal
When you have all 14 pearls correctly inserted, show the necklace to your instructors, and you will pass the test.
Pearl colors
- White
- Coral
- Smoke
- Aqua
- Pink
- Beige
- Black
Pearl Sizes
- Huge
- Large
- Medium
- Small
Images
Here's a pic of a small coral pearl (type used to unlock the test) found by the water.Also a white and pink pearl pharaoh dropped for us to see. The pearls will show up as their actual colors on the ground, just like gems.
Here are a couple that show what a pearl looks like from ~10 coords away and slightly zoomed out (the pearl is by a male avatar in the upper left side of the image).
Here's are a couple of pics of Pharaoh doing a diving demonstration to show us what locating a pearl will look like. The cloud-like dots on the water are what the 'bubbles' on the water surface look like with Utility/Video/Fountain settings maxed. This is what we should be looking for once the test is unlocked, and we're signed up.
Here are a couple at two different F7 zooms so you can get a feel for visibility at a distance. The sun's reflection on the water does interfere with visibility...I had to twist my camera some to see the bubbles. You can't actually see them all the way out to the full distance shown in an F7 zoom, though.
Admiring a Pearl
When you have a pearl in inventory, you can admire it under "Tests->Test of the Oyster Catcher->Admire". You will get a screen like this:
As you can see, it shows both where the pearl was found and by whom.
- When you have more than one pearl of the same color and size in your inventory, attempting to admire any of them will only look at the first one. You have to put the rest down or in a chest and look at them one at a time.
A multi-colour oyster bed
The oyster bed on the Left has 2 colours (or 3 states). Bubbles will start blue or green, and cycle through blue, green, and off. These beds will yield a Large pearl if the puzzle is solved.
The bed on the Right has 3 colors (or 4 states, White, Blue, Green and off). These beds will yield a Huge pearl if the puzzle is solved.
