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AI: The Somnium Files - Nirvana Initiative features a number of unique puzzle-based dungeons during each Chapter known as somniu✱ms, sequences w🦩here you’ll dive into the mind of a character to uncover information from their dreams.
The first chapter of Ryuki’s route will involve exploring the somnium of the mad scientist Chikara to discover their association with a mysterious video related to the half-body killings. As you psync with Chikara, you’ll explore a strange laboratory with a vapourwave aesthetic. In order to progress and clear Chikara’s somnium, you’ll have to find the correct route through the laboratory, which will require solving a few logic puzzles related to genetic splicing.
Mental Lock #1
Once the first cutscene has played giving a summary of your immediate surroundings, Tama will summarise that you need to move past the blue door and towards the stone statue with power. After this, the incomplete first key to the somnium will appear, showing ⛄that you need to create something by using something andও joining two things together.
Once you gain control of Tama, avoid the temptation to inspect the computer behind you, as this will cost you three seconds. Instead, move straight to the blue door. After moving the room to the first door, you’ll fully unlock the first key, which states: Use the machine in the center, join the two stone statues, and create a transcendental super-human!
After receiving this key, simply move forwards and activate the statue. This will activate the computer in the other room and unlock the first of four me☂ntal locks ne🉐eded to progress in this dungeon.
Mental Lock #2
Now that the computer is activated, you’ll receive a suggestion from Ryuki to head to the next room in the sky, but it’s a bit too high. You’ll receive another key with some missing details, but really it’s the sentence from the first key you need to be paying attention to progress.
Head through the blue door in the room with the stone statue that you just activated and go back to the central room. Go straight to the Robot Arm Control PC and activate it.
You’ll need to combine two statues from this room in order to give additional powers to Tama. You need to be able to jump high and access the room in the sky. For this reason, select Maasai Warrior for the left half and Astronaut for the right half (for their leg strength and experience with being launched into the atmosphere, respe🔴ctively). This wilꦚl allow you to jump higher as Tama.
After this augmentation process is completed, you can head back to the room with the stone statue and then through the open hole where you’ll be able to jump and ascend to the next room. You’ll then be interrupted by Chikara, but after a short dialogue exchange, yo𝔍u’ll be able to continue.
There will be a statue of what appears to be a driver in this next room (they’re holding a steering wheel). Activate this statue, then return to the central room via the green door opposite the driver statue, so that you can combine this driver statue with another. You can ignore the car in this room for now, but we'll return to it in a moment once we become a better driver.
Once you return to the Robot Arm Control PC in the center of the room, this time choose Racer for the left side (because they're good at driving and Archeologist for the right because they're good at dodging traps). This will grant Tama movie-protagonist superhuman driving skills, as the dialogue describes.
Return to the upper room via the green door, then enter the car. You’ll get a fun cutscene of Tama driving the car whilst dodging rolling statue heads. At the end of this sequence, y🐠ou’ll be interrupted by Chikara once more, and then you’ll find yourself in a room with another statue.
Activate this statue (known as The Gambler st๊atue) and you’ll 🌃notice your depth in the somnium progress with another mental lock unlocked.
Mental Lock #3
Return to the central room, and Chikara will appear directly in front of you, pulling away the section of the room they don’t want you to reach. In order to fix this, this time you’ll need to use the Robot Arm Control PC to combine the statues of the Fisherman and the recently obtained Gambler in order to r🌱eel the missing part of the room back in with a fishing rod.
Now that the other half of the room is back, all that's left to do is find a way past the guard. Ryuki and Tama conclude that they need to complete the rest of the research to synthesize an ability that will defeat the statue guarding the room that contains Chikara's secret. Head over to the new statue that has a picture of Chikara’s face and turn it on, unlocking the third mental lock.
Mental Lock #4
Head back to the Robot Arm Control PC. This time we’ll need to select Maasai Warrior for the left side and Chikara for the right side to create an undying and ageless warrior version of Tama. This will allow you to proceed straight to the statue guarding your progress and beat it up in an amusing cutscene.
After being interrupted by Chikara again, who tells you that their experiment was a success, you’ll appear in a rainbow room, which contains another statue to activate. This statue represents the part of Chikara’s memory that he doesn’t want to be seen. This statue is confusingly called IX.
Return to the Robot Arm Control PC one final time. Select the as-of-yet unused option NA for the left side and IX for the right side. This will summon a being who will come and use t🅰he computer, and who begins creating the Bats490 video.
You can see the Naixalotz corporation logo on their jacket, which is what NAIX refers to, giving you another crucial clue in the half-body murder case. This completes Chikara's somnium for Ryuki's first chapter.