Test of the Oyster Catcher

Overview

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.

Principles

• 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)

To Open the Test

To open the Test of the Oyster Catcher you require:

• 1 White Pearl (Missing)
• 1 Coral Pearl (Missing)
• 1 Smoke Pearl (Missing)
• 1 Pink Pearl (Missing)
• 1 Beige Pearl (RosieRazor)
• 1 Black Pearl (Missing)

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). 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.
• To Dive: RIGHT CLICK on the water where you wish to dive

Finding an Oyster Bed

You must have "Fountain Detail" in your graphics options turned on to see the bubbles (Self >> Utility, >> 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 disappear.

Solving the Bed

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. 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. 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.

Pearl Solver Tools

• T3 solving guide #1
• T3 solving guide #2
• Here is the Pearl Solver that I used in T3, with some graphic improvements.
• Online Pearl Solver
• Original Online Lights Out Solver

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.

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 showing 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.

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.

About Pearls

Colors

• Aqua
• Beige
• Black
• Coral
• Pink
• Smoke
• White

Sizes

• Huge
• Large
• Medium
• Small