Regarding Puzzles:
In the hardware store with
MNO
Duck (Dr Lacey), Zag (Mark), Ariel (Carla), and CaptainMeme (Jia) was a CRT television with a pair of tv reception rabbit ears and connected to a 2nd hand VHS for sale which no one investigated. Maybe there was a VHS tape inside, did anyone think to turn it on to see what happened? There is a TV out here in the eatery by the ATMs, that turns on, but is lacking a remote or signal - maybe these things could have been used together to make a working object that could help us figure out a piece what's going on or how to progress something.
There was a clock in the HW store that could have been looked at, potentially yoinked for 2 more batteries which might be useful elsewhere. There was possibly a back room, why do I say that? The HW store CCTV camera was noted to be on and recording, meaning there either is a back room that camera is connected to perhaps a basic security setup like what you might find in a Pawn Broker, or the mall might have a central Security Operations room somewhere and if that's the case, there might also be weapon lockers with handguns, ammo, or batons, or first aid etc.. that Mall Cops could have been using pre-collapse of society. Also, if that [air quotes] "room" exists, it could theoretically be used to monitor all the other rooms that have working CCTV.
(Fingers crossed for a Paul Blart - Segway Scooter.)
I managed to snag 4x batteries from the two clocks here in the eatery (Did seriously none of you look at the map and think, what the hell is an OGUE CLOC and why are there two of them in the eatery?). Do I have a need for them, not yet, but they might come in useful, especially if we find a remote or other item that needs AA-batteries for instance, speaking of which, CaptainMeme (Jia), did the barcode scanner you found in the Hardware store work, does it turn on, can it be plugged in or does it need batteries to operate?
For example, there's a treadmill in the corner of the HW store that no one tried to look at or turn on. If nothing else someone should have at least tried to comically launch items off the treadmill at max speed.
I picked up a can of cola from the dispenser slot in the cola machine that apparently no one checked at the start. Maybe I need to make a man-eating plant burp, who knows.
One of the ATMs is displaying out of cash, and the other is ready and waiting for a card to be entered, so that could be an option to get cash for the Seer Machine (which players have already used successfully.)
The grill in the flip n burger turns on, so things can be heated up, if we had anything flammable we could light a fire, who knows maybe we might need to set the fire suppression system off in one of the stores at some point.
Obviously the bathrooms are now a source of water if we need it.
The stairs going up are bricked off and barricaded.
The stairs going down lead to a basement, which I'm assuming is one big room otherwise Amb would have updated the map or listed basement as a room that can now be travelled to?
The Elevator needs power, and we know there is a generator book which is potentially a how to guide.
We know there is a movie theatre but not sure where it is yet, which means there is potentially another set of toilets for movie patrons, a candy store/ticket purchase area, and the theatre room itself as well as a movie projector. Suspect it is on floor two of the complex and the elevator is the way to it and getting power to the elevator seems like a likely solution.
We still don't know details of what's in the other rooms.
Rubberducky you're the one.
