For anyone else that bumps into this (given I got stuck for 20 mins trying out what to do) at the point when you are in the cave trying to generate electricity *DO NOT PUT THE BALLOON IN THE WHEEL IN YOUR INVENTORY* ...

This is a game breaking bug that will prevent the game from continuing since it prevents the dialog form triggering to allow the electricity to work ...

Instead you must but the water wheel under the tap without the balloon in and then put the balloon in after the tap is switched on.

If you have broken your game this way (as I did) you can edit the save game (which is just xml) fairly easily to fix this - I found the details on the steam forums. Notepad (or notepad++ or similar) is enough to carry out this fix.

Thank you for the solution! I have run in circles for hours trying to understand what I've did wrong.

Thanks jimbob0i0 for the help, those instructions were easy enough and did the trick. I encountered a similar game-stopping bug in The Raven, another King Art game, spent upwards of 2 hours trying to work out a solution before I went online for help and found out the game was broken. Point and clicks often involve searching for tiny details, or combining things in counter-intuitive ways; it's very discouraging when you've spent serious time trying to figure out what you've missed, finally cave in and look online, and then find out nope, the game's just bugged. I generally avoid FAQs and walkthroughs, I think they diminish the experience, but if I get stuck for more than 10 minutes in a King Art game it's straight to the forums, and that's a damn shame.

Can someone please tell me what an editor is and how to get into it?

Please ignore last post - sorted.

I can't find my saved game. I've searched my entire hard drive for the saved game, and the only results I get are within a file called, output_log.txt.

Just so's y'all know, the game I'm searching for is called: 20dec15. I search Windows for: 20dec15 and get just two results. One is a file called output_log.txt and the other is a file called HealthCheckAC.xml. Are saved games on a cloud or something?

In any event, I went ahead and searched within, output_log.txt and found the names of my saved games, but as for the parameters that need to be edited (<property key="hasBalloon" value="True" />)...they aren't there.

If could find the saved game, I'd edit it and be able to continue. I can't believe that there isn't a developer-released patch for this issue -- I mean, why would anyone say to themselves, "Maybe I shouldn't put the balloon on the wheel until after I've put the incomplete wheel under the faucet..."?

So, can anyone tell me what I'm doing wrong?

It's worth mentioning that the same poster who provided the instructions for editing the saved game file was also nice enough to upload his own saved game, and Steam has it blocked as potentially malicious, so that's a dead end, as well.

Thanks in advance for any help.

You may be able to find it by searching for "autosave.ksg" instead of your save game name. If I can find the path to save games for steam I'll edit it in in a bit.

So Steam keeps save files in a different place depending on OS.

In Win 7:
C:\users\[USERNAME]\AppData\Local\[GAME TITLE]\savegames

Notes:
Appdata may be a hidden file
Before [GAME TITLE] there may be a publisher listed. It depends on the game.

Holy cow! Thanks so much for the advice -- it worked like a charm. The game file extensions aren't .xml, and the game must not name the save files what users name them. But I was able to find the saved game file in question because it names each file based on the date it was saved.

And (go figure) the saved game files are kept in a folder in My Documents.

I've edited the correct file according to the previous instructions, and I'm getting ready to test it now.

Thanks again :-)

thank you so much jimbob0i0 your solution worked like a charm, saved me a few hours of backtracking!

Thought the bug was fixed, I downloaded the game from Gog a week ago :/

I can't get my save-game to work, with above instructions. In my game I've already attached it to the pipe and the water is running..

The savegame on the steamforums is no longer available. Can someone post the entire xml-atribute for <logic idref="items_e03c01_underground_cave_treadmill">?

Mine is as follows:

<logic idref="items_e03c01_underground_cave_treadmill">
<property key="inInventory" value="True" />
<interactionitem item="items_e03c01_underground_dump_fur" />
<property key="hasTape" value="True" />
<property key="hasFur" value="True" />
<property key="used" value="True" />
<property key="hasSoupBowls" value="True" />
<history stateid="State_18">
<state stateid="State_8" />
</history>
<history stateid="State_23">
<state stateid="State_15" />
</history>
<history stateid="State_14">
<state stateid="State_13" />
</history>
<history stateid="State_20">
<state stateid="exInv1" />
</history>
<history stateid="State_22">
<state stateid="State_21" />
</history>
<history stateid="State_17">
<state stateid="many" />
</history>
<history stateid="State_16">
<state stateid="BowlsAndPelz" />
</history>
<state stateid="attachedToPipe" />
</logic>

Thanks a million!! That solved it. I don't know why this hasn't been patched already :(

Thanks a lot. Two hours gameplay wasted, I started to think that this game defeated me. Bug like this should be fixed asap. They are happy to take money, but no one bothers to spend few minutes to fix such an obvious bug! Shame.

I had the same problem as dannce, as I'd already attached the wheel with the balloon to the pipe. I seem to have got my game to work now with no small amount of trial and error.

The above code changes unfortunately won't suffice.

Along with adding the balloon back to your inventory as described above, add the treadmill also with the following line:

<item itemid="items_e03c01_underground_cave_treadmill" />

Then search for the following line:

<logic idref="items_e03c01_underground_workshop_pipe">

Delete the entire <logic></logic> tag.

There were a few unexpected side effects, I'm not sure whether it was due to my coding or whether the results will replicate, but when I played the game next, the wheel was still spinning and when I examined it, Wilbur went to pick up the hamster wheel again! I also needed to put the adhesive on the wheel again, run the tap, and add the wheel to the pipe. At this point you can finally add the balloon and the electricity starts.

I hope this helps.

Oh FFS. Now I've encountered another game breaking bug with the sand bag!

There's a solution posted on steam:

http://steamcommunity.com/app/279940/discussions/0/617329797179874839/#c617329920701163167

However, I think I'm done with this piece of $**+ now. I can't believe this game is so broken.

Edit: didn't post link correctly

hi, i have the same problem but don't know how this whole editing save files thing works. Isn't there an easier solution for the technologically-challenged? cheers