Invisiclues for Finding Martin (in progress)

jwalrus · February 17, 2025, 9:17pm

In a recent thread, several people said they would be interested in Invisiclues for Finding Martin, so here goes!

To avoid giving away all of bizarre directions this game branches out in, I’ll divide the hints into sections, and include instructions on when to read each section, so that you can avoid opening the later ones and seeing the questions until you’re at least somewhat closer to that part of the game. Section 1 of the hints covers everything up until you find a way to leave the immediate environs of Martin’s house for the first time.

This is a large and complicated game, so please do let me know how you get on, particularly if you run into any areas where the hints aren’t good enough (or, conversely, give away too much at once).

Section 1

Click to expand

This is the only section you need to read until you’ve found a way to leave the immediate environs of Martin’s house. Then see Section 2 for further hints.

Initial exploration of Martin’s house

What is my objective in this game?

Did you read all the introductory text?
Did you read the title of the game?
Your objective in this game is to find Martin.
Martin isn’t easy to find, though.
Explore everything that you can and eventually you will be able to start piecing together why Martin is missing.

Can I make the game unwinnable in this section?

Yes, but it should be obvious if you do.
If you break something, or you lose an item and it’s not immediately obvious that you’ll be able to get it back, UNDO. Otherwise, you should be okay.

How do I get into the house?

People sometimes leave keys for their house hidden outside in case someone needs to get in.
Those ornamental penguins look pretty suspicious, don’t they?
Have you looked underneath them?
You might have noticed something moving while you were looking under one of the penguins. Look around carefully.
The penguins are switching places while you’re busy looking for the key.
After the penguins switch places, LOOK and check which penguin is last in the line. Then LOOK UNDER that one.

What should I focus on doing once I’m inside the house?

Not everything you find inside the house is going to be useful to you yet. Initially, you should focus on gaining access to as much of the house as possible.
You can also figure out how some of the weird gadgets in Martin’s house work.
The next clue tells you explicitly some of the things you can and can’t do when you first enter the house.
You can figure out how the watch, video screens, train and food delivery service work. You can’t get into the closet in the master bedroom or do anything interesting in the bathroom, dance studio or courtyard yet. You’ll also have to wait to do anything with the oriental rug or Slinky the ferret.
If you’re very dedicated, you might figure out how to open the stone door in the kitchen, but you will get a much more overt clue about how to open it later on, so you don’t need to worry about it right now.

What’s the deal with this big video screen in the living room?

Maybe you should sit on the sofa and take it in.
Have you searched the sofa?
See the section on the pocket watch.

Can I play the piano?

If you have some sheet music.
If you look at the books on the bookshelves, you’ll discover that one of them has sheet music tucked inside.

What can I do with the bust of Beethoven?

Presumably you’ve examined it?
The description calls specific attention to four of Beethoven’s features.
Have you tried interacting with those?
Pushing the features of the bust produces silly noises, and depending on the position of the bust, may cause it to rotate.
Can you get it to rotate all the way around?
With the bust facing you (its initial position), PUSH NOSE then PUSH EAR then PUSH FOREHEAD then PUSH CHIN.

Why do I keep receiving packages?

Have you opened the packages?
They’re just spam.

What can I do with the computer?

If you turn on the spam filter, those packages will stop arriving.
There’s an email you can read, but the attachment is encrypted.
Don’t worry about the attachment yet.
You’ll probably need Phouthavong Bochandilay to give you a further hint before you can work out what the password is. Fortunately, you’ll meet him later in the game.

How do I turn the heating up?

Have you examined the panel in the airing cupboard?
Did you notice the inscription on the base of the boiler?
Did you start reading this question just because you were out of other ideas?
There’s no way and no need to turn up the heating in Martin’s house.

Should I be worried that the dog doesn’t like me?

Have you looked at the photos in the bedroom?
There’s a photo of the dog playing with a red rubber ball.
Have you found the ball?
It’s in the grass on the front lawn.
Throw it for the dog and he’ll stop being suspicious of you.

What can I do with the pocket watch?

You can’t ruin anything by messing with the pocket watch, so feel free to play around with it to see what you can figure out.
There are four ways you can interact with the pocket watch.
Pushing the stem, pulling the stem, turning the stem and placing the watch into your pocket all have various effects.
You’ll want to experiment with the watch in a location with a video screen in order to be able to see what it does.
Pushing and pulling the stem changes the person displayed on the watch.
Have you noticed Benjamin Franklin’s glowing bifocals?
If you turn the stem while Franklin is showing on the watch, you can raise and lower the video screen.
Raising the video screen in the living room reveals the passageway to the dining room.

What else can I do with the pocket watch?

Did you try putting the watch in your pocket?
Putting the watch in your pocket while in a location with a video screen (usually) causes something to play on the screen. What plays depends on the time shown on the watch.
Many of the functions of the watch are related to changing the time.
As you progress through the game, you will discover various clues hinting that you should try setting the watch to various times. This will enable you to discover some functions of the watch. Other functions must (as far as I know) be discovered through experimentation.
If you want a complete, spoiler-heavy description of everything the watch does and all of the information you can glean from it, see Section 1a.

Why can’t I get into the dining room?

The fish want you to do something for them first.
Have you read any books in the living room since raising the screen?
The fish are waiting for you to read them their favourite story.
Read them The Boy Who Had No Words and they’ll let you through the bead curtain.

What can I do in the dining room?

Have you looked in the sideboard and the china cabinet?
Have you tried putting the plates, glasses or cutlery on the table?
What’s the obvious thing to do when you have a dining table along with four sets of cutlery and crockery?
You need to set each of the four place settings at the table in the proper arrangement.
Go to each side of the table, place a plate on the table, a fork to the left of the plate, a knife to the right of the plate, a spoon to the right of the knife and a glass above and to the right of the plate (you can also describe this as above the knife).
The bulbs on the chandelier light up to tell you how close you are to laying the table correctly.

What is inside the black box in the kitchen?

Everything but the kitchen sink.
Depending on how much you have figured out about how to use the watch, the purpose of the black box may or may not be obvious.
The black box is a food preparation device.
See the section on the watch.

What can I do with the train?

You can’t interact with the train directly in any useful way.
See the section on the watch.

How do I open the doors in the kitchen?

There’s a mechanism in the kitchen to open the doors, but like many of the gadgets in Martin’s house, it’s what we might term “eccentric”.
Have you examined the sink?
You can push the faucet left or right and turn it on in order to pour water into the left or right basin. If you put the stopper in the basin as well, it will fill up.
If you (fully or partially) fill the left basin with water and then drain it out again, the door to the pantry will open. If you do the same with the right basin, the door to the laundry room will open.

What should I do in the pantry?

You’re in a phone booth. Have you come across any numbers you could call?
Have you read the small phone book from the bedroom?
You need a five-digit access code.
Each of the phrases on the first page is a clue to a digit.
You might need to bear in mind that Finding Martin was released in 2005, before the reclassification of Pluto as a dwarf planet.
LIFT RECEIVER then DIAL “*27398”.

What should I do after using the access code?

Try out the different options on the phone menu.
Many of them have obvious effects, like producing messages or giving you items.
But choosing option 7 asks you to choose from a range of destinations.
This is the point where you gain the ability to travel beyond the environs of Martin’s house. You can now look at section 2 of the hints.

rovarsson · February 18, 2025, 7:03pm

This is great! I managed my way through Finding Martin with a combination of common sense, uncommon sense, curiosity, radical exploration, and the author’s walkthrough as a last resort. Invisiclues are so good to augment/replace that last bit. Thanks for doing this.

jwalrus · February 19, 2025, 9:15pm

Section 1a

Click to expand

Complete guide to the pocket watch

What do the different faces on the watch signify?

Each of the people that the watch can display has an associated function which is performed when you turn the stem of the watch while that person is showing.
Most of them provide ways of setting the time of the watch.
Specifically, Avogadro, Einstein, Fibonacci, Galileo, Heisenberg, Maxwell and Newton all alter the time shown on the watch in various ways.
Turning the stem when Benjamin Franklin is showing raises and lowers the video screen, if there is one in the room. Apart from the screen in the living room, there are also screens in the master bedroom and the kitchen.
Turning the stem when Alexander Graham Bell is showing turns the house’s sound system on and off.
When Archimedes is showing, the watch instead functions as a towel detector. Looking at the watch will tell you whether there is a towel in the room. The watch will also beep when you enter the room where the towel is.

How do I set the time on the watch?

Generally, you’ll want to set the hours and minutes separately.
To set the hour, you can use Galileo, who sets the time to 12:00, or Newton, who sets the time to 3:00, followed by using Einstein, who advances the time by two hours each time you turn the stem.
When Einstein is selected, you can also TURN STEM COUNTERCLOCKWISE to go back two hours instead of forwards.
Turning the stem when Fibonacci is showing sets the minutes part of the time to successive numbers of the Fibonacci sequence (:01, :01, :02, :03, :05, :08, :13, :21, :34, :55).
Turning the stem when Maxwell is showing advances the minutes part of the time by 4 (or goes back 4 minutes if counterclockwise).
Turning the stem when Heisenberg is showing sets the minutes part of the time to a random value.
Finally, turning the stem when Avogadro is showing sets the whole time alternately to 6:02 and 10:23.

What’s the point of setting the time on the watch?

When you place the watch in your pocket, it activates an action depending on the current time showing on the watch.
Most of the time, this is to play something on the nearby video screen, if there is one.
The programme which plays depends on the time. For the most part, the times of the 12-hour clock are divided into 4-minute slots (so, for example, any time from 3:00 to 3:03 will play a Bugs Bunny cartoon).
Since you can use Maxwell to advance the time by 4 minutes at a time, you can use this to check out the whole schedule fairly easily.
Some of the programmes are just for fun, but some of them contain hints for various puzzles in the game, especially the ones that otherwise require pop trivia or general knowledge.
At various points in the game, you will see scenes where you notice a time. These are hints that setting the watch to that time will show you something useful. Not every useful programme has an associated time hint, though.
The other exceptions are times beginning with 1, which control the food delivery system, and times beginning with 9, which control the train.

This sounds terribly complicated, is there a quick way to set the watch to a specific time?

Happily, yes.
One of the early time hints you will get prompts you to set the watch to 11:11.
This shows you a scene from “Seven Per Cent Solution” involving a swinging pocket watch (incidentally, this is the only time slot which doesn’t start at a multiple of 4 minutes).
Have you tried to SWING WATCH?
The conductor looks like he “wants you to tell him what time it is.”
If you (for example) SAY “10:38” TO CONDUCTOR, the watch will automatically set itself to that time.

How do I use the watch to order food?

Have you tried setting the watch to times in the 1:00-1:59 range while you’re in a room with a video screen?
The video screen shows you a square showing what you’ve ordered, and below the square, a food item you can add to it. Putting the watch in your pocket at this point will move the food item into the square, but nothing will actually happen as a result.
Putting the watch into your pocket when the waiter symbol is showing (1:09, 1:29, 1:49 or 1:59) will cause the black box in the kitchen to prepare a tray containing your food. The food will then be loaded onto the train, which will deliver it to the nearest platform to your location.
Putting the watch into your pocket when the busboy symbol is showing (1:19 or 1:39) will cause the train to collect the tray (and anything left on it) from the nearest platform and take it back to the black box.
You might notice that placing the order in this way produces a sound reminiscent of snapping your fingers.
You can, in fact, SNAP FINGERS as a shortcut for selecting the waiter and then placing the watch into your pocket.

How do I use the watch to control the train?

All of the times in the 9:00-9:59 have train-related functions (although some of them just play songs about trains).
The most obvious one is 9:00, which summons the train to whatever platform is nearest to your location.
Besides that, the times which do things other than just move the train around are 9:30 (pick up a tray from the current platform), 9:40 (deposit the currently-carried tray on the platform) and 9:50 (reverse the train’s direction of travel).
Note that if you try to get the train to unload two trays onto the same platform, one of the trays will be knocked onto the floor.

Draconis · February 20, 2025, 3:25am

I’m suddenly feeling much better about my inability to get far in this game!

SomeOne2 · February 20, 2025, 4:14am

I got through all of the game once (I used a walkthrough basicallythe whole way ), but now I’m restarting and seeing if I can get through without even these hints, just using written notes I make along the way! It’s going to be fun.

EDIT: If I do say so myself, I’m more a fan of the early tight mechanical puzzles that make up the start of the game than once you start teleporting around. That’s my personal opinion.

jwalrus · February 20, 2025, 9:50am

Section 2

Click to expand

You can ignore this section until you’ve discovered and activated the phone booth. This section deals with the various places you can visit using the phone booth.

Once you’ve retrieved some items from the areas accessible via the phone booth, you may also want to consult Section 3 of the hints (which concerns new things you can do in Martin’s house) in parallel with the rest of this section.

Using the phone booth

Can I make the game unwinnable in this section?

Yes. As the introductory information warns you, the game is less forgiving when it comes to visiting other areas.
It’s wise to save before visiting a new area and explore it to get a sense of what you might need to do there before committing to anything.
In most cases, though, it will be fairly obvious what you need to do within each area, and if it seems like you’ve done everything successfully, you’re probably right. There’s only one real “cruel” opportunity to miss something you need to do, and even then, you can’t proceed much further in the game if you do miss it.
The separate sections on each of the areas you can visit will warn you how to avoid getting locked out of victory. But for the sake of not making the hints even longer than they need to be, they also expect you to exercise a small amount of common sense. For example, don’t go dropping items in areas you’re not certain you’ll be able to return to, or throwing things into ravines or volcanos.
There’s also an action you can take in the phone booth itself which looks like it might be the solution to a puzzle but locks you out of victory if you take it too early.
See “How do I top up the phone booth with hair conditioner?”

What happens when I select the option to be moved?

The phone booth gives you a menu of places to visit. These are real, physical locations outside Martin’s house that the booth can transport you to. However, the phone booth travel system is object-oriented.
What this means (apart from being a programming pun) is that you need a specific object from or related to each area to be allowed to visit it.
The six areas you can visit using the phone booth, including the object required to reach them, are described in Sections 2a through 2f of these hints. (The order of the sections is the same as the order of the options in the phone booth menu.)

What happens when I select the option to be uplifted?

The booth lifts you up to the upper floor of the house, of course.
When you first get access to the phone booth, there isn’t anything interesting to do on the upper floor, though.
Or did you mean what happens if you ask to be uplifted a second time?
That certainly seems a bit more dramatic.
Don’t worry about the message saying that the spoiled fuel has been disposed of. You need to provide fresh fuel anyway.
By the time you need to go where the phone booth is taking you, you may have found out enough about Martin’s father’s research to know what kind of fuel the phone booth needs.
If you haven’t, the answer is in the next hint.
It’s broccoli.
Break a small sprig off the large piece of broccoli, open the drawer by pushing the lever up, then place the broccoli in the drawer.

What happens when I select the option to be transmogrified?

There have to be exactly two objects in the phone booth for transmogrification to occur.
Since the game won’t let you remove your undershorts, you can’t take anything else into the phone booth with you when you transmogrify yourself.
Take note of what happens when you try to interact with objects while you’re transmogrified.
Did you notice that, if you take too many objects into the booth with you, the booth waits for extra objects to be removed from the booth rather than refusing immediately?
You can drop two objects in the booth and then leave in order to transmogrify them.
Again, take note of what happens when you try to interact with objects that have been transmogrified. Far, far later in the game, this may prove to be an important clue!

How do I top up the phone booth with hair conditioner?

This looks like it ought to be one of those fake-out questions.
Later in the game you’ll find some hair conditioner. You can top up the phone’s cleansing mechanism by pouring hair conditioner into the hole.
Have you noticed that the lack of hair conditioner causes your hair to get charged up with static electricity, though?
Don’t put any hair conditioner into the phone until you’ve figured out what use you might have for static electricity first.

jwalrus · February 20, 2025, 9:50pm

Section 2a

Click to expand

Going to the zoo

What object do I need to visit the zoo?

You need a zoo animal, or something from one.
You’re quite unlikely to find something like that in a family home, even when that family is as eccentric as Martin’s.
You can’t visit the zoo when you first reach the phone booth. You’ll need to find something else first.
You need something which will let you look around Martin’s house in a new way.
Don’t go on until you’ve found the goggles and placed Martin’s special optical filter in them.
Have you explored the house thoroughly with the goggles on?
Have you noticed that the penguins are missing from the front lawn?
Knock on the east door of the upstairs landing while wearing the goggles. The penguins will rush out and crowd into the phone booth. While they are in there, the object-oriented travel system will take you to the zoo.
At a certain point, you will also obtain a penguin feather. You can use the penguin feather to reach the zoo without the penguins accompanying you.

Can I make the game unwinnable at the zoo?

Yes, but you’d have to be trying pretty hard.
There’s an item with an obvious use from Martin’s house that gets used again at the zoo. If you bring it to the zoo and use it there before you do the obvious thing with it at the house, you won’t be able to get it back.
If you’re really anxious about being stuck in an unwinnable situation, the next hint rules out one possibility that you might be worrying about, and the hint after that tells you exactly what the item in question is. Obviously, both hints will spoil puzzles at the zoo.
It’s not the rubber duckie.
It’s the dart.

I bought balloons for my friends but something went terribly wrong!

Unfortunately, you’re the responsible adult on this trip. You’ll have to help Stewie get down.
Stewie is drifting back and forth over several areas of the zoo, but he won’t come down anywhere that’s occupied by an animal.
You’ll have to get one of the animals to move somehow.
The fact that two of the enclosures are connected should help.
Maybe you could tempt the baby hippo to move somehow?
Have you found anything which might be appealing to a baby animal?
You can go and fetch something from the house as long as you take the penguin feather with you.
If you’ve brought the rubber duckie to the hippo exhibit, you’ll have seen that the baby hippo likes it.
Open the gate between the hippo exhibit and the crocodile exhibit, then THROW DUCKIE in the crocodile exhibit.
Unfortunately, Stewie still can’t get down from the balloons now the hippo exhibit is clear. You’ll have to force the issue.
How can you get rid of one of the balloons?
Throw a dart at the balloons.

What do I do with the zoo animals?

You might have noticed that some of the animals transform into rhinoceroses as you wander around the zoo. This is a reference to Eugène Ionesco’s play Rhinoceros and unrelated to any puzzles.
There’s another animal that transforms, though.
Kafka the spider transforms into a cockroach. This is a reference to Franz Kafka’s novella The Metamorphosis.
It’s also unrelated to any puzzles.

Why does the rhinoceros snort and wiggle his ears?

Wouldn’t it be fascinating to know what the rhinoceros is trying to tell you?
Unfortunately, you can’t talk to animals, even with your imagination-enhancing goggles.
You should come back if you come across anything which might let you understand what Ionesco is saying.
If you return here wearing the translator headphones, you’ll discover that he’s telling you a dirty joke.
Have you tried wiggling your own ears?
Maybe that’ll be useful later.

The zoo is such a weird place with the goggles on! How do I see what it’s really like?

Have you tried removing them?
If you remove the goggles, the penguins disappear and go back to being penguin ornaments. But you can’t bring yourself to stay at the zoo without them.
There’s no way to see what the zoo is like without the goggles on.

jwalrus · February 21, 2025, 8:00am

Section 2b

Summary

Going to the beach

What object do I need to go to the beach?

It’s something you’d reasonably expect to take on a trip to the beach.
You may well know that this object exists in the game, even if you don’t have it yet.
It may also help to be aware that there are a bunch of Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy references coming up.
The object you need is a towel.

Can I make the game unwinnable at the beach?

Yes, but it will generally become obvious pretty quickly.
Initially, you can travel to and from this area as much you like. There’s an obvious action you can take, after which point, that will no longer be true.
Make sure you’ve done everything you need to before that point.
If you want to check for sure that you’ve not missed something, read the next hint.
Don’t give away your Superman costume until you have the purple flower.

There’s nothing to do at the beach!

If it seems like there’s nothing to do, either you haven’t found an important item yet or you’ve found that item but you’re not making use of it.
You need to step out of the phone booth onto the beach while wearing the goggles containing Martin’s optical filter.
Hopefully what to do from here is obvious, but I guess maybe not if you’ve managed to avoid ever being exposed to any Superman media?
While wearing the Superman costume, you can FLY.

How do I stop the ants?

Have you tried communicating with them?
You’ll need to find a way to talk to animals. Don’t continue until you have one.
Their initial response isn’t promising, is it?
They can’t be bargained with.
They can’t be reasoned with.
They don’t feel pity, or remorse, or fear.
And they absolutely will not stop, ever, until they have eaten your picnic.
Fortunately, you don’t need to eat a picnic in order to complete this game.
Even more fortunately, this game doesn’t have any ants.

How do I get home?

Assuming that you’re trying to get back to the phone booth from the island near Bora Bora, you can get back the same way as you got here.
FLY.

How do I get the coconut?

I think it’s pretty obvious what Clark Kent wants.
But you might want to hold off giving it to him until you’re sure you don’t have any more use for it yourself.

What are the villagers hoping I’ll bring to them?

It sounds like they want a fish.
You can’t get the fish out of the tanks in Martin’s house, and as it happens, those are the wrong type of fish anyway.
Mrs McGillicuddy has a fish.
You can’t get the fish from her when you first meet her at Martin’s workplace. You’ll have to hope you run into her later.
Where did she say she was going this afternoon?
See the section on the veterinarian.
If you think you’ve done everything there is to do at the veterinarian, but it was a long time ago and you’ve somehow forgotten what happened to the fish, see the next hint.
Examine the headphones.

What do I do after bringing the islanders what they want?

The fish have agreed to accompany you on your travels and act as translators. This means that you can now communicate with various other people, animals and creatures you couldn’t communicate with before, as long as you’re wearing the headphones.
The islanders have asked you to awaken the volcano. In order to do this you have to travel very far to bring a message to the “Senders”. You have to take them the “Fourth Book” written by “the great master who writes no more, the one who knows the answer”.
If those hints, along with the presence of the towel and the translator fish, aren’t enough to tell you what the object you need to take to the Senders is, then it’s unlikely you’ll get this without looking it up.
It’s the novel “So Long and Thanks for All the Fish” by Douglas Adams.
As for travelling very far, what have you seen already that promises to take you even further than you’ve been so far?
See the hints on being “uplifted” by the phone booth.

What do I do at the volcano?

Look at the preceding hint first.
Once you’ve done what the high priest told you to do, it should be obvious how to make the volcano erupt.
Throw the VolcoSeltzer tablet into the volcano.

Help! I gave away my only way of getting home!

If you’ve given the Superman costume to Clark Kent and you didn’t bring any other means of transportation with you, you’re stuck.
There is something else you can bring.
Notice that it’s night time on the island.
Have you searched Martin’s house carefully while wearing the goggles?
The rug in the living room is a magic carpet.
SIT ON CARPET and then FLY.

Help! I need a corkscrew!

Your assessment of the situation is correct.
Restore your game and don’t put yourself in this situation again until you have a corkscrew.

jwalrus · February 21, 2025, 7:56pm

Section 2c

Click to expand

Going to Martin’s work

What object do I need to go to Martin’s work?

This is the item you’re most likely to have found by the time you reach the phone booth.
What would Martin probably need to take to work with him?
Have you searched the bedroom in Martin’s house?
You’ll find Martin’s security badge in the dresser.

Can I make the game unwinnable at Martin’s work?

Yes, in two ways, one obvious and one less so.
The first, obvious thing is that if anyone takes Martin’s security badge away from you, you won’t be able to come back here, which you’ll probably need to do several times throughout the game.
The second thing is probably the most “cruel” moment in the first half of the game, in that it’s not immediately clear that you’ve missed an opportunity to do something important.
See the section on Mrs McGillicuddy.

What do I do with Mrs McGillicuddy?

Have you tried talking to her?
You may have noticed that she’s a little hard of hearing.
Did you see her trying and failing to get her hearing aid working?
Her hearing aid needs a new battery.
Make sure that you give her the battery before you’re interrupted by Mr Pendergast.

I can’t do anything here without Mr Pendergast throwing me out!

Mr Pendergast will always come out to investigate on the third turn after you open the door to department 15-G.
There’s no way for you to get out of his sight in that time when you first arrive, so he will always come out and fire Mrs McGillicuddy.
Did you notice what Mrs McGillicuddy did before she left?
After you’ve been thrown out the first time, you can come back to the department, and the coffee room door will be open.
You have just enough time to go into the coffee room and close the door behind you before Mr Pendergast comes out to look around.
Make sure you stay in the coffee room until he’s gone back into his office.

What are the researchers in the lab doing?

Trying to look busy, mostly.
Have you tried interacting with the Bunsen burner?
Whenever you turn the Bunsen burner on or off, all of the research technicians will swap tools.
If you’re wearing a lab coat and holding a tool, they’ll include you in the rotation too.
Maybe some of the tools the technicians are using would be more useful to you than the flathead screwdriver?

What do I do with the note from Phouthavong Bochandilay?

This isn’t the first communication you’ve had from Mr Bochandilay.
There’s an email on Martin’s computer with an encrypted attachment.
The note, as well as the unencrypted part of the email, are hints to the password you need to decrypt the attachment.
What might “circular” and “irrational” refer to?
The password is the number pi. The note tells you how many digits of pi are needed. The postscript in the note is a mnemonic for the first eight digits of pi.
Sit at the computer in Martin’s living room and TYPE “3.1415926”.

Where do I find the optical filter?

Phouthavong Bochandilay wanted to hide Martin’s invention from Mr Pendergast, so he gave it to Mrs McGillicuddy and told her to “hide it somewhere where Old Spam-for-Brains wouldn’t find it”. But since Mrs McGillicuddy couldn’t hear him properly, she misunderstood the instructions.
Do you remember seeing Mrs McGillicuddy’s name anywhere before you met her at Martin’s work?
It’s on the packages you’ve been taking delivery of at Martin’s house.
Instead of hiding the filter from Old Spam-for-Brains, Mrs McGillicuddy hid it inside a can of spam and shipped it to Martin.
It’s inside the sixth can of spam to be delivered to the house.
If you don’t have six cans yet, you can make the deliveries arrive faster by turning the spam filter on and off.

What do I do with the optical filter once I have it?

Bo’s email mentioned using it in conjunction with a pair of goggles.
You probably picked up a pair of goggles in the research lab. Have you looked at them?
There’s a slot in the goggles for the optical filter.
Put the filter in the goggles and then put them on.
Take a look around Martin’s house while you’re wearing the goggles. The bathroom is a good place to start.
The goggles enhance your imagination, allowing you to perceive (and interact with) things that are not part of the mundane world.

jwalrus · February 22, 2025, 9:28pm

Section 2d

Click to expand

Going to the store

What object do I need to go to the store?

You’re likely to know it as soon as you see it, so if you can’t think of anything, you probably haven’t found it yet.
The word “store” is literally in the name of the item.
It’s the store receipt in the pocket of Martin’s jacket.

Can I make the game unwinnable at the store?

Yes, but only by wasting your money.
The game gives you a bit of spare money, but not enough to buy everything that’s on sale throughout the game.
If you make a note of what items are on sale in the store, it will generally become pretty obvious when you need to buy one of them. There is one item which is something of a red herring, so you should probably still save your game before buying something in case your new purchase turns out to be a disappointment.
The next hint spoils exactly which items you need to purchase from the store. (There are other items you will also acquire in the store, but they don’t cost money.)
The only items you need to purchase from the store are the paperback novel and the green candle.

Is there anything to do in the parking lot?

Have you looked under the little Nash Rambler?

How do I get into WalMart?

The crowds are too thick to get in.
You should probably try to get inside at least once, because you’ll acquire an item by doing so.
But you can’t actually get into WalMart at any point in the game.

How can I help the WalMart greeter?

Don’t read on until you’ve thoroughly explored the WalMart.
As explained in the hints for the previous question, you can’t actually get into WalMart in this game.
So why exactly you’re reading this hint, I’m not sure.
Maybe you’re just really enjoying reading these hints. In which case, I’m flattered, but please don’t spoil your enjoyment of the game by reading ahead too much. It’ll be much more fun if you try to figure out the puzzles for yourself.

What can I do in Takemine’s General Store?

As with most stores, you can exchange money for goods.
There’s nothing inspiring on sale when you first enter the store, though.
The description of the store from outside describes it as tall and narrow, like a pagoda. And the room you’re now in is called “First Level”. Maybe there are more levels?
Each level of the pagoda has a puzzle to solve to reach the next level up.
All of the puzzles are self-contained, so you won’t need to find any additional items from elsewhere to make your way up the pagoda.

How can I reach the second level?

Have you examined everything on the first level thoroughly?
Including the walls and floor?
Have you read the book?
Have you tried taking the book?
Have you tried closing the book?
Close the book, revealing an indentation, then take a pebble from the floor and place it in the indentation.

How can I reach the third level?

Have you opened the cabinet on the second level?
Have you eaten the delicious porridge?
Have you washed up your bowl and spoon afterwards?
Have you noticed that there’s a hole in the ceiling above the turtle?
How could you reach the hole?
It’s not safe to stand on the turtle, but the game suggests an alternative which turns out to work just as well.
Sit on the turtle.
You don’t actually need to do anything with the bowl of porridge; it’s just there to get you to notice the hole in the ceiling when you crouch down to do the washing up.

How can I reach the fourth level?

Have you examined everything on the third level thoroughly?
Have you searched the box of rice ash?
Have you examined the statue of the warrior king?
Put the arrow in the quiver.

How can I reach the fifth level?

Have you examined everything on the fourth level thoroughly?
That painting definitely seems unusual, doesn’t it?
Its presence here is reference to the book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. Fortunately, no knowledge of that book is required to proceed from here.
The painting is trying to hint at something, though.
You need to take a relatively uncommon action hinted at by one of the questions posed by the painting.
Clap your hands.
The buttons in the elevator correspond to the levels of the store. You can press the brown rectangle to go to the fifth level.
Clapping your hands to summon the elevator works on any level of the store, so on subsequent visits, you can go directly from the first level to the fifth.

How can I get the broccoli?

There’s a small hole in the side of the barrel. The game says that you need assistance from “someone suited to the task”.
Who might be able to fit through a small hole?
No human being, certainly.
Once you’ve figured out how to catch Slinky the ferret, bring him here and he’ll fetch some broccoli from the barrel for you.

What do I do with the unmarked barrel?

There’s only so many things one can do with an empty barrel.
Have you tried getting inside it?

How can I get into the tea house?

This requires some knowledge of Japanese culture.
What would one normally be expected to do before entering?
Remove your shoes.
If, for some reason, you’re no longer wearing any shoes, you’ll have to go and fetch some so that you can remove them outside the tea house.

Why can’t I see what’s inside the safe?

You’ve seen a few instances of this kind of nausea-inducing double vision already.
Depending on how far you’ve progressed through the story, you may or may not know what it signifies. If you don’t, you probably can’t do anything with the safe yet, and reading further will be a major spoiler.
You can’t see what’s inside the safe because its contents depend on events in the past which have not yet been resolved.
Have you worked out who the motorcycle mechanic who is currently on leave is?
It’s Martin’s sister, Rachel.
You need to change an event in Rachel’s past before you can perceive the items inside the safe.

jwalrus · February 22, 2025, 9:38pm

Section 2e

Click to expand

Going to the veterinarian’s office

What item do I need to go to the veterinarian’s office?

What’s the most obvious thing that someone would take with them to the vet?
An animal.
Martin’s dog won’t go into the phone booth.
But the dog isn’t his only pet.
Once you’ve figured out how to catch Slinky the ferret, bring him with you into the phone booth and you can go to the veterinarian’s office.

Can I make the game unwinnable at the veterinarian’s office?

For once, no, you can’t.

What do I do in the waiting room?

You might enjoy people-watching here for a while.
But now that you’ve run into Mrs McGillicuddy again, you have an opportunity to help her.
Give her the Phillips screwdriver.

jwalrus · February 23, 2025, 11:55am

Section 2f

Click to expand

Visiting Martin’s mom

What object do I need to visit Martin’s mom?

Depending on how much of the game’s backstory you’ve uncovered, it may or may not be obvious to you that this object is associated with Martin’s mom.
She used to give dance lessons at the house back when she and Martin’s father were still living there.
The item you need is the ballet slippers from the dance studio.

Can I make the game unwinnable while visiting Martin’s mom?

Yes, but it’s fairly obvious whether you’ve done what you need to or not.
Most of this area is a one-shot deal, so if you leave anything seemingly unresolved, you’re probably going to regret it. If you don’t think you can do everything you need to here, restore and don’t come back until you can.
There’s an item you need to give away during your visit here that you might think is needed for something else. Don’t worry about that part.

How do I pay the carriage driver?

Just give him some money.
Depending on what order you’ve done other parts of the game, you might have a token for a free carriage ride which you can give him instead.
But unless you’ve wasted lots of your money unnecessarily, you’ll still be able to afford everything you need to in the game if you pay for the carriage ride in cash.

What should I do with the old men?

They’re arguing because a bird ruined their chess game by stealing a white pawn.
If you had a white pawn of your own, you could give it to them so they could finish the game.

How do I get out of Central Park?

What did the driver tell you to do when you were ready to leave?
WHISTLE.

Where do I actually find Martin’s mom?

She’s dealing with a family emergency.
Presumably the emergency is the disappearance of her son Martin.
She even turned off her cell.
You can’t find Martin’s mom here.
Fortunately, the game is called Finding Martin, not Finding Martin’s Mom.

jwalrus · February 23, 2025, 1:26pm

There are a lot of fetch-quests-interspersed-with-cut-scenes that occur in the middle portion of the game (the visit to New York and the island near Bora Bora being the most obvious examples), but I’m not sure I’d agree that all the mechanical puzzles come in the early game. Getting the sketchbook out of Rachel’s room is what I’d call the best fit for the phrase “tight mechanical puzzle”, and that’s nearly the very last thing you need to do.

jwalrus · February 26, 2025, 9:40pm

Section 3

Click to expand

You can ignore this section until you’ve discovered and activated the phone booth. You’ll want to explore some of the places which you can visit using the phone booth first, which are covered in Section 2 of the hints. However, as soon as you acquire some items from those areas, you might be able to make further progress on puzzles in Martin’s house. Those puzzles are covered in this section and its subsidiary sections.

This section deals with general questions about exploring the house. Section 3a deals with questions about the master bedroom, bathroom, living room and dining room. Section 3b deals with the dance studio and areas accessed through it. Section 3c deals with the area beside and behind the house. Finally, if you find yourself in a strange place in the house which clearly does not come under any of the above, please consult Section 3d.

Eventually you will find yourself in a position to embark on a new kind of journey, one that does not involve the phone booth. When that happens, you may wish to consult Section 4.

Further exploration of Martin’s house

Can I make the game unwinnable in this section?

Yes, but the advice from Section 1 is still in effect. You’re unlikely to lock yourself out of victory inadvertently, but if you break something important, allow it to be stolen from you or drop it into a ravine, you should probably restore to an earlier save.

Why am I getting these headaches when I look at things?

It’s probably nothing to worry about.
The early examples of this (such as looking at the patch of dirt in the courtyard) don’t matter yet. As you progress through the game it should become obvious what the headaches and nausea signify.

Where can I find a matching pair of socks?

Have you looked under the bed in the master bedroom?
Okay, that only found you one sock, but maybe you can find another one that matches it?
Who could fit under the bed?
If you ask the dog to “track” and show him the sock, he’ll try to find another one for you.
Unfortunately, there are no matching socks under the bed.
But now you know where there is another sock to be found.
See the hints in a separate section.

What do I do with the glass shelves and fuzzy squares?

The glass shelves are a control mechanism for an aspect of Martin’s house you probably haven’t seen yet.
The pictures on the shelves are a clue.
You need to put an item on the shelf which matches the picture in some way.
The next three clues tell you the specific item needed for the three shelves you may have found so far.
For the picture of a chessboard: a chess piece.
For the picture of the bath: some water (in a glass, or in the mug from the coffee room at Martin’s work).
For the picture of a palm tree: a coconut.
Once you place the appropriate item on the shelf, a hole will open up which you can enter.
This is the point where you might want to look at Section 3d.

jwalrus · February 26, 2025, 9:49pm

Section 3a

Click to expand

Further exploration of the living areas

How do I open the closet?

Presumably you’ve noticed the dartboard on the closet door with a picture of Martin’s detested boss on it?
You need to find some darts.
Part of a dart feather is lying on the floor of the bedroom. Could you use it to find the rest of the dart?
Tell the dog to “track” and show him the feather.
You’ll also notice the darts if you lie on the bed.
You can’t reach the darts with your hands. There’s a reason this puzzle is in this section rather than the first one.
You need the long-handled pliers from the lab at Martin’s work.

How do I take a bath?

You need a towel.
You need a rubber duckie.
You also need the bath to be full of water.
Playing “Water Music” on the piano alternately fills and empties the bath, and fills and empties the sink.
Once you have all the prerequisites, just TAKE BATH.

I took a bath and it didn’t accomplish what I hoped it would!

You may have unrealistic expectations about the benefits of personal hygiene.
Perhaps the true benefits are the items we gathered along the way.
There’s no need to take a bath, but both the towel and the duckie are needed elsewhere in the game.

I’m unsatisfied with the answer to the previous question.

The game does seem to hint that there’s some sort of hidden memory that could be accessed in the bathroom, doesn’t it?
The game says “your nose could use a little help regarding memory enhancement.”
When you find the item this is referring to, you’ll know.

How do I open the medicine cabinet?

Have you looked at the mirror?
The mirror is looking for something to check who is trying to open it.
Have you seen anything that looks like it was designed for a mirror to look at?
Martin’s bathrobe has his initials embroidered on it in mirror writing. If you’re wearing it, you’ll be able to open the medicine cabinet.

Help! A giraffe is preventing me from doing something I want to do!

Do you really think there’s a giraffe in the bathroom?
Take off your imagination-enhancing goggles.

What do I do with the brightly-coloured machine tools?

If you’re paying very close attention, this probably isn’t the first mention of brightly-coloured machine tools in the game.
The inspirational quote from the phone booth mentioned, as part of its lightbulb joke, four metaphysicists with the patience to put all of the
brightly colored machine tools back into the Klein bottle.
However, you won’t find a Klein bottle in Martin’s house.
In fact, since it’s impossible to construct a Klein bottle in three-dimensional space, the odds of you finding one anywhere else aren’t looking good either.
The description of the machine tools says “there’s no place in all of the natural universe where they could possibly be of any use.”
Are you getting the message here?
Are you still looking for a use for the machine tools?
See the section on bonus points.

Why do bluebirds fly out of the china cabinet?

Apparently they make you want to sing “Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah”.
Have you tried it? (You can shorten it to SING “ZIP”.)
You can open and close the passage between the kitchen and dining room (from either side) by singing “Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah” instead of messing around setting the dining table.

How do I open the piano bench?

This is something you’re likely to need to do relatively late in the game.
Have you examined the bench?
The piano bench is opened by having a cat scratch it.
Don’t read on until you’ve found a cat.
The mother cat won’t let the kitten go until a certain point in the game. If you can’t take the kitten, you’ll have to wait until later to open the piano bench.
Now you need to persuade the kitten to scratch the bench.
Have you seen any flashbacks related to the piano bench?
Have you watched the documentary on cats which shows on the video screen if the time is set to 10:32?
The Kessler family used to sing opera to encourage their cat, Paganini, to scratch the bench. This is because Paganini was born in an opera house.
What could you sing that might remind the kitten of where it was born?
You can look through the songs on the video screen from 4:00 onwards if you really need some inspiration.
SING “LITTLE NASH RAMBLER”.

How do I catch Slinky the ferret?

You need something that Slinky likes.
At a certain point in the game, you will find a way to view a flashback that gives a clue about Slinky’s favourite toy.
You can also just take a reasonable guess at what sort of things a ferret might enjoy playing with, though.
The next hint tells you the item you need to lure Slinky out.
It’s the rubber duckie.
You can either SQUEEZE the rubber duckie, or you can DROP it in the living room. Either way, you can then pick Slinky up and carry him around.

How can I retrieve the items that Slinky has hidden behind the bookcases?

First off, if you dropped something important in the living room and Slinky has taken it behind the bookcase, UNDO or reload an earlier save. You’re not getting it back.
However, there is at least one item that Slinky had already hidden behind the bookcase before the game began which you’ll want to get hold of.
Don’t read on until you know what it is that you’re trying to get from behind the bookcase.
You can’t ever move the bookcases, reach behind them or get behind them yourself.
Slinky can go behind them though.
First you’ll need to catch Slinky. There’s a separate hint section for this.
If you drop Slinky in the living room, he’ll go back behind the bookcases. How can you arrange for him to bring the missing sock out with him?
He won’t do it intentionally. But maybe you could get the sock to stick to him somehow?
Take Slinky into the phone booth for a shower and blow dry. He’ll end up charged up with static electricity. Let him go behind the bookcases and lure him out again with the rubber duckie. The missing sock will be stuck to him.
If you’ve topped up the phone booth with hair conditioner before getting the sock, this won’t work, and you’re stuck. Sorry.

jwalrus · February 26, 2025, 9:53pm

Section 3b

Click to expand

The dance studio

What can I do in the dance studio?

Have you tried dancing?
There’s also those indentations, which look like they’re designed for a ballerina to stand in.
You can put the ballet slippers in the indentations, but that’s a red herring.
There’s a mechanism which is designed to be triggered by the weight of a ballerina standing in the indentations.
You’re no ballerina, but you can PUSH the indentations to trigger the mechanism anyway.

What is the best kind of dancing?

You can try ballet, jazz or modern, but you won’t achieve much thereby.
You can’t dance ballroom without a partner.
You can’t dance tap without tap shoes.
The tap shoes in the kitchen cabinet have been chewed by the dog, and don’t fit you anyway.
Don’t read further until you have some tap shoes that fit you.
You might as well try tap dancing in your new tap shoes, even if you don’t really know what you’re doing.
Once you’ve found the business card, you’ll have to find Dolly Levi if you want to accomplish anything more through the medium of tap dance.

How do I reach the skylight?

At some point while exploring the house, you’ll get a hint to set the watch to 6:12.
This is a scene from “Royal Wedding” where Fred Astaire dances with a coat rack. The game mentions “he’ll be dancing on the walls and ceiling next”, which references another scene from the same film.
If you could dance on the walls and ceiling like Fred Astaire, you could reach that skylight!
Have you seen a coat rack anywhere?
Fetch the coat rack from Martin’s work.
If you try to dance with the coat rack but the game tells you that the idea of dancing like you’re in a Fred Astaire movie is “alas, just fiction”, well, that’s real life for you.
You’ll have to try again when you’ve found something that can allow you to make that fiction real.
You can only dance your way onto the ceiling while wearing the goggles containing Martin’s optical filter.

Where do I find Dolly Levi?

Her business card says to meet her “on the other side of the wardrobe.”
If you’ve not found a wardrobe yet, keep exploring until you do.
The wardrobe is in the attic above the dance studio. Enter it while wearing the white tap shoes and the goggles in order to meet Dolly.

What on earth is a Shuffle-Off-To-Buffalo?

It’s a tap dancing step made up of a flap, then a shuffle, then a hop. Try it!
If you FLAP then SHUFFLE then HOP in the dance studio while wearing the tap shoes, the east wall will close and a secret trapdoor will open.
If you do a Backwards Shuffle-Off-To-Buffalo (HOP then SHUFFLE then FLAP), the trapdoor will close and the east wall will open again.
Fortunately, the second time you do the regular Shuffle-Off-To-Buffalo, both the trapdoor and the east wall will open, and you can leave them that way to pass through here in future.

How do I open the trunk?

That feels unnecessarily cruel to the elephant.
Oh, you mean the black trunk? Have you examined the latches?
Have you tried giving anything to the elephant?
Each of the latches has an associated smell. If you can find something that smells the same as the latch and give it to the elephant, the corresponding latch will open.

How do I open the red latch?

It smells of roses.
What is the most obvious object you can think of that smells of roses?
You need to find some roses. They’re growing in a pretty obvious place, so if you can’t think where to find any, you might need to keep exploring further.
Look in the secret garden.

How do I open the white latch?

It smells of coconut.
There is a coconut in the game, but you can’t bring it to the attic until much later.
Also, ironically, whole coconuts don’t really smell of coconut anyway.
There is another item in the game which is described as “coconut-scented”.
It’s the hair conditioner.

How do I open the green latch?

It smells of pine.
You won’t be bringing a pine tree up to the attic, but have you come across anything else pine-scented?
There’s a pine-scented candle for sale in the store.
Unfortunately, it has to be lit before the elephant will accept it.
You’ve definitely come across a source of flame already by this point.
Light it using the Bunsen burner in the research lab at Martin’s work.

How do I open the invisible latch?

It smells of colourless green ideas.
This is a reference to the work of Noam Chomsky, who coined the phrase “colourless green ideas sleep furiously” to demonstrate that syntactic validity is independent of meaningfulness.
If you haven’t encountered Noam Chomsky in the game yet, keep exploring the attic.
Not that you’ll find him there.
What makes you think there’s an invisible latch?

What do I do with the copper key?

It’s the key for the padlock on the double doors in the courtyard.
But the padlock is rusted shut, so there’s no longer any use for the copper key.

What do I do with the fan?

How does one normally make use of a fan?
You can wave the fan to enhance your sense of smell.
Smells can often trigger memories. When the game mentions an area with a strong smell, you can wave the fan there to view a memory which will help to fill you in on the game’s backstory.
Just to get the point across, the fan will snap open when you enter such a location.
It will also turn itself over after you view the memory. If you wave it again with the other side showing, you’ll get a different memory.

How do I reach the hanging basket?

You need something to stand on.

You can bring the desk chair from the living room out here and stand on it to reach the basket.

How do I get through the round red door?

It doesn’t need a key to unlock it from this side.
It might get angry with you for attempting to open it though.
You can’t unlock or open the door while you’re wearing the imagination-enhancing goggles.

What do I do with the fountain?

Presumably you’ve noticed the statue of a buffalo?
Have you found any other items with an image of a buffalo on them?
Don’t go on until you’ve been to the zoo.
There’s a buffalo on the nickel that you got in change from the balloon vendor.
Put the nickel into the fountain.

jwalrus · February 26, 2025, 9:56pm

Section 3c

Click to expand

The areas outside the house

How do I open the stone door in the kitchen?

The description of the door notes that you might gain more from looking at the inscription on the door if you were feeling more imaginative.
Take a look again once you’ve found a way to stimulate your imagination.
The inscription says “speak, friend, and enter”.
If you’ve read The Lord of the Rings, you might remember the answer to this one. If not, the key scene is also shown on the video screen at 11:12.
The picture of a hobbit eating a cantaloupe is also meant to be a clue.
SAY “MELLON” (or “MELON”) TO STONE DOOR.

How can I get past the thorny bushes?

Have you seen anything which might help you get some overgrown bushes under control?
There are some electric hedge trimmers for sale in Takamine’s General Store.
Once you’ve opened the stone door, you can plug in the hedge trimmers in the kitchen and take them outside to trim the thorny bushes. Now you can get between the front garden and the area at the side of the house.
Except … you could already do that by going through the house.
It might be better not to spend any money on the hedge trimmers until you come across a reason why you’d want to be able to get past the bushes specifically.
Read on if you want to know why you might need to do this.
The hedge trimmers are a red herring. There’s no benefit to being able to move between the front garden and the side of the house.
There’s enough money in the game to buy the hedge trimmers and still afford everything else that you need to, but only if you use the carriage token to pay the carriage driver in Central Park rather than paying cash.

What do I do with the squirrels in the raspberry bush?

If you see them at all, they tend to run away as soon as you try to interact with them.
Given that you can only see them while wearing the goggles, it’s arguable whether they’re there in the first place.
But you might want to bear in mind that squirrels apparently like raspberries in case that turns out to be important later, I guess?

What do I do with the window at the rear of the house?

The game says you’d need to get a light source inside to be able to see through the window.
Have you made a map of the physical layout of the house?
Are there any features of the house which might enable you to get a light source into the room, even if you can’t get inside yourself?
The train tracks pass through the room on the other side of the window.
You’ll need some understanding of how to control the train for this puzzle. If you don’t want to figure it out via experimentation, see Section 1a.

Where do I find a light source?

There are candles for sale in Takamine’s General Store.
You might already have purchased one of the candles for a different puzzle. If so, you can use that one.
If not, you can afford to buy two candles and still have enough money to finish the game as long as you don’t make too many other frivolous purchases.
By the time you get out here, you’ve also almost certainly seen a source of flame in the game.
Light the candle with the Bunsen burner in the research lab at Martin’s work.

How do I get the light source to where it needs to be?

First read the question on “what do I do with the window at the rear of the house?”
The only things the train will transport are the trays from the black box.
But you can put anything you like on the tray.
You can instruct the train to load a tray from the platform where it’s currently located by putting the watch in your pocket when the time is set to 9:30.
Then, you can call the train to the nearest platform by putting the watch in your pocket with the time set to 9:00.
If you’re standing at the back of the house where the window is, the nearest platform is the one inside the window.
Unfortunately, this still won’t work. When the train passes through the courtyard, the wind will blow the candle out.
Putting the watch in your pocket with the time set to 9:50 will reverse the train’s direction of travel. Then you can get the train into the dark room without it needing to pass through the courtyard.

How do I open the black dome?

First you’ll need to find a way to see inside the room underneath where the black dome is located. See the preceding questions.
Have you noticed the conspicuously large lever on the lab bench?
Have you noticed what it’s located next to?
The large lever is located just underneath the train platform.
Could you get something to fall off the platform?
While standing outside the window, order some food from the black box and it will be delivered to the platform in the laboratory. Then order a second tray of food and one of the trays will fall off the platform, pushing the lever downwards.

What do I do with the bizarre machine?

What does one normally do with a microwave?
If you’ve already found the research logs, you’ll have some more specific information about what you should put in there.
The remaining hints for this question tell you exactly what to put inside the microwave before pressing the start button.
You need to use foods which produce strong taste sensations. Different tastes will have different effects.
Try tasting some of the food from the black box. If the game tells you something like “it tastes sweet”, you can use it in the machine.
Specifically, you can use the pineapple upside-down cake (1:41) for sweet, the pretzels (1:40) for salty and the lemonade (1:44) for sour.
You can’t obtain any bitter food from the black box, but you can find some elsewhere in the game.
You can use Mr Pendergast’s coffee, but you can only obtain one mug of it, so you’ll need something else that tastes bitter as well.
Again, the research logs provide a clue.
Martin’s father and Mr Takamine planned to use broccoli in their experiment, because they both possessed the genetic characteristic that causes broccoli to taste bitter.
If you’ve tried tasting the broccoli, you’ll discover it tastes bitter to you too.

What do I do with the beam of light?

The beam of light is doing something strange to the west wall of the courtyard.
But you can’t interact with the wall because you can’t enter the beam of light.
At least, you can’t interact with this side of the wall.
Do you know where the other side of the wall is?
If you can’t find it, you might need to explore the house a bit further first.
It’s the east wall of the secret garden.
If you go to the secret garden, you’ll discover that the centre of the east wall has been replaced with a strange swirling mist.
This is the point where you’re about to embark on what the start of this section described as “a new kind of journey”. For hints about what you’ll find on the other side of the swirling mist, see Section 4.

How do I retrieve the tape recorder?

You can dislodge it from its perch by throwing something at it (like that conspicuously-placed stone). But you’ll need some way to catch it so that it doesn’t just plunge into the ravine.
You need some sort of a container which you can lower into the ravine.
There’s a hanging basket in the garden which already has a strap tied to it.
If you try to LOWER BASKET into the ravine as is, the strap isn’t long enough. Have you looked at how it’s tied to the basket?
You’ll need to untie one end of the strap from the basket so that you can lower it far enough into the ravine.

jwalrus · February 26, 2025, 10:03pm

Section 3d (incomplete)

Click to expand

The fuzzy chamber and Rachel’s bedroom

What do I do inside the fuzzy chamber?

What does the inside of the fuzzy chamber remind you of?
There are no dice in this game, but have you seen anything else that reminds you of a game piece?
Have you experimented with the tiles in the cloth sack?
Taking a tile out of the cloth sack or putting one into it while inside the fuzzy chamber will cause the chamber to rotate.
You can leave the fuzzy chamber while the hole is pointed north, east, west or down in order to arrive at various locations within the house. There’s no exit from the fuzzy chamber up or to the south.

How do I make the fuzzy chamber do what I want?

Have you listened to the noises the chamber makes while it’s in motion?
The chamber can rotate around three different axes. You can hear something attaching to the chamber from above, to the south or to the east depending on the axis around which it’s going to rotate. If you’re in the short hall upstairs, you can also see the cylinder extend from the pillar and attach to the fuzzy cube in order to rotate the chamber.
The chamber changes its axis of rotation every three moves, so its full cycle is nine moves long.
Taking a tile out of the cloth sack causes the chamber to advance through the sequence by a number of steps equal to the number of symbols on the tile. Putting a tile back into the cloth sack causes it to take the same number of steps backwards.
This only works while you’re inside the chamber, so you can step out temporarily (as long as the exit isn’t facing up or south) if you need to put tiles back into the sack or take them out without moving the chamber.
Initially, the exit from the chamber is facing up. It rotates three times around the east-west axis (so the exit faces north, then down, then south), then three times around the vertical axis (so the exit faces west, then north, then east), then three times around the north-south axis (so the exit faces down, then west, then up).
Putting the appropriate key item on any of the glass shelves advances the chamber through the sequence until the exit is facing the shelf in question.
Removing a key item from any shelf immediately resets the chamber to its initial position, regardless of any other contents of any of the shelves.

What do I do with Rachel’s sketchbook?

Presumably you’ve looked at it. The first and last pages are the relevant ones.
The first page is relevant because the drawing of a fire means that the sketchbook acts as a key item for the glass shelf.
Unfortunately, that means that picking up the sketchbook will trap you in Rachel’s room until you put it back, unless you can find another fire-related item.
The last page of the sketchbook is relevant because it gives you that strange nausea-inducing double vision like looking at the patch of dirt in the courtyard does.
Once you’ve worked out what that sensation signifies, you might have a further idea about what you can do with the sketchbook.
Come back to this if you ever find yourself needing a picture of Martin.

What should I give to Dmitri?

Don’t give him anything until he asks.
If you’re reading this, presumably you know that he’s asking for food.
Dmitri has a very specific list of requirements, and some of them even appear contradictory.
Have you made a list of which requirements it’s possible to fulfil simultaneously?
You can satisfy the requirements either in Dmitri’s prime-numbered sentences, or his composite-numbered sentences.
Of course, the number 1 is neither prime or composite.
His first sentence can be satisfied in either case, but one way requires you to interpret “ground nuts” as “peanuts” and the other way requires you to interpret “ground nuts” as “nuts that have been ground up”.
This puzzle sounds pretty abstruse even by the standards of this game.
Fortunately, Dmitri is not actually present in Rachel’s room, so there is no such puzzle.

How do I open the secret compartment?

You’ve probably guessed that it’s something to do with both the dresser and the bedside table.
You should also look at the mural.
And maybe try putting some flowers in the vase?
The numbers on the table are a combination lock. The movement of the vase is a hint to the correct combination.
But you need to figure out how the coloured circles on the dresser relate to the numbers on the table.
There are two ways of figuring out the combination. The first is simpler, but requires more knowledge or research from outside the game. The second will spare you some of that research, but requires you to take a fairly obscure action within the game instead.

What’s the first method of figuring out the combination?

Have you noticed that the mural mentions seven “planets”, including the sun and moon?
This is the definition of “planets” used in alchemy.
Alchemists associated each planet with a specific colour.
The colours on the dresser, in the order listed (which is the order the vase visits them as you fill it with flowers), correspond to the Sun, Moon, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus and Saturn respectively.
Alchemists also associated each planet with a specific elemental metal.
The metals corresponding to the list of planets above, in the same order, are gold, silver, iron, mercury, tin, copper and lead.
Take another look at the numbers on the table.
The nine numbers on the table include the atomic numbers of each of the seven metals above.
The combination is 79, 47, 26, 80, 50, 29, 82.

What’s the second method of figuring out the combination?

Have you looked at the painting on the fourth level of Takamine’s General Store?
One of the questions it prompts you to consider seems out of place.
While most of the questions are at least vaguely philosophical in nature, the last one sounds like the setup for a joke.
Don’t continue until you’ve come across a different reference to ten-inch musicians elsewhere in the game.
Ionesco the rhinoceros wiggles his ears when he tells the punchline of a dirty joke. Have you tried wiggling your own ears?
If you wiggle your ears in front of the painting in the store, a ten-inch violinist appears and complains that “there isn’t any flower vase here.”
Try wiggling your ears in Rachel’s bedroom.
The violinist points out a specific element of the mural depending on which of the coloured circles the vase is currently on.
“Element” is the operative word here.
In the order that the vase visits the circles, the violinist will point out the golden egg, the silver moon, the iron hammer, the mercury thermometer, the Tin Man, the copper bracelet and the lead weight.
Take another look at the numbers on the table.
The nine numbers on the table include the atomic numbers of each of the seven metals above.
The combination is 79, 47, 26, 80, 50, 29, 82.

What do I do with the dog whistle?

Have you tried blowing it?
Have you tried blowing it in the presence of a dog?
You’re prompted to consider whether a dog has Buddha nature.
Have you seen similar questions of philosophy posed anywhere previously?
Blow the whistle on the fourth floor of Takamine’s General Store.

jwalrus · March 2, 2025, 9:07pm

Section 3 is complete! I think Section 4 should be the last big one, followed by much smaller Sections 5 and 6. By my count, the hints here should be enough to get you to 225/360 points, which for me was about the first 15 hours of gameplay.

mathbrush · March 2, 2025, 9:20pm

This is looking great! Thanks for the hard work!