New Players, read these spoiler free gameplay tips before you play to avoid useless frustration and enjoy the game more.
Feeds. Most progress in the game is made by finding feeds (and logs too, but mostly feeds). To find a feed, you type something like “03-ME-E-R-S” into the terminal. The feed starts with two numbers representing a slice of time, so 04 occurs after 03. The pair of letters (03-ME-E-R-S) refers to a location on site, which is the first two letters of a room name most of the time. Although you might be able to guess room names from context and examples, official names of rooms are written in bold white text. The letters afterwards in a feed (03-ME-E-R-S) represent the living people who appear in the feed. They are the same crew code letters that appear in the text as %R or %S. CREW CODE LETTERS MUST BE ENTERED IN ALPHABETICAL ORDER TO FIND A NEW FEED!!! This is important and there is no error message to warn you if you messed it up. Feeds will NOT be revealed if you enter more or fewer crew other than exactly who appears in the feed. You might not be able to tell at the beginning if you guessed a room name wrong or if you guessed the people present wrong. For now, take that as a hint to pursue other angles in other files rather than scumming with guesses. This game is fairly scum safe in that things you can easily scum are less likely to be late game material, but don’t scum unless you have some pretty strong clues to limit your focus to a few options to test. I’ll warn you about obnoxious clue bottlenecks below.
Logs. Logs written daily by the crew take the form of ‘MMDD-Log-NN’ where MMDD is month and day (The main events take place October 9th and 10th) and NN is a convention you have to figure out but should be obvious once you have found a dozen feeds. If you need the answer, it’s Rot13(Erny Svefg Anzr Vavgvny Erny Ynfg Anzr Vavgvny) If you feel like scumming the logs, know that they don’t drop much mid or late game material. (I scummed a few of them, but you don’t have to!)
Transmissions. As far as I can tell there is only one of them in the game. It’s still important later.
Code letters, room codes, names, job descriptions Each crew member has a different code letter. You should have a sheet of paper or a textpad open to record room names and their two letter codes, and all crew names and nicknames and job titles you encounter. Eventually the game will make you prove you know each character’s full name, job title, and crew code letter, so start working on that list now and save yourself a bunch of flipping back later.
Completionism. Each member of the crew is somewhere in the station at all times. Crew members very conveniently stay in their room for the whole time slice and only move between slices. Thus each crew member must be in one feed at each time point, unless they are dead. Following deductions will eventually lead you further forward in time until you reach a certain late game feed that will get you the incomplete ending.
Start the game with the ability to make notes in game. Don’t wait for the upgrades. The game gives you new thought-organizing commands to use in the terminal as a reward for reaching certain files, but there’s nothing to stop you from using them right away. Two of them appear “close” to the start of the game assuming you follow the right breadcrumbs. One of them lets you append comments to a file - ROT13 (ynory) - and the other lets you write memos to yourself - ROT13 (abgr). A third one that is introduced in the midgame lets you filter all the feeds and logs by time, location, or person - ROT13 (svaq).
I strongly recommend you start the game already knowing the ‘append comment’ and ‘memo’ functions because, if you are going to take notes in the game instead of on a separate sheet of paper, you should start right away rather than trying to juggle your thoughts until you hit some arbitrary later file.
‘Append a Comment’ [real terminal command = ROT13 (ynory)]: If someone dies in a feed, you should append a comment to that feed with their death e.g. ‘Q dies, eaten by a grue’. Eventually the game will give you the power to filter feeds you have found by a timepoint, location, or a person. When you are trying to see if you have discovered the complete chronology for a crewmember, it is very helpful to make it obvious if/when they died and they aren’t going to appear again. (I’m not going to give an example of a death because spoilers, but the Append a Comment syntax is “ynory 03-ME-E-R-S heard explosion in cargo bay” (But rot13 ‘ynory’ first!)
‘Memo’ [real terminal command = ROT13 (abgr)]: It is very common in the early game for you to get a clue that crew members are going to a certain room in the next time point, but the feed doesn’t drop. Either they didn’t make it to the room, or someone else was there already so the feed entry was incomplete, or two groups met up, etc. When you get a clear clue that doesn’t lead to a feed, you should use the memo function to list what you tried: “abgr Tried 04-CB-E-R-S from 03-ME-E-R-S. Is CB the right room code for the cargo bay? More people in 04-CB?” Then you can check memos later and see if you have two memos pointing to the same time and location that can be combined to unlock the feed.
Filter’s upgrade drops in the midgame, but you should start using it earlier whenever you start struggling with the organization of a lot of files. The syntax is ROT13 (‘svaq’ nf va ‘svaq PN’ be ‘Svaq 01’ be ‘Svaq F’)
Spoilers for early/mid game below, stop reading here unless you know what the manifest is.
I’m spoiling myself slightly, how do I get the manifest?
Find the feed with S at timepoint 06. You’ll get a mail.
I got a manifest! How do I put a name in the manifest?
Completing the manifest will let you unlock ‘protocol-lazarus’ and the second half of the game.
The syntax for manifests is ‘name’ + Crew code letter + Job title that is in the manifest + First name + Last name. For example: “name R Captain Robert Witterel” or “name M Dungeonmaster Matthew Mercer”
You don’t have to put in all the right information either. Once you get the name function, you can input guesses like “name M Researcher? Michael Idunnoyet” or customize for your own amusement, like “name C Officer Carl Not_getting_laid”. I recommend it to help remember who is who at first.
I’s name isn’t taking?
Rot13 (Unir lbh purpxrq uvf ybtf?)
J’s real name doesn’t fit the encrypted name in the manifest?
The scrambled name is missing a character for some reason. The working spelling is Rot13(WNPDHRYVAR).
I can’t find B’s last name!
It’s locked behind one of the worst ‘see it or fail’ bottlenecks in the name. You need to get A and D’s feeds in timepoints 01 to 03, or scum for it by trying to get B’s logs if you don’t want to cheat for A and D. Hint for A and D below.
A and D’s time 01-03 entries: I know they’re somewhere, but where the heck are they?
The worst bottleneck in the game that lots of people miss. Rot13(Ng gur irel ortvaavat bs gur tnzr, n srrq pnyyrq “09-QH-O-W” qebccrq. Lbh fubhyq xabj gur anzvat pbairagvba sbe ebbzf ol abj naq “Qh” qbrf abg fgnaq sbe ‘qhcyrk’ be ‘qbezvgbel havg’. Lrf, nyy bs gubfr ner n guvat, vaqvivqhnyyl.)
Protocol-Lazarus
This is the second half of the game. Stop reading if you haven’t filled the manifest.
Word.exe
Wordle. Green is correct letter placement, yellow is right letter wrong spot.
Yes, you have to do this. Yes, it is tedious and it sucks, Yes, it’s probably the worst part of the game. If you do it the proper way, you will play 10 to 20(!) wordle games, genuinely not joking. Please play only 4 rounds and then decode my ROT13 and cheat when you get to game 5/5. Apparently, two of the words in the bank are four character invalid options which might screw your run anyway. As a hint, all the words are depressing, edgy, or space related. I would start with the words ‘Whine’ or ‘Scars’ because plurals are common.
Word.exe lvl 5 answer ROT13(“KMLDZ” - Lrf, guvf vf abg n erny jbeq! Vg fgnegf jvgu K.)
Where’s the other half of the you-know-what?
Purpx lbhe vaobk.
There’s a creepy red dude in my DMs.
Yes and he has a task for you. Check it out because you’ll need to start making some new notes, but ignore him. Go back in the directory and find the 99 camera instead.
The game’s story is better when you play with the 99 Camera before you mess with the red guy too much.
Core Directory
There’s a bunch of stuff hidden in the locked directory files that is ‘see it or fail’. Keep an eye out for fancy screens and bold text.
The fancy map is missing the security office for some reason. It’s irrelevant, apparently.
99 Camera
You’ve probably forgotten by now since you filled out the first manifest but &99 means to use it like a person. The syntax is “04-ME-99”. This camera tells you about rooms only when there aren’t any people detected in them. If it fails, there is someone in the room, which is helpful to find where everyone is if you haven’t gotten everyone’s full timeline. While the camera often doesn’t show you an interesting description when it feels like it should, you should come to a certain realization after checking out some suspicious spots. That’s when you should start red’s quest for real.
Manifest 2
Fill it like manifest 1. You will be awarded with a new crew code ‘letter’. THEY GO FIRST IN ALPHABETICAL ORDER. You can also give your new crewmate a nickname if you wish which will show up in the credits.
True-Ending
Like the first half, reaching a certain file will get you a mail for the true ending.