MEGA SPOILERS - Your End-game Logic

[Jigsawn]

WARNING - ENDGAME SPOILERS AHEAD - NO SPOILER TAGS!
WARNING - ENDGAME SPOILERS AHEAD - NO SPOILER TAGS!
WARNING - ENDGAME SPOILERS AHEAD - NO SPOILER TAGS!
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Megapost ahead - All about how I solved or struggled with some of the end-game logic.

--Intro--
Not doing this in spoiler tags for ease of reading. Finally finished my playthrough and there is a criminal lack of discussion on the actual mysteries in the game out there. Perhaps understandably considering it's so complex. So I wanted to make a thread talking about some of my answers to the game's questions. After Chapter 4 I knew I would soon be tested, so I started doing my serious theorising. I ended up making a huge Google Sheets doc with a timeline, tabs for various mysteries etc. I went back through the game and made all the theories I could. Probably ended up spending about 50+ hours just getting all the info in there and working on the theories. Even though the game's tools are good, its still not enough considering the complexity of the mystery, especially visual tools. Having an another timeline tool would have been really handy.

Anyway, in Chapter 5 I had a chance to start putting that info to use. I ended up with 59/94 correct answers, but also had sussed a bunch of smaller mysteries like some of the tips stuff. I want to highlight some questions that threw me off and see whether people thought they were solveable, or what their logic was for those questions. Add your own and discuss! This is also to give the game's writer a bit of insight into my thought process and a few gripes with some of the mysteries they can potentially learn from in future, looking forward to more mysteries! PS - Seki = Sekimeiya throughout the doc.

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-----QUESTION DISCUSSION---------
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-- Question 1: Where did Shiroya Travel --
(Past or Future) This is about when Atsuki tells Shiroya she may have gone to the future.
It was only when this option popped up I had considered the possibility, although I knew there was some timey/wimey weirdness going on during her time in town. Going back through the chapter intro to test the future theory, I noted the fireworks, the meat being bad and people's reactions to Shiroya which would correspond with her being the only survivor in the timeline post-tower. The newspaper date was cheap (even when later explained in Tips). I never did get the coffee shop not opening until late, I guess that was just a red herring, or was it because it was a holiday? Completely missed the days of the week and the birthday. Still couldn't explain what was going on at the end when she re-enters the tower and time seemed to stop. I did think it was a cool twist though! PS I also didn't see the chapter 2 twist coming until the reveal, that was a good one too.

-- Question 3: Where was the biggest clue? --
This is when you have to pick a location in the Attic for what reveals what's going on in this new dark tower. The answer is Kitchen and the water evaporating in the glass.
I had already flagged the water drunk earlier as being a potential clue, although back then I thought then it might point to the crew being way in the future because the water tasted bad. I did not consider a leftover glass at all and thought this was a huge leap to make.

Instead I cottoned onto Naomi's note talking about the upkeep of the Attic. This mentions 'since the last attack' and that led me down a rabbit hole of realising that people had been in the tower on the 24th November and researching that. As I'd already figured out the main mechanic of Seki teleportation with past/future person locations, I knew the Nov 24th date matched with Dec 15th and Jan 5th when Future Shiroya hits the Seki. And because the tower was dark and empty, I assumed that some time weirdness was going on where we had been taken back to the night attack on 24th November, whilst keeping the towers changes intact. Naomis note was in the kitchen so I got this answer right accidentally. If her note hadn't been there, it would have been proof that we were on the 24th November.

-- Question 7: At the top of attic stairs, Shiroya turned to me... --
This is when Atsuki is outside the Attic and Shiroya and Naomi teleport away from him.
I got this right and the question itself wasn't too bad with the research I'd done. But the fundamental question about the precise timing of Shiroya changing worlds when seeing Naomi at the suitcase plagued my theorising at the start of the timelines. Did Naomi use a Seki just *before* Shiroya saw her, causing Shiroya to arrive in Naomi's world and see her? Or did Naomi use a Seki just *after* Shiroya saw her, causing Shiroya to teleport away to a different world away from Naomi? Because after Shiroya sees Naomi, she immediately turns around and runs downstairs without looking back, this was a huge headache to consider.

This also led to difficulties in establishing which world that Naomi and Shiroya ended up in. I thought they were in World C (Miiyas world) entering the Attic, deduced using the footprints, suitcase, Seki locations and Naomi's firsthand account (I thought Miiya might have using Shiroya's name when introducing herself to Naomi, because she had Shiroyas ticket). This led me to think Naomi went from C>B and Shiroya from C>A. What I hadn't accounted for was that world A Naomi would be doing the exact same thing and have her own suitcase and Sekis. The whole start playing out identically felt rough from a deduction point of view because with so many variables between the timelines I just assumed things would have played out a bit differently for each Naomi.

CONTINUED IN NEXT POST

[Jigsawn]

-- Question 27: The order is A-B-C-A --
Is there a problem with this order?
I was one of the 24% who said no. I probably could have gone through all the activations I had logged and found the discrepancies (quite messily documented in my case). I did manage to correctly check these against my notes when grilled in the following questions. Just curious whether other players just guessed or actually had mapped out the direction of world travel for each activation. For me I certainly hadn't noticed the cyclical nature of the world transfers as a rule but once I was told it was quite easy to see. Part of this is down to how you document it, I just had a big spreadsheet with times on one axis and columns for each world and its events in the other, with following columns for Seki movements and activations. Its at times like these you want some tool like the game's final chart to help.

-- Question 36: Erased due to not possessing it in the future--
This question has you choose between cleaning cart, knife and Shiroya's phone.
The damned cleaning cart. That had bugged me all game. So naturally I was delighted to finally clear it up... except I was wrong, it was the phone, haha! Well, 50% of other players also wanted rid of that dreaded cart, thank god it did eventually get explained. I did know it wasn't the knife though.

-- Question 40: The _____ of the Sekimeiya increases gradually--
I count myself as having got this correct, because I wrote 'radius', along with 1% of other players (I might just be the 1%). Please, developer, add this as a correct answer even though it doesn't fit the blank count! In English it essentially means the same thing in this context.

-- Question 44: Who killed Naomi B?--
I put Akaro A (it was actually Katei, who was my second guess). I'm guessing this is intentional misleading by the writer, but I ended up down this train of thought because a bunch of clues pointed to Akaro A. The B4 cabinet after Naomi is killed is set to 5 degrees, which we've seen Akaro A do a few times. We know Akaro A spends a good deal of time in B4 in world A and is aware of the temp regulation cabinets there. He's also very murderous. Because Naomi is killed by someone who is inside the room away from the door, the most likely explanation to me was that Akaro A or B world-switched or used a past/future travel to appear next to the B4 cabinet (probably using a Seki inside the cabinet) and then turned around to see Naomi, leading to him attacking her before she could escape.

-- Question 45: Who hid the Sekimeiya in the Store Room--
This is when the fake Seki is hidden behind the sofa. I answered Naomi A, but I should have trusted my gut and went with the correct answer: Sai B. After examining this event closely and the stealing of the Past Seki soon after I had a good picture of who was where and what they were probably up to. There are 3 primary suspects for who has the opportunity and motive for doing this: Katei, Sai and Naomi A (who is potentially currently loose on the crystal floor after Naomi B's death). Katei has the chance to do this as he searches the storeroom, Sai has the chance to do this after Katei searches the storeroom whilst people are talking in Hallway C, and Naomi A can also do this at the same time as Sai. For me, I thought given people paying close attention to Sai's hipbag etc meant he was unlikely to have smuggled it in. But I should have trusted my gut on it being left in the sofa - because both Naomi A and Katei know about the hidden storeroom partition, and would surely hide it there given enough time. I figured maybe Naomi A would not have had enough time or made noise to open the wall so dumped it in the sofa and was doing it to try and foil Katei's plans.

-- Question 47: Who hid the Past Sekimeiya--
This is just after the fake Seki is found, they return with it to the Event Room to find the Past Seki is already gone from the cabinet.

This was a good mystery to solve, requiring detailed examination of the prior floor search and possibilities for yoinking the Past Seki out of there without being spotted. The main suspects were Sai B and Naomi A. Sai guards the Hallway B door to the Event Room whilst Akaro and Shiroya search Hallway B rooms, whilst Hallway A is covered by Atsuki. After the search the group reconvenes in Hallway C before Sai re-searches the storeroom and finds the fake seki in the sofa. Noone is in the Event Room throughout the search and whilst they are talking. This gives someone who teleports into the Event Room the chance to steal the Past Seki and exit, hiding it in Hallway B rooms which are clear for a minute. Sai was the most likely candidate for a teleport in to steal it.

Naomi A is also potentially loose on the floor here with the most likely hiding places being the lobby, the elevator or the store room partition (which would trap her because of Hallway C people). But she would have the chance to run in and steal the Seki whilst the Hallway C people were there.

Sai also has a risky chance to enter the Event Room and steal it whilst the searchers on his Hallway B side are in rooms, which is the correct answer. I voted Sai because he could either do it this way or teleport in from the future (he could also help his future self escape because he was the Hallway monitor). In the end I thought it was dissapointing he just stole it whilst being Hallway monitor, because the other characters comment how extremely risky it would be to do this making it low on the likelyhood that it was the answer. But it was a great little mystery to solve.

-- Question 48: Who caused the three elevator trips?--
This is another fun little mystery and I used Paint to try out different combinations of travels. This makes it clear that Akaro B is the most likely suspect, along with you knowing he probably is the Akaro that ends up in the bathroom killing Naomi A. The big hurdle is that on Floor 2, Erina and Isla don't hear the elevator so anyone travelling through would need to manually stop on their floor (without opening the door) and go down again, so they wouldn't hear it. It also doesn't explain why the elevator user doesn't worry about moving past Sai, which is the movements he hears. I don't recall the game really explaining this, or excactly what Akaro B's movements are around here, so would love some more clarification from anyone?

I am also really unsure about the sequence of events in Route 3 with Naomi+Shiroya's murders, the world switching, and the subsequent elevator movements. I spent ages trying to crack this. From Shiroyas perspective in the store room it is very hard to figure out when a world switch is occuring, how Akaro killed the girls and got away, whether he used a Seki to escape and whether he can do it and still make it up to the floor he comes to. And later he emerges with a Seki, but its unsure if this is the same Akaro. Maybe the Chart will shed some light on this but an order of events from anyone who knows would be super handy.

-- Question 49: Then where did he hide it?--
This is asking where Akaro hides the Future Seki, the answer being the bathroom. Even though we know he kills Naomi in the bathroom and somehow dissappears, I couldn't pick bathroom because the Seki is not found in there with her body. I picked the cleaning room because although Past Atsuki is hiding in there watching the bathroom, I couldn't think of any other way to teleport Akaro out of the bathroom (you'd need a teleport range big enough to reach it). What I completely missed was that Past Sai turns up here with a Seki in his hipbag. Firstly I didn't have the timing of him coming in quite right, and secondly I didn't make the connection of the teleporting Seki logic that we are taught with Atsuki's attic experiments. I think this is a fair puzzle though and a good reveal if you didn't piece it all together.

-- Question 55: Where was Katei after we travelled with the cart?--
This was a sneaky one where my attention to detail was rewarded, as I'd noted that Katei was close enough to the cleaning room to potentially get caught in Atsuki + Shiroya's travel with the cleaning cart. Good little test of a very small detail that a lot of people understandably didn't pick up on.

-- Question 58: The culprit evaded us using the secret partition..--
You choose a number of times they evaded us (the answer is none). I had an issue with this question in that you have to spot and remember a much later on comment in Chapter 1 by Atsuki about the fingerprints still being the same (meaning it hasn't been touched since the original opening). This is pretty brutal but fair, I guess. But the wording is also too vague about the initial fingerprints, they say 'recently', which still leaves room for someone maybe going into the partition early in the day.

I had a lot of uncertainty around Naomi A's movements in World B who I was keeping in mind through detailed examination of the early day's events. She gets trapped in the Attic initially and comes down via elevator when Katei murders Naomi B. Then she manages to avoid being caught in multiple sweeps of the building until her eventual death in the bathroom. At multiple points the most likely places she can be is upstairs in the office floors, in the elevator, or in the storeroom hidden partition. For me it seemed quite likely she'd used the storeroom hidden wall once or twice. I did enjoy having to puzzle out her movements though, but I did think her eventual elevator shenanigans to reach Floor 4 was really unbelievable.

-- Question 59: How did we make it to January 5th?--
I chose they had all been in the Nov 24th before, because I was convinced the info I'd dug up on the 24th was a vital clue. But I think the correct answer of travelling to the future more than once makes sense when you are faced with the multiple choice and it would have been my second choice. However I presume no-one could have guessed that would happen via infinite looping activations. Totally mad, but very cool.

-- Question 67: Who killed Katei B?--
This is Katei who is killed at the computer.
A third of players surveyed including me picked Akaro A, our murderous buddy who we know is in this world around this time of day. I'm sure most players think that the same culprit attacked Katei and Erina even later on in the game. Erina does have Katei's blood on her, but it seems logical that she gets conked on the head when she discovers his body and falls into his blood. So it was quite the unexpected twist that she was the killer! I dig it though, it makes sense, I'm surprised 13% of players got it! Would love to hear the thought process for people on this one.

-- Question 79: Who killed Erina A?--
Well, we never saw this coming, as only 5% of us got it right (I didn't!). Good one though. It's Miiya, if you forgot. During Miiya's route, I did mentally flag up the missing time she had here as a bit suspicious, but that was forgotten by the end of the game. I think this one although a cool twist does seem impossible/unfair on the player because it relies on a load of stuff the player has almost no chance to figure out regarding the activity in the attic and the placement of a Seki up there. I understand this is more of a twist reveal but if you want people to actually have a chance at solving it, we'd need some more tidbits or a later game hint maybe from Atsuki giving us a little contradiction or a more definitive fix on a Seki up there we could build a theory on.

-- Question 84: Who else world switched to world B?--
Given the massive spread of answers here by the players, its clear that at least in English the wording of this question is largely to blame rather than people not knowing the answer. I got it right (Naomi C), but I was really unsure if that was what was being asked. The wording of the question talks about groups who have world switched without specifying who is counted in those groups. So its really hard to figure out who is already counted by the question. It would have been better to list the members of each group that world switched, and then ask who else world switched with them.

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-----Overall Question Feedback-----
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In general I found that for the rest of the questions not mentioned, I had mixed results. Some that I got wrong I felt I deserved to fail, and could have gotten with more digging. Some I got wrong towards the end because I got bored of checking my timelines and notes in detail, and ended up picking what felt right without double checking. The game starts losing me completely with the hypothetical loop stuff, the watch behaviour, and the item carried logic, but wisely it doesn't quiz you much on that stuff. I do appreciate how well thought out those elements are even if it can be very hard to follow at times. The advanced Seki/item transfer logic does hurt the detective work though in the game, there are certain mysteries there's no way you can solve without knowing exactly how specific mechanics work. Stuff like Sai in the cleaning room I knew vaguely what was going on but could never nail down, and the actual answer was insane. At a certain point during chapter 5 you just have to accept there are a bunch of mysteries or theories you have that will just get steamrolled though seki mechanics you had no chance of knowing.

Another issue is tracking Seki locations at exact times, especially in the last chapter when you get a ton more info on their movements. By this point its just too exhausting to track every movement, and maybe at this point it would have been nice to get the Chart tool for confirmed Seki movements to refer back to. You also don't know here whether its even worth logging some of the info you are getting, as it might be the last time you'll need it.

On the plus side in the end-game before, after and during Chapter 5 there are ton of nice self contained mysteries you can unpick, a bunch of which are added to with the extra info you gain in chapter 4 and 5. It's possible to come up with reasonable theories for a lot of the stuff you have incomplete info on. Some of the questions asked of the player do give you new info you need for them just beforehand and the plot summaries are good to remind you what happens in the leadup to each question. For the most part, it was fun and satisfying going through Chapter 5 getting your knowledge tested. Many of the questions although hard, at least have good reveals or are explained well if you got them wrong, and you don't feel too hard done by (with some exceptions).

My main issue with tracking the game's mysteries was as some of the reviews say, down to the complexity of documenting it all. Even with all the info in spreadsheet form, the game is very loose with specifying timeframes (of course this is deliberate because its obscuring past/future travels), but it makes it incredibly hard to line up events with each other in a practical sense for figuring out what activations might cause world swaps, seki locations and so on. Once tracking 3 Sekis per world was in, plus the world swap overlap mechanic, it became too much. I did manage to keep tabs on a bunch of the Sekis and their activations until Chapter 5 (especially in World B), but pretty much gave up during Chapter 5, it would have been hours more plugging info into my documents for not much gain. However, for the work that I did put in and times it did pan out, it was very rewarding to figure out some of the stuff that was going on.

I am intrigued by the Sai and Isla final riddles, but having spent 2 hours trying to figure out Isla's accidental death in chapter 4 using Paint, potential order of events and a dream, I think I'm done with those (and that was before I knew about the greyed out Seki hiding in the blackness in her cabinet!).

Anyway, I know a miniscule number of people will read a megapost like this, let alone respond to more than one or two of the questions. But its been theraputic to get it all out and would love to hear from anyone else invested in the mysteries of the game. And I bow down to you, developer, for creating a time hopping mystery of such complexity. I have no idea how you would even go about constructing something like this. I am buying the dev book to find out! Thank you for this game and I hope you will create more mysteries in the future and learn from this one. Your mind is a wonderful thing!