[SPOILERS] There's gotta be a secret puzzle, right?

[Dunkarooni]

There's a chart on the library chalkboard.

There's a chart pinned up in the greenhouse.

Then there's both of those charts plus one more on the laboratory table. Sally mentions they are alchemic symbols. You can kind of match up the library chart with the laboratory chart, but it doesn't seem to give much info.

I'm going to start a new file over the weekend and see if I can find anything to do with this information. Of course this could be something of use in a future Grimoire game, but I feel like there's gotta be something I missed...

Has anyone else attempted to really figure this out?

[TehMillhouse]

I tried to solve it, but haven't gotten anywhere. I've been looking through the game's files, to at least get confirmation that solving the puzzle will unlock something, but the only mildly interesting thing I found is that the SoulBearer toy is internally called Harmonograph.

[KC]

The biggest mystery still left (aside from the notes in the greenhouse) for me is, why does Fifi have pictures of everyone, including us, in her room?
Was she the one who called us? what was the whole pictures about?

[Dunkarooni]

KC eredeti hozzászólása:

The biggest mystery still left (aside from the notes in the greenhouse) for me is, why does Fifi have pictures of everyone, including us, in her room?
Was she the one who called us? what was the whole pictures about?

I assumed she was just trying to solve the crime as well. I forgot about the whole "who called us" thing... I suppose it could be Fifi?

I've done another playthrough, but I feel like there isn't really anything left to solve. I think the whole alchemic symbols thing may just be some extra flavor and not really a hint at anything .... in this game anyway.

[RedFlames]

I'm not sure if I missed anything during the ending, but P. said she was more interested in the other 10% of the beetle? Was it explained what those are?

[Call]

Okay let's do this.
There are actually 3 charts and we learn the following from it :

1 (I) ==>π (pi) ==> Sulfur ==> A ==> 191
2 (II) ==> E (epsilon) ==> Mercury ==> B ==> 193
3 (III) ==> Omega==> Earth??? ==> C ==> 195
4 (IV) ==>Ypsilon (y) Saturn (Plomb) ==> D ==> 196
5 (V) ==>Theta =>Pluto =>E => 198
6 (VI) ==>Rho (???) => Sun / Gold ==> F=> 200
7 (VII) ==>Chi (X) Jupiter (Tin)=>G=> ==>201
8 (VIII) ==> Mars / Fer => H ==> 203
9 (IX)==>Lead ==> 206
10 (X) ==> Venus (Cuivre) ==> 207
11 (XI) ==> Moon / Silver==>209
12 (XII) ==>Uranus (211)

... I thought I was onto something with the Greek symbols which could start spelling as PEWY or PENNY... but then it's T Rho?Khi? X(chi?)

THen the chart with the A B C could be pretty intereting... A linking to a ???
... I thought it was some kind of family chart... referecing to the Pointers/ Fellow etc.

Tried to make it with the planets in the right order and find the logic with the numbers but to no avail.


SO! With this I can conclude THAT... the next poster needs to analyze this because I HAVE NO CLUE what this means...

... Maybe SB Games just wanted to torture us. Meh.

[Miklik]

I think I remember reading somewhere that they added more achievements after it was released? Nobody mentions the achievement in this thread, but there is one attached to these three... clues, I guess I'll call them? Did they add that achievement later? Are they trying to encourage us to think more about this?

[imgoinginsane]

Hi, still playing in 2021 and am losing my marbles over this "clue". Since the achievement was called "Alchemy or Chemistry" I figured maybe the "code" of notes might have something to do with the periodic table? Nothing.
I don't know enough about alchemy or chemistry to really look into anything too deep but yeah.
Also noticed that the notes on the chalkboard from the Library that list the "1,2,3,..." on top and the "191, 193, 195,..." on the bottom don't match up with the notes from the Laboratory... (5 or V is listed with 198 instead of 200. 7 or VII is listed with 201 instead of 206. etc.) But I couldn't make anything out of it.

[Call]

madwillowtree eredeti hozzászólása:

Hi, still playing in 2021 and am losing my marbles over this "clue". Since the achievement was called "Alchemy or Chemistry" I figured maybe the "code" of notes might have something to do with the periodic table? Nothing.
I don't know enough about alchemy or chemistry to really look into anything too deep but yeah.
Also noticed that the notes on the chalkboard from the Library that list the "1,2,3,..." on top and the "191, 193, 195,..." on the bottom don't match up with the notes from the Laboratory... (5 or V is listed with 198 instead of 200. 7 or VII is listed with 201 instead of 206. etc.) But I couldn't make anything out of it.

Haha read my message back in March I tried to do the same for no results...

[JWellingtonWells]

On the table nearby are beetles made of different materials, some of which are labeled with numbers. The achievement name, "Chemistry or Alchemy," is likely also a clue.

In chemistry, nuclear decay (such as ALPHA or BETA decay; see the alpha and beta letters in the diagram) can lead to different pathways that turn elements into each other. This can change the number of protons (for example, gold has 79 protons) and yield a different element. So you can get diagrams with forks and branching depending on what kind of decay happens.

On the periodic table, the atomic number ABOVE an element's symbol tells you which element it is. The number BELOW the element's symbol gives you its atomic mass (protons + neutrons, averaged across all isotopes, or versions) of an element.

Here's where my speculation comes in:

The atomic mass of gold is 196.967, almost exactly 197. The developers either confused atomic number with atomic mass, or else alchemy in this universe relies on atomic mass. (Neutrons don't affect an atom's elemental identity, but it's magic beetles, so who cares?).

What we're MEANT to get from this is that the pathways to get beetles made of components with atomic mass 191, 193, 195, 196, 200, 201, 206, and 209 have all been found! However, getting that mass 197 gold beetle has proven elusive.

Conclusion: All of these papers just show that it's hard to make gold in this world.

Let's suppose, however, you don't buy the "atomic mass 197" reasoning. We still get the same conclusion using another line of reasoning.

Overlay the Greek letter paper's general organization of boxes onto the hex grid from the lab. The only way the relative positions work is if the pi corresponds to position II in the grid. If you follow the line path, you visit the following places in the hex grid: II, I, III, IV, V, VIII, IX, XII, XI, X. In this path, VI and VII are never visited. The symbol for gold is on the hex labeled VI. In other words, all of the experiments have failed to yield gold!

[Red Raven Thorn]

If it *was* a secret puzzle, there'd have to be a way to input an answer, right? As far as I can tell, there isn't.

Unless it's an ARG or something, where solving it reveals a code that is also an IP address or something totally bananas. That'd be pretty wild, especially since most of the puzzles in this game are fairly straightforward. I think it's probably just gibberish, designed to make it look like there is stuff going on way beyond our comprehension.

One option could be, for anyone with the energy, grab screenshots of all 3 diagrams, and share them with, like, I bet there are cryptography or puzzle subreddits that would happily dig into something like this.

[Sved]

Things I can think of:

- 1st chart looks like a family tree, maybe possible to link back to the big one in the hall or the missing members
- I was looking into unicode input numbers for greek letters, thought about typing a word somewhere, but it doesnt seem to match
- I'm thinking the 2nd chart (from the green house) could be related to the 1st one, turned 90 degrees

[Peach Jelly]

Call eredeti hozzászólása:

... I thought I was onto something with the Greek symbols which could start spelling as PEWY or PENNY... but then it's T Rho?Khi? X(chi?)...

...

SO! With this I can conclude THAT... the next poster needs to analyze this because I HAVE NO CLUE what this means

I also translated the Greek letters into Latin alphabet and kind've got nowhere with that too, lol.

JWellingtonWells eredeti hozzászólása:

all of the experiments have failed to yield gold!

(I cut out most of the explanation you gave in the interest of saving space here), but, wow, this is a really well thought-out explanation! I'm satisfied with this.

----------------

As an aside...

KC eredeti hozzászólása:

The biggest mystery still left (aside from the notes in the greenhouse) for me is, why does Fifi have pictures of everyone, including us, in her room?
Was she the one who called us? what was the whole pictures about?

Yes, Fifi and Poppy were also trying to solve the murder; they said they came close to solving it at the end too. And I would not be surprised if they were the ones that anonymously hired us. (Although I don't really understand why they would have done so anonymously.)

[Afterglow]

KC eredeti hozzászólása:

The biggest mystery still left (aside from the notes in the greenhouse) for me is, why does Fifi have pictures of everyone, including us, in her room?
Was she the one who called us? what was the whole pictures about?

While I was playing the game today, a couple things stood out that pointed me in the direction of believing that Fifi was the one who anonymously hired us. Consider the drawings of Sally and Grimoire: they were drawn before we arrived, before we MET Fifi. And consider that the case file (given to us by the client) knew that the red on the painting = blood. Fifi is the one who performed that test in her lab.