Walkthrough WARNING:SPOILERS

[guydelta]

I posted this walkthrough on Reddit originally, but here is a tweaked version of it.

1. Click on the "To the curious grad student" text file on the desktop. There will be an email to a "[e-mail]" that one can email throughout the game for hints to the next step.
   
2. In the games folder, there is a game called "Block". Solving it gives a QR code, scanning it with my phone camera opens up cover art for a band Desaparecidos's album "Read Music Speak Spanish".
   
3. Clicking on some files require you to enter a password, but some will also give you password hints. I emailed "Sarah Borokova" asking about the "Homework '97 track 7" hint and the reply said to focus first on swinesweep.
   
4. Open the trash and click on the "Password". The binary there spells "Bacon's Cipher", a 5 character presentation of concealed text.
   
5. Playing and beating swinesweep and clicking on the smiley face asks for another password, however the grid is 5x8, so trying the "Bacon Cipher" (with 00101 = F, etc.) on the mine-pattern reveals the word "Freewill"
   
6. Typing it in reveals a whole bunch of hex, converted is 26.357891, 127.78378. Typing this in Google maps and turning on "Sattelite view" shows the "Batman symbol". I sent an email about this to [e-mail] and got a response that this must be one of the passwords.
   
7. Clicking on Distance asks a password and gives a hint "Homework '97 track 7", one that I mentioned earlier in point 3. I believe this refers to Daft Punk's song "Around the World", however I'm not sure yet, but Sarah did mention that length may play a role, which is 7:04, 7:09, or 4:01 for this track. Since the track is called "Around the World" the only thing I can think of is that it has to do with a map, so I typed "Batman" in reference to point 6 in here and got to play the game. I just played until an option "(4) Secret" appeared. This gives the password to the diary as "PARANORMAL". However, on reddit is a comment that you get to option 4 by following the Zip code of a location given in one of the password hints.
   
8. In the diary he mentions something about an ISBN number, a phone number, and adding an international dialing code while removing the + sign.
   
9. I emailed Sarah about the numbers in the photo album and she says that they might not be in the right order. Matching the photos with the captions give: Spreadsheet 18-58.
   
10. I emailed "Spreadsheet 18-58" to Sarah and got a reply that I need to look at the whole spreadsheet. I retyped it in Excel (a bit overkill, I know) and applied conditional formatting to highlight cells between the numbers 18 and 58. This showed the number "136" hidden in the sheet.
    Sidenote in case of confusion: values "Spreadsheet 18-58" comes from the photo album. If you open the album you will notice the photos and the captions doesn't match up, but each photo has writing on it. Now "rearrange" the photos to match the captions, e.g. for "Crossways" place the photo that has a crossway in the road. Once rearranged, write down the written values on the photos. Example, the first photo to match with the first caption contains the writing "Spreadsheet", the second contains the writing "1" etc. The clue "Spreadsheet 18-58" will come from this. After all this is done you can head over to the spreadsheet, and then in your mind, on a piece of paper, or excel color in each block whose value is between 18 and 58, this will give you the pin.
    
11. According to Sarah, the password for the MailZone is in the chatlog, for which we need the pin.
    
12. Typing 136 in chat pin opens the chat, searching "number" I found a password "leonard911" mentioned. In another chat is mentioned that the password is Catzilla, typing that into the mailzone says that the password was changed on 1984 02 13. This doesn't really help, since this date doesn't match up with any of the dates in the chat. However, starting with "genius" (First word entered into the chat by default) I kept picking key words in subsequent chat messages and eventually found that the password has been changed to "THEM54".
    
13. Now I can access the Mailzone. Looking in the sent mail I can get Herman's number as 124291, the dialing code for South Central Pensylvania before 2017 was 717, and the country code is +1, hence 1717124291. Looking this up shows the book "The Concept of Time Travel: How to witness your own birth". The word "Singularity" keeps popping up.
    
14. "Singularity" unlocks the floppy disk. There are 4 sound files, starting and/or ending with morse code. The first 3 files are from 1984, and the last one from 2022.
    
15. In the email there is also a link to "http://worldsgreatestcats.com/", in there is spanish, which translated means "Do not hesitate to take a look at more cats by clicking on link", referencing the album in point 2. This contains a link to a garbled sound file, emailing Sarah about it she says that I have to use the music clues I've been given.
    
16. Now I'm thinking "Read Music/Speak Spannish" again, so opening the mp3 with a text editor shows the link "http://sewingpatterns.blo.gg/". Going to the site and viewing the page source shows this message "Do you remember when I spoke with the woman? Listen carefully, you might have missed something. There are no more hints in the source code". Some files are named "read within the lines". May have something to do with a spectrum, I've been thinking of using a spectogram on the mp3, but so far no luck. I might have to listen to the morse-code pattern on the files on the floppy.
    
17. Recorded the audio on the floppy, and it gives the following messages "RED IS N", "BLUE IS E", "GREEN IS R", "TURQUOISE IS V", "PINK IS D", "ORANGE IS O" giving the pattern on the picture from the blog as "NEVEROD DOREVEN", the password for the research folder then is "NEVERODDOREVEN".
    
18. In the Research folder there is a file called introduction, clicking it Herman asks you who he is, answering "HERMAN" he will tell you that is his name, but "WHO AM I REALLY?"... still looking for this answer.
    
19. The final answer was a bit obvious, he asked "Who Am I?" and then the message prompt asks "WHO AM I?", thinking out the box, I remembered that the filename of the picture from the QR code in point 2 is "Remember Me", so I took a long shot and thought "I AM ME", so I typed "ME" and voila! Done!

[Ejdrienik.]

Put it in guide :D

[stardustsunday]

When I open the game "Block", it just shows me a jumbled pixelated mess - is that supposed to happen or is something wrong? There's nothing that can be pressed within the Block game

[[TFG] GamerCH @Mobile]

on 18. "WHO AM I REALLY?" The Answear is: "Me"

[stone.kc]

Okay, but I can’t email because it says no internet access?