Getting Started + Tips 'n Tricks

A guide to help you get started understanding the mechanics of Lingo without giving you the solutions to any of the puzzles.

Intro

This guide was originally a way to publish my own notes on solving the puzzles in game and share with any prospective players the mechanics. Now that I've beaten the game and most (but not all) the puzzles therein, hopefully my more complete guide will help others tackle the complete challenge this game has to offer.

If you need more specific help, feel free to ask, either directly or in the comments, the spoiler tags are done here as a courtesy to the reader, but I have no qualms about giving direct solutions if you really need the help.

Getting Started

Most of the things I'll be going over here are available in the start of the game in the 'tips' section, but I'll go over them here as well in case you missed it.

• WASD and arrow keys move
  
• Left click and Enter allow you to start 'solving' a puzzle, for whatever reason Left click never worked for me, so you might need to just rely on the Enter key.
  
• Music and 'Hints' are activate-able in the Settings section on launch. The music is pretty generic stuff, but the 'Hint' mode can be useful as it aims to show you how many letters are in a specific puzzle, clearing it out if you guess incorrectly.
  
• You can return to the first room of the game in the pause menu. Given how labyrinthine the game is you might find yourself using it a lot in order to re-orient yourself.
  
• The more puzzles you complete the more doors you open, most shut doors are marked as such but a few are simply hidden until you meet the requirements, a few are even hidden behind fake walls. Explore thoroughly and backtrack often.
  
• Decent knowledge of the English language is required to play. Even given that you might want to play with a few 'supplementary resources'. A thesaurus and rhyming dictionary are both helpful, an anagram finder isn't bad either.
  
• Paintings, for the most part, are ways to fast travel, jumping into a painting is a good way to get to certain puzzle sections quickly.
  
• If a puzzle seems like it has too many potential answers, try using any that have been used as answers before. Answers will be reused in this game quite often, albeit in different contexts; particularly the words you find in the very first room.

Basic Mechanics

Getting into how the puzzles actually work, there are 4 different things that determine the solution to each word block.

• The word itself. Obviously the solution of the puzzle is going to be dictated by the word on the block.
  
• The 'height' of the word block. There are 3 different ways the word can be placed physically in game and it changes how the word should be interpreted.
  
• The color of the word block. By my count there are 9 different 'major' colors and at least one 'minor' color. But it's possible that I've missed some obscure corner of the game and am wrong on these numbers, it's a pretty big game!
  
• The size of the word block. Word blocks can be many connected blocks of color, and it seems that the number of connected blocks and even the way that the blocks connect off of the primary word block may change how the puzzle acts. This rule is not always 100% consistent, but it is something to pay attention to.

Location

Figuring out how location alters the puzzle is the main stumbling block to making progress in the game, as soon as you understand how blocks at different heights change the puzzle solution, the rest of the game is much easier to understand. So in this case: Beware! Reading this section spoils the major mystery of unraveling the game!

• Puzzle blocks at eye level or 'the middle' reference the actual spelling and construction of the word.
  
• Puzzle blocks on ground level or 'the bottom' reference the meaning of the word.
  
• Puzzle blocks one above eye level or 'the top' reference the phonetics of the word or how it actually sounds.
  
• Puzzle blocks that are part of a wall or door are usually at eye level and function the same as an eye level block, but there are exceptions to this rule on both parts. A few wall puzzles are above eye line but still function as they are, and a few are at eye line but function as if they were not, you kinda just gotta figure it out based on context.

Size

The 'size' of a puzzle block, or how many puzzle blocks make up a single unit does seem to effect the puzzle, though sometimes inconsistently. I would say it effects the 'magnitude' of the puzzle, how many times you need to perform the base function of the blocks color. There even are a few puzzles that twist this by connecting blocks from multiple colors, meaning you have to apply several different rules in conjunction.

What should also be paid attention to is how the blocks get added on. Adding blocks to make it 'deeper' mean that the same effect is repeated several times. Adding blocks to make it 'taller' means that the answer spans multiple game mechanics.

That being said, there are places where it seems that the size doesn't really matter or isn't applied evenly.

Color - White

The theme of white is 'unchanged'. White deals with the word as is and is the first puzzle color you will encounter

• White - Middle - Literally (ha) just write the word as you see it on the block, that's the way to solve these.
  
• White - Bottom - The solution should be a synonym of the word on the block, something with the same meaning as the word you see. This is part of the reason I recommend a thesaurus.
  
• White - Top - The solution should be a homonym of the word on the block. More specifically, write a real word that sounds like how the word on the block sounds, sometimes this will be a different spelling, sometimes this will be the same spelling, try both.

Color - Black

The theme of black is 'inverse'.

• Black - Middle - The solution should be the word as it appears on the block, but backwards.
  
• Black - Bottom - The solution should be the antonym of the word on the block; the word that has the opposite meaning of the word that appears.
  
• Black - Top - This one can be a little funky. The solution should be a word that sounds like how you would say the word if you were to read the word backwards. It should be noted that this will always be a real word, so you shouldn't just write the word backwards, but rather, write it backwards then think about real words that are close to how that would sound when you say it out. Luckily there's not too many of these.

Color - Red

The theme of red is 'subtraction'

• Red - Middle - The solution should be the puzzle word minus a letter. Once again this should form a real word. There might be multiple possible solutions to each block so if one doesn't work keep guessing.
  
• Red - Bottom - The solution should be a word that is related to the puzzle word, but a lesser state of it, for example, a molecule has atoms, or a hive has bees.
  
• Red - Top - The solution should be the puzzle word minus a whole syllable. Do the clapping thing if you need to.

Color - Blue

The theme of blue is 'addition'

• Blue - Middle - The solution should be the puzzle word plus a letter. Once again this should form a real word. These in particular can be pretty hard to guess, luckily they are usually words that are repeated elsewhere, so just look at the solutions around you.
  
• Blue - Bottom - The solution is a 'scaled up' version of the puzzle word. A building makes up a city, a leaf makes up a tree; think along those sorts of lines.
  
• Blue - Top - The solution should be the word plus a whole syllable.
  Not too many of these puzzles, which is good because they're rough.

Color - Purple

Purple is a combination of Red and Blue, and as such its mechanic can be seen as 'replacement'

• Purple - Middle - The solution should be the puzzle word with one letter 'replaced'. Once again this should form a real word. There might be multiple possible solutions to each block so if one doesn't work keep guessing. These tend to be tricky as it isn't always a 1:1 trade, often the solution word has one more or one less than the clue word. Sometimes it will even remove a letter on the front and add one on the back. Purples are very unpredictable.
  
• Purple - Bottom - I don't recall seeing any of these puzzles during my playthrough. If you manage to encounter it, best of luck!
  
• Purple - Top - The solution should be to replace a syllable in the puzzle word

Color - Yellow

The theme of yellow is 'rearrangement'

• Yellow - Middle - The solution should be an anagram of the word on the block.
  
• Yellow - Bottom - There is one of these in the game and I never managed to figure it out. Best of luck if you're stuck here!
  
• Yellow - Top - The solutions should be a rearranging of the syllables in the word to form a new one.

Color - Green

The theme of green is 'environment' or 'hidden'

• Green - Middle - The green puzzles in general are pretty annoying, it's not too difficult to figure out what's going on but it's hard to solve regardless. The puzzles will have you navigating a hedge maze and the maze itself will spell the word that solves the nearby puzzle block. It's not incredibly difficult to solve the puzzles but it is extremely disorienting trying to just navigate the maze.If you can, try to get out of bounds, there are a couple locations where you can do so throughout the game and if you manage to get over to the hedge maze, it's very easy to see all the words clearly and even solve the puzzles from a distance.
  
• Green - Bottom - These puzzles involve observing a nearby 'mural' to find the words/numbers associated with the clue on the puzzle. Some of these are a little awkward to decipher but most of these are a lot more obvious than you would expect.
  
• Green - Top - From what I've seen these don't occur in the game. At any rate, green doesn't follow the position rules anyway, so just keep an open eye on your surroundings if you somehow find this combo

Color - Brown

The theme of brown can be thought of as the passage of time or cause and effect.

• Brown - Middle - The solution to these puzzles should either be a modern version of an 'Olde Timey Worde' or an 'Olde Timey' version of a modern word. Think 'thee' and 'thou'.
  
• Brown - Bottom - The solution to this puzzle should reflect the passage of time on the puzzle word. A seed becomes a tree, a child becomes an adult.
  
• Brown - Top - I did not encounter this on my playthrough, if you manage to do so, best of luck!

Color - Orange

As a non-spoilerish note, I would recommend the player actively keep track of where orange puzzles are located, as solving all of the orange puzzles is necessary to progress further down the ending path, and they are all in locations that are fairly hidden. Tracking them back down can be a hassle once you do figure out how to solve the Orange puzzles on your own, so keep track of them!

orange only has a middle block, and if you're playing normally you won't find out how to solve them until very late in the game, though you might have some suspicions on how they work if you're paying close enough attention. Oranges use a cipher, each number 0-9 has a corresponding letter, and the puzzles will be solved by either decoding a series of numbers straight over, or translating letters to numbers, performing a basic addition, then translating the numbers back to letters to form a new word. Below is the code.

1 = W
2 = A
3 = N
4 = D
5 = E
6 = R
7 = L
8 = U
9 = S
0 = T

Color - Gray

This is what I would consider a 'minor' color, so I'll keep it simple. Treat gray puzzles like they are asking you a question, it's that simple, it's based on context.

[dscflyboy1]

I know of three bottom yellow puzzles.

[SergeWind]

this is a very good guide but i'm stuck in apple room with bottom black [Hill] and top yellow [Mask] in the same collumn and i cant figure it out, no matter what i think of the answer is not it.

[TheJodake]

@msipp27 I may be a bit late, but for the block you’re describing, try reversing the SOUNDS of the word, not the letters. Hope this helps someone!

[ggzel]

There is actually a bottom orange block. Haven't figured out what it is yet, but it does exist. (After a sequence, all bottom, of White, Black, Red, Yellow, Blue, Purple.

[Solly]

Literally the most helpful thing ever, got me going on my game play because I had no idea what to do at first, so just even knowing that the color and location of a word had an effect was massive... Thank you!!

[Hawthornstar]

bottom purple seems to be another type of the object

[msipp27]

does anyone know the solution to the black tame block, it's driving me bonkers

[LOUiECOG]

For yellow bottom It's mixing up the actual object listed. Example is eggs mixed up become scrambled eggs. In case you want to update the guide.

[slaughtered | trade.tf]

the answer to the bottom yellow one is butter

[NOTFORSALE]

Does anyone know bottom purple? I came across it in the purple room, and I don't know how to solve it. Context Clues: it's the same answer as a top puzzle with the word of "morgue" but that's all I got.