How to Beat the Game (Knock Knock)

Having trouble with surviving a night? Want to know how to get all the endings? Read this guide to find out more!
Contributor: Thanks to Sir Faulty for the game donation!

Introduction

Here you will find various survival tips and gameplay info.

The Game

You are the Lodger. You live alone in a woodsy area. Strange things have been happening lately. And on one particular night, someone knocks on your door. That night seems to last forever, with constant nightmares and trips into the dark woods to look for the suspicious.
You must decide if there is a little girl outside who wants to stay in your lodge, or if it is a hideous monster whose out for your head.

• During the "nightmare" phases of this game, you must survive an onslaught of lightning strikes which open otherworldly breaches and let creatures into your home. These creatures will send you deeper into your nightmare, making it longer until you wake up - possibly resetting the nightmare phase if you bump into too many creatures. Other things can warp you into an endless hallway, which will resrart the specific nightmare on exiting an open door. Those would be breaches (press action at a wall with an eye on it) and doors with "something wicked behind them".
  
  
• During the "awake" overworld phases, you wind up the clock toward sunrise and check the woods for anything suspicious. You need to completely wind the clock to sunrise to complete the game successfully. If you waste too much time after a creature appears hovering over your lodge in the "awake" phase, you will not fully wake up and will fall into insanity. Running out of time after the creature appears above your house will give you the very bad ending and you won't complete the game. After a creature appears above the house, "awake" phases become more difficult, with stationary guests everywhere in the woods. You'll need to avoid them and return to your house. You may still see the girl in the forest, and she can still give you reality fragments. There are 8-9 different fragments to collect but you only need 6 of any to get the good ending.

There are 3 endings to this game:
Very bad ending --> described above
Bad ending --> wind the overworld clock to sunrise with the horror above
Good ending --> wind the overworld clock to sunrise with the girl above

Roadmap

To complete the game at all, you must survive 6 nightmares and the timed trial PLUS

• find a reality fragment in each pair of nightmare-awake phase for the GOOD ENDING (before the timed part preferrably. (I'll describe an easy way to go about this later, just make sure you get a total of 6 fragments - whether collected in the nightmare or while you were awake)
  
• ignore the girl in the forest and the Endless Hallway for the BAD ENDING

---OR---

• fail the timed trial for the VERY BAD ENDING (run out of white lightning and the next time you exit the house on the awake phase you will get a "Game Over" screen)

Roadmap:

How to Spend your Nightmare AND How NOT to Spend your Nightmare

There are several ways you should consider spending your night and a few specific ways you should NOT spend your night(mare). Here are some of those tips:

How to spend your EARLY nightmare:

• exploring as many rooms in a straight line as possible (makes it easy to avoid danger, if needed)
  
• turning on lights as soon as you enter a room (you don't have to be directly under a light)
  
• opening locked doors
  
• idle in as many rooms as possible for a chance at "remembering" clocks
  
• "remembering" furniture
  
• "remembering" more furniture in the same room
  
• staking out a ladder to "idle" on

OR if you missed the girl in the forest and still want credit toward the good ending:

• finding as many clocks as possible
  
• unlocking doors
  
• exploring breaches and wicked doors

How to spend your MID nightmare:

• activating all the clocks you found
  
• fixing nearby breaches
  
• checking out anymore rooms
  
• making sure you hide if you you hear a girl's voice and see foot and handprints on the wall
  
• staying zoomed out (if all lights are on, or if idling on a ladder)
  
• staying zoomed in (if anywhere except a ladder or if you haven't turned all the lights on nearby)

How to spend your LATE nightmare:

• exiting breached rooms if you cannot close the breach before an eye appears
  
• running away from stuff to a ladder or hide if you will be outrun
  
• idling on ladders (i.e. get on and don't get off. If you need a break, make sure the coast is clear)
  
• avoiding everything except ladders if you weren't able to fix all breaches

How NOT to spend your nightmare:

• hiding the entire time
  
• hiding in long rooms (because the longer you try to hide, the more nervous you get)
  
• using the same hiding place twice in a row
  
• idling near a door if you've missed any breaches
  
• getting off a ladder into a room with handprints (they must disappear before it's safe)
  
• turning on a light in a room with a stationary guest
  
• trying to fix a light in a room with a moving guest
  
• trying to fix breaches that are far away (more than 2 small or 1 large room lengths away)
  
• deciding LATE in the night you want to unlock doors or explore breaches and wicked doors

Other Stuff

The Diary and How to get all the Pages <--(click for the link for that guide)

Problems with idling

It goes without saying every benefit has its drawbacks.....
When you "idle" on the ladders:

• You cannot receive warnings
  
• Lightning strikes may cause you to forget which way you were going on the ladder

So, if you're going for the completion achievements, idle on ladders during the time trial, in addition to "remembering" clocks. Otherwise, try not to idle on ladders and just play casually - remembering as many things as possible before finishing the night or activating clocks. Hide behind furniture as needed!

Exploring the woods:

The forest is a curious thing - you may hear noises like leaves crunching, a songbird, owl, or raven in the forest. Despite the mystery surrounding the woods - they are surprisingly easy to explore.
If you travel straight out, "horizontally" (left or right) you will eventually come back to the same place. This can be proven by finding your house and walking away from it. You will eventually come back to your house.

The forest is much less thick "vertically". You pass through 3-4 layers before returning to where you were. To prove this, find your house and travel vertically past it. Note that if you go diagonally, you may lose sight of your house as it takes up a big portion of the screen. Also if you are "behind" your house, you won't see it. This is why you should travel a full 3-4 layers vertically if you lose sight of your house.

Finding your house or the girl in the woods:

• Travel vertically "Up" and diagonally to cycle through the forest and find your house or the girl in the forest.
  
• When you find your house, press "Up" when in front of the yellow-lit doorway to enter and proceed to the next nightmare phase.
  
• An easy way to find your house or the girl is to go "Up", pass a tree, go up again, pass another tree, etc.
  
• The reason I recommend going "Up" instead of "Down" is that you can see what's ahead. This is essential in the time-trial because you can encounter many stationary guests in the woods.
  
• If you see the girl off in the distance, approach with your face pointing toward her.
  
• Travel vertically toward her when you're within a tree's width or two of her. She might disappear, but you may find her again and again until the screen blanks out to a reality fragment.
• I've never found more than 1 fragment per awake+nightmare cycle, so I wouldn't recommend wasting time in the woods or Endless Hallway if you've got your 1 fragment. Just start looking again once you wake up.

Diagram of how to search the forest:


Breaches:

• Occasionally, you might go to a room where lightning struck and see an eye looking through the wall. The eye means a breach is active. If you are within 1 long rooms length or less from a breach, it can usually be closed without penalty. You can choose to fix an ACTIVE breach at a minimal time penalty OR just leave it open. Beware if multiple breaches have opened, they may leave you EXTRA vulnerable to breached rooms because a guest can bump into you or a light may take longer than normal to fix.
  
  The Endless Hallway:
  
  
• If you press "Action" at the eye in a breached room, you will land in the Endless Hallway. You may also get there by opening a door with "something wicked" behind it. When you enter an open door in the Endless Hallway, it will return you to the start of a Nightmare - but with all doors you've already opened unlocked (unless a guest closed them) (you may notice this because sometimes your starting room is locked).
  
  
• When I've exited the Endless Hallway, I've gotten a Reality Fragment. Again, this really depends on whether you got one from the girl in the awake phase just before. If you enter a closed door in the Endless Hallway, you will stay in the Endless Hallway (although the wall textures may look different).

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[Saria]

How do I fix the breaches? I haven't played in a while and was just reading up on it in case I want to try it again - is it fixing the light or something else?

[Stigma]

There are actually four endings

[SonofTzeentch9]

(continued from below...)

Since the game has no saves I'm not gonna replay the whole game to test this hypothesis to get the best ending, so good luck to anyone out there giving it a shot.

...

Unrelatedly, you can in fact avoid sanity damage from stationary guests standing around in the dark by facing away from them and then turning on the lights. Did this once by accident and re-tested it the next time I got the opportunity to - seems completely safe to do and does in fact de-spawn them as the light turns on.

[SonofTzeentch9]

I'm also confused at what exactly is meant with timed trial here.

As far as I can make it out, and from checking youtube, there's actually 4, not 3 endings.

One criteria for good/bad endings are the fragments, the other is the white lightning bar.

I'm very uncertain about this, but apparently your white lightning bar doesn't always reset between levels (just sometimes?); I assume it only resets if you lose your mind out in the woods, but in the portion of the game that takes place in the house, every time you screw up the damage to your bar is permanent (again, just guessing from my own experience, as I don't understand what this guide is saying).

I got the "bad" version of the good ending (had enough fragments, but not enough white lightning bar). The other three endings seem to be dependent on having the other three possible combinations (no bar and not enough fragments, enough bar but not enough fragments, both enough bar and fragments).

cont...

[dallas]

does anyone tried play the weird game from the pages in the game?

[Cat Harsis]

Can anyone explain in more detail how the "timed trial" works?
I find this to be highly ambiguous, I thought the lightning was my sanity/reality affinity.
When and how does the clock run? This was very confusing and very frustrating. :/

[ALE199]

I wonder if anyone in the late game with like guest right next to him and he's like "I know the game is timed now and I might lose a lot of time or even restart the stage and even get a very bad ending but let me just fix this light".

[o0Champ0o]

How the flipping heck, can I find that girl easily?

[Amt]

Thanks for the guide by the way~

[Amt]

Never mind, I believe it's connected to the "Babysitter" achievement. I didn't have time to look it up properly earlier lol.