The Secret Total Ending - Going beyond the True Ending.

This guide explains how to do the secret total ending. Contains spoilers and answers. Obviously.

Special thanks goes out to the AwSW fan discord for help with this.

This guide updated and valid as of November 12th, 2018.

Finding the Orb.

So, you beat the True Ending, you saved the dragons and humanity all in one go.

Was that really all there was?

Nope. The adventure isn't over yet.

The first step is to find the orb. To do this, you need to start a new game and in Chapter 2, go to Tatsu park. Once there, go north in the park and open the hatch. (button, button, counter-clockwise) Inside, there will not be a bloody bandage anymore, but this time a mysterious orb.

NOTICE: If you hadn't gotten the achievement to get the bloody bandage, you can no longer get it. You would have to delete your save files and start all over to get it.

You are given the option to back away from it, or to go forth and touch it.

Go ahead, touch the orb.

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OH NO. ALL THE SAVE FILES GOT DELETED! WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT?

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Nah, just kidding. This is just the first step, but there are conditions in order to proceed. Once you rest in your apartment, you are given that very first choice of the game again.

• Choice: Feel responsible or adventurous?
  
• "I felt the responsibility placed on my shoulders."
  
• "I was eager for the adventure to come." (This option adds an extra line in the True Ending)

The thing about that above choice at the beginning of the game is that it gives you an extra line in the True Ending. It's where Izumi asks you if it was all worth it. and you'll tell her that it was.

Now you sleep. You'll suddenly awake later to Izumi dragging you through the grass. She takes you to a forest and has you dig a hole. A grave. Who is it for? Well, that depends. You tell her that you remember everything.

She then takes you to her hide out and introduces you to her computer and once you engage with it, the computer does a check on how many achievements you have.

Now, I am not talking about how many Steam achievements you currently have, but the actual achievements your save file has counted this far in the game. Your progress. If you have LESS THAN 60 achievements, the computer will deny you access. At this point, Izumi will put you back to sleep and you are sent back to the title screen. It is assumed she kills you, because you truly do not know enough information. You dug your own grave.



Notice: If you deleted your save files and only started playing the game again, your achievements were set back to ZERO. (Does not affect your Steam achievements unlocked.)

To see how many achievements you have during the game, open the system menu, and navigate to achievements.



But if you have at least 60, then the computer will let you in and you can proceed to the next section below.

The computer.

Okay, so you are now in the system. Be careful about what you click.

The computer gives us a few options to choose from.

• Choice: What to do?
  
• Database search
  
• Tennis
  
• Egg count
  
• [Give up.]

If you click [Give up.], you basically admit to not knowing enough, and Izumi will kill you. Back to the title screen you go. You shouldn't need to click this unless you forgot something.

Egg count basically counts how many eggs you have smashed. You know, the ones from your fridge each game. It's unclear to me why it counts them but, hey, good to know, I guess.

Tennis is basically a simple game of pong. We'll get to this at some point.



Let's go with Database search for now. Now, in the database, you can search various terms. Some have passwords, some do not. A few however, have passwords, but require more of the database to be unlocked in order to access them.

One thing you want to do, is look up the names of the 5 main characters, and the 5 side characters you can meet with in the game. Each one is password protected.

How do you figure out the passwords? There are a few ways. You can view their gallery images for possible hints. It could also be an item related to that character's story, or maybe something that describes that character.

To make it easier to discover the passwords to the characters, there is a password size limit to what you can type in the fields. (I.E. A password that is 5 characters long, will only let you type 5 letters.)

Below, I will list the characters and a proper hint. if you are still stumped, you can mouse over the spoiler tag to see the password.

Characters names and passwords

Notice: Some of the passwords CAN contain spaces in this section and ones up ahead. A space does count as part of the length. Also, passwords can be CASE sensitive. This means letters like... h and H are seen differently.)

Here are the 10 characters and a hint as well as their passwords. When you enter the right password, you are given a letter. Take note of it.

Remy - (Password length: 5) - What is he holding in his gallery image?
Answer: books

Anna - (Password length: 5) - What is she holding in her gallery image? It's something you put under a microscope.
Answer: slide

Lorem - (Password length: 13) - What item do you find and use to save his life?
Answer: ixomen sphere

Bryce - (Password length: 10) - What is he looking at in his gallery image?
Answer: bloodstain

Adine - (Password length: 10) - What is she trying to build?
Answer: sandcastle

Emera - (Password length: 10) - What would best describe her position as a Minister of Culture and Arts?
Answer: politician

Katsuharu - (Password length: 9) - What is he eating in his gallery picture?
Answer: ice cream

Kevin - (Password length: 7) - What is Kevin advertising when he hands out fliers? It's also something he discusses with you at your apartment.
Answer: college

Sebastian - (Password length: 9) - What is he swinging around his finger?
Answer: handcuffs

Zhong - (Password length: 9) - What could he be best described as with his politeness? A perfect...
Answer: gentleman

If you were able to guess any of them, well done. If not, don't feel bad at all.

Now you should have 10 letters. Try to unscamble them into two, 5-letter words. Whether you succeed in doing this or not, you can just scroll down onto the next step as I'll just reveal the results.

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One to zero.

So, from doing the password above, you would get these 10 letters.

A - O - C - T - R - C - U - S - N - D

Now, if you unscrambled them, you should get the two words: COUNT CARDS.

What does this mean? Well, you will get to that in a bit.

But next, a game of..... TENNIS! [The crowd cheers in excitement]

It can be slightly challenging, but once you win a game, it unlocks a new menu option to select.

@ctions

After beating the mini game, you can proceed to check out this new option.

• Choice: What to do?
  
• Database search
  
• Tennis
  
• Egg count
  
• Af %%2035sc @ctions
  
• [Give up.]

When you click Af %%2035sc @ctions, it will list 15 options. (Can feel overwhelming.)

You must proceed with utmost caution! Clicking the wrong one will give a fatal error, and you'll be back at the title screen. So, how do you find out which ones are safe? You could do trial and error... but... well, remember COUNT CARDS?

This is a hint to count the tarot cards in the game. (Grief, Passion, Loss, etc.)

To be exact, there are 13 of them. So, you will want to click Af %%2035sc @ctions 13.

This unlocks the Developer tools on the main menu.

Developer tools

So, now you can REALLY tinker with things with the new option.

• Choice: What to do?
  
• Database search
  
• Tennis
  
• Egg count
  
• Af %%2035sc @ctions
  
• Developer tools
  
• [Give up.]

Upon clicking Developer tools, you get told that access is denied. Oh, darn. However, you get told the password hint: "The Visionary's Vice." Well, what could that be? You can try to guess the password but you only 3 attempts, and after a failed attempt, you get sent to the menu listed above. (Not the title screen.)

You have a new name though: Visionary.

If you check the Database for it, you are told that this "Visionary" likes chewing gum.

Well, that's definitely a vice. Try that for a password.

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You might realize... you can't seem to type certain letters, no matter how hard you push that letter key. If you can't type a letter that is lowercase, try uppercase, and vice versa. If you don't quite get that, you can just hover over this: Try entering this exactly: cHeWiNg gUm

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And... BINGO! You are in the developer tools!

Inside the Developer tools

Alright, so once you are in, you get a few options to pick from.

• Variable Viewer
  
• Image Location Picker
  
• Filename List
  
• Go back

Go back returns you to the previous front menu.

Filename List simply opens notepad and lists various files, like the game's archive.rpa, and our save files, etc.

Image Location Picker lets you see all the spiffy images and backgrounds in the game.

Variable Viewer lists all the variables it keeps track of as you play the game.

So, where do you go from here? Let's investigate the Image Location Picker.

If you scroll down, you'll see the images are organized into various folders. You will want to view the ones down in under sy/.

When you scroll down a long way, you'll notice a second folder listed for that directory. Sy/upd perm #2/ , you'll also notice the 5 names of things listed. CTT, Isabel, Pavilion, STS, and metropolis.

What does this mean? In a way, you could say it means "Update Permissions #2". You can navigate back to the front menu, click Af %%2035sc @ctions , and then click Af %%2035sc @ctions 2. This updates permissions in the database, as the names above could not be searched and looked at before.

However, these names are more or less for additional information about things. What you want is that secret ending, so, let's work towards that.

Starting the total ending

So, while still in the Image Location Picker, browsing the images under sy/ is an image called holiday_home.png. Viewing it, you can see a distorted image. If you fix the image in a editor of some sort, you can more properly read the following note.

"What do you think?" - Marcus

That's interesting. Who is Marcus? Well, you have a name to search in Database, but trying to access it, requires a password. How do you find out what it is? Searching that sy/ folder some more under the images, you come across an oddly named image.

oxn dswoc-aw3.jpg

That's a weird name. It looks like its scrambled, but it actually a cipher. So, how do we read it?

If you exit the Image Location Picker and view the Variable Viewer, and scroll down, you'll find an entry that says:

Cipher = 16

What does this mean? Well, this type of Cipher is called a Caesarian Shift cipher. It means moving letters over by a certain N# of letters. For instance, if I was to have the word "bee" and used a cipher of 1, that message would read "cff". But in this case, you know the cipher is 16.

This means a=Q, b=R, c=S, etc. and it loops around to k=A, l=B, m=C, etc.

Applying this shift to the image name, you end up getting:

end times-qm3.zfw

So now, you have a password. Enter end times as the password for Marcus in the database.

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Uh-oh. Did you break it? The computer freaked out. Also, "Don't believe his lies?" What could that mean?

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Nah, you didn't break anything. However! You did help Izumi learn something. In any case, she puts you to sleep to awake in your apartment later. It's unclear if she did kill you or the other you. Anyways, now that you are back in the apartment for Chapter 1, it's time to play THROUGH the game to Chapter 5. Do it however you wish, but get to Chapter 5 and go with [EVERYONE] again.

The total ending concluded

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Once you meet up with Izumi again after all the events happen and she lays on the ground, this time, she tells you about what you did with the computer, about the phenomenon that lets you see and remember doing all these things before, and it allowed her to see the futures of other timelines as well. She tells you that you need to be prepared and gives you an item.

A necklace.

What is the purpose of it? That is a mystery that still hasn't been figured out. It is also still unclear who Marcus is. However, if you browse the Image Location Picker, and continue looking under sy/, you will notice an oddly amusing file named: a chimera's ivory nuts-aw2.jpg.

a chimeras ivory nuts. It's an anagram, and when you remove the name Marcus from the letters, you are left with: hieas ivory nt

If you remove the word the, you are further left with: ias ivory n , which at this point, don't those remaining letters look familar in a way? Have you seen them before? Further unscrambling should result in...

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Visionary.

Marcus the Visionary.

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What does this all mean? It's unclear, but this Marcus guy is definitely at the center of it all, and Izumi just might know who that is.

But with that said and done, once you got the necklace, and returned to the title screen after the credits, you'll see it on the very right side of the screen. It's small, but there.

Congratulations! You have completed the secret ending!

The game adds a +1 to the achievement counter in the game menu when you do further play-throughs to mark that you have done so.



Is there anything else beyond the secret ending? Only time can tell.

Full database listing (more or less)

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And for those who read through the guide, and have been guessing at names in the Database, here is more or less the names you can do a search for. Some are excluded because you can find them in the guide above. Some MAY need a password to view.

Note: The following five names require updated permissions to look at:


Isabel

Metropolis (Password: bastion - One of the images under sy/ in the Image Location Picker happens to have this file name.)


CTT

STS

Pavilion

The rest you can view with normal permissions. Most give a corruption error on purpose as there is no data to be found.


Amely
Aver
Cuthbert
Emissary
Francois
Haziq Aaqil
Heinz
Izumi
Maverick
Miles
Naomi
Nash
Operation Black Bird
Philanthropists
Portal
Remcom
Reza
Shiori
Soreil
Sy
Sybil
Talisman (Password: correcthorsebatterystaple - This password is a reference to a Password Strength comic by XKCD. I am unsure on how you are suppose to figure this out, but there you go.)
The Agency
The scarred one
Trevor
Vance
Vara

Extras + Clues uncovered so far...

In this section, I decided to try and gather whatever clues there are to put below. Make whatever you can of them.

Odd things I found:

- In chapter 1, we learn of Reza Izquierdo, his full name. What I found odd was his last name. It just sounded weird. Turns out that it is spanish for the word "Left" So, "Reza Left"? Did he leave someone or something or some place? It's unclear what kind of context this beholds.

- Otomo Izumi. It seems Otomo is japanese for Accompany... so "Accompany Izumi."
I can't help but wonder if this is referring to the secret ending, where we accompany her to her hideout? Still unsure about this context too.







Odd things others have found: Contact me to post stuff below.

[JeffMakesGames]

What do you mean you didn't find anything? This guide tells you everything you need to know.

[KLC158]

What do you mean an editor?! I didn't find anything!

[Ios Locarth]

I scrolled through the comments and didn't see anyone mention that after the secret ending, if you start a new game the system message is changed to "Do you want to glimpse the past, [Your Name]?" I'm not sure if this is important or if it's just a neat thing to signify that you've done the secret ending.

[Ios Locarth]

I really appreciated this guide, I had no idea this even existed until I was browsing the community HUB and saw it, prompting me to reopen the game after I finished getting all the achievements. I am curious how the devs intending anyone to figure out a lot of this without a guide.

[JeffMakesGames]

@MrFireWolf Maybe? We have no idea what the purpose of the necklace is yet.

The web comic has yet to answer it either.

[Isaac]

so that's it? the whole secret ending is the prelude of a sequel that ain't here yet? aw man, suspense is killing me D:

[Aquarax]

Thanks for the guide! You are the best! Now waiting for chapter 2 of the game

[JeffMakesGames]

No problem. It was a tricky puzzle to solve but the clues are there.

[Juicedrinker5000]

You're a fucking trooper my dude. THis was agony and I had your guide to follow.

[Suudsu]

After the true ending, System states that "it might be a good idea to keep your save file". It's possible that AwSW2 will recognize which endings you have completed, including whether or not you have the necklace..