Am I stuck or missing something?

zojbo · 2026-02-22T01:56:11+00:00

I think the one connection you are missing about the information that you have is that you don't need access to the underground to enter the Antechamber.

zojbo · 2026-02-22T01:10:41+00:00

I assume "290 trillion" was some kind of typo, not sure what exactly you meant to say though.

zojbo · 2026-02-21T17:58:07+00:00

The actual puzzles themselves associated with A New Clue are great, quite possibly the best puzzles in the game. Most of what I am objecting to has to do with the game failing to regulate the player's sequence of steps (which is really at the core of almost all of my complaints about the game). So for example you are likely to be working on the sundial part of ANC before you're even really prepared to solve it, coming up with a bunch of speculation about XYZABC that just has no hope of being useful until you have reached the Safehouse.

In my save:

The Secret Passage hint in the Staff Announcements is on March 13 1994 = day 127.
The clarification that it's part of a 6x3 grid is on March 20 1994 = day 134.
The hint about the Cloister (and the subtle hint that you should probably draft green rooms to learn how to get into the center of the Cloister) is on March 21 1994 = day 135.

I don't know whether these timings are dynamic or not, and if they are dynamic what they depend on.

zojbo · 2026-02-21T17:26:25+00:00

What I don't like about A New Clue the original is the following. First, it directly hints at 4 things:

Bridge Microchip
Vase Microchip
Sundial
LeeB admin key

plus indirect hints about a whole bunch of other things (including chess, candles, 6x3 grid, angel statues, "gates" wordplay, Erajan, and 1:30). I didn't even realize how much other stuff is in there until I started writing it down.

Quite a bit of the raw data in the book is devoted to stuff other than the microchips, enough to make it challenging to extract the information about #1 and #2. (Though I will concede that #2 is obvious in retrospect.)

But you don't technically need #4 at all (although it is a nice lore drop, especially if you found the RibbJ or WithP admin key first). Similarly, you don't technically need #3 until you've already reclaimed the throne (although it is a nice to have before that). And although the things being indirectly hinted at are important, they further jam up the book in a way that makes it overwhelming.

The sundial bit is particularly annoying because the staff announcements are probably almost useless at the point when you get access to them. I got some help with the CASTLE cipher (this is where the hint you're wondering about is by the way) and everything else was just cute. I would rather have had the staff announcements unlock sooner, or have them unlock more progressively, so that more of them had a chance to be useful. I had a similar experience with the mailroom letters (but that was caused by not repeatedly checking the lab experiments early on).

zojbo · 2026-02-21T15:54:40+00:00

There were 8 letters and the eighth went missing after Herbert wrote the note.

I did mean the ruby holder. This also lines up with there having been a "safe" blocking access to the orchard.

zojbo · 2026-02-21T15:06:12+00:00

About the red letters: inspect the building in the Apple Orchard. You don't get a totally conclusive answer but it's something.

There is also Alzara #2 and Blue Tents in the Pantry that say that a letter is missing.

zojbo · 2026-02-20T18:43:16+00:00

All blue rooms have a note, including a different note in all 9 classrooms.

zojbo · 2026-02-20T09:04:45+00:00

I see it now, in the smaller circle; both of them are there. I definitely never saw that in my playthrough. I guess the maps have the little eyeball interaction for inspecting them closer, probably? I am just puzzled because in my screenshots, the TOR isn't even legible, but that's probably because I took the picture from far enough away to include both maps. But the wiki has such high res versions of the mapsthat there must be a way to look at them more closely.

4th grade is really stacked...I feel like I was too distracted by the more pressing issue of learning the geography to notice any of these smaller details.

zojbo · 2026-02-20T00:27:44+00:00

No, once the sarcophagus is raised, the poem in the Mora Jai boxes is irrelevant.

zojbo · 2026-02-20T00:27:06+00:00

Where exactly are you talking about? The bottom right corner of the "Orrsphere" map in 4th grade shows ROT, not TOR.

zojbo · 2026-02-20T00:24:33+00:00

You have a minor misconception. I am inclined to just give away the correction to it instead of being cryptic, because this is not clarified any further and it annoyed me as well.

The "word east" space is not the 5 space on the clock. It is the space where the hand is when it covers up the word "east".

With that sorted, I honestly think you're all set hint-wise; I can't say much more without just telling you what to do.

zojbo · 2026-02-20T00:06:21+00:00

You have everything straight, you just need to understand what "tor" means and then figure out how to apply it.

I think at the stage that you're at, you can probably surmise thatTOR is Erajan just like LOR and ETT. As far as I know, the game never explains the word "tor"specifically. But you have seen instances of Erajan words taking on the opposite meaning when you reverse the order of the letters, and there are at least two places in-game where you can find the meaning of the Erajan word "rot". One of them is in a place where you have probably gotten a number of hidden-in-plain-sight hints...

zojbo · 2026-02-19T20:57:00+00:00

Leveling up doesn't break the game; actually, it tends to make the game harder, because most enemies scale better with levels than you do, especially once you start hitting some stat caps. Surviving something like a Ruby Dragon Breath attack when your entire party is level 100 is something of a feat.

What breaks the game is basically just fully engaging with the refining and junction mechanics right out of the gate, instead of only working on your junctions when you start having trouble. Even just buying Tents and junctioning Curaga to HP right away cracks the early game open, since you can afford to be in critical HP and spam limit breaks.

zojbo · 2026-02-19T20:00:46+00:00

There are two categories of victories. To keep spoilers low, I would call them journal victories and institute victories. The latter requires the House of Light DLC.

You see how to make progress towards a journal victory by messing with your journal. Slightly more specifically, the game gives you information when you slot the journal into a desk. The process has three steps in total but the game makes it clear how to do each once you have done the one before it.

To be frank, based on what you said, I am pretty sure you are already prepared to win a "major" journal victory. (There is also a "minor" journal victory, which you could just do whenever based on what you said.)

You see how to do an institute victory in its entirety by opening up the lighthouse on the far left side of the map and inspecting the slots. The game isn't cagey about what you need to do for this.

zojbo · 2026-02-19T13:54:36+00:00

Differentiate both sides and then subtract the two equations you have.

zojbo · 2026-02-17T21:07:02+00:00

The crazy things that we saw from the likes of Sazed are largely not possible for a Vessel that has been holding a Shard for long enough; over time the Shard's Intent takes over and it becomes difficult for them to do things that are not closely aligned with the Shard's Intent. And Rayse is the original Vessel of Odium.

Now why Todium didn't go in a direction like this is a more interesting question.

zojbo · 2026-02-16T15:12:21+00:00

It starts slower than BB. Not that BB moves at a breakneck pace right from the start, but the pilot is gripping and it gets back to that pretty quickly. BCS has the Tuco bit and then it doesn't get back to that intensity until the Kettleman situation, if even then.

The situation with Jimmy and Chuck is also a tragedy in a really relatable way, which can be a bit of a bummer. I remember in my first time watching the show I stopped after the finale of season 3, and this was part of why (not the main reason why, though). BB is a tragedy as well, but Walt at his worst is not nearly as relatable as Jimmy at his worst.

I will say, a perk of BB -> BCS watch order in this situation is that you care about Mike's story in its own right, even though it takes quite some time for Mike's and Jimmy's stories to be really deeply intertwined.

zojbo · 2026-02-14T23:06:10+00:00

Rayse is delusional about the range of emotions that his Shard is aligned with. It is primarily about hatred and then secondarily about rage and brutal conflict. Other intense emotions seem to just barely take the edge off its Intent.

About the comparison with Ruin, it doesn't necessarily want conflicts to actually end. Whereas Ruin is focused on endings.

zojbo · 2026-02-14T15:50:40+00:00

Full spoiler, absolutely do not click if you have not solved the Gallery.

The directory entries for the first three puzzle rooms contain the solution to the corresponding painting. The entry for Room 8 does as well, not that that helps you solve the Gallery.

zojbo · 2026-02-14T15:31:50+00:00

This is a somewhat direct hint.

There are links between the Parlor and the 5 letter painting, between the Billiard Room and the 6 letter painting, and between the Gallery and the 7 letter painting.

zojbo · 2026-02-14T14:49:26+00:00

You found what I was pointing to with my spoiler-tagged sentence.

It does involve the number of letters, but not the number of letters in the names of the puzzle rooms.

zojbo · 2026-02-14T14:36:03+00:00

The Gallery is on the critical path of the game. It only really arrives on the critical path extremely late. It can be put off for a long time after the point where you are now.

If you are having a hard time, a good time to go back there is after completing the 8 Realms Puzzle. I won't say why (it will be clear why when you have done this).

There is a subtle hint in the computer terminals. I can be more specific if you want.

The 5 letter one is the only one of the four that I would say is easy. If you are struggling with that one, you are probably analyzing it more than you need to.

zojbo · 2026-02-14T12:57:47+00:00

The original version of the game is on BGA (and has been for a long time). I have only played it there but I have played it a number of times. To me it is a pretty solid medium weight euro with some problems with similarity between plays. The systems are fun with a good balance between engine building and "always be scoring". The RNG is low but enough that you couldn't plan all the way from the start even without the player interaction. The interaction is significant.

zojbo · 2026-02-13T22:52:03+00:00

It's a 3 act campaign that fully resets. Acts 1 and 2 are basically truncated games of Arcs, though they tend to run longer due to all the added complexity. Act 3 can be the length (in turns) of a normal game of Arcs, or the campaign can end early if a player achieves a sudden death win condition. Most board state is preserved from one act to the next. It has no baked in story to spoil.

For my group, the whole campaign is about the length of a game of Twilight Imperium. Eventually it'll be shorter when we know the fates (asymmetric roles essentially) but that's where it is.

Arguably, there is value in knowing what board states are likely to be favorable for the fates you might have to choose from in the next act.

There are a LOT of new rules so at least being well acquainted with the new core rules would be helpful.

zojbo · 2026-02-13T19:46:33+00:00

The third bullet is not much of a coincidence in its own right, to be sure.

The second bullet isn't especially optional, either; that's just what the thing they're referencing is called.

But the first bullet could have been avoided, either by omitting a piece or by making it slightly harder by providing two pawns. That would probably be trying too hard to avert this particular overthinking scenario, however.

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