Puzzle walkthroughs
36 guides and 16 verified coordinate points. Every puzzle gets: a one-line answer, then step by step, then a communication schematic, then a blocker checklist, then gameplay video.
Something most people do not know up front: puzzles in this game are not fixed allocations. Each tower offers more surrounding challenges than it needs, so what you collect are generic red gourds and you decide which puzzles to spend. That is why different guides publish different lists of the five towers' puzzles. This site lists them honestly as a candidate pool and does not force one order on you.
1Drawbridge
Opens the whole island - the only section of the game with a fixed layout
4 gourds needed
2Red Tower
Map room: the full-island 3D map in the floor, plus folding map, compass and laser pointer
5 gourds needed
3Green Tower
Chairlift - the quickest line up the mountain towards the yellow and green towers
5 gourds needed
4Yellow Tower
Tunnel network - flat and walkable, through the mountain instead of up the cliffs
5 gourds needed
5Blue Tower
Trains - useful but slow, and they only run one way
5 gourds needed
6Black Tower
The black sphere, and your first ending: Big Goodbye
6 gourds needed
Drawbridge area
Opens the whole island - the only section of the game with a fixed layout
Starting beach
The starting beach has 4 fixed puzzles in any order. Once you have the 4 red gourds, walk the gold key through the area's 5 key cutters - three on the north side, two on the beach - and put it in the drawbridge to drop the deck.
Red tower
Map room: the full-island 3D map in the floor, plus folding map, compass and laser pointer
3670, 1400 (community guide)
One player opens the door and steps into the disc room, which locks behind them. A stone lights up on the disc. They cannot see the buttons, and the people outside cannot see the disc, so the only channel left is pointing plus direction words. Whoever is outside presses the matching one of the 5 buttons on the inner wall, and repeats it 10 times until the long black panel fills.
Walk southwest from the silent room or the red tower to the beach maze. Two people take the two paths: a timer at the end of the left one, a slot at the end of the right one, and both paths curve round to the same corner window. Whoever holds the timer waits until the other is in position, passes it through the window, and they drop it into the slot on their side.
Southeast of the red tower, across the gully and through the trees, there is a heavy ball on a deep purple-blue platform. **You cannot walk while holding it**, so the only way is a relay: one player stands still holding the ball, the other walks up close and takes it, runs a stretch, stops, and waits for the next person. Step by step the ball moves from the starting platform to the target platform up the slope.
In the same stretch of trees as the heavy ball. Pick up light bulbs and throw them through the hoop until every light on the panel has gone green. A two-player run measured about 8 successful shots.
One player stays on the lookout and watches 5 separate platforms through a telescope; the other walks to each platform in turn and performs a gesture, and the watcher picks the matching card from their options. All 5 correct and it is done.
At the train station, one player fires the cannon and launches the timer to the far side of the area; the other has to **immediately** give chase and catch it before the countdown runs out, then throw it back to the partner waiting on the platform, who sets it on the green canister.
Take the gold key on the red tower roof, cut its shape on the cutter at the tower's base, open the map room door. Inside is the whole island as a 3D map built into the floor, and you also pick up the folding map, the compass and the laser pointer. **How to read a coordinate: for a 4-digit number, take the first two digits as a grid line - 4166 means line 41 vertical, 1899 means line 18 horizontal, and where those two lines cross is your cell.**
Green tower
Chairlift - the quickest line up the mountain towards the yellow and green towers
3930, 1900; chairlift station 3950, 1950
Those two numbers are **not a code, they are map coordinates**. One player stays by the locked crate on the map; the other walks to 4166/1899 and finds a **hidden hold-down switch** behind a pile of rocks, which they must keep pressed. While it is held, the crate opens far away and the waiting player takes the gourd.
Two players press the buttons by the doorway, which unlocks the collectable but **locks one player inside with their voice cut off**. Whoever is outside finds the second set of switches in the pillar by the door, and activating them reveals a tile pattern on the pin board. The player inside has to recreate it with tiles, and the only channels left are gestures and knocks on the partition.
Press the entrance switch, then spread out so that every screen has at least one person watching it. Count the total number of faces shown across all the signal lights and enter that total on the blue panel. The faces are generated randomly every attempt.
In the circular room stands a row of yellow stands. Activate only the ones **with something green glowing inside**; the ones holding a red bulb are traps, and pressing one means the reset switch next to the collectable and a run from the beginning. Once every correct stand is live, the black progress bar in the middle reaches 100%.
The two beach houses must be **occupied at the same time**. On the ground floor of house A, note how many images are shown, then go upstairs and encode that number with three tile types: **triangle = 10, asterisk = 5, single line = 1**. Press the button, house B's display board updates, and the player in B reads the number off the board **with a telescope** and enters it.
One player sits on the tall green chair on the cliff platform (**sitting down starts a radio broadcast immediately**), while the other walks a genuinely long way to find the **microphone** hidden in a narrow crack in the green area. Once the seated player hears that their partner has arrived, they press the yellow button by the chair, a disguised box next to the microphone opens, and the red finger item is inside.
The coastal crane has one switch on each side, and both have to be pressed **inside a very short shared time window**. When you are too far apart for gestures to be seen, raising a lantern as the countdown signal is the most reliable option.
The blue building holds 9 tiles whose symbols are **only visible through the lens provided**. The door locks behind you, so you have to **inspect every one before you move anything**. Build a memory system out of the statues, rocks and other visual markers outside, then place the tiles on the five-symbol panel. The panel **changes** when it is re-armed, so never reuse the previous sequence.
Yellow tower
Tunnel network - flat and walkable, through the mountain instead of up the cliffs
Far end of the map, the furthest point from the map room
Both halves of this puzzle are in the hills near the green tower: one player must hold the **green seat** and press its button so the other can walk to the **microphone box** and take out the gourd.
The building has two turnstiles and each player takes one side. The left side has tiles and a pin board; the right side has symbols in a specific order. Pass that order to the player on the left so they can recreate it on the pin board.
There are two buttons on the back wall of the house and a large timer on the opposite wall. **Hold** both buttons until the timer reaches five minutes and the gourd is released.
The yellow tower area wants 36 items found within one stretch of ground. **Cut the area into blocks and give each person one block**, reporting finds to the group so two people never re-search the same patch.
A mirror-stage direction puzzle. Before you start, say plainly whether "left" and "right" mean **the performer's** left and right or **the observer's** - that is the only trap here.
Aerial delivery
MediumThe task is to send an item a long distance. **Put the catcher in position first, then fire the item** - not the other way round.
Blue tower
Trains - useful but slow, and they only run one way
South-east side
Heavy ball relay
MediumUnlock the door on the left of the map room and walk straight in to find the heavy ball. **You cannot move while holding it**, so pass it to a teammate, run ahead yourself, have them pass it back, and repeat until the ball reaches its plinth.
Each player is locked in **a different room** and sees only one tile of the full sequence. Information flows one way only: room 1 can talk to room 2, room 2 to room 3, and so on. The sequence travels down the chain, and at the end everybody **submits at the same moment**.
Parkour over the main wall and open the entrance gate for your teammate, then clear the platforming section together as far as the second door's timer cannon. One player crosses to the far bank first, and the other **throws the timer across** - enough force, and overshooting is easy. The player on the far bank catches it and puts it on the machine.
The room holds empty tile slots. One player outside uses a **telescope** while their partner **holds each tile up inside** until its mark becomes visible; memorise the marks, carry the tiles out, shut the door, and recreate the sequence on the display panel.
The beach tower is visible from far away, close to the scaffold house. There is a switch on the seaward rock on each side of the tower, and they have to be pressed **in the same instant**. A radio makes this dramatically simpler.
Black tower
The black sphere, and your first ending: Big Goodbye
Reports differ: north entrance of the black tower, or the giant green door on the west of the island. Voice distorts as you get close
The black tower is the last one, and it wants **6** gourds, not 5. Once all six are in place the black sphere opens and the first ending triggers. By this point the whole map is open, so which 6 you did genuinely does not matter - **any 6 gourds will do**.
A two-door building due east of the black tower. The left path shows a string of symbols; the right path has a pin board and tiles. Use the **glass wall and the lights** to transmit the correct symbol order across, then recreate it on the pin board.
Two cliff lamps
MediumEast of the yellow tower, two platforms face each other across the train track, each with a set of lights. One player takes each side and passes the pattern from one side to the other.
A vertical room with the collectable at the very bottom. **Picking it up seals the stairs**, so you cannot walk out the top. Instead, stand at the edge and throw it **upward** to the teammate on the first platform, and repeat level by level until it reaches the top, where it goes into a designated box that locks it in.
Endgame
100% and the true ending, Big Game. Official numbers: 9.4% for the full collection, 6.0% for the true ending (see the achievements page)
East ridge
There are **two** endings in total. **1. Big Goodbye** - take the black key to the black sphere. **2. The true ending, Big Game** - reach 100% first, which includes the purple seven on the east ridge that open after you finish; the real key then appears near the red plaza where you spawned; put it in the narrow door in the red wall **between the two broken halves of the black sphere**, go down, through the arched corridor, into the small theatre (sit through it), then the white door behind you, and that is the true ending.
After you finish the game, take the chairlift east to its end and the purple tunnel on your right opens - the door only exists after the first ending. Behind it are **7 challenges**, all producing purple collectables, and you need all 7 for the final batch. They are: **the 30-minute waiting room, the golf ball delivery, the 36 pictures, nine speakers with no voice, nine symbols with no voice, the timed platform run, and lights everywhere**. The first thing you ever do is **go and start the 30-minute wait**, then spend that half hour clearing other challenges.
System
Multiplayer, saves, gestures, and the rumours that waste the most time
Voice stops working in a lot of places in this game: cut off by a room (orange barn, interrogation room), too far away (green seat), or actively muted by the room (the black tower's silent room). A set of **gestures agreed in advance** is the only channel that holds.
Progress **lives in the host's save**. To carry on with a different host you have to follow the community procedure for viewing and transferring saves, and there is a separate way to continue when the original host is absent. Also, this game **has no matchmaking** - finding players means community tools.
The game has **no flight ability and no gliding**. But the community does have a technique that gains height on demand and looks like flying from outside, and it is written up under the title How to fly - it is called **prop climbing**. The core is a three-step loop: **let go of the item, jump onto it, pick it back up**. Repeat it to a rhythm and you bank a little height every time.
Progress self-check
When you are stuck, the question players ask most is not "what is the answer" but "which of these have I actually done". Two in-game tools answer that directly:
- 1The map room's scale modelA flagpole with no flag means something is still unfinished. Walk the model row by row and write the gaps down.
- 2The large mapAfter you finish the game it marks the seven purple challenges, so the closing pass stops being guesswork.
On how many puzzles there are in total: House House has never published a number. Any figure you find online, including 45, comes from a single source's estimate and is not official data.
What is not written up in full yet
The principle here is we write it when a second source confirms it, and we say so when there is none. Right now 32 guides have a complete step-by-step, and 4 more stop at confirmed key points because no cross-checkable walkthrough exists. A few challenges in the yellow tower area - matching sounds, the long-range light button and others - currently only have a name and a location, so there is no solution written for them: telling you that it is not finished beats inventing steps that look finished.
These challenge pools are larger than the five towers need, so a few missing write-ups do not block your completion.
Need the actual coordinates?
The map page has 16 coordinate points, area notes, and coordinate reading practice.
Open the map and coordinates23 gameplay videos
Official trailers, per-puzzle footage and a 100% full clear, all pointing at the real originals.
Go to the video library