Two endings, including the true one
Also searched as: Big Goodbye / Big Game / how do I trigger the true ending / how many endings are there
The short answer
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.
- Players
- 2 players or more (the true ending needs the same group and the same save)
- Time
- The true ending: one uninterrupted run
- Location
- Spawn-point red plaza (the real key)
- Reward
- Both endings, plus the Big Game achievement
A lot of people assume the black sphere is the ending. It is not - it is only the first of two. The entrance to the true ending has been next to your spawn point the whole time; it is just a door you never opened.
Before you start
- 100% completion, including the purple seven
- The same group of people on the same save - reassembling a full team after you finished is the hardest part of the whole 100%
- A teammate who has not been spoiled, if you care about that
Step-by-step 7 steps
- 1
The first ending: Big Goodbye
Take the black key to the black sphere. That is the first ending, and it means you have seen one of two.
- 2
Go back and get to 100%
Two in-game tools do the gap-hunting for you:
1. The map room's scale model - a flagpole without a flag is something you have not finished yet; walk the model row by row and write down the gaps.
2. The large map - once you have completed them, it marks the seven purple challenges, so the finishing pass stops being guesswork.Faster: Check when the save was created: a save created before 1.4.9 can have one challenge that resets itself after completion and becomes permanently unclearable. If the real key simply will not appear, update the game to 1.5.1 (the 1.5.1 save fix) before you conclude anything else.
- 3
Clear the purple seven
After you finish the game, a purple tunnel on the east ridge opens 7 harder remade puzzles. All 7 are on the road to 100%.
- 4
The real key appears at the spawn plaza
Once completion genuinely reads 100%, the real key appears near your spawn point - the same red plaza you started from. If it is not there, something is still unfinished.
- 5
Put it in the narrow door in the red wall
Insert the key into the narrow door in the red wall, between the two cracked halves of the black sphere - the one door nobody in the whole recording ever opened. Beyond it, stairs run down, into what is under the world.
- 6
Go down, sit through it
At the end of an arched corridor is a small theatre. The game offers you a short reading - sit down and let it finish. Each card says its piece, and one of them is the closest this game comes to a credits roll. After that, a white opening appears behind you.
- 7
Walk through the white door
Going through that white door is the true ending, recorded by the hidden achievement Big Game (Completely finish the game). In the white room the game makes one final demand of you - and the people who came this far with you start to look very different from this distance.
Where it goes wrong
These are the places players actually get stuck most often. Working through them in order usually finds the cause.
Other Endgame puzzles
After finishing: The Big Game achievement and the true ending.
More videos
Click a thumbnail to play it here, or click the title to open the original on YouTube.
Where this solution came from
bigwalktips' 100% page documents the complete true-ending chain - black sphere, the 100% gap-checking tools, the purple seven, the real key at spawn, the narrow door in the red wall, the arched corridor, the small theatre, the white door - plus the 1.4.9/1.5.1 save-version warning and the achievement name Big Game. MonkeyKingHero has matching true-ending footage. The same-group, same-host, same-save requirement comes from the official FAQ and the official version history (the host keeps the save and all progress, and the game is designed to be played with the same group across sessions), not from bigwalktips.
Puzzles in this game are not assigned in a fixed order: each tower needs a set number of gourds and has more challenges around it than that, so you choose which ones to clear, in any order. That is why two guides list different puzzle line-ups for the same tower — neither is wrong. Unless a coordinate is credited to a named source it is a community measurement, and later versions can shift it; once you are in the area, trust the landmark over the number.