Long-range gesture quick reference
Also searched as: sign language / hand signals / how do we talk without radios
The short answer
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 most reliable channel. The table below is a team convention this site assembled from what the voice-blocked puzzles need in common - the full attribution is under "Where this solution came from" at the foot of the page.
- Players
- Everyone
- Time
- 5 minutes to read once
- Coordinates
- No fixed coordinate
- Reward
- Saves a large amount of time across a dozen later puzzles
The conclusion: agree them before the first time you get separated. Inventing gestures on the spot is one of the main reasons the orange barn traps people. The whole set below is this site's recommended team convention, not a mechanic the game enforces - swap in your own if you prefer.
Before you start
- Five minutes with the whole team reading this once is worth more than any single-puzzle guide
Step-by-step 3 steps
- 1
Agree how numbering is counted first
Most failures are not a wrong gesture, they are an unaligned direction. Whether "the third one" counts from the left or the right - say it out loud first.
Faster: The form that works: "third from the left, round".
- 2
Split any message into three parts
Every piece of information splits into kind + position + count. Send one part at a time instead of trying to express a whole board in one movement.
Schematic: separated communication. One side can only look, the other can only act, and the channel between them is cut on purpose - orange barn, silent room, interrogation room and beach house all fit this model. - 3
Use repetition, not amplitude
From far away nobody can see detail, but everyone can see a count. Repeating one simple movement N times is far more reliable than performing one complex one.
Gesture cheat sheet
When your voice is cut off, this set of agreements is your channel.
| Signal | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Number of fingers = N | Number N (agree to count from the left first) |
| Open palm pushed forward, then held | Stop / do not press |
| Both hands making a triangle overhead | Triangle tile (=10, the beach house encoding) |
| Five fingers open, then a fist | Round (a curved, closed shape) |
| Five fingers splayed, fingertips pinched to a point, then opened | Star (a shape with sharp points) |
| Arms crossed | Reversed / mirrored left and right |
| Hand drawing a circle | Start over / reset |
| Slap the partition N times | Position N (shares the same numbering as fingers = N) |
| Point at yourself, then at the target | That one |
| Raise a lantern and keep it raised | Ready - press once I lower it |
Where it goes wrong
These are the places players actually get stuck most often. Working through them in order usually finds the cause.
Other System puzzles
After finishing: Nothing to collect - the payoff is fewer failed attempts across the dozen later puzzles where voice is cut off.
Where this solution came from
This convention was put together by this site from what several puzzles need in common - orange barn, interrogation room, silent room, beach house tiles, and the lantern signals on the crane and beach tower - and it is this site's recommended team convention, not a mechanic the game enforces. Each row carries exactly one meaning: round and star are two separate signals, and the partition knock means position only (sharing the numbering with fingers = N) rather than two meanings at once. There is also a dedicated gesture manual on the Steam Community as a further reference.
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.