Five-minute timer
Also searched as: 5 Minute Timer / timer room
The short answer
There are two buttons on the back wall of the house and a large timer on the opposite wall. Activate both buttons to start the five-minute countdown, then wait for it to reach zero — 05:00 down to 00:00 — until the gourd is released. It is unclear whether you must keep holding once it starts — one guide says hold, VGTimes and bigwalk-wiki say activate and wait — and the five-minute timer check is designed to test it.
- Players
- 2 players
- Time
- 5 minutes of pure waiting
- Location
- Room near the Blue Balloon (3590, 2020 — community coordinates), Yellow Tower
- Reward
- 1 yellow tower part
Find 3590, 2020 in the coordinate finder
Zero difficulty as a puzzle, but it is a pure five-minute wait. So the standard community advice is to treat it as a timer: switch it on first, then spend those five minutes clearing other puzzles.
Before you start
- 2 players (both buttons pressed to start)
Step-by-step 3 steps
- 1
Find the two buttons and the big timer
Go inside: two buttons on the back wall, one large timer on the wall opposite them.
- 2
Start both buttons
Each player presses one button to start the countdown. If it resets when you let go, keep holding. Guide wording differs: bigwalk-wiki and VGTimes say activate and wait, The GameSlayer says hold (possibly just shorthand for staying in the room) — the five-minute timer check is designed to test which your build needs.
- 3
Wait out the five minutes
Let the countdown run to 00:00 (five minutes) — keeping the buttons pressed if that is what your build needs — and the red gourd releases.
Faster: Do not spend those five minutes standing around. The yellow tower area has other challenges - start this one, then send people out to clear them.
Where it goes wrong
These are the places players actually get stuck most often. Working through them in order usually finds the cause.
Other Yellow tower puzzles
After finishing: 1 yellow tower part.
Where this solution came from
The GameSlayer describes two buttons on the back wall, a large timer opposite, and holding until five minutes; bigwalktips' 100% page lists starting the 30-minute waiting room first and clearing other puzzles during it as the standard planning move. Guide wording differs on hold versus press-then-wait (bigwalk-wiki and VGTimes say activate and wait; ‘hold’ may be literal or mean staying in the room) — see the five-minute timer check. The links here are the two sources whose URLs this site records (VGTimes, bigwalk-wiki); The GameSlayer and bigwalktips are named as unlinked community guides.
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.