Some paths are locked behind your current Trust/Self Control levels. To fully complete the game you need to have a good understanding of the system and memorise what paths give you + or - To your stats.

Please note that there are no *puzzles* that require certain stats. Only to unlock certain scenes which are required for achievements.

Combat in this game may seem difficult but it's really not, it's about understanding that's a bit different to other turn based combat games.

Normally in other games using a turn to buff yourself is pretty useless and you're better off just doing damage in most situations. This game is not that.

So what are the most important skills and how do they work?
The main character is your bread and butter for team wide survivability. As he has the ability to provide dodge and defence buffs to the entire team and significantly reduce incoming damage. You have to get last hits with his gun to get the ability to do that but it's really not that difficult.

Nicks boo boo applier, he can put a criss cross bandaid on you and heal a whole whopping 2 hp. Most importantly it can remove bleed/burn debuffs. You will probably end up using this every single round. Somehow 2 hp actually matters.

Dylan is your main tank and has incredibly useful moves. Stand behind me lets you keep someone alive and there's a ability you have to equip manually that lets him heal himself as well which is very clutch since he will be eating most of the damage

Trevs got an AR but it may as well be a sniper rifle since you're almost exclusively using him for precise strike and doing big damage.

The Horde fight There are three possible ways for this fight to go, it is extremely important you do not overlook this simply put, There's a reason i'm insisting you learn about defensive mechanics and how to stall. There's something unique to the horde fight that's different from all the other fights in the game, once you recognise what that is, play around with it until you figure it out.


HOW TO SWITCH SKILLS

At any point outside of combat you are able to use the UI wheel down the bottom right to pull up your team and you can switch out combat skills. This is important and you need to know this to win the game.


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See how one of them is greyed out? if you click it you can equip it. Just keep it in mind for later.

We both know you're here looking for the suitcase code or the metal safe code or how you use the dead phone or maybe even what the code for the not dead phone is.

I'm not telling you the answers but i will provide useful guidance so you don't get stuck in a loop forever.

1. The dead phone it's found on the dead body upstairs, it is not an interactable object. yes the phone flickers, yes you might think you need to press some letters in the right way to do something. It's all a trick the devs are doing to gas light you. It's not real. You can safely ignore the dead phone until you see something that makes you look at it and go *Oh that looks familiar*. So don't think to hard about it until that point.

2.The briefcase Found in the storeroom, There's some scratches on the briefcase that when clicked give you a prompt. This is important, I will once again save you a massive headache, The scratches are not convertible into any numbers you can recognise. There's a special tool that you can use to identify what the scratches mean. So don't waste your time pulling out the magnify glass to try and figure it out. Also if you cut it open and get access to the metal safe, nothing bad happens it just means you can't use the scratches anymore to figure out the answer.

3.The Metal Safe This may as well be the briefcase part 2. The devs did some thing diabolical here and simply put ill say this, to open this safe, you have to be able to open the briefcase. So don't worry about the Safe if you can't figure out the briefcase.

4.The working phone Found in the drawer in the office (Left hand side), (Not findable in the nick route)
Brute forcing this will get you an achievement and also waste a lot of your time. Now you might be wondering *The numbers what do they mean* and the answer to that is, nothing it's to screw with you. (Mostly). But look, my main hint for you here is, of all the 4 digit numbers you actually find in the game presented to you in a way that isn't absurd. This is where you use that.

5. The dead mans notes Found in the desk in the office in the middle. Don't think to deep about this stuff, but pay attention to anything that might be useful. As there is actually something you need from here to solve one of the other puzzles.

6. The dead mans puzzles This is where the game goes from being friendly to down right cruel for you to solve. This is how you *Win the game*. You have to solve both the grid and the sigil. Simply put. You will need to use resources from outside of the game to solve these. There's hints available in the game that can point you in the right direction but nothing inside the game will help you directly solve it. However i will say this. The grid is solvable by simply noticing patterns and recognising where you might of seen the pattern before and putting it together. The Blood sigil? That's completely outside of the game information. You need to go on a bit of a treasure hunt for it. Now in saying that. If you want to solve this, please check the section on what compos mentis are.

After you complete your first run you will reset the game. However things are a bit different now. You might encounter new dialogue options, when this happens you might see this purple portal like effect on the screen, or you might hear voices or experience strange things. Every time you do this you are triggering a compos mentis.

You might be wondering what this does and how it impacts the game. Simply put, if you trigger enough of them you can unlock certain scenes and most importantly TRIGGER HINTS

So if you're hard stuck. instead of slamming your head against the screen trying to figure out what it all means!!! Try and see if you can find more compos mentis locations and then go back to where you were stuck and see if something different happens.

Something to note, Generally speaking triggering compos mentis really damages your self control levels. so here's a free one on me. There's some scenes that require you to trigger a certain amount of compos in a run but also keep your self control at a high enough point for you to activate them.

Good luck!