Anchorhead 2018. Stuck in the Sewers. Requesting hint.

I escaped from the church and fell down in to the sewers. There are townspeople blocking Whately Bridge. I don’t have anything to unscrew the grate in the sewer. What do I do next?

Happy to help (and then maybe when you win you can answer my question if I’m still stuck :slight_smile: )

I’m going to try to be as vague as possible - spoilers will get more explicit as you go:

  1. Have you: Fully explored your house?

  2. Have you: Found the safe? If you have trouble with this step, have you: Been inside the walls?

  3. Have you: Opened the safe? If you have trouble with this step, first Know that with 99.99% certainty you have access to everything you need for these And if you still have trouble, try Reading the laptop

  4. Have you: Opened the puzzle box?

  5. Have you: Opened the mural?

  6. Have you: Opened the giant gate?

  7. !!!Explicit (high-level) steps follow!!!

Open the safe, open the box, use the disk, open the mural, open the gate, play the flute

i’ve got 18 hours logged in this game, most of them being stuck. i’m over spoilers. spell it out for me lol. though, i do only want the next step, and nothing more

i have explored everything i know how to in the house. i’ve been through the walls to the observatorium. i haven’t any clue how to open the mural though i notice the symbols light when i touch them. i’ve never seen any safe. or gate. I don’t know about any puzzle box. i have read the laptop. that eyes and hands puzzle makes no sense to me, though i thought it might have something to do with the mural

what is the next thing that i should do?

Ok, it sounds like there are 2 things you are stuck on - The Safe and The Mural

For The Safe

  1. Examine the books in the library
  2. Touch the relevant book
  3. The combination to the safe is from the Laptop. Explicit spoiler next:

Three numbers for safe are: Hands5 + Eyes, Hands5 + Eyes, Hands*5 + Eyes
So… 4 Hands + 2 Eyes would be 22
My 3 numbers were 36, 29, 58. Unsure if yours will be identical.

For The Mural

  1. If you don’t know the mapping of “alternate zodiac” symbols to dates then either look through the walls until you see Michael put paper in the nursery, or reload a saved game at the library and read “Stranger Stars” by Brian Monmouth
  2. If you do know the mapping, use the mapping, and the birth dates to push the 5 zodiac symbols in order (Croseus, Wilhelm, Heinrich, Elijah, Mordecai - I didn’t end up needing Edward). My ordering to follow in next spoiler

For me, those were, in order:
“The King In Tatters”, “The Gnawer of Graves”, “The Many-Angled Gate”, “The Spiraling Worm”, and “The Sleeper Under the Waters”. Unsure if yours can vary

I hope that helps.

where can i find croseus’s birth date? i never would have figured out these puzzles. the numbers are different for me btw

You can’t find his birthdate, but I believe one of the books in the library (unfortunately inaccessible right now since it’s across the bridge) mentions his birth sign.
I think it was the book that Michael checked out first, “legends of the valley” or something. (I don’t have all my notes here)

If it is that book, you’ll probably have to load a saved game to read it - although I imagine the date will still work for you so hopefully loading, checking, and coming back to this one will work.

i started a new game and read the books in the library (i didn’t have any saves from back then), but it is random and the sign wasn’t the same in the new game as it was for my main game. instead, i managed to get the mural open by guessing what croseus’s sign was.

so now i have the flute. i have the puzzle box which i cannot open because i can’t get back to the curio shop. i’m at the green gate. what do i do now?

other than the clues you’ve been giving me, i haven’t had any leads since i fled the church. the story pretty much stopped there.

playing the flute didn’t do anything. i tried uttering the name from the telescope. i got the name from a walkthrough for the old game, but it wouldn’t let me since i didn’t actually see the comet.


i’m just playing the game again. i think i need the disk and this is the day i could look through the telescope

Puzzle box:

  1. While the puzzle box can be opened by the curio shop owner, that only works if you find the puzzle box on day 2. If you find it like you(and I) did on day 3, you must resort to another solution.

  2. Remember Alexander and the Gordian knot.

  3. Smash it open

One other note:

It’s probably worth keeping a save before each day ends - I’m not sure how vulnerable Anchorhead 2018 is to “walking dead” scenarios, so maybe it’s not necessary.

i finished the game, with your help and the help of a walkthrough (of the old version). there are so many things i never would have guessed on my own. thank you

Glad I could help!
And thank you for the hint about where to look for that item - that got me through as well.