Made By Aaron Cho, Derek Hwang, Eleanor Peng, and Ellie Vela
Artist’s statement
Descent is a puzzle mystery game in which the player must solve puzzles in order to descend down an abandoned five-story apartment building. Descent uses both physical cards and a digital companion app. Players can input card numbers into the companion app to discover new insights about the spaces they’re exploring and interact with objects scattered throughout, all to devise clever ways of descending deeper into the mysterious building they find themself trapped in.
We designed Descent to emphasize fun through discovery and challenge using puzzles along with narrative. The core mechanic, observations, allows players to combine multiple observations, often in strange and creative ways, together to create new cards. By creating combinations that the player wouldn’t immediately think of or expect, we design for that moment when the player realizes their crazy idea actually worked!
Descent also uses an embedded narrative to further immerse the player into their descent. The player takes on the role of an amnesiac who wakes up on the roof. As players progress, they find themselves on different floors of the apartment building, revealing more details about the building and the truth behind the events that led your player to the roof.
By blending puzzles together with the mystery narrative, Descent challenges the player’s imagination by giving them the freedom to discover the way down each floor of the building.
Initial Decisions About Formal Elements and Values
When we first brainstormed the game, we were aiming to create a game that conveys an eerie and suspenseful mood through some murder mystery. We hoped to foster an immersive game environment that allows players to construct the narrative through solving puzzles in each level. That said, the key values in our game are:
- Immersion: To evoke the emotion of suspense, we want to create an immersive gameplay experience to help players immerse themselves in the game and narrative. We do so by incorporating melodramatic background music in our app and sketching out 130 cards in simple black and white colors. These visual and audio elements enable players to visualize the narrative space at an abandoned apartment more easily, as well as making the visual and audio elements more cohesive with our theme.
- Compelling narrative: A core experience of our game stems from the embedded narrative. While solving puzzles, players gradually collect more clues about the story and construct it along the way. The final puzzle reveals why the player originally wakes up on the roof with amnesia. The construction of narrative creates an intrinsic motivation for players to continue through all levels of the game. To support the embedded narrative, we foster an illusion of space through the physical cards and maps, guiding the players to imagine the layout of the abandoned apartment. Each level is connected together either in space or has clues referring back to the previous level to construct a cohesive narrative.
- Player agency: A core mechanic in our game is for players to solve puzzles by combining objects. We include a variety of combination results that support players’ creativity, providing them with unique and unexpected outcomes. Instead of having one linear path, this provides players a sense of autonomy and unique personalized gaming experience. Since there are no time limits of the game, players also have the agency to determine how long they wish to spend at each level, playing the game at their own pace.
To support these values, we decided on these initial formal elements:
- Players: Descent is designed to be a single player game for players to immerse themselves in the position of the protagonist. However, we also support multiple players in multiplayer co-op format, fostering a sense of fellowship among players when solving the puzzles.
- Objectives & Outcome: The main objective of our game is to solve puzzles at each level at the abandoned apartment. Players start off at the rooftop, to the janitor’s closet, someone else’s room, pool, and finally the ground floor. Each level contains clues and puzzles that reveal a small bit of the narrative. The outcome is the realization that players are dead the entire time, revealing that the protagonist has committed a suicide due to an incident.
- Procedures and Rules: We implement the game in a hybrid format, using physical cards and a companion app. When the game begins, the companion app will display onboarding guidance to instruct players on game setup and navigation of the app. The core interaction includes examining the physical card, inputting the card number in the app to view flavor text, combining different cards by typing in the combination on the app, and moving to different levels once some puzzle is solved. To prevent undesirable player behaviors, we also included mechanisms to prevent players from jumping into different levels before solving the puzzle.
- Resources: The physical cards and companion app are the primary resources of our game. The additional resources include the music we embedded in the app.
- Boundary: The boundary of the game is a physical space (e.g. table) for players to lay out the cards, since there are over 100 cards in this game. Ideally, players can play this in a quiet space to immerse themselves in the narrative via the music we incorporated in the app. The magic circle begins immediately when players enter the app, finding themselves waking up at the rooftop with amnesia.
Playtests
Playtests were an invaluable part of our game’s development and refinement. We managed to run a total of 8 playtests, and for each playtest our classmates were able to point out areas of improvement, identify bugs/errors in our system, and highlight elements of our games that they loved. Because tester feedback was so rich, our challenge with each test was to identify the 1 or 2 most important vectors for iteration.
5/14 Playtest #1: Thanh
This was our very first playtest back when we hadn’t built our companion app and only relied on physical cards + a moderator from our team to help guide the player. At this stage, we had only developed cards for Levels 1, 2, and 3. The moderator was responsible for handing cards to the player and also reading the corresponding flavor text for each card. Being the very first playtest in the early stages of our development, the question we were trying to answer in this playtest was, “Does our general game idea make sense? And is it fun?” To answer this basic question, we thought it would be better to only test Levels 1 and 2 (in case the playtester didn’t enjoy our general game concept).
From this playtest, we gathered a few key takeaways. For one, the game was fun and engaging, but definitely had its rough edges. Thanh enjoyed solving the puzzles of our game, but had trouble with the first level (which was intended to be the easiest). She had trouble interpreting the images at times because the art was not entirely clear. Additionally, she struggled to read clues that we assumed would be very clear, so it became clear the puzzle was a game of “reading the designer’s mind”.
Another key takeaway was that Thanh tried to interact with the game in ways we had not anticipated. For one, she tried to combine objects that were not meant to be combined, and we had not yet built out system behavior for proper error messing. For example, the objective was to get the toolbox from the top of a shelf, so Thanh tried to use a mop to topple/break the shelf. Although this was a completely logical course of action to take, it was not the intended course of action in our game. Additionally, she tried to interact with objects that existed in the card art but that we hadn’t made cards for. On the fly, our moderator drew up cards for these miscellaneous objects, but we knew we needed to find a better solution to distinguish between interactable and non-interactable objects.
5/14 Playtest #2: Nancy and Francis
Our second playtest happened during the same class as our first playtest. Based on our findings from our first playtest, we realized that our game made sense and was engaging, so for this playtest we decided to bring Level 3 into the mix. Once again, this playtest affirmed the inherent fun behind solving our game’s escape-room-esque puzzles, and overall the flow of the game was smooth. One common point of friction between this playtest and Playtest #1 was that the Level 1 puzzle revealed clues that were too vague and therefore caused it to be too challenging. At one point, the playtesters resorted to brute force – entering every lock combination iteratively until they cracked it. In addition, we found that our playtesters found it hard to visualize the space that they were interacting with. This suggested that players may have benefited from having maps of the current level that they are interacting with.
Unlike the first playtest, this playtest involved two players, which we noticed led to faster completion of puzzles. In fact, the players completed puzzles in our game so fast that our moderator had trouble keeping up and handing them new cards throughout the game. From this playtest, it was suggested that we build some companion app to complement the player’s gameplay. Through this app, we would no longer need a human moderator reading flavor text to the player, and the player can more freely go at their own pace.
5/16 Playtest #3: Ian
For our third playtest, we once again tested Levels 1-3, but this time we tried making our Level 1 puzzle more clear, as this was a common point of confusion for our playtesters in the previous class. However, once again, our Level 1 puzzle proved to be too difficult for the playtester, as our moderator needed to give hints to Ian in order for them to eventually figure it out. In addition, for this playtest we highlighted any interactable items on the map of our puzzle. For example, in Level 2 (which is set in the janitor’s closet), we highlighted objects that the player could interact with, such as a mop and cardboard boxes to name a few. We received feedback from Ian that the highlighting was really helpful, as they believed without it the game would be “unplayable.” This pointed to some issues we had with information overload – because we had so many cards per level, players tended to get lost among all the cards. We also noticed that the playtester was unsure whether cards from previous levels carried over and needed to be used to solve puzzles in subsequent levels. We intended for our game to not require cards from previous levels, so we realized that this was something that we needed to make clear to our players. We also received feedback that Level 1 was Ian’s least favorite level and that Level 3 was their favorite. There was also one point in the playtest where Ian was stuck on a puzzle and asked our moderator, “Is there anything else I missed?” Upon observing this interaction, one key question that emerged was, “How might we still make this game playable when we no longer have a human moderator to answer such questions?” Thinking about this question once again steered us towards designing a companion app for our game.
“Highlighting made game playable, since there are so many cards on the table at once” -Ian
5/21 Playtest #4: Atman
Our fourth playtest was our first playtest with our companion app, which was built using React Native and replaced the need for a human moderator to guide gameplay. Rather than having a human moderator read flavor text for cards and hand the playtester new cards, our app now required players to enter card numbers into the app, which then gave players flavor text and instructions to potentially grab new cards. Because our previous playtests affirmed our belief that our game was fun and functional, much of the new feedback we got from this playtest was related to our app. One thing we noticed from this playtest was that having to go back and forth between the physical cards and typing into our companion app was tedious and slowed down the gameplay overall. We also received feedback that it would be helpful if there was some sort of in-app “inventory” mechanic where players have a list of cards that they have already visited so they can quickly refer back to them rather than re-enter the card number. In addition, for card combinations, Atman wished that order didn’t matter (our app required cards to be combined in ascending order). Furthermore, our card numbers were formatted as 1-1, 1-2, 1-3, etc. However, Atman found the typing of the hyphen to be tedious and unnecessary and suggested that we simply make the card numbers formatted as 11, 12, 13, etc. In addition, card numbers were labeled on the back of our physical cards, which became a nuisance for Atman to have to flip over the card every time to identify the card number associated with it. However, Atman loved the game overall and was eager to play Levels 4 and 5 (which hadn’t been developed yet). Atman had fun throughout the entire playtest and the app proved to remove the need for human moderation. The main findings from this playtest were that we need to make the app more of an assistive tool (rather than a burden) for the player to use.
“This whole time I feel like a genius by the way … I love when everything just falls into place” -Atman
5/23 Playtest #5: Houston
For our fifth playtest, we used feedback from Playtest #4 to refine our app. In particular, we allowed cards to be combined in any order and added an “inventory” feature where players can scroll through their previously visited cards. We also experiment with larger “play mats” that served a dual purpose: (1) they were maps that players could reference to orient themselves in the level and (2) players could place cards on top of them to organize them. While Houston did reference the play mats as maps, their visual design didn’t seem to communicate their purpose as an organizational tool. We also noticed that Houston was unsure whether she should flip over the cards or not, suggesting that we need further/clearer onboarding for the player. One thing that was very encouraging about this playtest was that everytime Houston solved a puzzle, she would cheer excitedly and celebrate her accomplishment. Some notable cheers included, “Yeaaaah let’s go!”, “Oh yay it worked!”, and “Yes!!!” This affirmed to our group that our game was engaging, had a good amount of challenge, and was fun overall. We received overwhelmingly positive feedback, as Houston experienced joy when playing our game and completed all puzzles with minimal help. Just like Ian in Playtest #3, Houston also found Level 3 to be her favorite, particularly expressing fondness for the concept of the blanket ladder puzzle.
5/28 Playtest #6: Haven
Our sixth playtest was our first time testing out Level 4 of our game. In addition, we refined our app to include automatic keyboard dismissal when a player enters text, allowing for a more seamless, smooth app experience. One thing we observed was that we needed to tell Haven that card numbers could be typed into the app to reveal flavor text. Just like Houston’s feedback from Playtest #5, this suggested that we needed more clear onboarding that would teach the players the central mechanics of our app from the very start. Otherwise, Haven completed the puzzles very smoothly and found the game to be decently challenging yet solvable. Despite Haven spending 58 minutes to complete our game, she said it felt more like 30 minutes and said, “I felt like the length of time was fantastic.” One piece of feedback we received was that our narrative was not very clear. This is something we were aware of, especially considering that we revealed very little about any sort of backstory other than some blood stains scattered throughout the levels. Another piece of feedback we received from Haven was that Level 4 was hard to visualize spatially, as Haven did not know where the metal grate belonged geographically in the pool room. Considering this, the two main takeaways from this playtest were that we need to 1) make our narrative clearer, and 2) ensure that players have a good sense of the geographical layout of the floor they are exploring through more elaborate drawings/maps.
5/30 Playtest #7: Annabelle and Krishnan
For our seventh playtest, we focused on presenting our first version of Level 5 along with some improvements to the flavor text of the prior levels based on playtest feedback. This was also our second time playtesting our game with multiple people. We observed that when working together, Annabelle and Krishnan were able to quickly progress through the first three levels, but took longer to complete Level 4 and were unable to complete Level 5. A common point of confusion for our playtesters was the location and relationship between objects in the game space, particularly for Level 3 and Level 4. We observed our players being confused about how they got into the bedroom in Level 3 as well as how the metal grate led to a sauna. This showed that we needed to pay extra attention to how we presented our world through our card art. This was also the first time we playtested Level 5. Level 5 went well except for the final puzzle. There were insufficient hints and the last puzzle required a new way of interacting with the combination lock. Although Annabelle and Krishnan realized that they needed to start a fire, they were unable to figure out how to make that fire and resorted to brute forcing several combinations with little success. This playtest also showed us how players reacted when the next step of the puzzle was unclear. With the inclusion of Level 5, we also added a first draft of our ending, a question about the murderer character in our game. Our playtesters felt that presenting our ending in this way was too sudden and exclaimed that “Oh we were supposed to be solving something?????” We found that we needed to add better error messages as well as cleaning up our narrative, especially the ending, in order to improve our players’ experience with our game.
6/4 Playtest #8: Group of 4
For our eighth playtest, we were interested in seeing how our players would respond to enhancements made in Level 5. Based on Playtest #7, we rewrote some flavor text for cards in Level 5, added intermediary hints for Level 5’s final puzzle, and changed how we presented our ending. We also had four players playtest at once. We found that our game was well suited for multiplayer experiences so we thought it would be valuable to see how adding more players would affect the overall experience. During this playtest, our players were very focused on deciphering the timeline of the game. One playtester was extremely intrigued by the Cleaning Logs card in Level 2, which hinted at a timeline. Additionally, we found that our playtesters kept all their cards in a large pile in the center of the table. This behavior differed significantly from past playtests as in previous playtests, players would remove past cards from their working area. We also found that having a large pile of cards in the center exacerbated our game’s organizational problems, which ultimately led to this group of playtesters mixing up a card for a future card, somewhat disrupting the flow of our game. Overall, this group of playtesters was involved with solving our narrative and progressed through the majority of our puzzles at a good rate. The main thing that slowed this group down was confusion about the timeline of in-game events. From this playtest we realized we needed to provide players with information on when to “clean up” previous levels’ cards and to clean up the timeline of events in our game. In general, we were very happy with our game with this playtest and felt that it was in very good shape.
Testing and Iteration History
Iteration #0: Initial Brainstorming
Early on, we decided we were interested in a dark mystery game involving isolation and exploring confined spaces. We also knew we wanted to play around with plot twists, so in further brainstorming we generated lots of ideas for potential arcs and twists to our story. We decided on a supernatural story where the protagonist was a ghost but didn’t know it.
After deciding on this initial concept, we started to refine our story. We wanted the player’s mental model of the narrative (Fig 6. top left) to center on three characters: the player character, a companion who follows the player around, and the companion character’s daughter, whose disappearance the player and companion are trying to solve. The player eventually discovers that they’re the missing daughter, having died and come back as a ghost. We decided on the setting being an abandoned apartment building. Players would descend through many floors until finally plummeting in a malfunctioning elevator to the basement, the original scene of the crime that resulted in the daughter’s disappearance. Such a lived-in building would give us lots of opportunities for creating an embedded narrative while still creating the creepy, confined, isolated experience we were looking for.
Iteration #1: Low fidelity cards + human moderation
Key questions we were trying to answer:
- Is our game fun?
- Does our game make sense?
- Are our puzzles too challenging? Are they too unchallenging?
For our first playtest, we had an initial prototype consisting of hand-drawn paper cards, each containing an illustration of an object and giving flavor text when interacted with. We were simply trying to test whether our game concept resonated with players and was a viable path to go down. Based on our first two playtests, we saw that our game concept indeed resonated with players, but Level 1 was unanimously quite challenging to complete while Level 2 and 3 proved to be more reasonable in terms of solvability. We also realized that our game needs better error messaging, as playtesters tried to combine two cards that were not meant to be combined and we did not prepare any error message. In addition, many of our cards lacked polish and the game required a member of our group constantly distributing cards, reading flavor text, and moderating.
Iteration #2: Companion app + refined cards
Key questions we were trying to answer:
- Does our companion assist gameplay? Does it hinder gameplay?
- Does the companion app remove the need for human moderation?
- Do we need a hint system?
For this iteration, we wanted to see if the introduction of a companion app built on React Native could completely replace the need for human moderation in our game. Based on our initial playtests with the app, we realized that our app successfully took on the role of “moderator,” as the playtester was able to work through the puzzles autonomously (but at times we needed to chime in due to minor bugs/errors in our app). However, although we built the app to ensure a more seamless gameplay experience, we quickly noticed areas of improvement for our app when observing the playtests. For one, when players typed and entered a card number into the app, the text input would not clear after they clicked submit. This made the act of interacting with cards unnecessarily tedious, as players needed to manually click backspace in order to delete their previous text input before typing in a new one. Another small inconvenience was that upon typing and entering a card number on our app, the keyboard would not automatically dismiss. This added unnecessary friction to the flow of players reading the flavor text for a given card, as the player needed to manually dismiss the keyboard in order to read the contents of the card. Furthermore, one of our playtesters wished that we had some sort of “Pokedex” of previously visited cards on our app in order to remove the need for players to re-enter card numbers to revisit old cards. And when asking our playtesters if they thought our game needed a hint system, they all claimed that we do not need one, which was reassuring to hear.
Iteration #3: Level 4 + polished app
Key questions we were trying to answer:
- How is Level 4 in terms of difficulty and solvability?
- Does the app effectively facilitate gameplay?
For this iteration, we improved our app based on the feedback we received from the previous iteration: we made the text input reset when players clicked submit, we added automatic keyboard dismissal, and we implemented an inventory feature where players can scroll through all of the cards that they previously visited and quickly access them via a click of a button. For this iteration, we also introduced Level 4 into the mix. We chose to adopt an incremental approach to designing and testing our levels because we wanted to ensure that our game was being well-received and headed in the right direction before we created all five levels of our game. At this point in time, we felt that Levels 1-3 had undergone multiple cycles of improvements/polish and also consistently received positive feedback from our playtests. Based on playtest feedback, Level 4 was a success, as players were able to solve it successfully with little to no assistance. In addition, we noticed that our playtesters’ interactions with the companion app became more seamless, with the only issues with the app being related to minor card numbering errors. However, one piece of feedback we received from two different playtests was that the levels were sometimes hard to visualize spatially. This suggested that we need higher-fidelity card illustrations, particularly in regards to our map layout cards.
Iteration #4: Level 5 + audio + card polish + ending narrative attempt
Key questions we were trying to answer:
- How is Level 5 in terms of difficulty and solvability?
- Does our narrative make sense?
After having received positive feedback on Level 4, we decided to introduce Level 5 to our game for this iteration. In addition, we added an audio soundtrack that constantly played in the background of our game, and also added sound effects when players combined cards together. Audio was something we envisioned from the game’s inception, and we believed it would accentuate the eerie, dark mood of our game. In addition, we made the architecture of the pool room in Level 4 more clear, particularly adding a more clear visual of a metal grate on the pool room map, as playtesters previously noted that they were unable to geographically understand where the metal grate was located. With Level 5 being the last level of our game, we wanted to make it the most elaborate, which resulted in it having the most cards out of all the levels in our game. We noticed that the playtesters had quite a bit of difficulty solving the combination lock in Level 5 (they spent 30 minutes on Levels 1-4, and 30 minutes on Level 5 alone). Based on this observation, we realized that Level 5 needed some more hints and clearer direction. Furthermore, because Level 5 was the last level, we needed to include a big narrative reveal at the end. Our idea for this iteration was that after you successfully escape the building, the cops ask the player who they think committed the crime, from which the player makes a guess and is then revealed the narrative. When the playtesters interacted with this ending narrative, they were incredibly shocked, with one of them exclaiming, “We were supposed to be solving something?????” Overall, this iteration was successful and helped us identify two key next steps: 1) make Level 5 more solvable, and 2) work on creating a more cohesive narrative and ending to our game.
Iteration #5: Ending narrative + refined card art + laminated card sleeves + refined Level 5
Key questions we were trying to answer:
- Does our narrative make sense?
- Is Level 5 more solvable now?
- Does our game flow well overall?
For our final iteration, we first reworked our narrative and changed the ending interaction of our game. Rather than having the player interact with the police officers and guess who committed the crime, we changed the ending to be a simple narrative reveal where the player does not have to guess anything. We made this decision because we realized that the player has already spent so much time solving all the puzzles scattered throughout the five levels of our app, and the ending need not necessarily give them another puzzle to solve. Therefore, the new ending revealed the backstory behind the whole game, answering the mystery behind why the player started on the roof of the building without any memory of how they got there, why there’s blood in the janitor closets, and why no one’s in the building. Playtesters seemed to resonate with this narrative much more and found that it made sense with all the subtle clues that had been revealed throughout the game. We also found that Level 5 was much more solvable with additional guiding “hints” found in the flavor text of cards. Overall, we saw that our playtesters were thoroughly engaged with our game, constantly wondering what the backstory behind the game was as they were solving the puzzles. The overall flow of our game was smooth and there were no points of friction apart from the natural roadblocks that players encounter when solving escape-room-esque murder mysteries. Based on the playtests, we felt proud to call this our final iteration of Descent.
Appendix
Resources for Playing
- Download the print and play version here
- Descent Companion App (Must be built from source)
Level Solutions
Level 1: Roof
- Just a lock combination and a poster -> must analyze the poster and figure out the combination
- Combination: 3617
Level 2: Janitor’s closet
Overview:
- Dead plants, bloody rag, cleaning logs to hint at narrative
- If they break the shelf, then they get the toolbox at the top
- Must use mop to break the toolbox and find the key
- Need to open cardboard boxes with their hands in order to find the screwdriver set
- Use key to open screwdriver set -> obtain screwdriver
- Use mulch bags + opened cardboard box card = reinforced boxes
- Reinforced boxes + screwdriver = open vent = next level
Step by Step Guide
- Inspect Janitor room
- Get shelf
- Get Boxes
- Get cleaning Log
- Get Vent Cover
- Get Bent Mop
- Inspect Shelf
- Get Large Mulch Bags
- Get Empty Pots
- Get Messed Up Rags
- Get Potted Plants
- Bent Mop + Shelf
- Get tool box
- Inspect Boxes
- Get Opened Boxes
- Get Sealed screwdriver set
- Bent Mop + Tool Box
- Get Oddly specific Key
- Oddly Specific Key + sealed screwdriver set
- Get screwdriver
- Mulch bags + opened Boxes
- Get Reinforced Boxes
- Reinforced Boxes + Vent Cover + screwdriver
- Get A way Up
Level 3: Sealed apartment
Overview
- Open door with butterknife
- Tie the sheets to get to the next level
Step by Step Guide
- Inspect Living Room
- Get Office Door, Bedroom Door, Throw Blanket, kitchenette
- Inspect Kitchenette
- Get Fridge, Butter Knife
- Inspect Fridge
- Get Handwritten Note
- Includes clue to pry open sliding door
- Use Butter Knife on Sliding Glass Door
- Get Balcony
- Inspect Balcony
- Get Open Window, Railing
- Interact w/ Open Window
- Get Bedroom
- Inspect Bedroom
- Get Dresser, Sheet
- Inspect Dresser
- Get Key
- Combine Key and Office Door
- Get Office
- Inspect Office
- Get disheveled Desk, Pillow and Blanket
- Combine Pillow and Blanket, Throw Blanket, and Sheet
- Get Blanket Ladder
- Combine Blanket Ladder and Railing
- Clear Level 3
Level 4: Pool
Overview
- Empty the pool and find a hidden passageway behind a tile at the bottom of the pool
Step by Step Guide
- Inspect crack in maintenance closet
- See the wrench and keys and trapdoor
- Inspect locked room -> open locker
- Get pool skimmer net + gloves + headlight
- Pool skimmer net + crack in maintenance closet
- Get wrench
- Wrench + metal grate = sauna
- Loose plank + gloves = inside maintenance closet
- Inside maintenance closet -> get toilet plunger + keys
- Get toilet plunger + rectangular key + round key
- Rectangular Key + controller room
- Get locked cupboard
- Round key + locked cupboard
- Get pool pump
- Pool pump + pool
- Get empty pool + pool tile at the bottom of the pool
- Pool tile + toilet plunger
- Get tunnel leading downwards
- Headlight + tunnel leading downwards
- Onto Level 5
Level 5: Main Lobby
Overview
- After exiting the passageway, you find yourself in the main lobby of the apartment building. The main door is heavily blockaded and you can’t exit that way.
Step by Step Gudie (minimal set of steps)
- Inspect Front Desk
- Get Drawer 1, Drawer 2, Locked Safe, Note on front desk
- Inspect Drawer 1 (left drawer)
- Get dead flashlight
- Interact with dead flashlight
- Get dead battery
- Interact with filing cabinets
- Get anniversary book
- Interact with anniversary book
- Figure out missing year (2012)
- Interact with locked safe using code 2012
- Get door 1 key
- Interact with door 1 with door 1 key
- Interact with boxes OR Interact with tool kit
- Boxes: Get boxes
- Tool Kit: Get Hammer
- Interact with ladder
- Get Ladder
- Interact with ladder + sparkler set
- Get sparkler set
- Interact with Rubbing alcohol
- Get rubbing alcohol
- Interact with Steel wool
- Get steel wool
- Interact with locked safe – code 1207
- Get tiny jar of gunpowder
- Dead battery, Steel Wool, Gunpowder, cans
- Get Door 2 with Destroyed Lock
- Interact with Door 2 with destroyed lock to exit → end the game with realization
