Spectre in the Study [SOLUTION POSTED]

[BalloonFight]

This was superrr fun. It legit took me an extra hour and a half to figure out the 2nd part of one code, but brute forcing paid off haha. Such a great game, huge shoutouts to @Mistreil for creating a mini text masterpiece.

 

[Mistreil]

Happy Halloween, everyone! The doors to the Study are slowly closing... But you still have until midnight to find and redeem the codes!

Also on a non-Study related note: voting for the other events have opened. Take a little stroll around the manor and throw your votes in!
There's nothing to vote on for the Study unfortunately, but that's okay. Less work for me

Thanks to all of your hard work, The Bell Tree Manor is terrifyingly spookier, just in time for Halloween. There are still a few hours left to contribute to our five haunted rooms, but now is the time to decide who made the eeriest and spookiest creations of all.

Many of you have been selected as honorary spirits of Bell Tree Manor and may now vote for our Halloween Favorites. The top four creations in each event will receive bonus Haunted Coins. To vote, float over to our spooky Voting Both or click the links below:

Brews & Horror d'Oeuvres - Halloween Favorites Voting
Plushie Poltergeist Dress-up - Halloween Favorites Voting
Skullful Landscape - Halloween Favorites Voting
Jarring Oddities - Halloween Favorites Voting

Choose wisely! Or else...

 

[Bluebellie]

Happy Halloween, everyone! The doors to the Study are slowly closing... But you still have until midnight to find and redeem the codes!

Also on a non-Study related note: voting for the other events have opened. Take a little stroll around the manor and throw your votes in!
There's nothing to vote on for the Study unfortunately, but that's okay. Less work for me

I vote for you to continue making games for us. So fun. First the oarfish then this. They just keep getting better and better.

 

[b100ming]

@Mistreil do you delete the games after the events? I wanted to go back and play oarfish but it was gone.

 

[BetsySundrop]

Ok, now that it's over, I can comment without worrying about a spoiler. That audio, amazingly well done. And it drove me crazy!

I share my island, and one person played that exact song in their house in every version of ac they've ever played (city folk, nh, etc). I heard it all the time! And the name was mentioned. A. Lot. So yes, drove me nuts because I just couldn't remember the name, but knew the tune, lol, and had to brute force it. Then felt really dumb when I finally got it.

 

[Livia]

Are we going to find out the answers? I got to where I had the two messages in the typewriter, but then got stuck and couldn’t figure anything out.
I tried every kk song that had the letters KAN in it because of the hint, but still couldn’t get it. I also tried typing in every npc that was missing from new horizons.

 

[daringred_]

i assume we can talk openly now?

once again, great game! the audio was easily the hardest part for me. i couldn't recognize it at all. i knew it was a kk song based on the description of the record box, but i still went down the rabbit hole of trying a couple of mainstream non-AC halloween songs as answers first. in the end, i pulled up the wiki's list of kk songs and went down it until the right one worked lmao.

got the photo right immediately though ajdkfkglg. it was very creepy, but you've gotta love pierre. he's one of my favorite older villagers.

 

[corlee1289]

I couldn’t recognize the song played and had to play hangman and figure out what it was based on the letters given to us.

I had to look up all the K.K. Songs and tried to see what fit as the last word had an A and an N

 

[Mistreil]

Feel free to discuss openly! I've removed the codes from the game, and they can't be redeemed anymore.

I vote for you to continue making games for us. So fun. First the oarfish then this. They just keep getting better and better.

No promises, but I'll do my best!
It's a bit difficult coming up with games that can be used for events (and to find time to make them), but it's a lot of fun watching you all suffer play!

@Mistreil do you delete the games after the events? I wanted to go back and play oarfish but it was gone.

I moved some pages around to re-organize, so the Oarfish game is now here! I don't tend to delete them (and one day I'll organize them properly and have some sort of archive to point at them.)

Are we going to find out the answers?

Yes! I'll post formal answers either tomorrow or the day after, though you're all free to discuss things amongst yourselves.

A very rough solution is in the spoilers below (it's not a full thing -- it's just to cover the main 'hard' pieces; I also didn't put specific commands for now).

Spoiler: Unofficial solution

Typewriter: To unlock text on the typewriter, you need to take paper from the desk and use the paper.
Music puzzle: Looking at the boxes and then the records will get you a record. Using play record will play a song (which has been distorted slightly and mixed with some audio from the AC:HN Update trailer), and there'll be a scrolling text hint (". . . NOW PLAYING ░▒K░ ▒A░▒N░ . . ."). The answer to this is "K.K. Lament", and saying this out loud will clear this puzzle. If you look at the plaque, you'll get the first part of a code.
Photo puzzle: If you look at the books, you'll see an album. Take the album. Look at the plant as well, and then look at the soil (or eat it or whatever) -- you'll find a key. Take the key and use it to open the album and look at the photo. The typewriter will tell you what to do with this ("Say the name of he who will only ever exist before the horizons"): in the photo, Pierre is the only thing that is not already in New Horizons and won't be added in the upcoming patch. Say Pierre and then look at the painting for the second part of a code.
Golden Haunted Coin: To get the code for this, you need to solve at least one of the two puzzles and then look at the typewriter.
Haunted Coins: To get the code for this, put the codes from the music puzzle and the photo puzzle together.

Also now that this is over... a bit of fun event planning trivia! When I was trying to figure out what to do in September, the first photo I made (mostly as a concept/idea) was just one of Pyoopi's screenshots for Camp Bell Tree. I threw in a gyroid and a froggy chair... but then the update announcement happened, so I had to find something else to use instead of a froggy chair or gyroid.
I do wish they brought Pierre back, though.

 

[b100ming]

I'll organize them properly and have some sort of archive to point at them.)

You could make a screen like that on the homepage. Nothing comes up when I put in mistreil.com.

 

[Bluebellie]

I couldn’t recognize the song played and had to play hangman and figure out what it was based on the letters given to us.

I had to look up all the K.K. Songs and tried to see what fit as the last word had an A and an N

I solved it pretty fast, but the whole letter clue completely flew over my head. I didn’t I’m even realize until now that it was a clue. I just kept repeating the song over and over and then all the kk songs started to sound the same. It started sounding a bit gloomy, so I started typing all my favorite kk songs and I solved it! You’d think I remember the song playing since it’s supposed to be one of my favorites, but that day they just all sounded the same. I kept thinking it was kk Milonga, but it just wasn’t going through.

 

[Mistreil]

You could make a screen like that on the homepage. Nothing comes up when I put in mistreil.com.

I intentionally left the homepage empty and will probably continue to do so.
My domain isn't meant to be centered around TBT things, and I like the disconnect between my personal work and TBT stuff. Also because I find having an empty homepage is very funny.

I'll figure something out eventually, but not in the near future. I'm a bit too indecisive on how I want to style an archive, and I don't have the time to put it together. But I'm glad to know people would be interested in one!

 

[~Kilza~]

I wasn't able to connect the audio to K.K. Lament, lol, so I had to brute force that part by just looking up all of the K.K. songs online, since the sheet music at least tipped me off that it had to be a K.K. song. This was also before the patch that added the "now playing" text to the bottom when the audio was playing, so I didn't have the benefit of being able to narrow down which song it was through that, lol, but fortunately it still didn't take too long to brute force.

 

[Imbri]

Oh! I misunderstood how to do the photo and record clues. I thought those were to be typed into the redeem areas. *headdesk*

I had both Pierre and K.K. Lament and couldn't figure out how to make them work. Guess I'll know better next year.

 

[Valzed]

Now that the Halloween event is (sadly) over, I can share with you all the truly stupid thing I did that made me HAVE to "restart". I was playing the Study and had just picked up the clean papers from the desk. My intent was to put them in the typewriter but just then my hubby arrived home from work and needed to talk to me about something important. Later that night when I went back to playing the game I completely forgot to put the paper IN the typewriter. Unfortunately, I thought I HAD put the paper in the typewriter so never tried to "use" the paper again. I continued playing and solved all the clues but because there was no paper in the typewriter when the typewriter "clicked" those clues were lost to me. I did check the typewriter after each time it clicked and boy was I confused when it said there was nothing there. If I hadn't been able to start over and retrace my steps I'd have never been able to get the codes. I felt so utterly idiotic when I retraced my steps and realized I'd never put the paper in the typewriter. Of course once I did that on my second go through I was able to complete the game quite quickly. I was so happy to see that Mistreil included a "restart" command because I knew that if anyone else found themselves in a situation like mine they'd be able to restart though the game and retrace their steps.

Thank you again, @Mistreil, for creating such an amazingly fun game! I hope you get the chance to create more games for us in the future. (I also loved the Oarfish game but I am absolutely terrible at it.)

 

[.: Meri :.]

I'm so glad I can now tell you all that I found the key by eating the plant soil.

 

[Livia]

I definitely tried typing kk lament, so I wonder why it didn’t work. Maybe I formatted it wrong? But I thought the game said that capitalization didn’t matter

 

[Mistreil]

I definitely tried typing kk lament, so I wonder why it didn’t work. Maybe I formatted it wrong? But I thought the game said that capitalization didn’t matter

Capitalization doesn't matter, neither does punctuation (e.g. KK LAMENT, k.k. lament, K.K. Lament should all work). Spaces between words did matter though: although I allowed "kklament" things like "kk _ _ lament" (where _ are extra spaces) or "k k lament" wouldn't work.

 

[daisyflowers]

oh lmao i did find/type in k.k. dirge when i typed in 'k.k. halloween songs' into google but i didn't think to try others when it took me to a wiki of some kind?? thought the text clue's funky patterns each represented a letter in a word but we moving and grooving as i got the pumpkin wand anyways

not like i made up a word document with different 4 and 6 letter words that i thought the song could be aHAH-

 

[Dinosaurz]

Kk lament was the easier for me lol, I didn’t even listen to the kk songs I just looked up all of them for one that matched up with the letters
I overthought the photo too much, I thought it was a hidden character I thought that the cat was in the game already lol