It didn’t take long for people to “beat” the Silent Hills teaser — but nobody understood how exactly they did it. There were theories, sure, but nothing concrete… until now.
Since we initially wrote about P.T., people have solved certain aspects of the overall puzzle. People know that they have to get a phone to ring in order to get the Silent Hills ending. Doing so requires getting a clock to chime, as well getting a certain number of baby laughs. While solutions were found to the first and final baby laugh, triggering the second laugh seemed random. @tortoiseontour, however, has found a method that works — they have not only tested it out at least 30 times, they have gotten multiple people to confirm this solution. They also explain how they go it in the video below.
Buckle up, because this one is a doozy.
@tortoiseontour used translations of the messages that periodically appear throughout the demo, and figured out that they were actually instructions to how to solve the esoteric puzzle. @tortoiseontour then rearranged these messages, and was able to determine that the game tells you to stop moving once your controller starts vibrating — and then instructs you to utter a specific name into the mic. The problem was figuring out what specific name.
@tortoiseontour was able to connect the seemingly random loading screen numbers, as well as the numbers of the studio — 204863 and 7780s — to specific letters of the alphabet. @tortoiseontour also recalled that at one point in the game, you get a message from someone with a name that starts with the letter “J.” From there, @tortoiseontour was able to whittle down potential candidates using the letters they solved, and landed on the name “Jarith.” Interesting factoid: Jarith has ties to the Book of Enoch, which potentially means that the story has something to do with fallen angels.
In any case, if you say “Jarith” at the final loop of the demo — you’ll get another baby laugh consistently. You can see evidence of this in the video itself, as @tortoiseontour tries it out multiple times. The laugh usually takes a few seconds to trigger, but it will trigger. From there, folks already know that you need to stay perfectly still in order to get the third laugh, and then boom — phone rings, and you did it.
p.t. has finally let me experience what being a conspiracy theorist feels like
— tortoiseontour (@tortoiseontour) August 21, 2014
“I haven’t done a proper speedrun yet, but using this and other methods I’m sure you could beat it in about 30 minutes,” @tortoiseontour told me.
“[The experience in solving PT] was really fun though,” Tortoiseontour said. “I bought my PS4 specifically to play PT, and I’ve gotten so many hours of entertainment out of this free demo.”
But why go through all this trouble? It was because many of the proposed solutions didn’t seem right — so Tortoiseontour set out to solve it.
“‘204863 = Kojima’s birthday’ didn’t seem right. So much emphasis on that number and it’s a birthday? Plus that solution forgoes the ‘0’ in the number,” Tortoiseontour explained. “I knew there had to be something more. That and the final puzzle still being hit-and-miss.”
The hit and miss part is key — while this method consistently gets an ending, it’s entirely possible this isn’t the only solution to the puzzle. Not everyone will have a mic, after all. Reportedly, people have used the mic to solve the puzzle in different ways, though Tortoiseontour says that uttering anything other than Jarith never worked for them. Many people responding to Tortoiseontour on Twitter also report that this specific method worked for getting the second baby laugh as well. Personally, I asked a friend to try this method out, and it worked for them too. There is some talk that perhaps any name starting with “J” works.
It makes sense. This solution seems to hit many of the points Kojima outlined about the puzzle, such as it requiring cooperation of people around the world to decipher the hidden messages in different languages. Suggesting that players stream the experience could have been a roundabout way of telling people to use the microphone, too — since typically, the entire point of streaming is to hear someone talk. In order to talk, you need a mic. If nothing else, streaming does contribute to having multiple coming together to solve the puzzle.
This does not, of course, mean the entirety of P.T. has been solved. There’s a chance the demo still hides secrets — and nobody has been able to figure out what the deal is with the multi-coloured flashlights. But for now, the biggest mystery surrounding the teaser has been how to solve the final puzzle, as well as how to trigger the second laugh — and it seems like someone finally solved it. Whew! That was a trip, huh?
(Via TheGrateDebate)
Comments
4 responses to “Someone Might Have Solved The Silent Hills’ Teaser’s Biggest Puzzle”
Jesus dude, props to everyone for figuring that out. So amazing.
Seems awfully specific for something many people have unlocked by accident.
Boy do I sure love Quinnspiracy theories.
Sounds like something out of ‘Ready Player One’. It may be silly but I love that book
Yes!! I wanted this solved so badly… 😛
Jarith? I’m wondering if this is in fact referring to JarEth – David Bowie’s character in Labyrinth.
Think about it:
What kind of magic spell to use?
Slime and snails
Or puppy dogs’ tails
Thunder or lightning
Then baby said:
*baby laughs*
Dance, magic dance…
Hmmm? Did it twice now, no mic…..
You can pause the game then click R3 also for baby laugh, ten steps works as well
I tried it and it didn’t work.
The level where the radio is playing and there’s a mysterious voice telling you “Don’t trust the tap water” and states “look behind you” and then “204863”, Lisa shows up behind you and kills you.
When you wake up from this in the starting room from the beginning of the game, there will be a head in a bloody bag that tells you “the gap in the door is alternate reality” or something about “time”….
204836 is an anagram in Japanese that translates into “Look into the bathtub”. Once you do this, there is a chiming of the clock that rings twelve times. The clock in the hallway also changes from 23:59 (11:59pm) to midnight/ 0:00. If you run fast to the door that takes you back through the house again, Lisa runs through you as you’re heading towards the door.
If you’re on the “Red Level of Revolving Hallways – where you cannot seem to get through the level” and you see the picture on the ground where the gunshot hole is visible OUTSIDE of the bathroom, stare into it and after you hear yourself killing your family, there are words that appear above the bullet hole saying “you can’t turn back now.” If you re-enter the bathroom, the “baby in the sink” states some crazy things about how you forced Lisa to get a job at the grocery store, and the only reason that she was hired was because the manager thought she looked good in a skirt, how you remember, and how that was “ten months ago.”
We haven’t “won” the game, but staring into the tub, making the chimes go off, and exiting back through the loop definitely has something to do with whether you win or not.
Also – before the RED-Revolving-hallway level, there’s “Hello!” written on the wall above the telephone. If you look away, run toward the front door where it says “I can hear them calling to me from” … the letters from “Hello!” wind up on that line to say “I can hear them calling to me from ‘HELL’”…
All of this correlates with how to win, but as I said, we haven’t won yet.
Happy gaming! I’ll be back to see if this has helped anyone at all. I hope it will, as I’m sick of not knowing how to win it. LOL
We went through two times staring into the tub making the chimes ring, then didn’t do it the 3rd time just walking through, then went through FOUR times with staring & the chimes, then walked through EIGHT times without staring into the tub, went through six times WITH staring again, and then walked through again without staring each time – but the bells rang by themselves the first of those three walk through times. The third time through, the clock in the hallway is OFF. After this, we stared into the tub once more…. the chimes went off and we went through the door once again – chimes rang again – there’s some sort of pattern here and we’re seriously trying to succeed. On some of these walk through’s the light colors change from blue, to normal, to green, back to normal. If y’all figure it out, PLEASE post how you’ve accomplished it here? THANK YOU!
the whole jerith thing is wrong because people have gotten the baby laugh by putting anything on the mic.
year 2048
month 6
day 3
be ready for something.