Comet 64

Comet 64

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Achievements Hints & Tips (spoiler free)
By vapier
Tips for getting all achievements on your own, free of spoilers. It's easy to find guides telling you how to get these, but that's no fun.
   
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Spoiler Free Intro
This guide is meant for people who want to get the achievements without just being told how to do it. Maybe you're stuck and just need a little prodding!

Each section below is made up of a number of tips with each tip individually blocked out. Viewing the first line/tip will only show the first one, not the entire block. The tips start off being a bit vague and increase in detail so that you can get a little help at a time and hopefully discover the rest yourself.

If you're looking for an easy guide for getting each achievement (i.e. "Do X, get Y"), then this won't satisfy you. There are probably existing ones already posted, so use them instead.

This is roughly organized as you progress through the game if you were to complete/perfect it as you go. That doesn't mean you have to of course.

General tip: if you want to see the name & icon (but not description) of all hidden achievements even if you don't have them, look at the global achievement stats for the game. This works for all games.
Hello World;
Solve your first puzzle.
Prerequisite: None.
The description is pretty clear.
Just solve any puzzle.
The first one is pretty easy.
You don't have to beat any of the 'Challenge' limits (line or cycles). Just get a correct passing solution.
How many more sentences can one write about this?
I saw a ladybug last week. It seemed sad.
The Holy Trinity
Solve 'Must Come Down' in exactly 3 lines and 303 cycles.
Prerequisite: Solve a few puzzles in Disk 1.
The description is pretty clear.
This puzzle can be found in Disk 1.
It's puzzle 05. It's not a trick to find it :).
Sorry, no tips to actually solve the program. Hopefully it shouldn't be too difficult for you!
End of Disk 1
Solve all puzzles in Disk 1.
Prerequisite: None.
The description is pretty clear.
Solve all the puzzles in DIsk 1.
You don't have to beat any of the 'Challenge' limits (line or cycles). Just get a correct passing solution for each puzzle.
Once you solve a puzzle, it will be crossed out on the left side. So look for ones not yet crossed out.
End of Disk 2
Solve all puzzles in Disk 2.
Prerequisite: None.
The description is pretty clear.
Solve all the puzzles in DIsk 2.
You don't have to beat any of the 'Challenge' limits (line or cycles). Just get a correct passing solution for each puzzle.
Once you solve a puzzle, it will be crossed out on the left side. So look for ones not yet crossed out.
End of Disk 3
Solve all puzzles in Disk 3.
Prerequisite: None.
The description is pretty clear.
Solve all the puzzles in DIsk 3.
You don't have to beat any of the 'Challenge' limits (line or cycles). Just get a correct passing solution for each puzzle.
Once you solve a puzzle, it will be crossed out on the left side. So look for ones not yet crossed out.
End of Disk 4
Solve all puzzles in Disk 4.
Prerequisite: None.
The description is pretty clear.
Solve all the puzzles in DIsk 4.
You don't have to beat any of the 'Challenge' limits (line or cycles). Just get a correct passing solution for each puzzle.
Once you solve a puzzle, it will be crossed out on the left side. So look for ones not yet crossed out.
A:\> Completed
Solve all puzzles in Disk A.
Prerequisite: None.
The description is pretty clear.
Solve all the puzzles in DIsk A.
You don't have to beat any of the 'Challenge' limits (line or cycles). Just get a correct passing solution for each puzzle.
Once you solve a puzzle, it will be crossed out on the left side. So look for ones not yet crossed out.
B:\> Completed
Solve all puzzles in Disk B.
Prerequisite: None.
The description is pretty clear.
Solve all the puzzles in DIsk B.
You don't have to beat any of the 'Challenge' limits (line or cycles). Just get a correct passing solution for each puzzle.
Once you solve a puzzle, it will be crossed out on the left side. So look for ones not yet crossed out.
What Sorcery is This?
Enter the correct password to access voodoo.txt.
Prerequisite: Technically none, but if you get the 'End of Disk 1', 'End of Disk 2', 'End of Disk 3', and 'End of Disk 4' achievements first, this should be fairly easy to get on your own.
You technically don't have to acquire any other trophy first. NB: This isn't a challenge to try and get it as your first trophy :).
First you have to find the voodoo.txt file. Have you found it yet?
Go to the home screen where you select puzzles. Do you see anything interesting?
You clicked the ⌂ (Home) icon in the bottom left corner next to the power & settings buttons right?
Look in the area where you select different Disks. Like Disk 1, Disk 2, etc...
Look for disk1, then disk2, then disk3, then disk4, then {A}, then {B}, then ...
Hopefully you found the 'voodoo' text document now. It's on the mid-right side of the screen with a text document icon (a rectangle with lines on it).

What happens when you try to open it?
Hmm, it wanted a password. Have you found that yet?
NB: The password is randomly generated when the game is installed, so you can't find it online. You'll have to go through the process to find your randomly generated value.
If you felt like brute forcing the password by trying every possible combo, this could be your first trophy :).
OK, time to find the password. What's a synonym for 'password'? (The answer isn't the password, but a way to find it.)
Look for the code (a.k.a. a 'password') in the game. Have you seen that anywhere?
Try beating Disk 1 first. It's a relatively easy set of puzzles to get through. You don't have to beat any of the 'Challenge' goals, just get passing solutions.
Technically you don't have to beat all of Disk 1 puzzles first, just most of them.
Do you see 'code' anywhere?
Open Disk 1. Look at the set of puzzles on the left.
When you first started playing, the later puzzles on the disk were blocked out so you couldn't access them. But as you solved them, they were unblocked so you could read their names...
Once you solve all the Disk 1 puzzles, do you see the 'code' now?
Open Disk 1. Solve all the puzzles. Look at the puzzle selection list on the left.
Look at the bottom just after puzzle 10 'Just Around'. You should see a 'code' there.
You tried that code and it probably didn't work. It was just one part, but how many parts are needed?
Try typing into the password field any characters. Does it stop accepting input at some point?
It maxes out at 4 keypresses (you should see 4 '*'). So you need to find 4 codes.
You found the first part after solving Disk 1. What if you solve Disk 2?
Beat Disk 2 puzzles until you can see its code. Now you have 2 out of 4 parts.
Now beat Disk 3 ...
Now beat Disk 4 ...
Hopefully you should have found all 4 code pieces (one per disk). Type it in!
NB: The password is case sensitive. So if it says 'code: A', you better type 'A' and not 'a'!
Fun fact: While brute forcing 4 keypresses can take a long time, what if you didn't have to brute force all 4?
Solving most of Disk 1, 2, and 3 gets you 3 out of 4 parts ...
Brute forcing just the 4th part doesn't take nearly as long. Try every number (0123456789) and every English capital letter (ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ).
Shouldn't take that long to crack. Now you're a cracker!

When you opened the text file, there's some weird contents in there. Maybe those will be useful for something else ...
Star of Bethlehem
Get the secret star.
Prerequisite: Get the 'What Sorcery is This?' achievement.
NB: You should try to get this *before* completing every puzzle (as in solving, not as in getting all challenge stars).

You opened the voodoo.txt file already right? That was the goal of the 'What Sorcery is This?' achievement. If you haven't done that yet, do it now :p.
What was in the voodoo.txt file? Can you think of using those somewhere?
Start with the code. Can you use that somewhere?
Just copy & paste the output/reg/int/draw lines into any puzzle (on an empty page) and run it.
That was kind of cool. But now what?
OK, I've been messing with you a bit. This code doesn't actually do anything :P. Focus on the other part of the voodoo.txt file.
Start with the very first line. It says 'user: ...' and shows a username. Where else have you seen or used a username?
Go to the home for your current session where you can select disks & the voodoo.txt file. Do you see 'user:' anywhere on this screen?
Hopefully you found it at the top of the screen in the reverse color bar. Do you remember where that came from?
Hopefully you remember you typed that in at some point. Do you remember when?
Hopefully you remember that was the very initial login screen when you played the game for the first time.
So go back to the login screen and experiment!
Annoyingly, you can't log out of your current session. You have to quit the game and relaunch it.
When the game first launches, it shows a boot screen, and you have to select save slots. Hopefully one of those is free ...
If all are currently allocated, you'll need to delete one. Select the one you don't care about and press Backspace.
So now you've selected an empty slot & are prompted for a login ... what user name should you use!?
Use 'masterotari' of course.

Half way there. Now explore a bit on your own and see if you can figure it out.

Easter egg: There's actually a minor easter egg here and/or clue that this section is for this achievement.
When you look at the upper right of the desktop, it says '00:00 AA / 9999'. When you compare it to your normal desktop, you can see that it's supposed to be the current time, but it's corrupted. That makes sense as everything here appears to be corrupted.
The normal desktop shows the current time, but can you make it show the year?
Try clicking on it. Probably no reason you would have ever tried that before :). On your normal desktop, it shows the current month & year (where "current year" is "1984" which is when this game is set).
So try clicking on it in the corrupted desktop. What do you see?
Random garbage instead of the current date? Maybe not?
If you don't do a lot of programming (especially in the web space), this might not seem interesting. But it's actually encoded text.
Encoded how you might wonder!?
Base64!
OK, so how to decode it? Use the command line, or a random internet website of course.
$ echo YmV0aGxlaGVt | base64 -d -
bethlehem
This is the 'Star of Bethlehem' achievement, and the desktop says 'bethlehem', so we're on the right track ...
To be fair, I *did* say it was a *minor* easter egg.
And no, it's not a pun to call this an 'easter' egg :P. All praise Eostre!


This looks like a different login session than your normal one. Things appear to be a bit corrupted, but not totally unusable.
Try interacting with the various UI elements like normal.
Hopefully you found the puzzle ...
If not, click '99. ErRor' on the left side.
Hmm, the description text looks corrupted. And there's some example commands already written out here.
What happens if you just run the program?
Well that's different. What else can you do here?
Can you view the runtime state of the program?
Hit tab to show the registers and such.
The registers don't look interesting, but what about the inputs?
There's a lot in there, but it looks a bit corrupted too.
Let's go back to the description at the top of the program. It looks corrupted, but can you make it out?
Focus on the first word. The description style looks pretty similar to the previous puzzles you solved.
Go back to your normal login and look at the description text in any puzzle. Compare it to the corrupted one.
Focus on the first word (before the colon). See a pattern?
The word is only slightly corrupted. It says 'Yuerq' instead of 'Query'. So what if you unscramble the entire description text in the same way?
Hopefully you noticed that just the first & last letters were swapped. So unscramble all the other words.
The description text reads:
Query: Input contains an encrypted note. To decypher the secret message replace every XXXXXX XXXXXX.

You can't read the last 2 words of the description, but maybe it doesn't matter. Try the same thing with the input stream.
Previous puzzles had you reading/writing strings like puzzle 28. 46temoc on Disk 3. Use lessons learned!
Implement the same algorithm you used to unscramble the description text.
Hmm, when you tried to output the unscrambled letter, the computer displayed an error an aborted. What now?
Was there another way of "outputting" strings?
What if I described it as "displaying" strings? That help?
What if I described it as "printing" strings to the screen? Hopefully you've got it now.
When you first loaded this puzzle, there was a simple program already written ...
Remember the 'print' command!?
Instead of writing 'output = str;' ...
... write 'print str;'

OK, the program is running now. Just wait. It'll show a lot of meaningless religious nonsense that you can ignore (just like real life!).
Once all the strings are decyphered & printed, you should get the achievement.
If you get an error about trying to read input that doesn't exist, this might be a bug in the game itself. Just run the program again and see if it works.

Once you get this achievement, you'll get another achievement too (participation trophy?). If you haven't completed every puzzle, you'll get 'The Master'. If you have completed every puzzle, you'll get 'The Father'. See the other sections in this guide for more details, especially if you got 'The Father' first and not 'The Master'.
The Father
Play the real ending.
Complete all the puzzles. You don't need to beat any of the 'Challenge' limits (line or cycles). Just get a correct passing solution for each puzzle.
Get the 'End of Disk 1' achievement ...
Then get the 'End of Disk 2' achievement ...
Then get the 'End of Disk 3' achievement ...
Then get the 'End of Disk 4' achievement ...
Then get the 'Star of Bethlehem' achievement ...
NB: You should get 'Star of Bethlehem' now before completing all the other puzzles. This will help with 'The Master' achievement.
Then get the 'A:\> Completed' achievement ...
Then get the 'B:\> Completed' achievement ...
And you should be rewarded with 'The Father'. That didn't take all that long huh?
The Master
Play the secret ending.
Prerequisite: Get the 'Star of Bethlehem' achievement.
This is just getting the 'Star of Bethlehem' achievement. Not sure why it's a separate achievement. But you should make sure to get this *before* completing all the puzzles because once you do (and unlock 'The Father'), you can't unlock this one without creating a new save data. Kind of annoying.

If you got 'The Father' first (because you're an over-achiever), it's possible to rollback your local saved game data without throwing away your progress.
* Exit the game.
* Open Steam and go to the game in your Library.
* Right click the game's name in the list on left side, or use the ⚙ icon when looking at the summary page. Select Properties.
* The General tab should be the first one shown in the Properties page that opens.
* Look for the Steam Cloud section.
* Uncheck the 'Keep games saves in the Steam Cloud' option.
* Find the saved game data on your system. Under Linux, it's '~/.config/unity3d/what sorceress this/Come 64/'.
* Rename/backup/delete that directory as you like. If using Steam Cloud, you can just delete it.
* Launch the game again.
* Get the 'Star of Bethlehem' achievement again.
* You *don't* need to complete the steps for the 'What Sorcery is This?' achievement again, just enter 'masterotari' in the login page and compete the puzzle.
* Once it finishes and you get the 'The Master' achievement, quit the game, and turn 'Keep games saves in the Steam Cloud' back on. When you play the game again, it should pull your previous saved data back down.
Always Be Closing
Get every star in the game.
Prerequisite: Get the 'Star of Bethlehem' achievement.
The description is mostly clear.
When you beat a puzzle, the summary screens talk about challenges (lines & cycles). Each of those is one star.
When you load a disk, the disk's puzzles are shown on the left side.
When you bet a puzzle, the name is crossed out. What happens when you beat the puzzle's challenges?
Each puzzle name should have a '*' appended to it for each challenge. This way you can load a disk, glance at the list, and make sure each puzzle has two '*' next to it. If any are missing, you need to keep working at that puzzle :).
Now the question is what is "every" star?
Well, get all the stars in the obvious places: Disk 1, then Disk 2, then Disk 3, then Disk 4, then Disk {A}, then Disk {B}.
If you look at the login page (shown when you first start up the game and pick save slots), it will show you how many puzzles you've completed. Disk 1-4 have 10 each, and Disk {A}&{B} have 9 each, so that'll need to say '58*'.
Hmm, still don't have it? You'll need to find another star somewhere ...
Have you gotten the 'Star of Bethlehem' achievement yet? If not, there's another star!
If you save 'Star of Bethlehem' for last, you might not be awarded the trophy right away. Restart the game and log back in to your slot with all the '58' solved puzzles. Then you should get it.
2 Comments
Randy 28 Nov, 2024 @ 1:51am 
Looking forward to using this. Thank you!
Nert 21 Jan, 2023 @ 3:59am 
Why was the ladybug sad? :(