The Ninety-Ninth Day — hints

Yes. Act I is a day on which nothing whatever is the matter, and it is the most important act in the game. Everything you are shown here — who does what, where they are at which hour, what is on which wall — is evidence in three days' time.

talk to vance opens somebody, and then ask vance about the night of the 93rd. Ask all six about site b, the night of the 93rd, core 41, the plan — and about each other by name, which is where most of this game actually is.

They are at work. The duty roster on the back of the galley door has the whole timetable on it, and people are where it says they are. Everybody is in the mess from six in the evening.

Your own clinical notes in the surgery, the roster in the galley, the painted board in the mess, and the fuel log on its nail in the garage. One of those four is going to decide the ending.

Read it, and then type clip every single time you go outside even though it is a beautiful day and you can see the mountains. That is the entire point of Act I.

Change the core shed thermograph, which is a four-minute job you have done thirty times. s, s, s, clip, out, n, and then look at the rack.

Both of those are true, and neither of them is a lie. Sarashina will tell you what she did and the laboratory day-book will confirm it — and then show the day-book to oduya, and watch what an honest man does with a wrong answer. This is the lesson the whole game runs on.

Take the sked book off the shelf first. With the book in your hand, examine counter and the game does the arithmetic that nobody on the station has ever bothered to do.

Count them. Then look at where the latch is.

examine body, and then search coat. You are the doctor and it is the only thing in this act that only you can do.

You unclipped. Read what is on your cheek: the wind is from the east, it was on your left going out, so it is on your right coming home. Go east, then in. And do not do it again — clip costs one turn and has never once cost anybody anything else.

He keeps the met log by hand, hourly, at every hour of the day and night, and it is on the mess table. Read it, and then show the met log to halloway. What he is hiding is real and it is not this.

Not in his coat — the pocket is stretched to the shape of it and it is empty. He took it out before he went. search bunk in his cabin.

The core shed thermograph, which nobody reads, and something on the floor under the bench that blew off a peg in his cabin.

Of course not. test myself, in front of all of them. Vance said exactly this and he was right.

That is the game. One goes on you, which leaves two for four names, which means you have to eliminate at least one person with the review file before you spend anything. Halloway was at the station for the whole of days 91 to 94 and the sked book proves it — do not spend an ampoule on him.

Six hours is six hours, and it knows that. Two things will happen, and both of them are somebody removing evidence, and both of them are worth looking at afterwards.

Then you go into Act V with paper instead of a result, and paper can be enough — the fuel log, the transmitter counter against the sked book, Bell's notebook and the mouse cage together will get you listened to.

accuse and a name. Or accuse nobody, which is a real answer and not a refusal to answer, and which burns the core shed.

Four points. The plate is worth three and every document is worth one, so it is the result plus one piece of paper, or every piece of paper on the station. examine table in the mess tells you where you stand before you speak.

Yes, and the game will not stop you and will not soften it afterwards. There are four endings and only one of them is both right and believed.