Hint System — The Incident at Galley House

The hint system offers three tiers. Tier 1 highlights a relevant room or scene category (" revisit Kitchen scenes for Victim 8 "). Tier 2 names a relationship or object class. Tier 3 explicitly states the notebook entry or scene code needed.

Tier 1 hints are often free once per act. Tier 2 costs one token. Tier 3 costs three tokens. Tokens are earned by correct confirmations and found in LI lore volumes.

Hints never auto-complete notebook rows — they preserve player agency while reducing aimless rotation. Evil Trout and William Rous tuned costs so Tier 3 remains a last resort: most gates are solvable with Tier 1 nudges if you maintain a thorough scene tracker log.

Repeated Tier 3 requests on the same wrong answer increment a hidden frustration counter that eventually offers a free Tier 1 redirect — a safety valve without fully spoiling solutions.

You begin Act 1 with zero tokens but receive two free tutorial hints. Each correct character confirmation awards one token; optional LI volumes grant two each. Average playthroughs finish with 8–14 surplus tokens if hints are used sparingly. Achievement hunters seeking Frugal Investigator need five unused tokens at credits — plan Tier 3 usage accordingly.

Tokens display in the notebook header beside the hint button (H on keyboard). They persist in Steam cloud saves. No microtransactions sell additional tokens in the Steam release.

Use hints when you have exhausted cross-referencing — not when a single scene is unclear. Open the scene tracker and confirm you viewed all codes sharing a VICTIM segment before spending tokens.

Guided mode (accessibility) auto-suggests Tier 1 after prolonged idle time on a locked gate. Standard mode never auto-spends tokens.