Later Alligator - Achievement Guide

  Intro

• None of the achievements in this game are permanently missable.
• There are three endings to the game, and you'll unlock them one after the other as you meet more alligators and find more puzzle pieces across multiple playthroughs. They build on one another, rather than being contradictory, so there's no risk of missing anything.

Anytime Achievements

Check Your Watch

Click on the watch symbol in the lower left corner of the screen.

Try, Try Again

Start a second playthrough.

Achievements Linked to Specific Minigames

Pinball Lizard

Linked to Joanie's minigame. She's in Adelaide's Arcade in the Fun District area, where the hotel is. Score over 15,000 points at The Ol' Pinny B. This is predominantly luck-based.

We're Best Friends

Linked to Sweet Geraldine's minigame. She's She's also in Adelaide's Arcade, in the Fun District. Pick up both Baman and Piderman during the final round of Claw School. You can also grab a puzzle piece from the machine during this round.

Screen Time

Linked to Tall Jared's minigame. He's in the Very Adult Bar in the Unsavoury Part of Town. Click on his video app six times.

AHH THE BEES! THE BEES ARE IN MY EYES--

This is linked to Aidan's minigame. He's in the alleyway in the Unsavoury Part of Town. To get the achievement, you'll need to have 8 hornets on screen. The easiest way to do this is as described here - lose the minigame, then stay on the screen for a few minutes and let the hornets build up until the achievement pops.

Sotenbori Memorial

Linked to The Knife's minigame. He's in the Very Adult Bar in the Unsavoury part of town. You'll need to complete Mack that Knife with perfect answers, i.e., the ones that make little hearts appear. If you want a hint, he likes flowers. If you just want the answers, they're: Botanical Garden, Flowers, Somewhere Cool, Shiny Scales, Carnival Games.

Love That Baby

Linked to Angelface's minigame. You can access her by clicking on the baby monitor in the backroom of the Antique Shop Downtown. Don't let any ghosts reach her.

Linked to Multiple Family Members/Minigames

Solid Snake

Having turned Aidan to stone, i.e., failed at his minigame, you can see a photo of him in this form in round 3 of Tin Lizzy's minigame. Aidan is in the Unsavoury Part of Town, Tin Lizzy is in Alligator Memorial Park. You need to turn Aidan to stone and then play Tin Lizzy's minigame in the same playthrough.

Card Shark

You'll need to play all the card related games in one playthrough. These minigames are connected to Slick Mickey (Fun District, outside the hotel), Constance (on the Trolley, by luck), Nana Rue (Antique Shop, Downtown), and Big Mama (District 9).

The Trolley Problem

To obtain this achievement, you need to find all 48 puzzle pieces. You'll then need to put them together with Clancy, on the tram.

When You're Here, You're Family

You'll need to meet every family member and beat their minigame so they appear in the final scene.

Endings

Try, Try Again

Start a second playthrough.

Save Pat

See the final ending.

Little Goody Two Shoes

General

• I wrote this guide before the December 15th 2023 release of version 1.1.2. That patch put more items into the game, fixed a scenario that made the game unwinnable, and gave you more hints about the puzzles, but it shouldn't have changed how the endings are achieved.
  
• This guide should help you get all the achievements and see all the endings. I haven't explained how to get through the dungeons because the developers have provided a full guide for that here.
• I've noted where to find items in town or from the Golden Maidens/townsfolk, but not every item you can find in the dungeons. 
• You'll be able to get most of the achievements in one playthrough. You'll need two playthroughs to get all of them because maxing out your relationship with one person isn't compatible with keeping all three relationships high enough to see all the endings.
• Except for on Monday, Muffy will be be spying on you from a random place in town when she demands food. There's an achievement for successfully bribing her all week.
• Successfully bribing Muffy lowers suspicion. If you have to do a second playthrough anyway, try not bribing her to make it easier to die from high suspicion.
• If you miss two dates in a row with either Freya, Lebkuchen, or Rozenmarine, that girl will no longer be available. To see all the endings in one playthrough, you'll need to alternate your dates so no one is neglected.
• You should receive a heart piece on each date. If you don't, reload and choose to answer the question differently. If you have 5 heart pieces with someone, you'll receive a symbol of her affection which can be used to obtain specific endings. You'll need 4 heart pieces by Friday to achieve the 5th on Saturday.

Saturday

Evening

• Grapes on the grapevine path.
• When your objective is to go to bed, go outside and check the tree stump in front of the house for Golden Girl 1 (Old Kerchief).

Sunday

Morning

• Arrange a date with Rozenmarine.
• Pretzel behind Gretel's house.
• Speak to Lebkuchen for a pretzel.
• Pick up the Mysterious Note in the church.
• Speak to Freya for Ointment.

Afternoon

• Dorothea near the inn will ask you to find Muffy, who is just outside town. Return to Dorothea for an ointment.
• This is your earliest opportunity to act on the contents of the mysterious note. Check the cave entrance just north of the crossroads. 
• Date with Freya or Lebkuchen.

Dusk

• Date with Rozenmarine.

Evening

• Two Bread from Lebkuchen.
• Golden Girl 2 outside of the house north of the entrance of town.
• Golden Girl 3 on the path towards the woods.
• After dinner, Muffy will ask for Bread.

Witching Hour

• Golden Girl 4 (Grapes) in the lower left corner of the first room.

Monday

Morning

• Arrange a date with Lebkuchen in the Church, Freya near the Inn, and Rozenmarine, at home.
• Mrs Odilie has a task. Speak to her in the back alleys, then to Mr Wilhelm near the stables. Return to Mrs Odilie for Grape Juice.
• Toy Horse by the windmill.

Dusk

• Muffy will ask for a pretzel.
• Date with Freya, Lebkuchen, or Rozenmarine.

Evening

• Golden Girl 5 (St Walpurga's Oil) near the well.
• Two Bread from Lebkuchen.
• Golden Girl 6 in Elise's garden before having dinner with Rozenmarine.

Witching Hour

• Golden Girl 7 in the first area. Examine the dress after drawing the butterflies away.
• Golden Girl 8  (Fancy Kerchief) on the left side of the maze.
• Golden Girl 9 (Leather Bag) in an alcove on the left of the tunnels.

Tuesday

Morning

• Muffy will demand grape juice.
• This is your first opportunity to continue following the mysterious note. Go to the old windmill north of the creek.
  Date with Rozenmarine.

Afternoon

• Date with Lebkuchen or Freya

Evening

• Mrs Brunhilde, by the well, has a request. Speak to Mrs Loreley near the inn then return to Mrs Brunhilde for St Walpurga's Oil.

Dusk

• Golden Girl 10 (Silk Purse) at the top of the church clocktower.
• Two Bread from Lebkuchen.

Witching Hour

• Golden Girl 11 (Ointment) left of the trees with birds hiding in them.
• After placing the ring and using the left, Golden Girl 12 is on the right.
• After speaking to Rozenmarine, go right and down for Golden Girl 13 (Hearty Soup). You need to go through the little building.
• After opening the three doors with the crow slates, Golden Girl 14 is on the right.

Wednesday 

Morning

• Ludwig, in the back alleys has a task. Speak to Flynn in the stables and return to Ludwig for a Spiced Wurst.
• Talk to Wilhelm and Eugen near the stables.
• Date with Rozenmarine.

Afternoon

• Muffy will demand a Lebkuchen.
• Speak to Guido and Finn outside the windmill.
• Date with Lebkuchen.

Evening

• Date with Freya.

Dusk

• Golden Girl 15 (Apple Strudel) near the windmill.
• Two Bread from Lebkuchen.

Witching Hour

• In the first area with enemies, Golden Girl 16 (Pearl Rosary) is on the left.
• Collect the mosaic tiles and solve the sliding picture puzzle. In the next area, you'll be able to enter a house where Golden Girl 17 will appear after some conversation/exploration.
• On returning to town, speak to Mr Eugen for the windmill key. You can now enter to create a key item you'll need to unlock some of the endings.

Thursday

Morning

• This is your first chance to use the Fish Key at the village well.
Date with Lebkuchen.

Afternoon

• Mechtilde in the square has a task. Talk to Ariane near the inn then return to Mechtilde for a Silk Purse.
• Muffy will demand some Hearty Soup.
• Date with Freya or Rozenmarine.

Evening

• Golden Girl 18 in the church.

Witching Hour

• Use your first Porcelain Knife on the brambles to the north. Golden Girl 19 is in there.
• When Elise wakes up near a statue and a savepoint, Golden Girl 20 is to the left.
• In the moon puzzle area, Golden Girl 21 is in the southwest. You'll need to cut through some brambles.
• Golden Girl 22 is to the very far left in the new moon section.

Friday

Morning

• Muffy will demand Apple Strudel.
• Date with Lebkuchen.

Afternoon

• Date with Freya or Rozenmarine.

Dusk

• Bernhard has a task, near the well. Speak to Wilhelm in the church, then return to Bernard for a Hearty Soup.

Evening

• Golden Girl 23 near the stables.
• Golden Girl 24 outside the cave north of the crossroads.

Witching Hour

• Golden Girl 25 south of the first save point.
• When you return home, examine the jar of fireflies next to Elise's bed.

Saturday

Afternoon

• This is your only opportunity to finish following the mysterious notes. Go through the now-open door in the church.

Endings

From here, you can get several endings depending on which companion you take with you, whether you place the right items in your basket, and whether you decide to go through with the deal (one ending for each companion if you back out after placing all three items, another if you back out at the last minute).

1. Complete the deal with Rozenmarine as your companion.
2. Complete the deal with Freya as your companion.
3. Complete the deal with Lebkuchen as your companion.
4. Follow the mysterious notes to the end.
5. Back out of the deal after placing your offerings with Rozenmarine as your companion.
6. Back out of the deal after placing your offerings with Freya as your companion.
7. Back out of the deal after placing your offerings with Lebkuchen as your companion.
8. Take Rozenmarine as your companion and place the third offering incorrectly.
9. Take Freya or Lebkuchen as your companion and place the third offering incorrectly.
10. Place the first two offerings incorrectly.

Achievements

Of the 40 achievements:

• 13 are received automatically, at specific plot points. (13/40)
• 12 are ending related. (25/40)
• 10 for observing each of the endings listed above.
• 1 more for having seen all of them. 
• There's another achievement for expressing regret at the last minute in ending 1, 2 or 3.
• 2 relate to Golden Maidens. (27/40)
• 1 for finding one Golden Maiden.
• 1 for finding all 25 and triggering a scene by clicking on the jar of fireflies.
• 1 for giving Muffy what she wants all week. (28/40)
• 4 are work/tiffle related. (32/40)
• 1 for bringing Rozenmarine to work.
• 1 for getting S-rank on all jobs. Bringing Rozenmarine will make this easier, so it will turning your framerate down a bit. Other than that, it's just practice. You can play the minigames over and over on Saturday if necessary. 
• 1 achievement if you don't bring Rozenmarine to work and then successfully divert the villager's suspicions at the end of the day. 
• 1 for spending 500 tiffle. You can farm tiffle on Saturday if you haven't achieved this by then. 
• 4 for dying from hunger, sanity loss, low health, or high suspicion. (36/40)
• 3 are for relationships. (39/40)
• 1 for achieving one heart with someone.
• 1 for five hearts.
• 1 for seven hearts. This will require a second playthrough - if you want to see all the endings, you'll need four hearts with each girl by Friday, and I don't think you can achieve that while not missing a date with any one of them. 
• 1 for achieving all the other achievements. (40/40)

Horizon Zero Dawn: Text Datapoint (Quests) 34

 This datapoint is a little bit glitchy. The map changes after your first visit.

It's in here. You'll enter the facility automatically during the Deep Secrets of the Earth story mission, or you can re-enter it from this entrance later.

Text Datapoint (Quests) 34 is in the office. The area it's sitting on is damaged after the mission, which makes this one glitchy.

If it's not here, reload and run back. If you're lucky, it will spawn. If not, try shutting the entire game down and restarting. It's annoying, but it should load in eventually.

Horizon Zero Dawn: Audio Datapoint 40

 

I had trouble finding this one, so here you go.

Audio Datapoints 34-46 (if I recall correctly) are in this facility. You'll enter it automatically during the Deep Secrets of the Earth story mission, or you can re-enter it from this entrance later.

Datapoint 40 is easy to miss because it's on an upper level, unlike the others. To reach it, you'll need to find a ladder. If you stand at the entrance to the next room and look back and to the right, you'll be able to see it.

Climb up, jump around the three pins to the right, and let Aloy drop onto the upper level. Turn around and you should see it at the end of the path.

Boyfriend Dungeon

There was a lot about this game that I liked. It was, overall, a cute, quirky, fun game that was quite quick to finish. But, there was also something about it that bothered me, and it took me a while to put my finger on what it was.

First, I need to describe the game. You - a player-insert character with a fully customisable name and appearance - are spending the summer in Verona, California, with your cousin. Yes, this is a Romeo + Juliet reference. You haven't had much dating experience, so this is going to be your hot girl/guy/enby summer. Also, some humans in this world can turn into weapons and you can date them.

Basically, this is a romantic visual novel/dungeon crawler. Like I said, it's quite fun to play. But...none of the datable characters really appealed to me. They were all very 'meh.' I don't care about them, I don't particularly want my character to date them, I don't think they're cute. This is entirely a matter of taste, and someone else might feel very differently.

This does, however, lead me to the other problem which is, this game doesn't really care what you, the player, thinks. Despite positing the main character as being a self-insert, the game assigns them opinions and character traits. Don't want the dagger to kiss you? Tough, she's going to, and your characters reactions will range from 'happy' to 'super happy.' Don't particularly care if the talwar breaks up with you? No, you're wrong, you're heartbroken and your only dialogue choices will reflect that. Want a platonic relationship with the estoc? You don't have to agree to sleep with him, but the game still insists on treating him as a potential romantic partner which is, quite frankly, incredibly surreal placed next to the plot regarding an unwanted admirer. Oh that guy's creepy persistence is a problem but this guy is fine?

Now, I don't have a problem with playing a character who is an actual character. Tbh, I kind of miss it. Most of the games I've been playing recently are self-inserts. But if you're going to give me an actual character to play, don't pretend they're me. Let them just be who they are. Otherwise, I'm just going to feel the incongruity of having words put in my mouth when none of the dialogue choices are things I'd actually want to say.

As far as I can tell, nothing in this game requires that your character be a sweet ingenue, so stop forcing me to be one. If you want to specifically tell a story about a sweet ingenue, fine, but be open that that's what you're doing and that the character is a specific character and not whoever the player wants them to be.

I got this game in the Pride Humble Bundle, along with several others, so it worked out as costing £1.67. I played it for 13.8 hours, and I can't say I wouldn't recommend it, especially at that price. What you get out of it will depend on how closely your opinions align with the developers. Someone who's taste or personality is more similar to the lead character probably won't feel the dissonance that I felt.

I Built a New PC!

 Any regular readers - do I have those? Or just people who google for specific guides? - will know that I bought my PC in 2013 and that's why The Sims 3 looks like that. I've now built a new one. Well, almost new. 

It all started with The Forgotten City, a time-travel adventure a la Sexy Brutale, Elsinore, and Groundhog Day. Your character gets transported almost 2000 years back in time to a Roman city which lives under the threat of The Golden Rule.

Not that one.

The Golden Rule is thou must not cause harm to others, including stealing, injuring, or threatening to kill them. If anyone breaks the rule, everyone in the city will be turned into golden statues. This has happened at least once before, since the city is full of said statues already. Your job - should you choose to accept it rather than continue in infinite loops - is to figure out who will break the rule and stop them, so the day you keep repeating doesn't end with everyone dying.

It was a great game and I was obsessed with it for about a fortnight. After that, I was still obsessed with it, but I'd completed it several times - just to see if I could do it any faster, or with no deaths at all, or in a shorter time - and had all the achievements. It was then that I remembered that The Forgotten City began life as a Skyrim mod, an extra questline/area added by a member of the community. So, if I wanted to play the game again but the first time, that was the way to do it.

I wasn't sure if I was going to like Skyrim. I'm not generally into action games and first person games make me motion sick. So I bought it for the cheapest possible price, by buying an old CD code (since the original version is disabled on Steam). 

Turns out, I love Skyrim. It's like The Sims 3 but with one person and they kill dragons. It has all the roleplaying that I like and it didn't even make me motion sick. When it went on sale, I bought the special edition with all the DLC, since that was cheaper than buying the DLC for the old version and I've now been playing it for a few months. I've reached the point of Skyrim where half the game is adding mods then trouble-shooting the mods you just added to see if your save will still load.

Skyrim was originally released in 2011, so my PC could handle it, but mods were pushing it. I'm starting a graduate scheme in September, which will mean more money coming in. Those things together made now seem like a good time to upgrade, since I'll have two months with nothing to do but play.

I started by using UserBenchMark to see how my PC was doing. It turns out, my little integrated graphics card was performing better than 99% of its sisters, that is, the same graphics card installed in different machines. Unfortunately, that card was only getting about 3% of the performance of newer cards, and it wasn't the best since it's just the one that's installed in my i5-4440, that is the CPU that came installed in my PC. That was the obvious upgrade. I also wanted to get a solid state drive, or SSD, which is faster than my old hard-drive, and some new RAM.

I used PCPartPicker to pick out some pieces that would match. I ended up needing a new pc case - did you know graphics cards are huge? - and a new motherboard. I first got a second-hand Nvidia GTE 1060 which was £125 second-hand. I starting writing this post about 9 months ago and that one kept breaking down, so I've since replaced it with an AMD RX 580 which is working a lot better. That was £100 second-hand.

I first upgraded the RAM to 8gb of Patriot Viper DDR3, then to 16gb. Since the 16gb is also Patriot Viper DDR3, after installing it, I put the 8gb into the other two slots, and they all seem to be working together. It's probably not working as well as if I'd somehow bought one pack of 24gb RAM, but it's working better than 16gb by itself, so I'll take it. The 16gb cost around £40, and the 8GB was £25. For context, you're ideally supposed to buy all your ram sticks in one package, because then all the sticks will have been tested to make sure they work smoothly together. If you don't do that, using the same brand increases your chances of them being compatible. Or so I've read. Go on and correct me if I'm wrong.

I can't remember what my old motherboard was, but now it's a second-hand Gigabyte GA-B85M-D3H which is working great. That was £30 on eBay. I don't remember if I strictly needed to replace it, or if I just wanted to. The case was also about £30. I also needed a new power supply, which was £25.

That's about as far as I can go with that, since I didn't want to buy a new CPU. At some point, I'll need to buy a new CPU, which will mean buying a new motherboard, which will mean buying new RAM. That's because, a few generations after the i5, the way the core connects to the motherboard changed. The i5-4440 has an 1150 socket, so it can only be attached to motherboards with that same connector. The RAM connectors also changed. Upgraded motherboards tend to accept DDR4 RAM, not DDR3.

I upgraded my hard drive to a Crucial MX500 1TB solid state drive, which cost just shy of £80. I did also need a new SATA cable, which was about £12. I still have my old hard drive in there. I use it to store Steam games that don't suffer from being on the slower drive. In theory, I can still plug in the CD drive from my original PC, but it won't fit into the case, so I need to leave the cables sticking out through one of the air holes if I want to do that and kind of balance the CD drive next to it.

Anyway, this whole thing was much, much easier and cheaper than I expected it to be. The first round of upgrades came to around £330, which is about what I paid for the PC back in 2013, and the second round was another £140. There were some tricky moments, but nothing I couldn't get past with a YouTube tutorial. 

When wiring the thing together, make sure it's switched off and look out for static electricity. Don't wear anything fluffy, don't work on a carpet, and remember to earth yourself by touching something metal before touching your PC. The trickiest bit was resetting the motherboard by purposefully connected two pins with a metal screwdriver, and that was mostly because I'd read so many warnings about static electricity that purposefully causing electricity to arc through the motherboard seemed daunting. It worked though. Don't do that unless your specific motherboard needs it. Mine did because it was second-hand and the previous owner had set a password on it.

Skyrim is now running smoothly with 300+ mods, so that's what I'll be doing for the foreseeable future.

Switch Pro Controller Shoulder Buttons Won't Work for Death Stranding on Steam

 Death Stranding has some finicky controls, and it's impossible to play unless you're able to use the trigger buttons to steady yourself. Unfortunately, there's an issue with trigger buttons being completely unrecognised if you're playing with a Nintendo Switch Pro Controller via Steam.

To fix it, right click on the game in your library and go to manage controller. It should be using the official layout, as shown below.

Click on edit layout, and then on 'triggers' in the list on the left.

Here's the problem. The game knows the left and right shoulder buttons are supposed to be the left and right triggers, but this layout isn't telling it how to do that. Click on 'add command' and then on 'mouse' along the top.

Set both the 'right trigger' options to right mouse click, and both the 'left trigger' options to left mouse click. You're telling the controller that, when you press those shoulder buttons, the game should do whatever it would do if you clicked the left and right mouse buttons. Which is what you want, since those are set to the trigger buttons.

Voila. Go ahead and transport those corpses to incinerators. It's a lot less unpleasant when you're not falling over at every step.

Edit: Unfortunately, I have so far not found a solution for vehicles, so I'm having to reluctantly switch to using the keyboard when driving.