There Is No Game Walkthrough: Hints for Every Scene

There Is No Game gives you no menu, no tutorial and no objective. It gives you a voice that wants you to go away. That is exactly why people get stuck: they wait for instructions that never come. This guide explains how the game thinks, scene by scene, with hints first so you can stop reading as soon as you are moving again.

The one rule

The narrator is not your enemy and not your guide; he is your hint system. Everything he forbids is the next step. "Do not touch the title." "Don't touch that!" "Don't look, it's private!" "Don't play, it's forbidden." Each line is a signpost. When you do not know what to do, think about the last thing he asked you not to do.

The title

After the long goodbye, he warns you that the title is not dry, especially the letter O. Click the O a few times. It cracks, wobbles and falls out, and the voice panics: you have ruined the title, put the letter back. You cannot really put it back — what matters is that the letters are now loose objects, and they will be useful again later.

The sound icon and the crate

With the title broken, the voice complains that you were about to leave anyway, and a sound icon becomes the next target. Clicking it silences him, which he does not enjoy. He answers by putting something in your way, and you will meet a wooden crate that shrugs off the first clicks. Stubbornness is the answer here — when it finally gives, he calls you stubborn as a mule and reaches for something much sturdier. Keep an eye on what he brings in, and on anything that stays on screen after the dust settles.

The private panel and GAME

Next comes a panel he really does not want opened. Open it. Inside are slots, and outside are the letters of the title. Putting the right letters where they belong switches on the thing he fears most — a little game — and he begs you not to play it, because if you play, they will come.

The bricks and the glitches

Play it anyway. It is a tiny brick-breaker. When he takes the ball away and swears there is nothing on the screen that looks like a ball, he is protesting too much: look for anything round, including pieces of the scenes you already wrecked. Keep breaking bricks and the glitches arrive, crawling over everything.

The goat, the key and the tree

To save his game from the glitches, the narrator decides it needs something that sells: armed heroines, zombies, or a goat. He even spells out the letters he thinks the goat is related to: G, O, A and T. Letters again. Once the goat appears in its locked cage you need the key, and a flying squirrel takes it up high. His rambling story about climbing a huge tree as a child is the hint. When the tree turns out to be small, ask how you could bring it water.

The end

Free the goat and see what he thinks of it. Near the end the voice asks whether you forgive him; both answers are worth hearing, so reload and try the other one some day. The credits roll with a last reminder that none of this was a game.

If you are still stuck

• Let him finish talking. Some objects only wake up after a line ends.
• Click things more than once; several objects need a few hits.
• Try dragging anything that moved when you clicked it.
• Look at the edges and corners of the screen, not just the middle.

Ready? Play There Is No Game — and do not touch the title.