Nancy Drew: The Haunting of Castle Malloy
The binary code, and printing the instructions
The library: reading the plates
Now that you have all four plates you can tackle the binary code. Go into the castle, take another hint from Madame Isabella, and go up to the library.
Go to the table with the scales and find the instruction for converting binary behind the instrument by the wall. Each plate carries a unique number.
How the conversion works
Draw the same table the instruction shows, and enter each plate’s number into it in turn to work out the printing colour for that plate. Write each digit of the number strictly beneath the numbers along the top. Where a zero falls under a number, write zero in the lower part of the table. Where a one falls under a number, write that number in the lower row. Then add up everything in the lower row and look the total up in the instruction.
The table the author drew to explain this does not exist in the game; it is purely an aid to understanding how the plate colour is calculated.
The fireplace hall: printing the instruction sheet
Go down to the printing press. Click the basket and three plates appear in front of you. Click the plate slot to remove the plate that went in automatically, so all four plates are available. Be careful not to break the printing sequence, and save before you start.
The printing sequence
- Take the first plate, 01000011, and lay it to the left of the wheel. Take the bottle of blue ink and flood the plate. Take a blank sheet and lay it on the inked plate. Press the wheel to roll the sheet against the plate. Put the finished sheet on the drier on the right, but do not press any buttons.
- Take the second plate, 01001101, put it in the plate slot and flood it with red. Take your first rolled sheet from the drier, lay it on the plate and press the wheel. The sheet now carries two inks. Put it back on the drier and leave it alone.
- Put the next plate, 01011001, in the slot and flood it with yellow. Take your sheet from the drier, lay it on the yellow plate and press the wheel. Put the three-colour sheet back on the drier, again pressing nothing.
- Now the last plate, 01001011. Lay it on the platform on the left and flood it with black. Take your three-colour sheet from the drier and lay it over the black ink. Press the wheel.
In front of you is the fully printed instruction for launching the jetpack. Put the sheet on the drier and now, and only now, press the red button to dry it. Take the finished instruction.
If you rush and dry a sheet too early, breaking the sequence, just click the greenish recycling basket on the right and start again, this time leaving the sheet on the drier untouched.
Save point: instruction printed.
The jetpack
The bridge: the first flight
Leave the castle and walk to the middle of the bridge over the river.
Where you take off from matters.
Take the jetpack from your inventory and press the button to open it. Prepare it for launch strictly in the order given on the printed instruction.
Save point: before the first flight.
Hold the left mouse button and steer your first flight to the tower window where you saw the light.
A known bug: sometimes the jetpack explodes even when you have printed the instruction correctly, prepared the pack correctly and chosen the right launch spot. Reports online say the fix is to print the instruction with a different order of plates, found by trial. The appearance of the instruction and the order of preparing the pack do not change.
The small tower
Enter the tower room and go right to the round table. Open the table drawer and take out a written sheet. Read the note; it does not make much sense yet, with its talk of books and an island.
Go to the wall with the poster of the Malloy family tree. Turn around and step out of the window. The jetpack starts automatically and you only steer.
Fly left and find a sea rock out at sea. Land on the rocks and go forward. You see an inscription on the rock reading N5, so N is the fifth letter of the code you will need. Fly off the rock and land by the castle doors.
The library: the four book riddles
Go into the fireplace hall and talk to Keith. Tell him who hid Matt’s things under his bed. Pay Madame Isabella for a hint and go up to the library. Go to the bookshelves.
Four of the code’s five letters come from riddles in four library books, and the fifth from the sea rock. Each riddle also tells you which position its letter takes.
- Nautical Cartography, on the left shelf in the top row beside the horse statuette. The riddle reads “One year soon you’ll finally join us here. The seas await your notice.” The letter is C, and “one year” puts it first.
- Ersatz Quidnuncs, from the top shelf on the right. The riddle runs through thirteen instructions whose final eight letters, read aloud, give “Q only or Q will do.” The letter is Q, in second place.
- Hydroponics and Aeroponics, from the left edge of the table with the scales. The riddle says “Three years into the study. By removing all the duplicates, I find that the only remaining true consonant is the key.” Remove every duplicated consonant from the title and one is left: L. “Three years” puts it third.
- Zoopraxiscope, from the top right shelf. The riddle reads “Animals abound, in a merry round. Seated in the middle, can answer the riddle. On legs of four, they spin ever more.” The middle letter of the title is X, and “legs of four” puts it fourth.
The etching on the island rock reads N5, so N is the fifth letter.
That gives the code C Q L X N.
Translator’s note: the Russian release this guide was written from uses different books and produces a Cyrillic code. The riddles, letters and code above are the English release’s own, checked against published English walkthroughs.
The small tower: the secretary
Leave the castle. You see something like a ghost fly out of the tower window; fly there.
Go into the room and to the locked secretary. Click its lid to enlarge the lock for entering the code. You need five letters: four from the library books and the fifth from the sea rock. Enter C Q L X N.
From the open secretary take the key, which looks like the one for the casket in the cottage. Look at the framed photograph of Fiona, whose name you saw in the Malloy family tree. Take the doll with a key around its neck, which looks remarkably like you. Also find and read the diary of little Fiona’s mother. The answer to this tangled story feels close. Zoom out and the secretary lid closes again.
Easter egg 3
Look at the secretary’s combination lock and recall the book you saw on the nursery dressing table, Le Lapin Bleu, whose cover design matches this dial lock. Enter LAPIN.
Take another dolls’ house diagram. You also need the Nancy doll from inside the secretary, which means opening it with the real code first. Leave the tower room and return to the castle. Go up to the nursery and to the dolls’ house, arrange the dolls to this last diagram, and receive the third Easter egg.
Save point: third egg received.
The laboratory
For achievement hunters: save here and finish anything outstanding. Talk to Kyler and Keith. Spend all your money on Madame Isabella. Fly to the pub and mix more cocktails. Fly over the pasture and the castle. Turn the leprechaun figures in the garden. Arrange the dolls to every diagram. Print instructions, mixing the plates and inks.
Leave the castle and fly to the cottage beyond the bog. This is your last flight.
Go to the casket on the table and open it with the key from the secretary. Read the greetings card and put it back in the casket. Turn around and see Fiona Malloy in person.
Come round after the fall and you go forward automatically. Pull the lever by the door. Talk to Matt, who explains in detail how he came to be here. Go and look around the laboratory.
Go to the table and read the experiment journal. Take the rocket launch plan from the wall. Take it from your inventory and read it carefully: the shaft hatch can be opened by launching the rocket. Easy to say.
Under the plan on the wall you find a red button and press it hopefully. Disappointingly it only opens a niche of chemical elements, not the way out. Look at the periodic table, paying particular attention to the group of incompatible reagents, and activate the puzzle.
Puzzle: sorting the chemicals
You now have painstaking work moving flasks of chemicals into their categories, or stores. The arrows in the top right move the mechanical grab at the bottom of the stand in the given direction. Below the arrows is a size scale for opening and closing the grab’s upper part.
Bring the grab to a large flask, keeping the lower part half a cell away and the side grab one cell wide. Click the size scale on the right to close the upper part of the grab around the flask.
For medium flasks the lower part of the grab should be half a cell away, both below and to the side.
For small flasks the lower part should be one cell away and the upper part half a cell. Put the grab exactly in the middle beside each flask. To close the upper part around a flask, click to the left of the slider on the size scale.
With a flask gripped, move the grab and flask with the arrows to the right store. Bring the grab to the store, centre it exactly, and raise it as far as it goes with the arrows on the right. Click to the right of the slider on the size scale to release the upper metal grab. To bring the empty grab out of the store, click the down arrow.
The categories:
- Category 1: NH3, P, H, K, and the starter key, which you take last.
- Category 2: I, H2O, LOX, Cl.
- Category 3: Hg, F, Br, Rn.
Save point: elements sorted.
Take the starter key from the niche under the stand. Head for the stairs to the first floor.
Puzzle: repairing the stairs
Straightforward: lay the geometric shapes in the right order.
Go up the stairs and take the rocket nose cone from the shelving. Go to the table by the metal ladder. Under the table are buckets of various rocket parts; you need the tail section, in the middle bucket.
Go right from the table to where the rocket itself stands. It is dark here and the light only comes on when you get right up to the rocket.
Fit the tail section, then click the hatch at the base of the rocket and look inside the nozzle.
Puzzle: the rocket wiring
To untangle the wires, consult the test journal. The connections are:
- Grey to yellow.
- Black to blue.
- Violet to red.
- Brown to green.
- Pink to orange.
If you would rather not untangle them at all, just connect them 4 – 2 – 3 – 1 – 5, counting from top to bottom.
Go up the ladder and fit the nose cone. Come down and go to the blackboard on the wall. Look at the note pinned to it, which gives the launch angle: 90.1°. Examine the control panel to the left of the blackboard and try to launch the rocket according to the plan:
- Insert the starter key to the right of the indicator.
- Set the required launch angle on the indicator.
- Open the three levers.
Done correctly, the rocket lifts off through the opened shaft. Watch the final video, answer the quiz question and collect your achievements.
Senior Detective differences
Puzzle: the otter casket
Swap tiles: 3 and 4; 1 and 6; 7 and 8; 1 and 2; 1 and 7.
Then rotate tiles with the right mouse button:
- Rotate 6 once.
- Rotate 4 three times.
- Rotate 2 once.
- Rotate 1 once.
- Rotate 3 twice.
- Rotate 8 three times.
Save point: casket cache open.
Puzzle: the Tower of Hanoi
Seven discs instead of five. Same notation, L, M and R for the pegs:
1-R, 2-M, 1-M, 3-R, 1-L, 2-R, 1-R, 4-M, 1-M, 2-L, 1-L, 3-M, 1-R, 2-M, 1-M, 5-R, 1-L, 2-R, 1-R, 3-L, 1-M, 2-L, 1-L, 4-R, 1-R, 2-M, 1-M, 3-R, 1-L, 2-R, 1-R, 6-M, 1-M, 2-L, 1-L, 3-M, 1-R, 2-M, 1-M, 4-L, 1-L, 2-R, 1-R, 3-L, 1-M, 2-L, 1-L, 5-M, 1-R, 2-M, 1-M, 3-R, 1-L, 2-R, 1-R, 4-M, 1-L, 2-M, 1-M, 3-L, 1-L, 2-R, 1-R, 3-M, 1-L, 2-M, 1-M, 7-R, 1-L, 2-R, 1-R, 3-L, 1-M, 2-L, 1-L, 4-R, 1-R, 2-M, 1-M, 3-R, 1-L, 2-R, 1-R, 5-L, 1-M, 2-L, 1-L, 3-M, 1-R, 2-M, 1-M, 4-L, 1-L, 2-R, 1-R, 3-L, 1-M, 2-L, 1-L, 6-R, 1-R, 2-M, 1-M, 3-R, 1-L, 2-R, 1-R, 4-M, 1-M, 2-L, 1-L, 3-M, 1-R, 2-M, 1-M, 5-R, 1-L, 2-R, 1-R, 3-L, 1-M, 2-L, 1-L, 4-R, 1-R, 2-M, 1-M, 3-R, 1-L, 2-R, 1-R
Save point: lantern charged.
Puzzle: the bridge panel
One valid sequence:
7 left, 11 up, 15 up, 14 right, 10 down, 11 left, 7 down, 6 right, 10 up, 9 right, 5 down, 6 left, 2 down, 1 right, 5 up, 6 left, 7 left, 3 down, 4 left, 8 up, 12 up, 16 up, 15 right, 14 right, 13 right, 9 down, 10 left, 11 left, 7 down, 6 right, 5 right, 9 up, 10 left, 11 left, 12 left, 16 up, 15 right, 14 right, 13 right, 9 down, 10 left, 6 down, 5 right, 1 down, 2 left, 6 up, 10 up, 11 left, 15 up, 14 right, 10 down, 6 down, 2 down, 1 right, 5 up, 9 up, 13 up, 14 left, 10 down, 6 down, 2 down, 3 left, 4 left, 8 up, 7 right, 11 up, 12 left, 8 down, 7 right, 3 down, 4 left, 8 up, 12 up, 11 right, 10 right, 6 down, 2 down, 3 left, 4 left, 8 up, 12 up, 11 right, 7 down, 8 left, 4 down, 3 right, 7 up, 11 up, 12 left, 16 up, 15 right, 14 right, 10 down, 11 left, 15 up, 16 left, 12 down, 11 right, 7 down, 3 down, 4 left, 8 up, 12 up, 16 up, 15 right, 11 down, 12 left, 8 down, 4 down, 3 right, 7 up, 11 up, 10 right, 14 up, 15 left, 16 left, 12 down, 8 down, 7 right, 11 up, 10 right, 6 down, 7 left, 11 up, 15 up, 14 right, 10 down, 6 down, 7 left, 8 left, 12 up, 16 up, 15 right, 11 down, 7 down, 8 left, 12 up, 16 up, 15 right, 14 right, 10 down, 11 left, 12 left, 8 down, 7 right, 3 down, 2 right, 1 right, 5 up, 9 up, 10 left, 11 left, 15 up, 14 right, 10 down, 11 left, 15 up, 14 right, 10 down, 9 right, 5 down, 1 down, 2 left, 3 left, 7 up
Save point: bridge panel assembled.