The Mermaid Mask Puzzle Solutions and Exact Written Answers

By the late investigation, your evidence list can look as if someone emptied the Mortuga into a detective’s handbag. If a mechanism will not activate, check its prerequisite below before wrestling it again. The submarine is eccentric, but most of its locks are waiting for one clue or conversation.

For a 3D clue—an object you can inspect from every side—select it, rotate the whole object, and move its visible dials, tiles, lids, weights, or loose pieces. The exact prompt varies by platform. If an answer does not register, compare every movable part with the final state and inspect the reverse or underside.

Puzzle spoiler warning: Every mechanical answer appears below. The final entry has a second warning for an important late-game object.

Mess Hall Snake Cabinet

Room: Mess Hall. Prerequisite: Board the Mortuga and reach the Mess Hall during the Prologue. Reward: Sun Tablets.

Hint: Each number asks for that many shape sides.

Rotate the four dials until the 3 window contains one triangle.
Set 9 to a square plus a pentagon.
Set 7 to a square plus a triangle.
Set 4 to one square.
Activate the lock after all four totals are visible.

Child’s Room Wooden Chest

Room: Child’s Room. Prerequisite: Begin Chapter One and inspect the chest in the lower-left corner. Reward: Glass Eyeball. Ask Zephyr about it later so it can be used as the Eyeball Key for the Captain’s Cabin.

Hint: Patricia belongs in the middle with a normal-sized doll. Jennifer and Margaret must look toward her.

Drag the six cards together to make three complete girl-and-doll pictures.
Put Patricia in the center and leave her doll uncovered.
Place one warping lens over each outer girl’s face so both girls look inward.
Put the shrinking lens over one outer doll and the enlarging lens over the other. Either outer order works.
Activate the lock.

Symmetry and Sinthia’s Pig Safe

Room: Symmetry and Sinthia’s Bunk Room. Prerequisite: Speak to Symmetry Silkmoth and Sinthia Seafoam at least once each. Reward: Underwater Photo.

Exact answer from the untouched state:

Move the hat three times.
Move the left eye twice; do not move the right eye.
Move the left cheek once; do not move the right cheek.
Move the nose twice.
Move the tongue once.

The final face has the hat and left eye pointing right, the right eye facing forward, the nose pointing down, the left cheek lit, and the tongue extended. Rotate the pig and confirm that every white row and column total equals its red target.

Dirk’s Cellphone

Room: Dirk and Wirman’s Bunk Room. Prerequisite: Enter the room, meet Dirk Dansom and J.D. Wirman, and inspect the phone hidden in Dirk’s tuxedo. Reward: Access to Dirk’s calls, contacts, messages, emails, and other phone screens.

Hint: Drag each line piece into a slot. Every crossing helps build both a horizontal and vertical target symbol.

A Across, left to right: left angle; backward L turned on its side; V; right angle; straight line.
B Down, top to bottom: backward L; forward slash; left angle.
C Down, top to bottom: U; upward chevron; V.
D Down, top to bottom: upside-down U; L turned on its side; straight line.

Inspect every phone section after the lock opens.

Wirman’s Typewriter

Room: Dirk and Wirman’s Bunk Room. Prerequisite: Meet Wirman and inspect the typewriter in front of him. Reward: Handwritten Letter.

Rotate the symbols and the outer notched rings on all three dials.
Make the missing design follow the same 45-degree clockwise shift as the surrounding examples.
Put the open circle at 12 o’clock, the diamond at 3 o’clock, the T at 5 o’clock, and the closed circle at 6 o’clock.

Dream Chamber Perfume Shelf

Room: Dream Chamber, on the lower-right shelves along the back wall. Prerequisite: Gain access to Zephyr’s room and inspect the bottles behind the glass. Reward: The panel opens; inspect the bookshelf directly above it for the Caretaker’s Journal.

Exact cap order, left to right:

Arrow: aerated with effervescence.
Eye: conspicuous X on the label.
Crescent Moon: crimson mark on the label.
Hand: glutinous viscosity.
Bird Skull: visible vapor.
Sun: rapid dripping.

Select a bottle’s round top to lift its dropper and test the liquid, then drag and swap the caps.

Engine Room Compass Panel

Room: Engine Room, beside the Sale on Now sign. Prerequisite: Reach the Engine Room and inspect the loose compasses. Reward: The crate opens and reveals the Ocean Map.

Top-left: Yellow, which points away from the others.
Bottom-left: Purple, which refuses to behave normally.
Top-right: Pink, the clock in disguise.
Bottom-right: Red, which points toward the others.

Drag the colored compasses into those four slots. Moving them near one another reveals how their needles behave.

Cargo Hold Pin Board

Room: Cargo Hold. Prerequisite: Complete Mariana Moon’s first conversation, then return to the board. Reward: Mariana tells you to look behind the finished board, where you collect the Moon Photo.

Exact portrait placement:

Cargo Hold: Mariana Moon, Detective Grimoire, and Sally.
Control Room: Sinthia Seafoam.
Child’s Room: Symmetry Silkmoth.
Dirk and Wirman’s Bunk Room: Dirk Dansom and J.D. Wirman.
Dream Chamber: Dr. Zephyr.
Engine Room: Godrik Gripp.
Airlock Grotto: Madam Tadpole.
Outside every room on the submarine map: Magnus Mortuga.

Drag the paper portraits into their present rooms, not their locations during the murder.

Airlock Grotto Diving Helmet

Room: Airlock Grotto, on the upper-left shelf. Prerequisite: Reach Madam Tadpole’s room and inspect the helmet. Reward: Pocketbook. Ask Tadpole about it first, then ask Dirk; he can open it with Tadpole’s birthday.

Exact setup rule: Every pipe must have the same symbol at both ends. Rotate the whole helmet to reach its back and collar, then turn the connected dials one at a time.

Start at the collar dial nearest the open neck and turn it so the U-shaped crescent faces its short vertical pipe. Clockwise from the top, that dial reads U, plus, drop, left-pointing triangle.
On the low collar-rim dial, set the symbols clockwise from the top to triangle, plus, circle, crescent.
Follow each pipe away from those anchors. At the next dial, turn the matching symbol toward the same pipe, then continue along its other pipes.
Check the front, both sides, back, crown, and low collar. No continuous pipe may join two different symbols.

Tip: The low rear collar connection is the usual stowaway. Rotate the helmet slowly before declaring mutiny.

Bilge Switch

Room: Entrance to the Bilge. Prerequisite: Unlock Dirk’s Cellphone and select it as the light in the dark passage. Reward: Access to the Bilge, the Strange Device, and Madam Tadpole’s Diving License.

Exact final state: View the switch upright with the two small target circles between the large dials. The left dial copies the lower four-orb target; the right dial copies the upper eight-orb target.

Left dial: upper-left red, upper-right white, lower-left red, lower-right white.
Right dial, staggered left column from top to bottom: red, white, red, red.
Right dial, staggered right column from top to bottom: red, red, red, white.

Rotate both outer metal dials and the inner glass layers until the colors occupy those positions.

Illusion Theatre Wooden Panel

Room: Illusion Theatre, on the left wall. Prerequisite: Ask Wirman about the Illusion Poster. Reward: Lifesize Doll; lift its locket and open the flap to collect the Film Projector.

Fill the rows from top to bottom with hearts, diamonds, clubs, and spades.
In every row, set column 1 to the normal upright suit.
Set column 2 to the mirrored pair of upper halves.
Set column 3 to the mirrored pair of lower halves.
Set columns 4, 5, and 6 to left-facing, right-facing, and upside-down.

Drag tiles to swap their slots. The second and third columns are mirrored symbols, not ordinary vertical suits.

Captain’s Quarters Model Town

Room: Captain’s Quarters, inside the chest on the right. Prerequisite: Collect the Glass Eyeball, ask Zephyr about it, use the resulting Eyeball Key on the Captain’s Cabin, inspect the HER Painting, ask Sinthia about it, then return and rotate the sun above the woman’s head. Reward: Film Reel from the model lighthouse.

Exact final grid: Count six rows from top to bottom and eleven columns from left to right. Tap a boat to rotate it and drag sails to swap them.

Row 5, column 2: III, pointing up.
Row 2, column 2: II, pointing down-right.
Row 4, column 4: II, pointing down.
Row 6, column 4: VII, pointing right.
Row 6, column 11: V, pointing up-left.
Row 1, column 6: II, pointing left.
Row 1, column 4: IV, pointing down-right.
Row 5, column 8: II, pointing up-right.
Row 3, column 10: V, pointing left.
The red X stays at row 3, column 5.

Starting from the II arrow outside the left edge, the route is: two spaces right to the first boat, then 3 up, 2 down-right, 2 down, 7 right, 5 up-left, 2 left, 4 down-right, 2 up-right, and 5 left to the X.

Cargo Hold Mushroom Puzzle Box

Room: Cargo Hold, inside Mariana’s tent. Prerequisite: Finish the suspect investigations, report to Sinthia, and continue until the crew gathers in the Mess Hall and Mariana leaves the Cargo Hold. Reward: Another Dictaphone Tape. Listen to all four recordings to reveal how the Black Box opens.

Dayglo: 3.
Evergleam: 2.
Illuminight: 4.
Nevergleam: 5.

Rotate the sun to test day and night, then enter those four totals.

Control Room Electronic Panel

Room: Control Room, beside the captain’s jacket display. Prerequisite: Report to Sinthia and continue until she leaves the Control Room. Reward: Access to the captain’s coat and the second Handheld Radio.

Exact final arrangement:

Drag the three largest pieces into a complete red-magenta outer hexagon.
Place the three medium pieces inside them to form an unbroken yellow middle ring.
Place the three smallest purple pieces around the center hub. Put the piece with horizontal grooves at the top, the diagonal-groove piece at lower-left, and the near-vertical-groove piece at lower-right.
Do not try to spin a metal piece directly. Slide its round weight along the attached cord to change the piece’s angle.
Adjust every weight until all three colored rings meet without gaps. A correctly seated piece gives a faint electrical buzz.

Dome Tank Treasure Chest

Room: Dome Tank, on the rocks in the center. Prerequisite: Report to Sinthia and continue until the Dome Tank opens. Reward: Ocean Treasure.

Blue tower: Give the black, white, and blue flag to the eyepatch pirate. Put that pirate immediately right of the tower and turn them left toward it.
Red tower: Give the black, white, and red flag to the hat-wearing pirate. Put that pirate immediately left of the tower and turn them right.
Yellow tower: Give the plain pale-yellow flag to the pirate with clear vision. Put that pirate behind and right of the tower and turn them toward it.
Green tower: Give the black flag with the green-and-white view to the spyglass pirate. Put that pirate immediately left of the tower and turn them right.

Drag flags and pirates into their keyholes, then rotate each pirate to face the matching tower.

Cabinet of Curiosities Skull Shelf

Late-game evidence spoiler warning: The reward below names an important case object.

Room: Cabinet of Curiosities, behind the Dream Chamber bookshelf. Prerequisite: Report to Sinthia and continue until Zephyr leaves the Dream Chamber, then inspect the face visible behind the bookshelf. Reward: The Mermaid’s Tongue.

Set the top column labels from left to right to shaking white skull, red skull, horned skull, crescent-marked skull.
Set the left row labels from top to bottom to eyes, jaw, nose.
Top row: place the white, red, horned, and crescent skulls in that order, with their eye feature facing forward.
Middle row: use the same column order, with each jaw facing forward.
Bottom row: use the same column order, with each nose facing forward.
Drag skulls to swap them, then rotate each skull until the named row feature faces the viewer.

When all twelve skulls satisfy both labels, the glass releases. A tidy taxonomy exercise, if one ignores the twelve skulls staring back.

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