Decided to keep my video off this comment section because it seems to me like it's a place where people try to find updates, but I still wanna give a short review! This was a really nice trip down memory lane that's been turned on its head. I love games like this that are unassuming at the start, and end up leading you down a rabbit hole of secrets. I didn't get very far, but I do want to continue playing and finding these secrets as they're discovered. Overall, I had a great time playing this! Great work!
Played it yesterday, good visual style representing 'PS1 graphics', I got decently far without spoiling myself or having read any of the comments before-hand, but, after getting the DATA MISSING part, I'm gonna just imagine most of the 'puzzles' and secrets will go over my head XD But I enjoyed what I was able to achieve as short as it was for me
omg I really cried at the adorable models this game is my whole childhood I love it i was always searching for courage the cowardly dog game but i just found courage's curse and courage the cowardly pt thanks for making this game :D
To sum up where we are so far and what has yet to be figured out... Now with pictures!
// spoilers
I am going to assume that you're able to figure out the house intro and chair puzzle on your own for this summary.
First, I'm gonna talk about the sav files. You can find your save file at C:\Users\<USER>\AppData\Local\CourageOW\Saved\SaveGames . When the game crashes at various points, it'll update the Courage.sav file so that next time you start the game, you'll be in the new location. If you open the sav files in a hex editor like HxD, most of the contents are pretty much identical except for an English string near the bottom (ex. "The Time" or "Was Good"). You can edit the string and load up the game to be loaded into the corresponding map.
The intro screen when you load a new save file tells us that there are 3 data missing scenes to find. That was our first goal. We have found all 3.
An interesting note about the sav files of the 3 data missing scenes is that before the usual sav phrase (which is always the same phrase as the map right before the data missing screen), all of them contain the strings "And Fair?" and "BeforeTheStorm". Sometimes the sav for one of the data missing scenes also contains the string "No". We do not currently know the purpose of the "BeforeTheStorm" string or if the "No" string is a bug or purposeful
The first data missing screen was found by Bryce Bucher. To find it, complete the house intro and chair puzzle as normal. Then go through the hidden wall (follow the bird sounds) and jump off the side. You will spawn in the house with no furniture. The sav phrase for this scene is "Was Good". If you wait around in the house, you'll eventually hear some Morse code. Otherwise, go upstairs, interact with the door, and then when you go back downstairs the grandfather clock will be in the middle of the room. Be sure to JUMP OVER THE RAILING into the room instead of just walking down the stairs. If you just walk down the stairs, the clock will chime 12 times and the game will crash. However, if you jump over the railing, the clock won't start chiming and you can interact with the door in the back of the house to get the first data missing screen.
The Morse code during this sequence translates to "Learn The Way Of The Old Wind". It is worth noting that the phrase "Old Wind" is pretty important. The game itself is called CourageOW (we think OW stands for Old Wind) and there is also a file in CourageOW/PortFiles/Data/Logs/..txt that says "She followed the rules He broke the rules The O██ W███ was all the way to the right". And we believe the censored words are Old Wind. I'll talk more about what we think Old Wind might mean later in the post. Side note: If you open the README file it says "When you find a dead end Just erase time", but we're pretty sure that just means that when your save is unusable (you found a data missing screen), delete your sav file.
The second and third data missing screens are both found by going to the end of the two hidden paths in the void room. To get to the void room, do the house intro and chair puzzle and then go to the end of the hidden wall path to interact with a hidden question mark. Then go north of the chairs to find a portrait of Muriel and interact with it. After the game crashes, you'll spawn in the void room. The sav phrase for this room is "The Time".
In this room, there are two invisible paths off the NW and SE of the start. As found by duckenheimer, if you run the background music through a spectrogram using a program like Spek, you'll get a map of the invisible paths. However, they're incredibly difficult to follow with lots of turns and long paths in the dark. TheBeardeDude found that you can instead use a program called Reshade to see the invisible paths by shading the display depth.
Following the SE path, you'll end up at a light that, when interacted with, will teleport you to a pitch black room with a locked camera. If you walk forward, you'll find like a cardboard cutout of the front of a house. Note this house because we'll be talking about it again during the OldWind discussion later. and behind it is a portrait of Robert Wheeler. Interacting with that will crash your game and update your sav file with the string "I Don't". You'll spawn in the house, but it's very dark. Going upstairs will start a cutscene of a humanoid creature moving towards you (the name for this creature in the files is RealWheeler). Then you get the next data missing screen.
Following the NW path, you'll end up at the chair under the spotlight. Interacting with it will crash your game and update your sav file with the string "When the World". You'll spawn in the house with a bunch of coins scattered about. Collecting some of them will slow the music and some HUD with Muriel as player 2 will appear. Then, after collecting all the coins, her portrait will darken and you'll get the last data missing screen.
If you brighten the 3 data missing screens, there are hidden phrases that says "Father wasn't home", "Mr Wheeler was there to greet me", and "It was her Eleonor". We do not currently know the significance of these phrases.
After finding the 3 data missing screens, we had the following sav phrases: "The Time", "When The World", "Was Good", "I Don't" as well as the other strings that appeared in the sav files "And Fair?", "BeforeTheStorm", and possibly "No". From attempts to make a full phrase using these, it was found that you can use the phrase "Remember" and it will load the game as if it were a new save. NeitherNathan mentioned in a discord message that the first sav phrase in the full phrase wasn't appearing in the sav files due to a bug. Currently a new sav file doesn't contain any phrase. Because of this, we believe that the "Remember" phrase is supposed to relate to the new save scene. Then, using a program called Cheat Engine to search through the running game's memory, it was found that the last sav phrase is "Do You". We do not currently know the intended solution to find the "Do You" sav phrase. So, it appears the full sav phrase may be "Remember The Time When The World Was Good And Fair? I Don't Do You". The reason for "Do You" being at the end instead of the beginning of the phrase is due to the ordering of the phrases in the memory, but I feel it may make more sense for it to be at the beginning due to the punctuation. However We do not currently know what the significance of the full sav phrase is.
Editing your sav file to use the "Do You" phrase spawns you in a greybox version of the house. The only thing you can do is go into the computer room and interact with the computer over and over. We do not currently know if there is anything else to do in this scene.
And finally, let's talk about OldWind. This phrase appears a lot throughout the game and it seems to be a central pillar of the ARG. If you extract the .pak files of the game using Unreal Engine's UnrealPak.exe and open them with UE Viewer, you'll see that the following things have filenames relating to OldWind: The design under the chair puzzle, the coins that have the same design, the darkened Muriel P2 UI, and the cardboard cutout house model. If you look at the chair puzzle design, you'll notice that you can use it to (kind of) spell out OLDWIND. We believe that there is a way to interact with the chair puzzle in such a way to input the letters OLDWIND, but have not yet been successful. Since there are missing chairs and it is unclear which chair to start each letter with, we haven't figured this one out yet. My theory is that successfully inputting OLDWIND into the chair puzzle will give us the "Do You" sav legitimately. Note that having to figure out how to input these letters would fit nicely with the Morse code that said "Learn The Way Of The Old Wind".
As for the other two files related to OldWind We do not currently know what the darkened Muriel UI nor the house have to do with OldWind. The house may be related to the clue that says "The O██ W███ was all the way to the right" since in order to get to the house, you need to go all the way down the right path in the void.
And that's about all we know at this point. NeitherNathan has recently posted on Twitter that there will be an update to the "port", so I'll be sure to revisit this once that comes out. Thanks to NeitherNathan and Chicogames for the great ARG so far! Looking forward to more.
i think i no how to get a forth missing data the qustion markes when you go in a diffrent real thereare two qustin marks one always dings as in correct the one you spawn on is not correct you got to hit some difrent charis to make it correct sohit some diffrent charis and leave the last 2 chairs u toched and tuch the qustion markes in a differnt way
Figured out what the higher question mark in the chair area is. If you do the first 3 chairs normally and then use the high question mark and then continue from the 5th chair the puzzle will complete normally. Not sure what comes after that
Wait, what? I just confirmed that this works. Not sure why though. Might have something to do with the possible letter inputs. Maybe after each letter you need to hit the higher question mark to "lock in" the letter or something? The first 3 chairs seem to make the letter V though, and that isn't in the phrase OLDWIND, so I'm at a loss. Here's an image of the chair puzzle I made btw. Might help.
Edit: Messed around with it some more and couldn't get it to make a correct noise except during that very specific circumstance. Makes me think that it's just an accidental duplicate of the 4th chair's question mark. Has the same height and everything. Would explain why it disappears after the puzzle is complete since all of them do. Still no answer for what the lower question mark is though.
the accidental duplicate of the 4th chair is exactly the conclusion i came too, hopefully we're both wrong and it actually does something because that's kinda lame :(
By editing the sav file to use the phrase "Do You", you'll appear in a greybox version of the house. Not sure what to do yet. Seems like the only thing you can interact with is the computer over and over.
We already knew most of the sav phrases, so I started up the game and on the main menu used cheat engine to search for any uses of one of those strings and looked around in the memory nearby to find it.
As for editing the sav file, you can use a hex editor like HxD to open the file and near the bottom you'll find an English string depending on which part of the game you're at. New saves don't have these strings, so you'll have to get to another scene like the void room with the hidden paths (the string will be "The Time") and edit the file then.
Can I ask you what you mean with "editing the sav file"? Did you Just write the words in the save file in a specific Place or have you done something else?
You can use a hex editor like HxD to open the file and near the bottom you'll find an English string depending on which part of the game you're at. New saves don't have these strings, so you'll have to get to another scene like the void room with the hidden paths (the string will be "The Time") and edit the file then.
I'm a touch closer than anything listed here to finding the secret fifth .sav ending. Got the first middle question mark, in the circle chairs room, to not make the "wrong answer" sound. I need a break though... feels like I've been at this for 24 hours
To sum up where we are so far and what has yet to be figured out...
// spoilers
I am going to assume that you're able to figure out the house intro and chair puzzle on your own for this summary.
First, I'm gonna talk about the sav files. You can find your save file at C:\Users\<USER>\AppData\Local\CourageOW\Saved\SaveGames . When the game crashes at various points, it'll update the Courage.sav file so that next time you start the game, you'll be in the new location. If you open the sav files in a hex editor, most are pretty much identical except for an English string at the bottom. So far the strings we've found are "The Time", "Was Good", "I Don't", and "When The World". We haven't figured out what to do with these strings yet.
The intro screen when you load a new save file tells us that there are 3 data missing scenes to find. We have found all 3.
An interesting note about the sav files of the 3 data missing scenes is that before the usual string, all of them contain the strings "And Fair?" and "BeforeTheStorm". We also haven't figured out what to do with these.
The first data missing screen was found by Bryce Bucher. To find it, complete the house intro and chair puzzle as normal. Then go through the hidden wall (follow the bird sounds) and jump off the side. You will spawn in the house with no furniture. The sav file for this scene contains the string "Was Good". Optionally, you can choose to wait here and you'll eventually hear some Morse code. Otherwise, go upstairs, interact with the door, and then when you go back downstairs there will be a grandfather clock in the middle of the room. Be sure to JUMP OVER THE RAILING into the room instead of just walking down the stairs. If you just walk down the stairs, the clock will chime 12 times and the game will crash. However, if you jump over the railing, the clock won't start chiming and you can interact with the door in the back of the house to get the first data missing screen.
The Morse code during this sequence translates to "Learn The Way Of The Old Wind". We don't know what this means yet, but it is worth noting that the phrase "Old Wind" is pretty important. The game itself is called CourageOW (we think OW stands for Old Wind) and there is also a file in CourageOW/PortFiles/Data/Logs/..txt that says "She followed the rules He broke the rules The O██ W███ was all the way to the right". And we believe the censored words are Old Wind. Side note: If you open the README file it says "When you find a dead end Just erase time", but we're pretty sure that just means that when your save is unusable (you found a data missing screen), delete your sav file.
The second and third data missing screens are both found by going to the end of the two hidden paths in the void room. To get to the void room, do the house intro and chair puzzle and then go to the end of the hidden wall path to interact with a hidden ? . Then go north of the chairs to find a portrait of Muriel and interact with it. After the game crashes, you'll spawn in the void room. The sav string for this room is "The Time".
In this room, there are two invisible paths off the NW and SE of the start. As found by duckenheimer, if you run the background music through a spectrogram, you'll get a map of the invisible paths. However, they're incredibly difficult to follow with lots of turns and long paths in the dark. TheBeardeDude found that you can use a program called Reshade to see the invisible paths by shading the display depth.
Following the SE path, you'll end up at a light that, when interacted with, will teleport you to a pitch black room with a locked camera. If you walk forward, you'll find the front face of the house (kind of like a cardboard cutout of the front of the house) and behind it is a portrait of Robert Wheeler. Interacting with that will crash your game and update your sav file with the string "I Don't". You'll spawn in the house, but it's very dark. Going upstairs will start a cutscene of a ghost creature (with I believe Robert Wheeler's face) moving towards you. Then you get the next data missing screen.
Following the NW path, you'll end up at the chair under the spotlight. Interacting with it will crash your game and update your sav file with the string "When the World". You'll spawn in the house with a bunch of coins scattered about. Collecting some of them will slow the music and some HUD with Muriel as player 2 will appear. Then, after collecting all the coins, her portrait will darken and the music will slow even more. Then the game crashes and the last data missing screen appears.
If you brighten the 3 data missing images, there are hidden phrases that says "Father wasn't home", "Mr Wheeler was there to greet me", and "It was her Eleanor". We don't know what to do with these yet either.
I'm sure there is more stuff in the game since if you open the .pak file in a hex editor, you'll find references to a sprite called "OldWindPendant" which we haven't found yet. The only place in the game that I can think of that hasn't been full explored yet is in the chair puzzle room, there is an invisible ? near where you spawn. (There are actually 2 there when you spawn, but the higher one disappears after you do the chair puzzle which leads me to believe that the higher one is actually the one behind the hidden wall that moves after the puzzle is completed). We don't know what the lower ? at the beginning does.
Edit: I realized that the OldWindPendant sprite may actually be referring to the coins. With that in mind, the design on the coins is the same as the design on the floor under the chair puzzle. It's possible to use this design to spell out the letters OLDWIND by selecting the chairs in the right order. However, it's not easy to figure out what that order is since there are chairs missing, and the starting point for each letter is unclear.
If anyone is able to figure the order out, leave a comment! It may also have something to do with the invisible ? at the beginning.
Edit2: Editing the sav file to use the phrase "Remember" loads (what seems to be) a new save instead of hanging on the loading screen. Because of that, I'm pretty sure the full phrase relating to the sav files is "Remember The Time BeforeTheStorm When The World Was Good And Fair? I Don't". Tried editing the sav file to use that phrase, but it just loads the same as a "Remember" sav since I think the way the save system works is that it checks from the beginning of the string and loads whichever phrase comes first. So, we also need to figure out what to do with that phrase.
Edit3: Sometimes the sav file from the 2nd data missing screen will also include the word "No", so it's possible that that word is included in the phrase.
Edit4: NeitherNathan has just posted on Twitter that there will be an update to the "port". It's possible that we've discovered all there is to see in the current version due to the phrasing in the follow up tweet that says "I can't believe you all discovered everything so fast", but I think there's still a bit to figure out with the OLDWIND chair input, invisible ?, and sav phrase.
For anyone unfamiliar with ReShade, here's a quick tutorial on how to get the shader effects needed to take on the void map: - download ReShade from their site at reshade.me
- run the installer, and "Click here to select a game and manage its ReShade installation"
- click Browse and select the .exe located in the Binaries folder: - when asked to select a rendering API, choose Direct3D 10/11/12
- SweetFX should be selected by default, but in case it isn't make sure it's selected before pressing OK, and OK again to confirm the shaders included. ReShade is now installed!
- Run CourageOW and start up the void map. You should see a ReShade banner on-screen now. Press Home to open ReShade and skip the tutorial to show the list of available shaders. Select DisplayDepth (DisplayDepth.fx).
- This only seems to work in windowed mode, so if your game is fullscreen press F11 to switch and that should work:
You can also get a little bit more screen space by switching "Show Both (Vertical 50/50)" to "Normal Map".
I was trying to piece together the sav phrases and came up with "The time before the storm, when the world was good and fair? I don't [remember it]", so I tried a sav file with "Remember It" and it worked. Then I found out that the phrase is just "Remember" and you can type anything after the phrase and it'll still accept it. Also just found out that sometimes the sav file for the 2nd missing data screen includes the word "No", so the complete phrase may include that as well.
(Edit) Talking about the lore of the game, i think that using the cheat engine and spectrogram to see the street in the dark room with the chair so "Think outside the box" is a reference to a specific episode where Courage and Muriel got sucked into Computer when he had a virus. I use He because the Computer in the series have an Identity, he can talk and give advice to Courage. In that episode Courage become 3D model in a creepy way. Another detail is that when he got destroyed by the minions of the Virus, Courage "Think outside the box" and transform the bit that compose himself into a spike mace club to bonk all the evil minions of Virus. It's just a theory but i'think it's funny. Hard drive dog is the name of the episode. Season 3, episode 4.
On 18/08/2021 a guy called TheBeardeDude was able to use reshade to make visible the way to go to the chair . After that, the game crashes and when you re-open it you go back to the home when there are coins, and after you collect a certain number of them a second player enters that has the same image of Muriel that you could find at the second stage ( that one with the chairs ) and when you collect all of them you get a data missing image. That when increasing the contrast you see this
if you wanna kinda cheat there is a way with reshade to see the pattern of the room with the 2 dot of lights. just use reshade on the game and turn on displaydepth.(discovered by a fan of https://www.twitch.tv/yotobi that ishttps://www.twitch.tv/thebeardedude)
Using this method, I got the next data missing screen.
// spoilers
If you take the path to the right, you'll eventually get to a light that teleports you to a dark room. If you walk straight through the dark room, you'll come across this house
You have to go around the back, and you'll find this image of Eustace
Interacting with it will crash your game and next time you spawn you'll be in a dark version of the house (I have a copy of this save file)
Going upstairs, you'll get a cutscene of a ghost thing running at you
And then you get the 2nd data missing (I have a copy of this save file too). If you brighten the image, you get the message "Mr. Wheeler was there to greet me"
The sav string for the dark house is "I Don't" and the data missing sav has the same "And Fair? BeforeTheStorm" string that the other data missing sav has before the I Don't string.
Interestingly, if you try to change the sav file of any of the missing data savs, most strings will load with the "it was her Eleanor" data missing scene. My guess is that this data missing scene is also the fallback for any corrupted savs that include the BeforeTheStorm bit.
AppData is a hidden folder by default, so you either need to enable showing hidden folders in windows or type %appdata% into your windows search bar to open it up.
I'm trying to get past the area with all of the chairs in the circle. Is there anything specific I need to do? I also read something in a readme file that said if you come to a dead end then rewind time. How do you do that? Any help would be appreciated as I'm trying to find the seemingly inaccessible levels that you mentioned.
Thanks for the tip. It's a little harder than I expected. Can you give me a hint on where on the line to start and which direction it goes? I tried multiple times but can't get past it.
sorry, I've read right now. Anyway, if you still need it... You have to follow to interact with the chairs following the line inside the circle. First interact with the chair at the beginning of the first segment, then with the chair at the end of the first segment, then follow the second segment and so on, until you interact with the chair at the end of the last segment. Sorry, i don't know how to be clearer than this
I Found the Same [MISSING DATA] Room everyone here is also talking about. Here's how to get to it, Make sure to follow EXACTLY.
Once in the room without furniture, wait until the music stops completely before using the door upstairs, Once it stops, Use the door. Next head downstairs by JUMPING OVER THE RAILING of the stair case and head to the door behind the clock in the back on the right. It is important that the clock does not start chiming, jumping over the railing does not cause it to chime.
I also am making a series on this on my channel and the first video will be uploaded soon whenever I find time.
I found the data missing one in the Was Good room, altho I was not able to recreate it. The save file had new words in it. I am guessing you have to formulate the words in the save file into a full sentence to access new room(s). Maybe it is how you fix the data missing room(s)? I am going to be so I wont be trying it now.
Also the game never tells you that you are looking for muriel and eustac specifically, it says "Find Them" and shows 3 dog paws that are next to courage's icon.
We can easily assume that muriel and eustace take up 2 of those 3 dog prints. There is also supposedly 3 data missing rooms with a logical way to access. It is fun exploring this game and figuring out the puzzles, but none of it compares to how much I wonder what/who the 3rd missing person is
I noticed the background music on the level with the chair in the spotlight sounded like the outro to an Aphex Twin song. So I recorded it and ran it through an audio spectrum visualizer, hoping there would be hidden information in the audio.
Not sure if it's actually a map of the area or something else yet.
More interesting notes, in the save files there are various little sentence fragments that can be assembled to form the sentence "Before The Storm The Time Was Good And Fair?" I have no idea what this information could be useful for but I reckon it'd be appropriate to share.
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This game and its graphics are dope as hell. what kind of shader is it?
i cant seem to download it
Decided to keep my video off this comment section because it seems to me like it's a place where people try to find updates, but I still wanna give a short review! This was a really nice trip down memory lane that's been turned on its head. I love games like this that are unassuming at the start, and end up leading you down a rabbit hole of secrets. I didn't get very far, but I do want to continue playing and finding these secrets as they're discovered. Overall, I had a great time playing this! Great work!
Game Server for everyone who wants here:
https://discord.gg/mRWtnaNf
Played it yesterday, good visual style representing 'PS1 graphics', I got decently far without spoiling myself or having read any of the comments before-hand, but, after getting the DATA MISSING part, I'm gonna just imagine most of the 'puzzles' and secrets will go over my head XD But I enjoyed what I was able to achieve as short as it was for me
omg I really cried at the adorable models this game is my whole childhood I love it i was always searching for courage the cowardly dog game but i just found courage's curse and courage the cowardly pt thanks for making this game :D
ayo
can somebody inspect game files like .dll or .cs?
maybe we would find something intresting
Does anyone have any idea who Robert Wheeler is? Or at least the man used in the picture
I want to know too!
Something tells me you may already know...
Is that you Robert? Do you know who eleanor is?
hi
I know you are the one who broke the rules
I know you are the one who broke the rules
I know you are the one who broke the rules
Oh my god! It looks good can't wait to play it!
To sum up where we are so far and what has yet to be figured out... Now with pictures!
// spoilers
I am going to assume that you're able to figure out the house intro and chair puzzle on your own for this summary.
First, I'm gonna talk about the sav files. You can find your save file at C:\Users\<USER>\AppData\Local\CourageOW\Saved\SaveGames . When the game crashes at various points, it'll update the Courage.sav file so that next time you start the game, you'll be in the new location. If you open the sav files in a hex editor like HxD, most of the contents are pretty much identical except for an English string near the bottom (ex. "The Time" or "Was Good"). You can edit the string and load up the game to be loaded into the corresponding map.
The intro screen when you load a new save file tells us that there are 3 data missing scenes to find. That was our first goal. We have found all 3.
An interesting note about the sav files of the 3 data missing scenes is that before the usual sav phrase (which is always the same phrase as the map right before the data missing screen), all of them contain the strings "And Fair?" and "BeforeTheStorm". Sometimes the sav for one of the data missing scenes also contains the string "No". We do not currently know the purpose of the "BeforeTheStorm" string or if the "No" string is a bug or purposeful
The first data missing screen was found by Bryce Bucher. To find it, complete the house intro and chair puzzle as normal. Then go through the hidden wall (follow the bird sounds) and jump off the side. You will spawn in the house with no furniture. The sav phrase for this scene is "Was Good". If you wait around in the house, you'll eventually hear some Morse code. Otherwise, go upstairs, interact with the door, and then when you go back downstairs the grandfather clock will be in the middle of the room. Be sure to JUMP OVER THE RAILING into the room instead of just walking down the stairs. If you just walk down the stairs, the clock will chime 12 times and the game will crash. However, if you jump over the railing, the clock won't start chiming and you can interact with the door in the back of the house to get the first data missing screen.
The Morse code during this sequence translates to "Learn The Way Of The Old Wind". It is worth noting that the phrase "Old Wind" is pretty important. The game itself is called CourageOW (we think OW stands for Old Wind) and there is also a file in CourageOW/PortFiles/Data/Logs/..txt that says "She followed the rules He broke the rules The O██ W███ was all the way to the right". And we believe the censored words are Old Wind. I'll talk more about what we think Old Wind might mean later in the post. Side note: If you open the README file it says "When you find a dead end Just erase time", but we're pretty sure that just means that when your save is unusable (you found a data missing screen), delete your sav file.
The second and third data missing screens are both found by going to the end of the two hidden paths in the void room. To get to the void room, do the house intro and chair puzzle and then go to the end of the hidden wall path to interact with a hidden question mark. Then go north of the chairs to find a portrait of Muriel and interact with it. After the game crashes, you'll spawn in the void room. The sav phrase for this room is "The Time".
In this room, there are two invisible paths off the NW and SE of the start. As found by duckenheimer, if you run the background music through a spectrogram using a program like Spek, you'll get a map of the invisible paths. However, they're incredibly difficult to follow with lots of turns and long paths in the dark. TheBeardeDude found that you can instead use a program called Reshade to see the invisible paths by shading the display depth.
Following the SE path, you'll end up at a light that, when interacted with, will teleport you to a pitch black room with a locked camera. If you walk forward, you'll find like a cardboard cutout of the front of a house. Note this house because we'll be talking about it again during the OldWind discussion later. and behind it is a portrait of Robert Wheeler. Interacting with that will crash your game and update your sav file with the string "I Don't". You'll spawn in the house, but it's very dark. Going upstairs will start a cutscene of a humanoid creature moving towards you (the name for this creature in the files is RealWheeler). Then you get the next data missing screen.
Following the NW path, you'll end up at the chair under the spotlight. Interacting with it will crash your game and update your sav file with the string "When the World". You'll spawn in the house with a bunch of coins scattered about. Collecting some of them will slow the music and some HUD with Muriel as player 2 will appear. Then, after collecting all the coins, her portrait will darken and you'll get the last data missing screen.
If you brighten the 3 data missing screens, there are hidden phrases that says "Father wasn't home", "Mr Wheeler was there to greet me", and "It was her Eleonor". We do not currently know the significance of these phrases.
After finding the 3 data missing screens, we had the following sav phrases: "The Time", "When The World", "Was Good", "I Don't" as well as the other strings that appeared in the sav files "And Fair?", "BeforeTheStorm", and possibly "No". From attempts to make a full phrase using these, it was found that you can use the phrase "Remember" and it will load the game as if it were a new save. NeitherNathan mentioned in a discord message that the first sav phrase in the full phrase wasn't appearing in the sav files due to a bug. Currently a new sav file doesn't contain any phrase. Because of this, we believe that the "Remember" phrase is supposed to relate to the new save scene. Then, using a program called Cheat Engine to search through the running game's memory, it was found that the last sav phrase is "Do You". We do not currently know the intended solution to find the "Do You" sav phrase. So, it appears the full sav phrase may be "Remember The Time When The World Was Good And Fair? I Don't Do You". The reason for "Do You" being at the end instead of the beginning of the phrase is due to the ordering of the phrases in the memory, but I feel it may make more sense for it to be at the beginning due to the punctuation. However We do not currently know what the significance of the full sav phrase is.
Editing your sav file to use the "Do You" phrase spawns you in a greybox version of the house. The only thing you can do is go into the computer room and interact with the computer over and over. We do not currently know if there is anything else to do in this scene.
And finally, let's talk about OldWind. This phrase appears a lot throughout the game and it seems to be a central pillar of the ARG. If you extract the .pak files of the game using Unreal Engine's UnrealPak.exe and open them with UE Viewer, you'll see that the following things have filenames relating to OldWind: The design under the chair puzzle, the coins that have the same design, the darkened Muriel P2 UI, and the cardboard cutout house model. If you look at the chair puzzle design, you'll notice that you can use it to (kind of) spell out OLDWIND. We believe that there is a way to interact with the chair puzzle in such a way to input the letters OLDWIND, but have not yet been successful. Since there are missing chairs and it is unclear which chair to start each letter with, we haven't figured this one out yet. My theory is that successfully inputting OLDWIND into the chair puzzle will give us the "Do You" sav legitimately. Note that having to figure out how to input these letters would fit nicely with the Morse code that said "Learn The Way Of The Old Wind".
As for the other two files related to OldWind We do not currently know what the darkened Muriel UI nor the house have to do with OldWind. The house may be related to the clue that says "The O██ W███ was all the way to the right" since in order to get to the house, you need to go all the way down the right path in the void.
And that's about all we know at this point. NeitherNathan has recently posted on Twitter that there will be an update to the "port", so I'll be sure to revisit this once that comes out. Thanks to NeitherNathan and Chicogames for the great ARG so far! Looking forward to more.
Do You Remember The Time Before The Storm When The World Was Good And Fair? I Don't.
i think i no how to get a forth missing data the qustion markes when you go in a diffrent real thereare two qustin marks one always dings as in correct the one you spawn on is not correct you got to hit some difrent charis to make it correct sohit some diffrent charis and leave the last 2 chairs u toched and tuch the qustion markes in a differnt way
when you go in the difrent dimens in the two qustion marks you spawn on do all the chairs exept2 and then do the ones you spawn on in a order
Show post...
epic
Figured out what the higher question mark in the chair area is. If you do the first 3 chairs normally and then use the high question mark and then continue from the 5th chair the puzzle will complete normally. Not sure what comes after that
Wait, what? I just confirmed that this works. Not sure why though. Might have something to do with the possible letter inputs. Maybe after each letter you need to hit the higher question mark to "lock in" the letter or something? The first 3 chairs seem to make the letter V though, and that isn't in the phrase OLDWIND, so I'm at a loss. Here's an image of the chair puzzle I made btw. Might help.
Edit: Messed around with it some more and couldn't get it to make a correct noise except during that very specific circumstance. Makes me think that it's just an accidental duplicate of the 4th chair's question mark. Has the same height and everything. Would explain why it disappears after the puzzle is complete since all of them do. Still no answer for what the lower question mark is though.
the accidental duplicate of the 4th chair is exactly the conclusion i came too, hopefully we're both wrong and it actually does something because that's kinda lame :(
This really brings back memories. One of my favorite cartoons on one of my favorite gaming consoles. Nice Job! Thanks for the nostalgia.
can't wait for more to come...keep it up guys the BEST NOSTALGIC moment I had today ! 10/10
pls WATCH MY GAMEPLAY AND SUBSCRIBE BOIS!
Begone shittuber.
Begone shittuber.
😭
very cute
So wait, is the game you found a prototype ps1 game that never saw the light of day or a fan made thing?
Just found another save file
// spoilers
By editing the sav file to use the phrase "Do You", you'll appear in a greybox version of the house. Not sure what to do yet. Seems like the only thing you can interact with is the computer over and over.
Nice finding! How did you find it? Or did you just tried to insert it at random?
If so how did you edit it? Which program did you use?
We already knew most of the sav phrases, so I started up the game and on the main menu used cheat engine to search for any uses of one of those strings and looked around in the memory nearby to find it.
As for editing the sav file, you can use a hex editor like HxD to open the file and near the bottom you'll find an English string depending on which part of the game you're at. New saves don't have these strings, so you'll have to get to another scene like the void room with the hidden paths (the string will be "The Time") and edit the file then.
Can I ask you what you mean with "editing the sav file"? Did you Just write the words in the save file in a specific Place or have you done something else?
You can use a hex editor like HxD to open the file and near the bottom you'll find an English string depending on which part of the game you're at. New saves don't have these strings, so you'll have to get to another scene like the void room with the hidden paths (the string will be "The Time") and edit the file then.
Thanks bro
I'm a touch closer than anything listed here to finding the secret fifth .sav ending. Got the first middle question mark, in the circle chairs room, to not make the "wrong answer" sound. I need a break though... feels like I've been at this for 24 hours
Mind sharing how you did that? Did you use the OLDWIND letters as input? If so, which chair did you use to start each letter?
Cool
DATA MISSING in Black Site chair puzzle.
Left Path.
To sum up where we are so far and what has yet to be figured out...
// spoilers
I am going to assume that you're able to figure out the house intro and chair puzzle on your own for this summary.
First, I'm gonna talk about the sav files. You can find your save file at C:\Users\<USER>\AppData\Local\CourageOW\Saved\SaveGames . When the game crashes at various points, it'll update the Courage.sav file so that next time you start the game, you'll be in the new location. If you open the sav files in a hex editor, most are pretty much identical except for an English string at the bottom. So far the strings we've found are "The Time", "Was Good", "I Don't", and "When The World". We haven't figured out what to do with these strings yet.
The intro screen when you load a new save file tells us that there are 3 data missing scenes to find. We have found all 3.
An interesting note about the sav files of the 3 data missing scenes is that before the usual string, all of them contain the strings "And Fair?" and "BeforeTheStorm". We also haven't figured out what to do with these.
The first data missing screen was found by Bryce Bucher. To find it, complete the house intro and chair puzzle as normal. Then go through the hidden wall (follow the bird sounds) and jump off the side. You will spawn in the house with no furniture. The sav file for this scene contains the string "Was Good". Optionally, you can choose to wait here and you'll eventually hear some Morse code. Otherwise, go upstairs, interact with the door, and then when you go back downstairs there will be a grandfather clock in the middle of the room. Be sure to JUMP OVER THE RAILING into the room instead of just walking down the stairs. If you just walk down the stairs, the clock will chime 12 times and the game will crash. However, if you jump over the railing, the clock won't start chiming and you can interact with the door in the back of the house to get the first data missing screen.
The Morse code during this sequence translates to "Learn The Way Of The Old Wind". We don't know what this means yet, but it is worth noting that the phrase "Old Wind" is pretty important. The game itself is called CourageOW (we think OW stands for Old Wind) and there is also a file in CourageOW/PortFiles/Data/Logs/..txt that says "She followed the rules He broke the rules The O██ W███ was all the way to the right". And we believe the censored words are Old Wind. Side note: If you open the README file it says "When you find a dead end Just erase time", but we're pretty sure that just means that when your save is unusable (you found a data missing screen), delete your sav file.
The second and third data missing screens are both found by going to the end of the two hidden paths in the void room. To get to the void room, do the house intro and chair puzzle and then go to the end of the hidden wall path to interact with a hidden ? . Then go north of the chairs to find a portrait of Muriel and interact with it. After the game crashes, you'll spawn in the void room. The sav string for this room is "The Time".
In this room, there are two invisible paths off the NW and SE of the start. As found by duckenheimer, if you run the background music through a spectrogram, you'll get a map of the invisible paths. However, they're incredibly difficult to follow with lots of turns and long paths in the dark. TheBeardeDude found that you can use a program called Reshade to see the invisible paths by shading the display depth.
Following the SE path, you'll end up at a light that, when interacted with, will teleport you to a pitch black room with a locked camera. If you walk forward, you'll find the front face of the house (kind of like a cardboard cutout of the front of the house) and behind it is a portrait of Robert Wheeler. Interacting with that will crash your game and update your sav file with the string "I Don't". You'll spawn in the house, but it's very dark. Going upstairs will start a cutscene of a ghost creature (with I believe Robert Wheeler's face) moving towards you. Then you get the next data missing screen.
Following the NW path, you'll end up at the chair under the spotlight. Interacting with it will crash your game and update your sav file with the string "When the World". You'll spawn in the house with a bunch of coins scattered about. Collecting some of them will slow the music and some HUD with Muriel as player 2 will appear. Then, after collecting all the coins, her portrait will darken and the music will slow even more. Then the game crashes and the last data missing screen appears.
If you brighten the 3 data missing images, there are hidden phrases that says "Father wasn't home", "Mr Wheeler was there to greet me", and "It was her Eleanor". We don't know what to do with these yet either.
I'm sure there is more stuff in the game since if you open the .pak file in a hex editor, you'll find references to a sprite called "OldWindPendant" which we haven't found yet. The only place in the game that I can think of that hasn't been full explored yet is in the chair puzzle room, there is an invisible ? near where you spawn. (There are actually 2 there when you spawn, but the higher one disappears after you do the chair puzzle which leads me to believe that the higher one is actually the one behind the hidden wall that moves after the puzzle is completed). We don't know what the lower ? at the beginning does.
Edit: I realized that the OldWindPendant sprite may actually be referring to the coins. With that in mind, the design on the coins is the same as the design on the floor under the chair puzzle. It's possible to use this design to spell out the letters OLDWIND by selecting the chairs in the right order. However, it's not easy to figure out what that order is since there are chairs missing, and the starting point for each letter is unclear.
If anyone is able to figure the order out, leave a comment! It may also have something to do with the invisible ? at the beginning.
Edit2: Editing the sav file to use the phrase "Remember" loads (what seems to be) a new save instead of hanging on the loading screen. Because of that, I'm pretty sure the full phrase relating to the sav files is "Remember The Time BeforeTheStorm When The World Was Good And Fair? I Don't". Tried editing the sav file to use that phrase, but it just loads the same as a "Remember" sav since I think the way the save system works is that it checks from the beginning of the string and loads whichever phrase comes first. So, we also need to figure out what to do with that phrase.
Edit3: Sometimes the sav file from the 2nd data missing screen will also include the word "No", so it's possible that that word is included in the phrase.
Edit4: NeitherNathan has just posted on Twitter that there will be an update to the "port". It's possible that we've discovered all there is to see in the current version due to the phrasing in the follow up tweet that says "I can't believe you all discovered everything so fast", but I think there's still a bit to figure out with the OLDWIND chair input, invisible ?, and sav phrase.
For anyone unfamiliar with ReShade, here's a quick tutorial on how to get the shader effects needed to take on the void map:
- download ReShade from their site at reshade.me
- run the installer, and "Click here to select a game and manage its ReShade installation"
- click Browse and select the .exe located in the Binaries folder:
- when asked to select a rendering API, choose Direct3D 10/11/12
- SweetFX should be selected by default, but in case it isn't make sure it's selected before pressing OK, and OK again to confirm the shaders included. ReShade is now installed!
- Run CourageOW and start up the void map. You should see a ReShade banner on-screen now. Press Home to open ReShade and skip the tutorial to show the list of available shaders. Select DisplayDepth (DisplayDepth.fx).
- This only seems to work in windowed mode, so if your game is fullscreen press F11 to switch and that should work:
You can also get a little bit more screen space by switching "Show Both (Vertical 50/50)" to "Normal Map".
Hope this helps.
Awesome, where did you get the Remember phrase idea?
I was trying to piece together the sav phrases and came up with "The time before the storm, when the world was good and fair? I don't [remember it]", so I tried a sav file with "Remember It" and it worked. Then I found out that the phrase is just "Remember" and you can type anything after the phrase and it'll still accept it. Also just found out that sometimes the sav file for the 2nd missing data screen includes the word "No", so the complete phrase may include that as well.
Mr. Wheeler was there to greet me, father wasn't home, it was her: Eleanor.
(Edit) Talking about the lore of the game, i think that using the cheat engine and spectrogram to see the street in the dark room with the chair so "Think outside the box" is a reference to a specific episode where Courage and Muriel got sucked into Computer when he had a virus. I use He because the Computer in the series have an Identity, he can talk and give advice to Courage. In that episode Courage become 3D model in a creepy way. Another detail is that when he got destroyed by the minions of the Virus, Courage "Think outside the box" and transform the bit that compose himself into a spike mace club to bonk all the evil minions of Virus. It's just a theory but i'think it's funny. Hard drive dog is the name of the episode. Season 3, episode 4.
spoiler//
I found a mansion on the right path in the spotlight area
this route led to another data missing screen with this image
// spoiler
On 18/08/2021 a guy called TheBeardeDude was able to use reshade to make visible the way to go to the chair . After that, the game crashes and when you re-open it you go back to the home when there are coins, and after you collect a certain number of them a second player enters that has the same image of Muriel that you could find at the second stage ( that one with the chairs ) and when you collect all of them you get a data missing image. That when increasing the contrast you see this
It seems to say "It was Eleonor"
TheBeardeDude Livestream:https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1122063210
Yotobi's Livestream: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1121943622
P.S.: TheBeardeDude made the Livestream so that Yotobi (An Italian streamer and YouTuber) could reach the chair.
(Sorry for any grammatical mistakes, as you could have probably guessed I'm Italian).
We made it #GianniFantoni
It's coming Rome
il cielo è azzurro sopra Twich
Roma riconquisterà il mondo, ed il nostro Cesare sarà Yotobi.
It cool
if you wanna kinda cheat there is a way with reshade to see the pattern of the room with the 2 dot of lights. just use reshade on the game and turn on displaydepth.(discovered by a fan of https://www.twitch.tv/yotobi that ishttps://www.twitch.tv/thebeardedude)
wow this is a game changer thanks for posting
np just did what was right
go check yotobi's live if u wanna see some progress (its in italian tho)
Using this method, I got the next data missing screen.
// spoilers
If you take the path to the right, you'll eventually get to a light that teleports you to a dark room. If you walk straight through the dark room, you'll come across this house
You have to go around the back, and you'll find this image of Eustace
Interacting with it will crash your game and next time you spawn you'll be in a dark version of the house (I have a copy of this save file)
Going upstairs, you'll get a cutscene of a ghost thing running at you
And then you get the 2nd data missing (I have a copy of this save file too). If you brighten the image, you get the message "Mr. Wheeler was there to greet me"
The sav string for the dark house is "I Don't" and the data missing sav has the same "And Fair? BeforeTheStorm" string that the other data missing sav has before the I Don't string.
And if you follow the other path here's what happens:
// spoilers
After you interact with the chair, you're put into the house with a bunch of coins (The string for this sav file is "When The World")
After you collect some of the coins, Muriel appears in the top right as P2 and the music gets weird
And then after you get all the coins (there are some in the computer room), Muriel's portrait darkens and the music gets weirder.
And then you get the missing data screen that when brightened says "it was her Eleanor"
Again, the data missing sav file has the same "When The World" string but with the BeforeTheStorm bit before it.
Interestingly, if you try to change the sav file of any of the missing data savs, most strings will load with the "it was her Eleanor" data missing scene. My guess is that this data missing scene is also the fallback for any corrupted savs that include the BeforeTheStorm bit.
where is the save file stored?
C:\Users\<USER>\AppData\Local\CourageOW\Saved\SaveGames
AppData is a hidden folder by default, so you either need to enable showing hidden folders in windows or type %appdata% into your windows search bar to open it up.
in "Appdata"
I'm trying to get past the area with all of the chairs in the circle. Is there anything specific I need to do? I also read something in a readme file that said if you come to a dead end then rewind time. How do you do that? Any help would be appreciated as I'm trying to find the seemingly inaccessible levels that you mentioned.
there is a wall that is not solid
you have to interact with the chairs in a specifical order, that's indicated by the line on the ground
Thanks for the tip. It's a little harder than I expected. Can you give me a hint on where on the line to start and which direction it goes? I tried multiple times but can't get past it.
sorry, I've read right now.
Anyway, if you still need it... You have to follow to interact with the chairs following the line inside the circle. First interact with the chair at the beginning of the first segment, then with the chair at the end of the first segment, then follow the second segment and so on, until you interact with the chair at the end of the last segment. Sorry, i don't know how to be clearer than this
Thanks.
I made 2 screenshots :P
CUTE!!!
"we totally found this in an old hard drive"
source : bro, BRO!
// spoiler
I Found the Same [MISSING DATA] Room everyone here is also talking about. Here's how to get to it, Make sure to follow EXACTLY.
Once in the room without furniture, wait until the music stops completely before using the door upstairs, Once it stops, Use the door. Next head downstairs by JUMPING OVER THE RAILING of the stair case and head to the door behind the clock in the back on the right. It is important that the clock does not start chiming, jumping over the railing does not cause it to chime.
I also am making a series on this on my channel and the first video will be uploaded soon whenever I find time.
I found the data missing one in the Was Good room, altho I was not able to recreate it. The save file had new words in it. I am guessing you have to formulate the words in the save file into a full sentence to access new room(s). Maybe it is how you fix the data missing room(s)? I am going to be so I wont be trying it now.
Also the game never tells you that you are looking for muriel and eustac specifically, it says "Find Them" and shows 3 dog paws that are next to courage's icon.
We can easily assume that muriel and eustace take up 2 of those 3 dog prints. There is also supposedly 3 data missing rooms with a logical way to access. It is fun exploring this game and figuring out the puzzles, but none of it compares to how much I wonder what/who the 3rd missing person is
//More Puzzle Spoilers!
I noticed the background music on the level with the chair in the spotlight sounded like the outro to an Aphex Twin song. So I recorded it and ran it through an audio spectrum visualizer, hoping there would be hidden information in the audio.
Not sure if it's actually a map of the area or something else yet.
what aphex twin song is it reminiscent of?
Window Licker
also, Look by Venetian Snares
some of text Document have message the README file say
When you find a dead end Just erase time
and one that in the CourageOW\PortFiles\Data\Logs folder say
She followed the rules
He broke the rules
The O██ W███ was all the way to the right
censor words is moist likely the Old Wind
More interesting notes, in the save files there are various little sentence fragments that can be assembled to form the sentence "Before The Storm The Time Was Good And Fair?" I have no idea what this information could be useful for but I reckon it'd be appropriate to share.