Even without a huge 3D world (or even colors beyond black and white), West Of Loathing manages to consistently surprise with the depth of its gameplay, offering up some entertaining puzzles.
One of those puzzles has you guessing the name of a ghost’s granddaughter in the zombified Reboot Hill, located northeast of the Railroad Camp and southwest of Breadwater. If you don’t find the location randomly while wandering, Doc Alice will tell you the location when you reach Breadwater if she’s your pardner.
In this guide, we’ll give you a step-by-step explanation of how to complete this brain-teasing puzzle that has you going back through the genealogy of several Smith generations.
Need help with any other part of the game? Be sure to check out our other West Of Loathing guides:
- Prologue Walkthrough
- Character Build Guide
- Earning Perks
- Pickle Factory Puzzles
- Complete Achievements Guide
Reboot Hill Puzzle Solution
In the second area of Reboot Hill is the ghost of a grandmother with a serious dilemma — she can’t remember which of her granddaughters was her favorite, so she doesn’t know where to set the flowers!
If you guess a wrong name, you can’t try again until a day later — which will throw a wrench in the works if you are trying to complete the game in a single day for The Really Hard Way achievement.
Meeting the ghostly grandmother
If you talk to the grandmother repeatedly and ask about what she remembers, here are the various clues you can discover about the granddaughter:
- Her name ended in a vowel
- She was born when the grandmother was 37 – 42 years old (the grandmother was born in 1800 and died in 1895)
- Her first name was longer than her last
- She’s not buried next to any of the grandmother’s daughters
- She died at the same age as Becky (but there are 4 Beckys)
- She liked knitting and knit a sweater the year before she died
Getting to the solution is a bit of a chore, but much like the math teacher always harping on you to show your work, in this case you need to know how to get there rather than just being given the answer.
Narrowing Down The Names
We know her name isn’t Becky, the date of birth has to be between 1837 and 1842, that the name must be longer than five letters, and that the name ends in a vowel.
Out of a 25 possible names to work through on all the Reboot Hill grave stones, that leaves the possibilities at Magdalene, Melissa, Pamela, and Patricia.
You can narrow it down further however, by traveling to Kellogg’s Ranch and reading a diary found in the locker there, which will tell you another random clue. The clue about the knitting should have tipped you off to check there.
Remember how she died the same year as a Becky? When you look at the ages of the four dead Beckys, that further narrows it down to Magdalene, Melissa and Pamela.
Now, take a look at all the stones and see which ones aren’t buried next to the grandmother’s four daughters Farrah, Lillith, Margaret, and Pearl. You can guess those are the original daughters (rather than granddaughters) based on their ages, as they are all born 20 – 30 years after the grandmother.
Looking at the graves, you can see that Pamela is right next to Pearl, so it can’t be her, leaving the answer at either Melissa or Magdalene. They are sitting next to each other though, so it’s a total toss up as to which is the correct answer.
I guessed Melissa first and got it wrong, then rested a day in Dirtwater and came back to discover the correct answer was Magdalene. When you finally guess correctly, you get a nifty Ghost Flower that increases your spell damage by 11.
Changing Dates And Names
There are reports online that the dates and names may sometimes be randomly rearranged on various playthroughs, and at least one other player on the Steam forums stated they completed the puzzle by guessing Melissa.
If Magdalene doesn’t end up being your answer, you can still find the correct name by going through the same process of elimination outlined above based on the year, number of letters, and positioning of the gravestones.
Keep in mind when guessing an answer that the grandmother’s dialogue isn’t any help. She will get wide-eyed and excited no matter what letter combination you start with, and then still tell you its wrong when you guess incorrectly.
Did you get a different answer to the West Of Loathing Reboot Hill grave puzzle? Let us know what your answer ended up being in the comments below!
