Narwhal's silly memorization tricks

Consistent practice + intuitive mnemonics and stories can help you memorize the manual (or anything in general, really). What's "intuitive" varies per player and I encourage you to come up with your own ideas, but if you're curious I'll offer the stories/mnemonics I use at the appendix of this guide as inspiration for others. It's a guide for myself as well - as a way to solidify my memorization of the guide. Don't think too hard when coming up with these and make sure they're easy to recall. Memorization techniques that connect ideas with your emotions might be more helpful too.

I don't often contribute things like this, so please message me if there are any suggestions/corrections I can make. :)


=== KEYPADS (SYMBOLS) ===

I have constructed stories for each column of symbols from my personal store of weird references. What does the left-most column's symbols look like to you? A magnifying glass or a lollipop? A tent or an A-with-a-T? Use these to come up with some short narratives or mnemonics, then practice on the easy bombs that guarantee keypad appearances.


=== SIMON SAYS ===

Ideally, no strikes for speedruns am i right ;)
VOWEL? Red-blue swap, yellow-green swap
NO VOWEL? Among the top three buttons (red blue yellow), cycle in a clockwise direction. Green is just green.
Blinkenlights = good practice


=== MORSE CODE ===

First, know Morse code (non-trivial perhaps, but in the past I used a phone app to practice and have done puzzle contests/hunts whose puzzles may use Morse encoding). When jumping into a Morse code module, don't wait for the sequence to restart, as a unique string of three or even two characters is enough to distinguish a word. Then, memorize the word list, preferably with a series of stories. Break it up to make it easier, either in even sections of four words or by the hundredths digits or something. Then grind Blinkenlights II ;)


=== COMPLEX WIRES ===

I think some people might memorize visually, but not me lol. I go through a speedy little mental monologue with, uh, my own "vocabulary". Some sentences might be rearranged.

"Always cut purities¤. ALWAYS cut red stars and white stars, but NEVER blue stars. Serial # is undecored¤¤. Don't cut white LEDs 'cause they're evil¤¤¤. Now its red/white LED brethren^ are batteries. Red-blue LED is Savior^^. Don't cut Everything^^^. Anything else should be parallel port."

¤ my word for white no-star no-LED
¤¤ my word for colored wires with no stars or LEDs (undecorated)
¤¤¤ Don't ask. Maybe 'cause I got trolled by them or something? In any case, I strongly associate white no-star LED with "evil".
^ meaning: the non-evil combinations of red/white and star/no-star, with LED for all of them. Note the line of B's in the diagram.
^^ whereas white LED is evil, red-blue LED has all the colors and is the opposite, the Savior (S for serial)
^^^ my word for red-blue star LED

Moral of the story is, trying to explain your thought process is like a food processor: it works very well but the output is a bunch of gobbledy-gook.


=== WIRE SEQUENCES ===

I've seen runners mutter the # of red/blue/black wires encountered upon moving to the next set of wires. Usually I don't see seven or more wires, so if you're starting out try memorizing the first three rows and work your way up each time. Practice with Snip Snap.


=== PASSWORDS ===

"Below, could every great house? Never other right." These eight words are the only ones beginning with their respective letters. This helps cycle through letters faster too. Appendix contains my ideas on memorizing the other words.


=== MEMORY ===

Just a bunch of numbers. Needs quite some practice with bombs that always have memory modules. While there's no story I build here (probably would be clunky anyway), there are some key notes:

-- The "longer" instructions of each stage deal with position-position-label-position-label, in that order.
-- Instead of writing down the numbers, I say them out loud like "2-4, 3-2" (stage 1: 2nd position was a 4, stage 2: 3rd position was a 2) after every stage. It's a bit confusing at first but it may work for some people.
-- By the time you know which position to press on stage 4, throw away the positions and just memorize the labels that were pressed.


=== (APPENDIX) ===

(MY TAKE ON THESE MODULES)

KEYPADS: Asterisks are on the words that indicate the next keypad symbol (try to figure out how!). In the meantime I'm sure you could come up with more coherent stories ;)

-- Let's examine¤ this tepee¤ to determine its half-life¤ - now we're playing Half Life and there's lightning¤ everywhere that's summoning aliens¤! Now HC¤¤ is part of HTC of HTC Vive for 3D, just like how Half Life was a classic 3D game.
-- Epsilon¤ Overrides the Looking Glass¤ (fancy movie title) - co¤¤-star¤ Mr. H?¤¤
-- Copyright¤ laws are bollocks¤, or "bull", or ox¤¤. Let's break¤ them but not lambs¤, they're precious like stars¤.
-- 6¤ paragraphs¤ (essay) on "B.T.¤ the Alien¤". (I got an) X?¤¤ F_ you (that's the face's expression to me)¤
-- Now if you're going to stab¤ me¤ with that, remember that bitcoin (BTC)¤¤ I gave you? Okay, here's a paragraph¤ or three¤ - you get a gold star¤
-- 6¤ epsilon¤ equals¤ ash¤ (some alchemical equation, idk). Gonna stab me with a trident¤? Oh NO!¤¤ (omega = o)

MORSE CODE: 

-- "shell halls slick trick": imagine that castle track in Mario Kart. If you hit enemy with a shell by bouncing it through the halls, it's a "slick trick", bro.
-- "boxes leaks strobe": Those boxes in Mario Kart, with weird rainbow lights? More like, leaks strobe lights if you ask me.
-- "bistro flick bombs break brick": bistro is French, but France & Italy are in Europe so w/e. Anyways, Mario and Luigi run a bistro¤, and they flick bombs to break bricks.
-- "steak sting vector beats": I'd hardly call fugu¤¤ fish "steak", but if ill-prepared it could sting your tongue. Now "vector beats"... I envision someone wearing Beats headphones, and both those and the word "vector" seem... futuristic. I dunno, but it works.

¤ could move bistro to previous section for same section lengths, but for some reason that's not as intuitive for me
¤¤ fugu = poisonous puffer fish used in sushi

WIRE SEQUENCES:

-- First three: Red is C-B-A (easy), blue is B-AC-B, black is ABC-AC-B. That's practice, not really any techniques here.
-- Fourth: AC for red and black, but only A for blue, because we don't turn on the AC (air conditioning) when it's cold (blue)!
-- Fifth: B, always.
-- Sixth: Red is hot, so we need AC again. Otherwise (for blue and black) we're in ancient history and air conditioning doesn't exist - we're in BC times.
-- Seventh: (after BC times, world is reborn, or something) Red lava forms ALL (ABC), blue is the sea (C), black is the rocks - rock-hard like my abs (AB)


PASSWORD: Some notes about the rest:

-- about-after-again, first-found (no mnemonic here, though except for found the words kinda deal with time)
-- place-plant-point-large-learn (Imagining placing a plant down, only for it to grow an arm and point somewhere. It's a large, conscious plant and it wants to learn!)
-- S-words (small-sound-spell-still-study, thinking of a Harry-Potter-like scene where some character casts a spell to make things quiet so they could still study).
-- T-words (always begin with TH)
-- W-words (water-where-which-world-would-write, we'll write about a world full of water and wood [would] but we need to know where and which)


=== (CONCLUSION) ===

Helpful tips on this reddit post and the rest of the subreddit (harder modules like maze and who's on first which I haven't bothered with... yet): https://www.reddit.com/r/ktane/comments/465x6w/how_to_learn_complex_modules_wire_sequences_whos/
Everyone's got their own memo. techniques, go out and find what works for you :)
Disclaimer: I am not associated with Steel Crate Games or the Youtube channel(s) referenced in this guide
Shoutout to KrazyCaley for this Morse mnemonic gem: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGZQ7Hlpl2s

Narwhal_Prime

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