The Black Mirror Hints

How do I use the little wheels to drain the fountain?

  • 1 of 11: Experiment with the three valve wheels that aren't broken off to see what effects each one has on the four water level indicators. (NOTE: You can right-click on a wheel to get the opposite effect of a left-click.)
  • 2 of 11: You'll notice that each wheel affects more than one water level.
  • 3 of 11: Bates said the second indicator from the right shows the rear garden's fountain's water level, so aim to take that one down to zero.
  • 4 of 11: Each of the four displayed water levels has a range from 0 to 19 units, with the bottom measure mark representing 1 unit and the top mark representing 19 units.
  • 5 of 11: NOTE: You can't turn a wheel so that any one of its affected indicators would end up with less than 0 or more than 19 units of water. If you find that you can't turn a wheel, it will be because doing so would violate this condition.
  • 6 of 11: That means that the garden fountain starts out with 13 units of water, since that's what is shown by the second-from-right indicator.
  • 7 of 11: You need to do a sequence of moves that will subtract a total of exactly 13 units of water from the fountain. Once you get it done, the fountain's water indicator will be empty of blue, and Samuel will say, "Ready!"
  • 8 of 11: Experimenting around, you'll find that the following three wheel actions will drain a certain amount of water from the fountain:

    * Right-clicking the leftmost wheel (-2 units of water)
    * Right-clicking the second wheel from the left (-4 units of water)
    * Left-clicking the rightmost wheel (-3 units of water)
  • 9 of 11: There are several possibilities for solving this puzzle. Two of them are shown below, both of which assume that the water levels are in their starting configuration (which is, from left to right: 9 units, 6 units, 13 units, 11 units).
  • 10 of 11: One way is to left-click the rightmost wheel once (-3 units) and then right-click the leftmost wheel five times (total of -10 units).
  • 11 of 11: Another way is to right-click the second wheel from the left twice (total of -8 units), left-click the rightmost wheel once (-3 units), and then right-click the leftmost wheel once (-2 units). You may discover others.