Thaumistry: In Charm’s Way Walkthrough with Explanation

Introduction

 
This guide will take you through the entire game of Thaumistry. Bear in mind that a lot of the value of the game comes from just exploring and trying multiple spells on things, so do take time to experiment. In particular, the game assumes that you will explore the entire museum and all areas when you encounter them; so if the walkthrough has you going to a new area for apparently no reason, bear in mind that the intention was probably that you would just have explored it out of interest before that. 
 
 

Meet the Bodgers

 
You start off in your lab at IncuLab. Take time to look at (also called examine, and abbreviated to x) things around the room. The most important one is to look at laser, which will tell you that you’re trying to get the laser to emit multiple frequencies, which needs a frequency modulator. There’s also that mysterious closet – read notice if you haven’t – but open closet will tell you it’s locked. 
 
When you’re ready, note that the note stated that your candidates will be “waiting outside your door first thing in the morning”, so open door. You will now meet Jack. You probably think Jack is a bit of an a*s. He actually isn’t, but he sure comes across that way. He’ll basically act like an idiot until you ask him about himself (ask jack about himself, or ask jack about jack also works). Well, that sounds interesting. ask jack about bodgers and ask jack about magic to get a bit more background. Jack will automatically calm down after a certain number of turns, so if he doesn’t do so right way, just examine things or wait until he does. 
 
He’ll tell you he can run a test to see if you’re a Bodger. Well, refusing the call never got anyone anywhere, so yes. He’ll tell you he’ll set up a simple puzzle in your lab which will teach you a spell, and if you’re a Bodger you’ll be able to cast it and retrieve the key from the ceiling. Fortunately, the puzzle is just to search the room. open fridge for a letter A. examine tv and turn knob for the letter L. open microwave and examine block for a letter T. Finally, examine closet and read notice for an A. The spell is now complete. Whenever you learn a new spell, read spellbook to see what it does – alta makes you levitate, so let’s go for it. alta (just typing the name of a spell can be used to cast it). Whoops, it doesn’t take you high enough. Maybe you just need to start from somewhere higher? stand on stool and alta again. Bingo! 
 
Of course, it’s the key to the closet! open closet and e, and Jack will wake up and take over, transporting you to the Council Chamber in the pod. You can now ask jack about a bunch of things, including bodgers, council, hall, etc. Go west to start looking around, and Jack will follow you talking through what you’re seeing. Continue the tour, and you’ll pick up some spells along the way: w, s, s, e, e. This will get you airfulla which fills things with gas, and alcatraza which opens bars. Jack will then say it’s time to practice with some more dangerous spells, but you’ll lose access to them afterwards. First is blowing things up – read card and amana soup. Next spell, read card and amnesia jack. Then, finally, read card and antartica. You will never get to actually use any of these three dangerous spells in the game, but the important part was to pay attention to the other things Jack said during the practice. 
 
Jack will take you back to the council chamber and tell you what he needs you to do – prevent the activation of the thaumeter in Glick Hall, which will reveal the location of the council chamber. examine case if you’re not clear on why this is bad. Look around at other things or just wait until Jack says he’s headed upstairs, then go east into the elevator and press 1. 
 
 

Scouting the Museum

 
Head n, n, to meet Jack again. He’ll tell you there’s only one person in the hall, and ask you to scout it out. n. Well, she seems friendly enough. Jack asked you to find out when the thaumeter would be turned on, so ask docent about thaumeter, ask docent about glick ask docent about ceremony. Aha, she’s lost her copy of the schedule, and asks if you can get one for her. No worries. s, s, e, e will bring you to the Investor’s Lounge (you can of course just explore around until you find it; nothing will harm you yet and there’s no time limit). Pamela will tell you you can’t be admitted into the lounge without a badge, but that’s OK for the moment, since you only need to talk to her: ask pamela about schedule and she’ll give you one. read schedule to get the information for Jack, and then w, w, n, n back to Glick Hall and give schedule to docent. 
 
 

Infiltrating the Investors

 
The docent will now take you into her trust, and explain that she’s actually Glick’s widow, and that some of the investors are going to try and badger her into selling them the patents for all Glick’s inventions. She needs access to the appraisal report they got. This is inside the Investor Lounge, so this is going to be trickier. Go s, and Jack will check in and tell you that he’ll now allow you to use the pod to travel around yourself. 
 
So, s, e, e back to the Investor lounge. e again, but Pamela won’t let you in without a badge. This is going to require a bit more mischief. You may have noticed that there’s an investor wandering back and forth to a massage nook just West of the reception area. w, w, s, w there. If the investor isn’t here being massaged, just wait (z acts as an abbreviation for wait) until he is. When he arrives, he takes off his coat. examine coat and there’s a badge on it. But if you just steal it, he’ll notice that it’s missing eventually, so this alone won’t work. 
 
Instead, explore a bit more. n, e, s brings you to the Mirror Image booth, where they have created a duplication machine. Ah, that could be handy! Unfortunately, they don’t want to open the booth until one of them has a lab coat to wear to look impressive. You won’t find one in the museum, so it’s time to explore again. Let’s go and have a go on the pod. 
 
n, w, s, e. While you’re here, read plate and you’ll learn a spell, adagia which slows things down – you’ll need it shortly. press B, n, and read dial. Ok, so the only place you can go beside the museum is.. the zoo? Well, when in Rome.. turn dial to zoo, pull lever, out. Going w will reveal an exhibit that’s closed due to a power failure, so go e, e into the reptile house. examine window to learn the anaconda spell, which squeezes things. Then airfulla anaconda. No, there was no reason to do that, it’s just funny. 
 
n to the snake pit and, aha, there’s a vet’s lab coat here, but get coat will get you nearly (but not actually) struck by a cobra. Maybe it’d be less dangerous if it couldn’t strike like that? adagia cobra to slow it down (it actually falls asleep), then get coat. Cool, now we can deal with the Mirror Image exhibit. s, w, s back to the pod and go to museum (this is a quick way to move the pod around). e, press 1, n, e, s and give coat to jodi. She’ll tell you she’ll open the booth now, so ask jodi about machine. It’ll only copy paper and plastic, but that’s all you need. 
 
So, we now need to be careful. n, w, s, w back to the massage nook, and then z (wait) until a new investor arrives and their massage starts with the timer at 20 minutes. examine coat and get badge, but you need to have it back before the massage ends. e, n, e, s back to Mirror Image, put badge in machine to make a copy, n, w, s, w and put investor badge on coat (entering just put badge on coat will result in the game asking if you mean the original or the duplicate – we may as well give them their original back). Ok, panic over! 
 
Let’s get into the Investor’s Lounge. e, wear badge, n, e, e, e. Pamela will stop you while she checks for stolen badges, but since you made the duplicate, you’ll be fine. Just keep trying to go e until you’re allowed through. There’s a few things going on in here, but our main mission is: examine reports, and get report. Now, take it back to Glick; w, w, w, n, n, give report to glick. 
 
 

A Ripping Yarn

 
Glick will now reveal her “master plan” for avoiding being badgered by the investors; claim to be knitting. Go s, s and you’ll see the investors rushing over to talk to Glick. Follow them n, and n and you’ll see that someone has stolen her yarn, invalidating her excuse, and she looks to you for help. Well, it’s a weird thing to have to do, but still.. 
 
Hey, if the investors are here it might be a good time to look in the lounge again! s, s, e, e, e and you’ll find the remaining investors clustered around a computer and trying to guess Thomas Edison’s middle name. You might actually already know it, but you have to play along: read screen. They’re on a site about Edison, but haven’t paged to where his middle name is shown because they’re trying to guess. press key to ruin their game, and see the name, which is also a spell: alva. read spellbook and you’ll see it fixes electrical problems. Like the one at the zoo! 
 
Head back to where the faulty box was in the zoo: w, w, w, s, e, press b, n, go to zoo, and w. alva box to fix the power. You can now go w into the mammal house. There’s two animals here, but you don’t know what they are; but one of them is blocking a sign. read sign; aha, it’s something ending in an A, which means there’s a good chance it’s a spell as well. w and you’ll arrive in the Target Range, and at this point all you need to do is be a bit of a scumbag. get blowpipe, load blowpipe, e, shoot brown animal and it’ll move out of the way. read sign and you’ll learn it’s an alpaca. Aha, sure enough, that’s a spell! drop blowpipe – no sense lugging that around, and then alpaca. Presto, you now have a ball of yarn! 
 
e, e, s, go to museum, e, press 1, n, n, n, and put yarn in basket. This will allow Glick to insist on finishing knitting, and the investors will leave. At this point, Jack will show up and take Glick into his confidence, explaining the danger of the thaumeter to her. She’ll say that she wouldn’t mind if the thaumeter could not be demonstrated as long as Henry’s other invention, the Aquamotor, works. 
 
 

Getting a glass of water, Chapter 1

 
examine aquamotor. Sure enough, it runs on water. Now, I would think it wouldn’t be quite as hard as this to get hold of some water, but here we go. s, and Jack will tell you that he’s added more locations to the pod. There’s also a banner here you might not have seen yet. read banner and you’ll see it’s for “Waterstone Industries”, who “make water from rocks!” Well, that sounds helpful. Unfortunately, if you go e, you won’t be allowed in. While you’re here, though, go w and examine curtain, then read label. This will get you the anamnesia spell, which recovers lost memories. You never actually need to cast this (except once at the very end), but you should cast it on plenty of people, because it reveals some fascinating (and funny) background. There are never any negative consequences to casting it. You can talk to the man here about his invention if you want, or try to open the curtain, but there’s no way to get anything else useful. 
 
Time to find out more about what Jack said about the pod. e, s, s, e, press b, n, and read dial. There’s a few new options to explore here. Let’s start with: go to station. There isn’t much going on here, but there’s stuff to learn. examine board and you’ll get the acela spell, which speeds things up. You can also try to go n into the Boxcar Bar and Grill, but it’s closed. 
 
And now, the biggest groan of a joke in this game. Seriously, if you don’t roll your eyes after this, you have the patience of a saint. alcatraza bar. See, the alcatraza spell “opens bars”. Get it? Get it? Feel free to stop playing for a few minutes to recover from that. Anyway. n, examine bar, examine grilltop, and examine tools to learn the asbesta spell, which protects against heat. You would think there would be at least a water tap in a bar, but apparently there isn’t. 
 
Now to explore the exhibit some more. s, e, go to museum, e, press 1, n, e, n into the MediLift Booth. put badge on right platform, press button, and you’ll see that the teleporter works! get badge and wear badge again, then s, e, e. talk to young investor and he’ll say his name is Mike Verdu and that he’s interested in socially responsible inventions. Well, a teleporter made for medical supplies seems to fit nicely into that category. tell verdu about malcolm and he’ll ask what makes Malcolm special. Maybe Malcolm should get to give his own pitch? w, w, n and tell malcolm about verdu. He’ll ask you to go back-and-forth again. Oh well. s, e, e, tell verdu about malcolm and he’ll give you a business card this time. w, w, n and give card to malcolm and he’ll leave for the Investor Lounge – leaving you alone with the teleporter. 
 
So, now, you can hear “faint murmuring” from the west wall. Open the map and you’ll see that you’re directly east of the Waterstone Industries exhibit that you couldn’t get into. Well, the teleporter moves items from the right hand to the left side of the room, which is the right direction. IF you also carefully read the description, you’ll notice it mentions that the machine has a motor. adagia motor, and it’ll slow down. stand on right platform and press button and you’ll appear in between the two platforms. Aha, the speed of the motor determines the distance you teleport! acela motor *twice*, to leave it running faster than normal, then stand on right platform and press button again. Bam! You’re through the wall and into the Waterstone Industries room. 
 
Sure enough, the machine here creates water! Unfortunately, you don’t have anything to hold the water in. Head w back to the main museum and the booth model will introduce herself and give you a wristband allowing you to re-enter without messing with the teleporter. 
 
Around this time (or possibly already), Jack may have suggested a visit to the Quantum Leaps booth. That’s in the west side of the museum where we haven’t been yet. That’s s, w, w, from here. Head there and you’ll learn that it’s a short-period time machine, which the inventor will demonstrate, showing that it’s necessary for him to close the time loop that’s created by an object being sent back in time. You can’t do much useful here yet, but we may as well look at the other exhibits. 
 
e, n to the Shapeshifter Booth, where it seems Bruce’s machine has broken down. examine machine and Bruce will ask you to grab him a slice of pizza from the vendor outside. s, e, s, s outside the museum; note the strange young man stroking the empty air. Talk to the man, and he’ll tell you his name is Vitas and he’s invented an invisibility machine that has made his dog invisible. Might seem far-fetched, but pet thuji and you’ll learn there actually is an invisible dog there. Vitas will tell you that he’ll play with you “if he thinks you’re a dog”. So, do any three dog-like things – bark, beg, whine, etc until the dog drops an invisible baseball into your hands. You can now throw ball to play fetch with him, but the aim here was just to get hold of the ball. 
 
s to the pizza vendor and give money to vendor. He won’t be able to open his can of anchovies, but fortunately you’ve got a solution to that: anaconda can. This will burst the can open and he’ll make the pizza, so you can now give money to vendor again to get the pizza plus a quarter. n, n, n, w, back to the west wing – and notice that there’s a dunk tank here. Well, you have an invisible ball, so why not? throw ball at target, but it doesn’t have enough force. However, there’s something here to help: examine exhibits and it mentions a baseball pitching gun, so put ball in gun and fire gun at target. You don’t get the prize because the ball was invisible, but you do learn a new spell, aloha which, um, summons a hula dance troupe. Well. Uh. Maybe. 
 
n and give pizza to bruce and he’ll show you his machine, which turns objects into their anagrams. Unfortunately, you don’t have anything suitable at the moment. In fact, there’s not a lot more to do here, so it’s time to explore again. 
 
s, e, e, s, e, press b, n and go to financial district. There’s not a lot to do here while the protest is in progress, but examine bullhorn will learn the amplia spell which makes things louder. s again and go to convention center. w and read banner to learn there’s a firewalking seminar going on, but the usher won’t let you go n. Ah well, information is good. e, e, go to museum, e, press 1, n, e. Note that there’s a tour guide here, but listen and you’ll find they’re too quiet to hear – well, that’s no problem now. amplia guide then listen and she’ll tell you the name of the ship, which is also a spell – adela, which creates steam. 
 
 

Getting a glass of water, Chapter 2

 
w, w, w back to the Quantum Leaps booth. Now something has happened: an envelope addressed to you has appeared on the seat of the time machine. get envelope, open envelope, and read writing and you’ll get the acerta spell. Cool! Go e and.. uh-oh, there’s a warning message in the description. Go w and you’ll lose the spell again! Since you didn’t complete the time loop by sending the envelope back, learning the spell just dropped out of the timeline. Oops. 
 
Fortunately, your future self will try as many times as it takes. get envelope again. Tearing it open is out – the envelope was sent to you closed and untorn, so it must be sent back in that condition. How do you open an envelope without tearing it? Aha! adela envelope, read writing, close envelope and put envelope on seat. That’s better; you now have acerta for good. It “removes uncertainty”. I would think this would have a bunch of different uses, but there’s one specific one you’re after. 
 
e, e, e, e, e, and examine machine and read message. It says the error is unknown, which is pretty dang uncertain. acerta message and the message will change to “please jiggle the dial” – but you’ll also get the attention of Katz, who seems to know more than he’s letting on about magic. Uh-oh. Still, it’s not a problem yet. jiggle dial to fix the machine, and then examine dial. There’s plenty of options here, but let’s remember what we’re here for – and that machine that turns objects into their anagrams. turn dial to gum and put quarter in machine and you’ll get the gum, and you even get your quarter back. w, w, w, w, n back to the Shapeshifter room, and put gum on machine to turn it into a mug. 
 
Finally! s, e, n, e back to Waterstone’s room, put mug on drain, get rock and put rock in machine. All that just for a mug of water! You would think you could have, I don’t know, just asked the receptionist or something. Oh, and the inventor, Ardai, also wants you to eavesdrop on the investors for him. Well, you have a more important task for right now. w, n, put water in aquamotor. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work. Sarah suggests that something needs to be added to the water. 
 
We’ll think about that later. Let’s try and deal with the investors for now. s, s, e, e, e back to the investor lounge and listen – again you can’t here. amplia investors doesn’t make enough of a difference, so sit at table. They’ll refuse, with a glance at your lapel. Huh? examine investors and you’ll see they’re all wearing pins. examine pins and you’ll see everyone except the young investor, Verdu, is wearing a pin showing feet walking on flames. Remember the firewalking seminar? ask verdu about pin and he’ll confirm your suspicions, and give you his ticket, which he can’t use because of his broken foot. Off we go! w, w, w, s, e, press b, n, go to convention center, w, show ticket to usher, n. 
 
listen to the seminar. This room actually contains the messages placed by the Kickstarter backers of the game; you can read screen, and select any of the listed names to see their messages, although you don’t need any of them to complete the game. What you do need to do is to light the coals. You would think you could just wait for the speaker to light them, but he never will, so instead, aloha and one of the summoned hula dancers will accidentally light the coals for you. Fortunately, you’re well equipped for a firewalk. asbesta, then stand on stage and you’ll complete the firewalk and gain a pin of your own. 
 
Back we go! s, e, e, go to museum, e, press 1, n, e, e, e, sit at table, and listen over and over again until you’ve heard Katz’s horribly biased decision which is at least in Ardai’s favor, so w, w, w, n, e, and tell ardai about katz. He’ll give you a trinket. This doesn’t do anything useful, but when you go w, Rani will talk to you about your wristband and you’ll incidentally learn a new spell, aura, which makes you glow. 
 
Now. What goes in water? How about salt? There was actually some salt we saw earlier.. s, s, e, press b, n, go to zoo, w, w back to the South American zoo exhibit. The llama has a salt lick! Unfortunately, it won’t be happy if you get salt, and none of your existing spells will do anything useful to it (although you might anamnesia llama for a laugh). Instead, go w and s into the closet, which is pitch dark. Fortunately, aura will light it up revealing a llama hood; get hood. (Incidentally, remaining in the dark in the closet is the one and only way in which you can die in this game.) 
 
n, e, put hood on llama, and get salt. Back to the AquaMotor! e, e, s, go to museum, e, press 1, n, n, n, put salt in water. It works! 
 
 

Investigating the Thaumeter

 
Sarah is now happy for you to mess with the thaumeter, but unfortunately it’s in a cage. Even more unfortunately, one of the other inventions in the room disables spells, so you can’t use your spells to open the cage. Fortunately, Sarah is now happy for you to mess with stuff in the room, so you can examine blocker. This reveals that it hides a keyhole, and the keyword “aretha”, which may have reminded Henry of something. read spellbook and you’ll learn that aretha is actually a spell that, um, channels Aretha Franklin. Ok. 
 
We now need to go to the last of the museum exhibits, the only one we haven’t been to yet: s, s, w, s where a machine for identifying misheard lyrics is being demonstrated. aretha and you’ll get a card from the machine giving the lyric line “Take care, TCB.” n, e, n, n and show card to sarah (you’re on first name terms with her by now). She’ll tell you that TCB are the initials of Henry’s best friend Theo Barnes, who works at the station. Sarah has a photo of him; ask sarah about photo and she’ll give it to you. Guess where we’re going now? s, s, s, e, press b, n, go to station. 
 
The engineer’s office is west, but it’s locked. knock on door and he’ll tell you to slip anything you have for him under the door, so put photo under door. He’ll calm down substantially and let you in. ask barnes about glick, and he’ll tell you that he’ll give you the information you need if you get him a certificate from the Philadelphia & Ohio Railroad. Seems a shade tenuous, but there we go. show photo to barnes, though, and he’ll mention the name of the restaurant: amphora, which is also a spell to, um, “summon greek waiters”. Ok. 
 
e, e, go to financial district, and then amphora to quiet the protest with substantial amounts of wine. You can now go n to the stock exchange entrance. You can’t get into the stock exchange, but you’re more interested in the museum. w, and read sign – ok, the guard has to let you in. guard, push buzzer, but he’s playing on his phone. Oddly, at this point just doing push buzzer yourself gets you a message that seems to have been added to the game at the last minute? Anyway, examine phone and you’ll see he’s playing a game. examine queue, examine actor, and examine actor’s phone and you’ll see he’s playing the same game. Maybe they’re playing against each other? 
 
Well, you need to distract one of them, so acela queue, and then wait a few times until the queue are all admitted to the stock exchange, which means the actor has to finish his game, and sure enough, the guard puts his phone away. guard, push buzzer to open the door, and w. examine case and there’s the certificate. But get certificate will reveal it’s held down by strong glue. Fortunately, adela certificate will break it free, and then get certificate again. e, s, s, go to station, w, and give certificate to barnes. 
 
He’ll agree to help you, so ask barnes about glick. He’ll tell you that the key to “one of glick’s inventions” is hidden at the top of the dome in the Museum rotunda. e, e, and go to museum. 
 
Warning: this is the point of no return. Entering the museum proper at this point will start the endgame, which you can’t exit from. If there’s any more things you just want to explore, do it now. 
 
 

The Moment of Truth

 
All done? e, press 1, and n. You’ll see that the event is ending, and a helium balloon is being inflated in the rotunda. Jack will also tell you that the pod has been shut down (I warned you!). s, e, press 2 (at last!) and n, then examine rotunda. alta doesn’t get you high enough to reach the key, and the balloon is too low to stand on, but you can fix that. airfulla moose to expand it. You’ll get a warning here about having performed magic in front of a large number of people, but it doesn’t actually matter to anyone except Katz. stand on moose and get key. This will start chaos in the Rotunda, but fortunately Jack comes to your aid and will hold the investors off while the balloon descends; just wait three times. Jack can’t hold them off forever (psst. Actually he can. But don’t mention that) so go n, n, unlock box and get battery. You can now cast spells in Glick Hall! It’s not mandatory, but just since it’s the only chance you’ll get to do so, anamnesia sarah for a rather charming message. 
 
alcatraza bars to expose the thaumeter, and examine thaumeter. Sarah can’t disable it quickly enough, but there’s a Ghostbusters reference written on the case. Sarah will mention that she can’t remember the name of the book Henry talked about, so anamnesia sarah again and you’ll learn your final spell aykroydia. SAVE the game here – this is an ending choice point. 
 
aykroydia thaumeter. Sarah will warn you that destroying the thaumeter will mean you won’t be able to use the frequency modulator. Don’t worry – just aykrodia thaumeter again, then wait three times while the investors arrive, the final scene plays out, and Sarah gives you the broken modulator. s, and Jack will tell you to head back to the lab. e, press b, n, read dial, and go to inculab. 
 
It’s now time for the very final decision. Jack will offer to reverse the spell on the modulator if you want to use it in your laser; or, you can give up inventing and become a Bodger. Answer yes or no, whichever you prefer. Both endings are good. 
 
You can also reload your save and wait instead of casting aykroydia on the thaumeter. If you do that, Sarah will disable the thaumeter instead at the last minute and Jack will amnesia everyone in the room to prevent the secret being revealed. In this case, you go back to your lab in the same way, but you won’t have the opportunity to join the Bodgers. However, Jack will be understanding about it, and you still get a good ending as an inventor. 
 

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