Overview of CRTV Puzzles
Silent Hill: Townfall features numerous puzzles that require the CRTV device to solve. These puzzles range from simple code entries to complex multi-step challenges involving signal tuning and environmental observation. The game is played entirely in first-person perspective, making puzzle-solving an immersive experience.
Key CRTV PuzzlesThe CRTV device is not just a navigation and detection tool in Silent Hill: Townfall -- it is the key to solving several of the game's most important puzzles. CRTV-based puzzles require you to tune into specific signals, observe cryptic video clips, and then use the information revealed in those clips to decode combinations, unlock containers, and progress through the story.
This guide provides complete solutions for every CRTV puzzle in Part 1: Arrival, with detailed breakdowns of where to find each clue and how the answer is derived. The puzzle-solving patterns established in Part 1 carry through the rest of the game, so understanding these mechanics early gives you a significant advantage.
Room 204 Puzzle - The Date Lock
### Where It Occurs
The Room 204 Puzzle is the first CRTV puzzle in the game. It takes place inside the hotel room at the end of the hospital cell escape sequence in Part 1: Arrival. After Simon enters the room and picks up the CRTV, a woman's voice speaks through the device. You must decode a three-part combination lock on the door mechanism to escape.
### How to Solve It
- Hold the CRTV (L1) and adjust the tuning so the white bar overlaps with the yellow pips.
- Wait for the fine tuning bar to appear. Press Store Signal when the yellow diamond overlaps with the yellow and black rectangle.
- Watch the first vignette: The woman speaks to Simon and the lock mechanism on the nearby door is highlighted. This confirms the door is your exit.
- Watch the second vignette: A grainy video of a calendar appears. The 18th is zoomed in on, and then the full calendar is shown with the first month (January) circled.
- Lower the CRTV and inspect the Room Service Card on the nearby desk. The card shows it is the 1996 menu.
### The Solution
Assemble the three-part code on the door lock mechanism:
- Outer ring: 18 (the date from the calendar vignette)
- Middle ring: January (the circled month from the calendar vignette)
- Inner ring: 1996 (the year from the Room Service Card)
Lock in the code to unlock the door. After solving the puzzle, collect the Hotel Room Note and Room 204 Key from the bathroom sink counter.
### Key Takeaway
This puzzle establishes the core pattern for CRTV puzzles: the device reveals visual clues, and you must find corresponding physical objects in the environment to complete the answer. The CRTV shows you part of the puzzle; the world provides the rest.
The Pharmacy Locker Puzzle
### Where It Occurs
The Pharmacy Puzzle is the most complex CRTV puzzle in Part 1. It takes place in the Shorefront Pharmacy, which you reach after visiting the Shorefront Family Clinic and obtaining the Scalpel from Zoe's office. Use the Scalpel on the rusted door at the pharmacy to cut through a skin-like slab behind the metal hatch and enter the building.
### Step 1: Connect to the CRTV Signal
In the back room of the pharmacy, you will find a VHF transceiver on the desk next to the bathroom. Interact with the radio while holding the CRTV to begin the signal connection process:
- Tilt the CRTV downward until the two large circles on the display begin to slow down.
- Rotate the CRTV left or right so the two large circles meet in the center and merge into one large circle.
- Three colored rectangles appear in the center of the screen.
- Use the d-pad (up and down) to switch between color channels.
- Align each color so it fits perfectly within its corresponding rectangle.
- Once all colors are aligned, the signal connects and a recording begins to play.
### Step 2: Observe the Four Clue Snippets
The CRTV recording contains four short video clips. Each clip corresponds to a number in the four-digit locker combination. The clips flash quickly, so pay close attention:
Clip 1 - Handwashing Image: An image of someone washing their hands appears. The image is mostly white, but if you look carefully, you can make out the fingernails.
Clip 2 - "Prescription Drugs and You": Text appears on screen reading "Prescription Drugs and You."
Clip 3 - Measuring Unit: A brief image of a medical measuring gauge or meter is shown.
Clip 4 - Pill Cartridge: The final clip shows some unreadable text alongside a cartridge of pills (antibiotics).
### Step 3: Find the Matching Posters
Each CRTV clip corresponds to a physical poster located somewhere in the pharmacy. You must find each poster and extract the hidden number from it.
Clue 1 - The Handwashing Poster (Bathroom): Go to the bathroom, which is to the left of the locked locker. On the wall, you will find a handwashing hygiene poster showing the same image from the first CRTV clip. Examine it closely: the hands on the poster have 6 fingers visible. The first digit is 6.
Clue 2 - "5 Steps for Safer Medicine" Poster (Downstairs): Go down the small flight of stairs to the right of the desk in the pharmacy. A poster titled "Prescription Drugs and You" is displayed here. It reads "5 Steps for Safer Medicine." The second digit is 5.
Clue 3 - Medical Gauge Poster (Main Room): Go to the left of the pharmacy entrance to find a poster about Glucose, Blood Pressure, and Cholesterol levels. This poster features the same measuring unit shown in the third CRTV clip. The reading on the gauge is pointing close to the number 3. The third digit is 3.
Clue 4 - Antibiotics Poster (Back Room): To the right of the locked locker in the back room, find a poster with information about taking antibiotics. At the bottom right of this poster, there is a pill cartridge with one pill missing. Count the total number of pills remaining in the cartridge: there are 9. The fourth digit is 9.
### The Solution
The CRTV clips reveal the numbers in order. The pharmacy locker code is:
6 - 5 - 3 - 9
Input this code on the combination lock to open the locker and receive the Prescription Dosage Error Note. This is a key item that must be placed on one of the pedestals in the Shorefront Family Clinic to complete the Shorefront section of Part 1.
### Clue Summary Table
| CRTV Clip | Poster Location | Hidden Number | Digit |
|---|---|---|---|
| Handwashing hands | Bathroom (left of locker) | 6 fingers | 6 |
| "Prescription Drugs and You" | Downstairs area | 5 steps | 5 |
| Measuring gauge | Main room, left of entrance | Gauge reads 3 | 3 |
| Pill cartridge | Back room, right of locker | 9 pills remaining | 9 |
Transplant Box Puzzle
### Where It Occurs
The Transplant Box Puzzle takes place in Zoe's house kitchen, after you have explored the upstairs rooms and found the Organ Transplant Card in the en suite bathroom.
### How to Solve It
1. Examine the Organ Transplant Card in your inventory. On the right side of the card, the ET Code is printed as HFSOPCS Y015. 2. The puzzle requires you to extract the first and last three digits from this code. Looking at the numeric portion of the code: - The first three digits are 956 - The last three digits are 133 3. Return to the transplant box on the kitchen table. It has two padlocks: - Left padlock: 956 - Right padlock: 133
### The Result
Opening the transplant box triggers a cutscene in which Simon retrieves Zoe's bloodied nurse lanyard. This lanyard is required to access the Shorefront Family Clinic via the card reader at the entrance.
### Key Takeaway
Unlike the Room 204 and Pharmacy puzzles, the Transplant Box Puzzle does not use the CRTV directly. Instead, it tests your ability to carefully examine inventory items and extract information from them. The skill of reading item descriptions closely is just as important as CRTV tuning.
Clinic Scales Puzzle
### Where It Occurs
The Clinic Scales Puzzle is the final puzzle of Part 1: Arrival. It takes place in Zoe's office at the Shorefront Family Clinic, after you have completed all other Part 1 objectives including the Pharmacy Puzzle, Jess's House exploration, and St. Amelia Park traversal.
### Required Items
Before attempting this puzzle, you must have collected three specific items:
- Broken Stethoscope - Found on the bedroom bed in Jess's house.
- Prescription Dosage Error Note (Dosage Bag) - Obtained from the pharmacy locker after solving the Pharmacy Puzzle.
- Zoe's Lanyard - Retrieved from the transplant box after solving the Transplant Box Puzzle.
### How to Solve It
Return to Zoe's office at the clinic. You will find a set of weighing scales on the desk. Place the three items on the scales as follows:
- Left scale: Broken Stethoscope
- Center scale: Prescription Dosage Error Note (Dosage Bag)
- Right scale: Zoe's Lanyard
### The Result
A cutscene triggers with flickering lights and a looping video of Zoe playing on the CRTV. This marks the completion of Part 1: Arrival and transitions the story into Part 2: Zoe.
### Key Takeaway
The Clinic Scales Puzzle is less about decoding and more about understanding the narrative significance of each item. The three objects represent different aspects of Zoe's story: her medical role (stethoscope), the prescription error she discovered (dosage note), and her identity (lanyard). Placing them together on the scales is a symbolic act that unlocks the next chapter.
General CRTV Puzzle-Solving Strategies
The puzzles in Silent Hill: Townfall follow consistent design patterns. Understanding these patterns makes later puzzles significantly easier:
### The Observation Loop
Every CRTV puzzle follows the same fundamental loop: 1. Tune the CRTV to receive a signal at a specific location. 2. Observe the visual clues in the video clips carefully. 3. Search the environment for physical objects that match the clues. 4. Extract the answer by combining information from the CRTV and the physical world.
### Tips for Solving CRTV Puzzles
- Pause after each vignette. The clips can be brief. Take a moment to process what you saw before moving on.
- Check every poster, document, and object in the immediate area after receiving a signal. The game places clues in plain sight, but they require careful observation.
- Use Hinted difficulty if stuck. On Hinted puzzle difficulty, the game highlights certain important text in clues to make solving puzzles easier. The puzzles themselves are identical across difficulties.
- Keep notes. If you see a number or symbol in a CRTV clip but cannot immediately find its corresponding object, write it down. You may need to explore further before the connection becomes clear.
- Re-tune if necessary. If you miss a clue during a signal, you can often re-tune the CRTV to the same signal to review the clips again.
- The order matters. In multi-step puzzles like the Pharmacy Locker, the CRTV clips reveal the digits in sequence. Match each clip to its corresponding poster in the order shown.
Puzzle Difficulty Settings
Silent Hill: Townfall offers three puzzle difficulty options that affect how clues are presented:
- Story Mode: Puzzles are simplified with more obvious clues. Best for players who want to focus on the narrative.
- Hinted: The standard experience. The game highlights certain important text in clues. Recommended for most players.
- Normal: No hint highlighting. You must identify all relevant information yourself. Best for players who enjoy a challenge.
The puzzle solutions remain the same across all difficulty levels. Only the amount of guidance provided changes.
Connection to Endings
The clues and documents you discover while solving CRTV puzzles contribute to the "Discoveries" statistic at the end of a playthrough. This statistic, combined with the number of enemies killed, determines which of the three main endings you receive:
- Justice ("For St. Amelia!") - High discoveries, specific enemy kill threshold
- Forever ("Here To Stay!") - Different discovery and kill combination
- Abandoned ("Just Making Things Worse") - Low discoveries or alternative combination
Solving every CRTV puzzle ensures you collect key documents that boost your Discoveries count, keeping all ending options available.