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After lowering the water level, there is a anticube room beneath the first warp zone. In New Game+ first-person view mode, the Polytron logo shows on the floor. After following the treasure map (standing exactly in the hole of the logo, entering the tetromino code on the reverse side), a floating black monolith/obelisk/pillar appears. What is the trick?

floating black monolith

Wolf
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  • A lot of the research around this puzzle involve the Tome. My guess is that it must be read like a manga, with the big letter being the key to a Caeser sipher for the next page. I'll look into it and come back with the results... It might be something else since the distribution of letters seems to match that of the english language. – François Cassin Apr 15 '12 at 19:24
  • Yes, but if you read it like a japanese book (start with the end) every page has a big letter. – François Cassin Apr 15 '12 at 21:57
  • @Gimlao Interesting idea, I've tried using 0 as LT and 1 as RT in both big indian and little indian without success. I think the answer must have 8 commands like every other in the game, but who knows? – François Cassin Apr 15 '12 at 22:49
  • It's possible you need to stand on the other center (With the #1 on it) and input the 8-step code. The eight pages only utilize five characters (instead of the full six). They match the red cube artifact. It's also possible that each big character is a direction or step. P-S-K-S-K-B-C-B is what the big letters translate to [or B-C-B-K-S-K-S-P]. Given that you can't use left or right to leave that center square, I imagine the five letters translate to RB, LB, Up, Down, A. Tried a few combinations while standing on that second square... thus far I know it doesn't start with an Up, Down or A. –  Apr 16 '12 at 06:04
  • I don't think it's the tomb - that looks like a hidden haiku, but not sure how it links to this other than it being unsolved. Two things I thought it might be: 1) the monolith is the only thing that keeps moving when in 1st person. 2) each spiral of the logo on the floor has a number in the centre - reading from the door side one is 0 and the other 1. – Keith Apr 16 '12 at 19:58
  • FWIW, the Monolith is not the only thing that keeps moving when in 1st person. The standalone globe with the corner cut out of it (like the unfinished cube in the "bad" ending), which is in the room after the rotating solar system (and NOT the solar system itself), also spins while in 1st person. I don't know if there is a connection or if it's just that things which rotate in the center of the room happen to be unaffected by 1st person mode. – Leo Davidson Apr 16 '12 at 21:44
  • Maybe altering the brightness or sound settings? –  Apr 16 '12 at 19:29
  • I reckon people have been making this too complicated. You stand on the 0 and enter the tetris code from the burnt map to get the monolith. I reckon you stand on the 1 and enter another tetris code to unlock the heart cube. That second code will be something the game tells us, somewhere; it won't be buried by layers of encryption, it will be a facepalm when we see it. – Keith Apr 17 '12 at 07:29
  • @Gimlao, I don't think so, as in the old guy's house there's a picture of him young. He has the eyepatch but no fez, which implies that he got the fez after losing the eye. – Keith Apr 18 '12 at 07:24
  • I may be wrong but I think this has something to do with the disection of the square into tetronimos in the boiler room. It is quite uncanny that reading from the top down, the first meaningful symbols are D,D,LT. Also I can find 6 of the 7 required symbols in there facing the right way up. Just a thought. – Daniel Fretwell May 23 '12 at 09:11
  • Can the burnt treasure map only be used in New Game+, then? I'm on my first play-through and the room shows an undiscovered secret, but the sequence on the back of the map (U, RT, U, J, D, LT, U, D) does nothing. – Peter Hosey Oct 05 '13 at 22:12

2 Answers2

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As discovered by a person on the Xbox360Achievements forum in this post, this puzzle can be solved just like the first puzzle in the same room. The following picture shows the floor of the room, which can be seen in first person view:

Room floor

The first puzzle required a button input sequence while standing on the square with no line in it (circled in blue in the picture). This puzzle similarly requires standing on the square with a line in it (circled in green in the picture) and inputting the following button sequence.

down down LT RT RT A up

murgatroid99
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  • Props for giving credit where credit is due. – Matt Sephton Apr 18 '12 at 22:21
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    Great! But also slightly sad. It looks like this was finally brute forced out, I really want to know how it was meant to be fixed. – Keith Apr 18 '12 at 22:52
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    @Keith I agree, but I followed the solving effort for a little while and it looked like someone related to the company was giving out hints (which led to this discovery) and he said that the answer could not be found in game. There was some speculation that the answer would be in the soundtrack, but I don't think it has been released yet – murgatroid99 Apr 18 '12 at 23:09
  • @murgatroid99 You're right, it comes out on April 20th. http://disasterpeace.com/album/fez – Doozer Blake Apr 19 '12 at 00:06
  • @murgatroid99 - that seems a little too obscure, especially if (like me) you plan to listen to it on Spotify :-) I reckon that it's out on the web somewhere, maybe buried in the resources on the Polytron website or similar. – Keith Apr 19 '12 at 09:08
  • Not to be a conspiracy theorist, but there is a song on the soundtrack called Reflection that is 9:02 long and the end of it is very quiet, ocean/ambient sounds with some almost static in it. It's quite possible there is something embedded in there somehow. The song name Reflection would be fitting with the image presented on the floor. – Doozer Blake Apr 20 '12 at 14:28
  • @DoozerBlake that does look interesting and it probably warrants further investigation. I think some other people looked at the track called "Love" because these are the heart pieces, but I don't think they found anything. – murgatroid99 Apr 20 '12 at 15:35
  • @DoozerBlake I've noticed you haven't awarded the bounty yet. Are you looking for something that isn't already in the existing answers? – murgatroid99 Apr 21 '12 at 00:28
  • @murgatroid99 Still 4 days left on it. I'd love to know where this code is actually hidden, but it's not a requirement for me rewarding the bounty. I just wanted the question answered and to get some attention for it. – Doozer Blake Apr 21 '12 at 05:37
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    I am appalled that the answer to this puzzle was not in the game. For a puzzle game with so many awesome puzzles, this was pretty damn lame. If it turns out it is just well hidden I'll retract my scorn, but for now. *Boo!* – EBongo Apr 30 '12 at 02:57
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(To make the black monolith first appear, follow the burnt treasure map; or just stand atop the square on the left and enter ↑ RT ↑ A ↓ LT ↑ ↓.)

Now, stand atop the square on the right and enter: ↓ ↓ LT RT RT A ↑

"1"

The black monolith turns into a heart piece (finally), thanks to gregSTORM.

Video:

gregSTORM used assisted brute force to discover this solution. It's still unclear how the puzzle was actually supposed to be solved. See "How is the Monolith puzzle in Fez supposed to be solved?" for links to some threads that discuss possibilities.

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Wolf
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