Play this game ↗ · About this game · By alphaBETA DEV · Published 2026-10-23 · Updated 2026-11-07 · Editorial standards · Changelog

ERRATA Complete Walkthrough: 27 Clues and Both Endings

Spoiler warning: this article prints all 27 clues, the withdrawn proof, both endings and both afterwords. If you have not played yet, read only "What counts as finishing" and "Search terms when stuck".

These numbers are not from memory: 14 records, 27 clues, 412 ledger entries, 2 endings and 2 afterwords all match what you see on screen — the "X / 27 found" counter at the bottom of the clue board, the 412 read off the ending screen, and the PRINTED / UNPRINTED stamp on the afterword. The four screenshots were captured from the game actually running on 21 October 2026.

What counts as finishing

ERRATA has no answer box and no dialogue choices to guess. There is one action: click the underlined sentences in the old newspaper text and file them on the clue board until the story set on 18 July 1994 — and never printed — opens.

• There are 14 records, grouped by year. A locked record is not waiting for a chapter; it is waiting for specific clues.
• The 27 clues are a collection count, not the finish line. The minimum is 12 clues across 13 records (counting the classifieds page that opens automatically).
• The only real choice comes after you read the withdrawn proof: at the bottom of the page, pick "Print the story" or "Leave it wrong".
• The 412 ledger entries are background. You do not correct them one by one; they appear in the ending and the afterword.

1. The shortest route: 13 records

The table is ordered by "collect this clue, then that record opens". The "Record" column shows the title as it appears on screen. It is not the only order: the 1994 front page (Reservoir drowning — one dead) and the 1997 gutter (Three classifieds, all broken oddly) have no prerequisites and can be opened at any time. The front page has no clue, so a speed run can skip it.

The proof needs these eight clues:

"About 756 characters", "Watch · lens · room", "Composing: Tao", "Meet below Tao Wen hill", "The tools are gone", "Compiled by Zhou Guangtian", "Rejected", "The 198th time".

To reach those eight you must also collect "Five, in the obituary", "Impression A: on schedule" and "A press restarted for one line". Add "Print six names together" from the proof itself and the real minimum is 12 clues (13 records including the automatically opened classifieds page). The other 15 are collection depth; they do not change the ending.

2. All 27 clues

The "Clue" column is the name that appears on the board; the "Fact" column is the exact English text from the clue board, not a paraphrase.

3. Five chains worth understanding

1. How a 42×21 measure becomes 756 characters

The empty-measure record (A hole in the front page) gives the size itself: 42 characters wide by 21 lines, 882 characters. The filler slogan takes three lines, or 126 characters at 42 per line. 882 − 126 = 756. That is the length of the withdrawn story, and one of the eight prerequisites for the proof.

The game does the arithmetic for you on the clue board, but knowing where 756 comes from stops it from looking like an isolated password.

2. "On schedule" becomes "明 schedule": someone changed the type

Two impressions of the same page exist for 19 May 2003:

• Impression A (morning run, title That May day, printed twice (A)): the warehouse was completed on schedule.
• Impression B (reset that night, title That May day, printed twice (B)): the warehouse was completed on 明 schedule.

This is the only difference on the page. The press was restarted for the whole run because of that one character. The press order (Press order: four characters as the reason) gives the reason in four handwritten characters — a wrong character — and names the composing room: Tao. Not an OCR error: someone in the composing room swapped a similar-looking sort.

3. The five letters: meet below Tao Wen hill

The letters page (Five letters, five odd signatures) carries five short letters, signed:

1. Tao Jianguo (Xiuxian)
2. Wen Xiulan (Lancheng)
3. Shan Liren (Qingshan, Xiuxian)
4. Xia Tian (Lancheng county)
5. Jian Hong (Shenjiawan, Xiuxian)

Their first characters read: meet below Tao Wen hill. The gazette mentions a burial hill in Xiuxian called Tao Wen hill; the chain connects the man in the composing room to the hill.

Xia Tian, the fourth letter, has no separate clue entry. The board gives you one combined clue after the fifth; do not think you missed a "Xia" clue.

4. The room-to-let line, every 47 days, and why the 199th never came

The same line — room to let, south-facing, no cats — starts on 2 August 1994 and appears every 47 days. 8 December 2019 is the 198th. The 199th was due on 24 January 2020; there is no 199th.

The closure notice of 26 April 2011 (The composing room closes) says the sorts and cases were sold by weight; from May the composing room had no metal type. Yet the line keeps appearing after 2011. From 1 June 2011 every appearance ends with a full stop — you can see that extra full stop on the later ads. The clue board only explains "the tools are gone"; it does not turn the full stop into a required answer. But if you look closely, the later ads show that dividing line.

5. Six children, and why the paper printed five

The withdrawn proof (Six Children and the Man on Shore) lists six: Chen Hui, Zhou Min, Li Zhaohe, Wu Xiaoman, Zhang Hongqi, Shen Xiu.

Shen Xiu was eleven, Zhou Min's cousin, and not on the roster. The obituary says "her five classmates" and signs off "five classmates"; the 2019 revised gazette still says five pupils, one drowned. The withdrawn story asks one thing: print six names together.

The proof also states three facts: Shen Xiu went under about fourteen metres from shore and came up once, facing the shore; Zhou Guangtian did not enter the water; at 15:26 he cycled six kilometres to the militia post and took twenty-seven minutes to return. These are the proof's own sentences, not this article's inference.

4. Two endings and two afterwords

After you open the proof, click its last sentence — "Print six names together" — and the final choice appears below it. The screen gives you two buttons:

Both endings share a coda, "The One Who Withdrew It". The coda reads back the name you entered at the title screen: work log entry 1 says "Proofreader {name} confirmed, on 5 August 1994, that there is no error at 'her five classmates'." You never said that; you clicked "six". The entry is now withdrawn per your correction, withdrawn by you. It is the first thing you signed in this system, and it was not what you said. The last one is.

After the ending there is one more page — the afterword, the same correction in two versions:

• The printed route carries a PRINTED stamp, six names together, and your signature.
• The keep-the-errors route carries an UNPRINTED stamp and stays in item 41 of the composing room inventory.

The afterword does not enter search, add clues or change the 412 ledger; it opens only from the ending screen.

5. Search terms when stuck

Search is a substring match: "Tao" also hits "Tao Jianguo"; "Qingshan" also hits "Qingshan, Xiuxian". After two empty searches the desk gives you a word that definitely exists, at no cost.

By year, this set is enough:

• 1994: reservoir, drowning, swim team, instructor, obituary, classmates, buried, funeral, blank, withdrawn, front page, measure, 756
• 1997: gutter, classifieds, lost, room to let, line break
• 2003: warehouse, completed, schedule, impression a, reprint, press order, composing, tao, wrong character, impression b, reset
• 2011: letters, editor, signature, tao jianguo, wen xiulan, shan liren, jian hong, tao wen hill, composing room, metal type, laser typesetting, closed
• 2019: gazette, water records, notice, compiled, zhou guangtian, rejected, letter, reference, 198, forty-seven, no cats
• proof: withdrawn, shen xiu, six children, unprinted, item 41

If you only remember one word, start with tao or gutter; they pull up the 2003 and 1997 groups respectively. In the Chinese interface, 陶 and 中缝 do the same job.

6. Completion checklist

• Have all 14 records been opened? The 1994 front page (Reservoir drowning — one dead) has no clue, but it is the source of "Zhou Guangtian was on shore".
• Is the clue board at 27/27? For the ending, 12 is enough; the other 15 fill in the story (burial place, broken lines, impression B, the reference number).
• Are the proof's eight prerequisites in? "About 756 characters", "Watch · lens · room", "Composing: Tao", "Meet below Tao Wen hill", "The tools are gone", "Compiled by Zhou Guangtian", "Rejected", "The 198th time".
• Did you click the proof's last sentence, "Print six names together"? Without it the final choice never appears.
• Did you open the afterword after the ending? The PRINTED / UNPRINTED stamp is the direct difference between the routes.
• Does the coda show the name you entered at the title screen? If it shows the default, you did not enter one.

Related guides

• ERRATA game page: mechanics, facts and real screenshots
• Room 404 complete walkthrough
• Unclaimed complete walkthrough
• Night Shift Rules complete walkthrough

Changelog

• 2026-10-23: First published. All numbers (14 records, 27 clues, 412 ledger entries, 2 endings, 2 afterwords) were checked against what is shown in the game: the "X / 27 found" board counter, the 412 on the ending screen, and the PRINTED / UNPRINTED stamp on the afterword. The 12-clue minimum was worked out step by step from how the records unlock. The four screenshots were captured from the game actually running on 21 October 2026.
• 7 November 2026: every page in the route is now named by the title you actually see in the game (such as Six Children and the Man on Shore), and clues use the names on the clue board (such as "About 756 characters"), so finding them on screen is quicker. No numbers or unlock conditions changed.