Occlude: Deck Rules and 100% Achievement Guide

I’m not going to rehash how to actually PLAY the game, because the tutorial does that for you. But in order to WIN, there’s a few things to understand:

1. You’re trying to move all cards from the columns to the Ace/King “Foundation” piles, and you can add up from the ace, or down from the king.

2. Each suit has a specific, randomized card in each new deal that you need to add LAST.

3. For each deck, there’s some unique way to manipulate the cards to determine what each suit’s special card is.

4. In the top right, there’s a set of four coins. From left to right, the coins are related to Clubs, Diamonds, Hearts, and Spades.

5. If you add a suit’s special card to the foundation last, its related coin in the top right will flip to show a diamond; if you don’t add it last, its coin will flip to show a skull. Diamond = good, skull = bad, if that wasn’t obvious.

6. Each deck has three endings – the best for getting ALL diamond coins, the next best for NO diamond coins, and the worst for 1-3 diamond coins.

7. For the purposes of this guide, coin positions are either labelled D (down), U (up), or M (middle).

The rule for the Magician deck is simple:

Pick up a card. If a coin moves down, it’s the special card for that suit. Mark it, and play it last.

For this deck, again the rule is simple:

1. If a special card becomes playable (in the top position of one of the eight columns) a coin will lower.

EXAMPLES:

In the first column there’s an 8 of clubs with a 6 of diamonds covering it. I pick up the 6. I hold it and move it around the screen; nothing happens. I PLACE the 6 either on a 5/7 of diamonds somewhere or on the Purgatory Slot, and a coin moves because the 8 of clubs is now uncovered. The 8 of clubs is a special card. Mark it, play it last.

If a coin moves when you place a card somewhere else, the card that was BEHIND the one you placed is the special card, because the card that was behind it is now playable. Keep in mind “place a card somewhere else” means actually setting it down in another spot; just holding and moving it around the screen won’t work. The Purgatory Slot is useful for this. By the same token, if you place a card on another card and a coin rises, it means the card you just covered up with your move is the special one.

If one or more coins are lowered at the start of the game, that number of cards out the 8 starting playable cards are special. Remember, from left to right, the coins refer to clubs, diamonds, hearts, and spades, so that helps narrow down which cards to mark as potentials.

Again, the rule is simple:

Put a card in the Purgatory Slot. If a coin moves, it’s a special card. Mark it, play it last.

EXAMPLE:

If you need an example for this, this game is not for you
ha gottem

With The Stub, we’re now starting to get into some more complicated rules.

1. The mechanism for moving the coins is exactly the same as the El Paraguas deck: a coin will lower when a certain card becomes playable.

2. HOWEVER, look at WHICH coin lowers. Again, the coins from left to right refer to clubs, diamonds, hearts, spades.

3. If a card becomes playable and a coin lowers, it means that the NUMBER of the now-playable card (2-queen) in the suit of the MOVED COIN is special. Mark it, play it last.

4. Each suit will have its own card that moves a coin. As far as I’ve seen, club cards will always move the spade coin and vice versa; diamond cards will always move the heart coin and vice versa.

EXAMPLES:

Again, imagine an 8 of clubs covered by a 6 of diamonds in the first column. I place the 6 somewhere else and the spade coin moves. That means that the EIGHT (number of the now-playable card) of SPADES (fourth coin) is the special one, NOT the 8 of clubs. Mark the 8 of spades, play it last.

This one can be tricky to win, because more likely than not you’ll have to take some risk in playing some cards to the Foundation before you’ve had a chance to check them. However, you can mitigate that a little by marking multiple coins to be careful around. If I start a new game and the heart coin is down, I can check which diamond cards are immediately playable. If say, the 2, 9, and J of diamonds are playable, I can mark the 2, 9 and J of hearts, and then unmark them as needed when I place cards on top of the 2/9/J of diamonds and see if the heart coin rises back up or not.

Another somewhat complicated rule set:

1. When you place a card somewhere else, the coins will move to show you that card number’s relation to the special card in its suit.

2. For this ruleset, these are the coin position meanings:

• DDUU: this card is 3+ numbers higher than the special card in its suit.
• UDUU: this card is 1-2 numbers higher than the special card in its suit.
• UUUU: this card IS the special card. Mark it and play it last.
• UUDU: this card is 1-2 numbers lower than the special card in its suit.
• UUDD: this card is 3+ numbers lower than the special card in its suit.

EXAMPLE:

I place the 5 of clubs somewhere and see UUDD. That means the clubs special card is at least three numbers higher than a 5.

I then place the 10 of clubs somewhere and see UDUU. That means the clubs special card is 1-2 numbers lower than a 10. This narrows the clubs special card down to an 8 or 9.

I then place the 8 of clubs somewhere and see UUDU. That means the clubs special card is 1-2 numbers higher than an 8; therefore the 9 of clubs is the special card and I mark it.

The nice thing is that if you see DDUU or UUDD, it can actually clear quite a few cards to play to the Foundation. If I move an 8 and see DDUU, not only does it mean that I don’t have to worry about playing the 7 or 6 of that suit to the Foundation, but I can freely play the 9 through Q of that suit as well.

This ruleset is easy if you know binary.

1. Place a card somewhere else. The coins will move to show the number of the special card in the placed card’s suit.

2. Think of an Up coin as a 0, and a Down coin as a 1.

• 0010 = 2
• 0011 = 3
• 0100 = 4
• 0101 = 5
• 0110 = 6
• 0111 = 7
• 1000 = 8
• 1001 = 9
• 1010 = 10
• 1011 = J
• 1100 = Q

EXAMPLE:

I move the 9 of clubs, and the coins move to UDUD. That translates to 0101, or 5. The 5 of clubs is the special coin; I mark it and play it last.

The nice thing about this one is if you have at least one of every suit playable from the start, you can know all four special cards right off the bat; put one of them in the Purgatory slot to see what the special card is in that suit and mark it, then undo and repeat with the three other suits.

This is, by far, the most complex ruleset, and plays out much like a game of Guess Who, where you’ll be marking a lot of cards as “potentials” then unmarking them as you get more information.

1. You make any move, then undo it to “ask a question”. The coins will move to show what question you’re asking.

2. You then simply pick up any of the playable cards, and the coins will answer regarding the special card in the picked-up card’s suit.

For these coin configurations, D = down, U = up, M = middle

Coin configurations for QUESTIONS:
DUUD: Is the special card from the suit of the card I pick up even (2, 4, 6, 8, 10, Q)?
DMMU: Is the special card from the suit of the card I pick up odd (3, 5, 7, 9, J)?
UDDU: Is the special card from the suit of the card I pick up a face card (J, Q)? (possibly 10’s included here, not sure)
UUDD: Is the special card from the suit of the card I pick up higher than the picked-up card? ***
DDUU: Is the special card from the suit of the card I pick up lower than the picked-up card? ***
DUDU: Is the card that I pick up a special card?

***NOTE: the coin configurations for “higher” and “lower” are the OPPOSITE of what they were for the Mr. Slab deck

Coin configurations for ANSWERS:
UUUU: No
DDDD: Yes

EXAMPLE:

I place the 7 of clubs somewhere, then undo the move. The coins show DMMU, so I’m asking if the special card from the suit of the next card I pick up is odd. I pick up the J of spades, and the coins show DDDD, so “yes’. I can then mark the 3, 5, 7, 9 and J of spades as “potentials”. As I move more cards around, then undo, I’ll ask different questions, and can narrow my list of potentials down until I determine the actual special card.

As far as I know, the questions cycle in the order that I’ve put them in the list with each additional card moved/placed. If I place a card and undo and get the “odd” question (DMMU), then I have to re-place that card, PLUS make three additional placements in order to undo and ask the “is this lower” question (DDUU).

There are eleven achievements, seven of which are getting four diamond coins for each of the seven decks. That should be easier now that you know the rulesets, though even knowing the rulesets it can be hard to get a decent enough deal to win. Just keep at it and you’ll get there eventually.

For the other four, you need to do the following:

8. Find all endings in Classic Mode.

That means getting the 0-diamond ending, the 1-3 diamond ending, and the 4-diamond ending for all seven decks. Using the rulesets you should be able to get the 4-diamond endings, but even if you mess up, if you can actually play all the cards and complete the rounds you might as well in order to fill out the 0 and 1-3 diamond endings as you go.

9. Mark every card.

At the start of a round, before you do anything, just go hog wild and mark ’em all.

10. Reshuffle without making a single move.

By far the fastest achievement. Start a round and immediately hit the new deal button. You did it!

11. Sort the cards into four suits WITHOUT using the Foundation in Classic Mode.

This is, by far, the hardest achievement in the game. You can move cards from column to column, and you can use the Purgatory Slot, but you CAN’T play any cards on the ace/king piles. This is made harder by requiring Classic Mode, so you don’t get a second purgatory slot to make use of. This one just requires a ton of patience and luck with the starting deal. Eventually, you’ll have one column of either Q-2 or 2-Q for each suit. May the Force be with you; may the odds be ever your favour; may the blessings of Elves and Men and all Free Folk go with you, etcetera. You’ll need it all.