Oxytocin Secret Message

Oxytocin is the final secret and the achievement most players get stuck on. Its description is just “Read the secret message,” but getting to that message means noticing a clue, listening to a strange sound and doing something the game never explicitly asks you to do. This guide is split into stages so you can stop reading once you have enough to finish it yourself.

Before You Begin

• Reach the first ending (Infinite Loop Detected) at least once.
• Have your sound on and a keyboard ready.
• Know where the trash bin is and that it holds notes. See Trash Bin Notes.
• Optional but helpful: a phone or PC app that can decode SSTV audio.

Stage 1: The Hint (Light Spoiler)

The puzzle starts in the trash bin. The third note contains the first clue. Read it carefully and think about what it’s pointing to, then think about the one moment in the game that seems to “end” but keeps going if you don’t leave.

If you want to try solving it now, stop here.

Stage 2: The Sound (Medium Spoiler)

Play to the first ending and stay on its final screen. After a while, a harsh, screeching noise plays. Players describe it as sounding like an old dial-up modem, and that comparison is the key: it isn’t random noise, it’s data.

The sound is an SSTV transmission. Slow-scan television is a method amateur radio operators use to send still pictures as audio. When the sound is fed into an SSTV decoder, it turns back into an image.

How to decode it

1. Get a decoder. On a phone, an SSTV receiver app that listens through the microphone works. On a PC, dedicated SSTV software can decode audio from a recording or from a virtual audio cable.
2. Prepare a clean signal. Turn the game volume up, turn off other audio and keep the room quiet if you’re using a phone microphone.
3. Let the whole sound play. SSTV pictures are drawn line by line. Don’t stop early or the image will be incomplete.
4. Read the image. The decoded picture gives you what you need for the next stage.

If your image comes out skewed or noisy, record the sound and decode the file directly, or move the phone closer to the speakers and try again.

Stage 3: The Code (Full Spoiler)

The community’s solution is to type CHNOS on the final screen. Use your physical keyboard while that screen is open. There’s no visible text field, so just type the letters.

This unlocks the secret message, which appears in the trash bin.

Stage 4: Read the Message

Open the trash bin and find the new message. The achievement is tied to reading it, so open it fully. Oxytocin unlocks when you do.

Full Solution Checklist

#	Action	Where
1	Read the third trash bin note	Trash bin
2	Reach the first ending	Pass all love tests
3	Wait for the modem-like sound	Final screen
4	Decode it as SSTV (optional if you know the code)	Decoder app
5	Type CHNOS	Final screen
6	Open and read the secret message	Trash bin

The Crossed-Out Text

Parts of the secret message are crossed out. Players have noticed that this leaves them feeling like some context is missing, and that’s likely intentional. The message reads like something written, reconsidered and partly withdrawn. Whatever was struck through is less important than the act of striking it: someone decided certain words shouldn’t be said, or shouldn’t be seen.

Read it alongside both endings. It lands differently once you’ve seen the true ending, and it’s one of the pieces that makes the story feel personal rather than staged. For a fuller interpretation, see Story Explained.

Why It’s Called Oxytocin

Oxytocin is the hormone often nicknamed the “love hormone” or “bonding hormone.” It is released during physical closeness such as touching and hugging, and it’s associated with trust and attachment. In a game that opens with a test about holding hands, naming the deepest secret after the chemistry of bonding is a pointed choice. More on the game’s naming in Title Meaning Decoded.

Troubleshooting

• I never hear the sound. You’re leaving the final screen too soon, or your audio is muted. Wait longer with the volume up.
• Typing does nothing. Make sure you’re on the final screen of the first ending and that the game window has focus. Click on it once, then type.
• No new message in the trash bin. Return to the bin after entering the code, and check that you typed the letters in the correct order.
• The message is there but no achievement. Open it fully and read it. If it still doesn’t pop, restart the game with Steam online and read it again.

Tips If You Want to Solve It Yourself

• Treat the notes as instructions. The trash bin isn’t just flavor text. Read the third note as if it were telling you to do something.
• Don’t trust the credits. In this game, the end of a scene isn’t always the end. Waiting is an action.
• Think about old technology. The sound resembles a dial-up modem for a reason. Ask what kinds of old signals carry information as noise.
• Remember you have a keyboard. The game mostly uses the mouse. When a puzzle needs something else, it’s often the keyboard.

What SSTV Is, in Plain English

Slow-scan television is a way of sending a still picture as sound. It was developed for amateur radio, where operators needed to share images over narrow voice channels. Instead of pixels, the sender converts brightness and color into audio tones: a lower pitch for darker areas, a higher pitch for lighter ones. The picture is sent one horizontal line at a time, which is why a transmission lasts from several seconds to a couple of minutes rather than an instant.

At the start of a transmission, most SSTV modes send a short identification tone that tells the receiver which format is coming. Common modes include Robot36, Martin and Scottie, and they differ in resolution, color handling and speed. You don’t need to know which one the game uses. Good decoders detect the mode automatically from that opening tone, as long as they hear the transmission from the beginning.

That’s also why the sound in the game is so harsh to the ear. It isn’t music or noise; it’s an image spoken aloud in the only language a radio can carry.

Decoding Options by Device

Device	Tool type	Examples	Best for
Android phone	Microphone-based decoder app	Robot36 (free, open source)	The quickest method: hold the phone near your speakers
iPhone / iPad	Microphone-based decoder app	SSTV decoder apps on the App Store	Same approach as Android
Windows PC	Desktop SSTV software	MMSSTV (free)	The cleanest result, using a recording or virtual cable
Linux PC	Desktop SSTV software	QSSTV	Same approach as Windows

Method A: Phone Next to the Speakers

This is the easiest route and works for most players on the first or second try.

1. Install an SSTV decoder app and give it microphone permission.
2. Reach the first ending and stay on its final screen.
3. Silence everything else: close music apps, mute notifications, ask the room to be quiet.
4. Set the game volume to a comfortable but clearly audible level. Very loud audio can distort through a phone microphone.
5. Start the decoder before the sound begins, then hold the phone steady about a foot from your speaker or place it right next to one earcup of your headphones.
6. Let the whole transmission play. The image will fill in line by line on your phone.

If the result is too noisy to read, repeat the ending and try again with the phone closer and the room quieter. Headphones pressed against the phone often give a cleaner signal than desk speakers.

Method B: Record, Then Decode on a PC

If you want a perfect image, capture the sound digitally instead of through the air.

1. Record the output. In Audacity on Windows, choose the Windows WASAPI audio host and set the recording device to your speakers or headphones with “loopback.” This records exactly what your PC plays, with no room noise.
2. Capture the full sound. Start recording before you reach the final screen and stop only after the noise has ended.
3. Export the clip as a WAV file.
4. Route it into the decoder. Desktop SSTV programs listen to an audio input. A free virtual audio cable, such as VB-Audio’s VB-CABLE, lets you play the WAV file into that input as if it were a microphone.
5. Play the file and watch the decoder. The image should appear cleanly on the first pass.

Reading a Bad Decode

What you see	Likely cause	Fix
Image leans diagonally	Slight timing mismatch between devices	Use the decoder’s slant correction, or decode from a recording
Grainy, speckled lines	Room noise or low volume	Move closer, reduce background sound, or use Method B
Only part of the image	The decoder missed the start	Start the decoder before the sound begins
Nothing decodes at all	Mode not detected	Make sure the opening tone is captured; try a different decoder

Why the Game Hides Its Secret This Way

It would have been easy to hide the secret behind a button or a password in a note. Instead, the game hides it in a sound that most players will dismiss as a glitch or simply never hear because they close the window. That choice fits everything else in the story. The game is about messages that aren’t received as intended: a love letter that says one thing and means another, a relationship presented one way and experienced another. Here, the message is literally broadcast as noise, and only someone who stops, listens and makes the effort to translate it will understand what it says.

It’s also a nod to old technology. Dial-up tones, radio pictures and hidden files all belong to a pre-smartphone internet, the kind of world where a game might sit forgotten on a second-hand laptop until someone stumbles on it.

How the Puzzle Chain Fits Together

Once you’ve solved it, the design is elegant. Each step teaches you something the next step needs:

Step	What it teaches
The third trash bin note	That the discarded notes are clues, not just flavor
Waiting on the final screen	That the game continues after it seems to end
The modem-like sound	That information can be hidden in noise
Decoding the SSTV image	That you need to step outside the game to understand it
Typing the code	That the game accepts input you weren’t told about
Reading the message in the bin	That the most personal truth was among the things thrown away

Every step asks you to do the opposite of what a normal game trains you to do: read the trash, wait after the ending, listen to noise, leave the game window, type when nothing prompts you. It’s the same logic as the true ending, where the right move is to fail. The game keeps rewarding players who question its surface.

Dead Ends Players Commonly Hit

• Closing the game at the credits. The most common reason players never find the sound at all.
• Assuming the sound is a bug. A harsh, glitchy noise at the end of a cute game seems like an error. It isn’t.
• Searching only inside the game. The puzzle is designed to push you outside, toward tools that can read the signal.
• Looking for a text box. There isn’t one. You type directly while the right screen is active.
• Solving the code but not reading the message. The achievement is tied to reading, so you must open the new message in the trash bin.
• Digging through game files first. Players who read the language file found out where the message lives, but not how to unlock it in play. It spoils the discovery without saving much time.

How the Community Cracked It

The Oxytocin puzzle became a small group effort on the Steam discussion boards. Players who had every other achievement started comparing notes. One noticed that the sound at the end of the bad ending resembled an old modem and that the language file pointed to the trash bin. Others connected the sound to SSTV. A community guide then pulled the pieces together, starting from the clue in the third note, and players began sharing the code to type on the final screen.

It’s a good example of how the game was built to be solved together, in the same spirit as the publisher’s in-character requests for help finding Alice.

1. Do I need to decode the SSTV image? Not if you already know the code. Decoding it is the intended puzzle and a satisfying moment if you have the tools.
2. Can I get Oxytocin before the true ending? The puzzle is tied to the first ending’s final screen and the trash bin, so you can attempt it before or after Return true.
3. Is this the last secret? It’s the last achievement. Players are still digging through the game and its Steam posts for more.