Time Bandit: May Acton’s Puzzle Guide

This guide is slowly working on solutions on all puzzles, just in case you get very stuck or intimidated by a puzzle. They should be ordered chronologically, so to avoid spoilers, don’t scroll down too far.

Also, I do recommend playing this game blind. Take it slow, optimal plays can wait. And if you mess up, feel free to share your predicament, we can look at it together and see how we can salvage it.

Also this guide is still WIP, Im still playing myself. I play every day tho, so even if you just started out, this guide should have the information you would need.

Maybe you’re in this guide because you already got yourself in a predicament. Here’s some common problems and my advice.

Help, I got my forklift stuck in a place where I can’t get it.
My advice is two-part: A solution to your current situation and advice for the future. About your initial predicament, there’s no direct way to get your forklift back. I can imagine that sucks. The upside is that even if you get no work done, your boss will pay you whenever you open the game for the first time each day. At the maximum that’s ten days of logging in to buy yourself a new forklift from Joseph. At which point you’ll have two of them, which is neat, but also quite the investment as you’ve just noticed.
If you don’t have that kind of patience, there’s a bunch of different things you could try. If I’m not mistaken, the game does keep some back-ups of previous days in its save directory, so you could cheat a bit and go back a day. If it’s super-early game, like your second day or something, restarting the game completely might even be a quicker. And lastly, there’s a slightly spoilery way for a quick cash injection: There’s a bunch of hidden Time Crystals that are super easily accessible. I know of three you can just get without having to move anything, which is a $45 cash injection. Their locations are at the end of this guide. Alternatively you could also take a $25 bank loan, though that’s pretty risky if you don’t have a contingency plan.
For the future, always be careful when moving boxes. Always make sure you don’t block your paths and that you can always reach your forklift once it’s done moving.

Help, things are shooting at me and I’m scared.
I can imagine this might be the first time things shoot at you at a time where you can’t easily dodge bullets. Not to worry (I hope), let’s consult your Stamina bar. At a nearly full Stamina bar, you can take three shots and not faint, though you should probably sleep right after and call it a day. Avoidance is obviously the best advice, but we’re here now, so try and find the optimal path back to the entrance. Now I’ve personally never fainted and been taken to jail, but from what I can summise it’s not the end of the world if it happens. You lose a day of playtime as far as I can tell, so just take the loss and move on.

Help, I moved boxes and now I don’t know how to solve this puzzle.
Share it in the comment section and I’ll check with you. I love good puzzles. If it helps, open your paint program of choice and make a screenshot of your situation. Start moving blocks around and see if you can untangle the mess you made. It’s pretty hard to get completly stuck as far as I can tell, it might just take a lot of moves to fix your situation.

Help, I want to make moves, but gas is limiting my options.
You will have to come to terms that this game takes time. Gas prices range somewhere between $2.50 and $4.00. And if you’re paying attention, that means with your daily wage, you can do 1-2 moves a day, not counting any bonuses from Time Crystals. This is why getting extra forklifts doesn’t really help much if you’re playing each day, as you’re hard limited by gas anyways. My advice is to buy a bunch of gas when prices are near its lowest point, and else you will just have to wait for your daily wage.

This should be the first puzzle you should get your hands dirty on. It’s quite simple, but also an easy one to get your forklift stuck on if you make a wrong move. My personal solution is as follows:

• PULL Box E1 to E2.
• PUSH Box C1 to B1
• Gain access to Time Crystal B3.
• PULL Box B4 to B3
• PUSH Box C5 to D5
• Gain access to the Trash Compactor.
• Gain access to Time Crystal (Up the stairs)
• COMPACT F5
• PUSH Trash F5 to F4
• COMPACT B6
• PUSH Box D5 to E5
• PULL Trash B6 to C6
• Gain access to Time Crystal A6

And that should be it for this puzzle. Fully emptied out and with a path cleared to the ladder.

The Crane Pit has a bunch of pretty easily accessible Time Crystals, as well as a mysterious crawl space. If you play it clever, it’s solved quite quickly. My solution is as follows:

• COMPACT C4
• COMPACT E3
• CRANE Trash C4 to A4
• Gain access to Time Crystal C5
• PUSH Box C3 to C2
• Gain access to Time Crystal A3
• Gain access to Time Crystal C1
• CRANE Trash E3 to B5

And with the path cleared, the solved puzzle should look like this.

This puzzle is rather complex and has a bunch of trash that you don’t have to compact. My solution is as follows:

• COMPACT A2
• PUSH Trash A2 to A1
• COMPACT C2
• PUSH Trash C2 to D2
• PUSH Trash D2 to E2
• PUSH Trash E2 to F2
• COMPACT D1
• COMPACT G1
• PUSH Trash G1 to H1
• PUSH Trash H1 to I1
• COMPACT H2
• PUSH Trash I1 to J1
• Gain access to Time Crystal I3
• PUSH Trash H2 to G2
• COMPACT J2
• PUSH Trash D1 to C1
• PULL Trash J2 to I2
• PUSH Trash I2 to I1
• COMPACT L3
• PULL Box E3 to E2
• Gain access to Time Crystal F3
• PULL Box D-1 to D0

This puzzle introduces crawlspaces in puzzles and has a nice amount of Crystals. This is my personal solution:

• PUSH Box A3 to A2
• COMPACT B3
• PUSH Box B4 to B3
• Gain access to the Drone

This puzzle introduces tunnels in puzzles, as well as some shennanigans with crawlspaces. THIS PUZZLE IS WIP, Im still solving it myself.

• COMPACT D4

The top layer of the mines is HUGE. You’ve already glimpsed it initially, as you boss asks you on the first day to move boxes in the Mines. However, the main entrance gets you stuck (and squished). This is my solution for the puzzle, granted you pushed the box in A15 to B15 on the first day:

Jokes on you, this puzzle is still WIP, I aint done with it yet.

• COMPACT C15
• COMPACT H15

If your carts ever fall down from the top layer, they need to be brought to recycling first before they’re moved back to their starting position in the top layer. I don’t honestly know if I should bother making a solution for this, but that’s why this path is here, to waste your time if you mess up. Just make sure to pull instead of push where you can, unless you enjoy getting smushed by carts.

Across the second Bridge there’s quite a few things going on. Access to two other bridge stations, a ladder to another Crystal and a new tool. Here’s my personal solution:

Jokes on you, still WIP, this will be updated soon.

There’s a few Time Crystals that are hidden away in the world. These are the ones I know of:

On the east side of town, you can spot some particle effects in one of the buildings.

It’s quite easily accessible. If you go north, just past the building, there’s a gap next to the sewer access hatch. There’s a crawlspace in the bottom wall that can be used to get into the building. Then just walk up the ramps to access the time Crystal.

On the beach there’s a bunch of shipping crates hiding a Time Crystal. At the northside of them, there’s a crawlspace. Below is visualised how the crawlspace is layed out. You might need to feel your way around it a little bit, but all the way on the southside of the crates should hide a Time Crystal.

In the facility, there’s a Crystal you can spot just above the crane. You can see particle effects being emitted from it. Just crawl around the space and you should be able to wedge yourself in there and grab the crystal.