Here I guide you to get some of the Have a Nice Death achievements, with tips and tricks for the hardests ones and info about others.
Introduction
There is a 100% guide for each one of the achievements and I recommend you take a look before this one: Completionist Guide – 100% Achievements
The First thing you need to know: if you have a save file from the Early Access of the game, leave it immediately and start a fresh new one in this release of the game. Why I’m telling you this? cause I got frustaded trying to the get some of the achievements, but I couldn’t because their quests got locked on my main save file which was from the Early Access of the game, I can’t prove that it was the problem, but the main save file has 110 runs, all curses and almost all the Employee Handbook complete (excepts for two entries that got locked too), one of the achievement is the April Ghouls, which the event did never even started for me in this save file, so I needed to start I new one (after 70 hours of gameplay in the main one) just to complete 2 achievements. I don’t want anyone to go through this 😡.
Some infos about this guide:
- I am not from any country that speaks english natively, I’m from Brazil, so some parts of the guide can have wrong phrases or words (let me know if there are and I will correct it and improve my english as well 😊)
- There are some SPOILERS on the guide, so I would highly recommed you to finish the game at three times before reading this guide.
This guide is updated to the release version of the game (v1.0.4.55150)
The “Crash and Enter” Strategy
There is no secret, it works 100% of the time (at least for me), you only need to ALT+F4 before the save.
You could use it in a entire run, but the run can take the three times more than a normal one if you have “a bad build”. So only use to save your run, and use in moderation 😃
“Unlock all the Curses in the Encyclopedia”
Of course I have some things to add to the cited guide, first of all, I did not need to unlock all the penalties “only” all the curses as the achievements suggests. So I think you won’t need it, but it could be a bug caused by my early access save file, I would like some of you to test this and comment could get without all penalties 🧐.
The prove that I did get the achievement:
Red Curses
Blue Curses
Green Curses
Penalties
Unlocked Achievement
Many of you would like to have the cited list written down in a table (like me) to track down what curse you are missing. So I have created a Google Spreadsheet[docs.google.com] to help with this problem. You can Copy or Download it and use as you like. There are three pages, one for each type of curse and another page for the penalities (which is useless as it seems to not be necessary unlocking the penalities) the curses that are underlined are curses that have a prerequisite or is a prerequisite, they aren’t linked at all in the list, but you can tell what is a prerequisite (a infuse curse for example) and what needs a prerequisite (“Burn deals +5 damage” for example). This list is not 100% accurate, the information in it about the prerequisites was retrieve by me through my playthrough. The list has the exact same sequence as the game is in the current version (v1.0.4.55150), so I used this way ✍️:
Do this one time:
- Look at all the curses that is locked by tracking where they are in relation to the unlocked ones or by simply counting as the curses in the list have the same sequence as in the game
- For each locked curse you bold its entire line
After tracking down all the curses that you have. Repeat this multiple times:
- Play a run mainly looking for the curses that have or are a prerequisite (I think only infuse curses are prerequisite, but some of the curses that I did get was only after I got another one, like the “Daredevil” and “Soul Armor” in the green curses)
- If you find a curse that you don’t have, you “unbold” the line
Bonus Tip*: the blue curse “Drowned Fire” which “Decreases burn duration by 2 seconds” is not obtainable if you have got the other blue curse “Inner Fire” which gives you: “Burn lasts +5 seconds longer”
Lets say that you are looking for a curse and you have completed a floor that gives you a curse choice (HR Office or after any Thanager/Sorrow – except Time) but didn’t get it in the first try, so you will need to reroll it, but you don’t know if you gonna get the curse by rerolling 5 times and there are many floors ahead to try to get the curse in the first or second reroll. So you get another curse type and try in the next “curse choice floor” or you reroll until you get what you want?
There is a third path, you can do both, yes BOTH of the other paths 😯, like this:
- First you gonna reroll until you get it,
- If it took too many rerolls and you think it is not worth or you didn’t even get the curse, you can quit the game to the main menu
- After entering the save file and cleaning the floor/level again you gonna choose another curse of another type, and do this to the next “curse choice floor”
This is what I call “Quit and Enter“🤐. The only problem with this path is by doing that you gonna need to clear floor again. If it is a normal Minion floor or even a Thanager/Sorrow, you will need to defeat them again. So be sure that you can do it.
PS.: you can do the same in the shop, so if you made a bad choice, you can simply “Quit and Enter“.
Important info: the Quit and Enter strategy (which is done by pressing ESC then QUIT and CONFIRM) DO NOT WORK 😒 when you die, but there is another approach for that, take a look at the next BONUS TIP 😃
As said in the second section, the “Crash and Enter” strategy/trick – if you are strugling to defeat a boss or died because someone came to you to say something an you lost your attention, don’t worry: just be fast and press ALT+F4 before the game saves (a floppy disk icon appear in the bottom left corner when it is saving) and your run will be saved, go back to your save file and try the same floor again.
Try to get as many curse reroll you can from the contracts, if the contract is a +5 reroll with -20 HP it is still worth it as the first level is easy and you can get some heal before the first Sorrow.
Be careful with the departments that upgrade the curse type that you are looking for, this “upgrade” will make the common curses almost disappear (unless you use a lot of rerolls), so if you are looking for a common curse, choose the department that upgrades another curse type ✍️.
The hardest curses to get are the blue ones with the higher rarity, mainly the curses related to “Burning Up” (Infuse Burn), cause this curse is legendary at rank 1, and there is only one department that upgrades the blue curses (this curse is a prerequisite to many other curses as well). So if you see it, I would highly recommend to get it 👀.
“Unlock all the Description in the Employee Handbook”
First of all, I would like to say that I scavenged forums, wikis, guides and even discord and I didn’t find a complete list of all the entries in the handbook to see what I was missing in mine, cause it looked to be complete but it wasn’t. So in the next sections I listed all the entries in the employee handbook for each one of its tabs so you can take a look and compare with yours. Before looking at it, I would highly recommend to read some of the this tips:
Just to be clear, you don’t need to progress in any employee handbook entry to get the achievement, unless in some that seems to lock others, you only need to get it once 😎, more about that later.
Many of the forums that I scavenged had people with all the employee handbook complete but didn’t got the achievement, the problem is: the employee wasn’t really complete, in the employee handbook there is a UI listing problem were the LAST entry isn’t visible at all and you can’t tell if you have all in that tab or if there is another one bellow your last one, you can only see the entries that are behind the last unlocked entry. With that in mind, this is the list of all the last entries of the handbook for each tab:
Last Entries for each Employee Handbook Tab 😃:
- Tutorial: Burnout – you can get this one by just talking to your employees, but there is a catch on that entry, more about that later.
- Enemies: Life – you will need to find all the “Parts of Medallion”, one is before any Thanager, the second is in the breakroom (you need 3 golden animas) and the third is in the shop (you need one prismium). Life will appear after you defeat Time with all the Medallion parts.
- Employees: Burt – this is the guy that is in a signpost in the Industrial Pollution Department, he will never speak with you, but as you do your runs, at some time, Pump Quinn and Orville will be in the first floor of the Industrial Pollution Department with a “!” talking about Burt. There is a catch on that too though, more on that later.
- Funeral Weapons: Void Rift – as all the weapons, you will unlock eventually, it isn’t the hardest one to get, I don’t even remember how I did get it, but you will need to collect gold so the price goes down. There is a tip for all the Funeral Weapons in this section down bellow.
- Places: Life, Incorporated – this is the place where you find Life, you only need to defeat Life twice to count as a entry in the handbook.
Burnout: the “Burnout” entry isn’t as straightforward as it looks 😫, the problem that I had with it was the Early Access Save (said in the Introduction Section). This save locked the Pump Quinn quest where you need to find the his backpack (which is behind the right elevator in the breakroom) and retrieve it to him. After that and some runs/deaths, Pump Quinn will appear in the Death’s Office talking about Burnout, which will start the sequence of that “quest” that is completed by talking with others Employess with “!” in their head. So it seems that one quest can lock another 😭. After many runs I didn’t get the Burnout entry which was the one of the entries that locked the achievement, so I needed to start a new save file and do all entries again, it was a torture, but I got dexterity in the game and completed it in 18 hours in this new save file.
PS.: if you wanna know if your game is locked in this quest, try first giving the backpack to Pump Quinn (he will be in the Death’s Office after you get the backpack and some runs), if a “!” appears in Pump Quinn and he is not talking about the backpack and it is a long talk, a really long one, with two “!” one after the other, about his job at Death Inc., take a look at his entry in the “Employees” tab and see if there is “Speak to Pump Quinn after finding his backpack” will be a bad sign, the long talk is the last Pump Quinn talk, the game completed its entry without completing the quest.
Pump Quinn Entry
Burt: as said before, Burt is that guy impaled in a signpost in the Industrial Pollution Department and he will never talk to you and, as said before too, some quests seems to lock others. In theory, and by my experience in the game, you will only get the Burt entry after the Burnout entry, and that one only after completing the Pump Quinn’s backpack quest, after that, Pump Quinn and Orville should be in the first floor (literally right next to the elevator) of of the Industrial Pollution Department.
Tips about the Funeral Weapons: this is the easiest tip to follow – after unlocking a new weapon, it will be free and guaranteed to be in the next contract 📋 choice, so ALWAYS choose it, you only need to get it on your hand, that is it.
Employee Handbook Entries – Tutorial Tab
Employee Handbook Entries – Enemies Tab
Employee Handbook Entries – Employees Tab
Employee Handbook Entries – Funeral Weapons Tab
Employee Handbook Entries – Places Tab
“April Ghouls”
The quests based on the Christmas or Halloween are started when you equip one of the event related decoration in Muriel (she is in the VIP room, on the left side), after some runs with the decoration, the employees will start talking about the event.
PS: you don’t need to equip any decoration to start or finish the April Ghouls quest, it cited by Pump Quinn some moment and you will need to talk to the employees in your runs as the other quests too
Conclusion
Any information can be wrong in this guide so let me know in the comments if anything is wrong, it is a collection of 100 hours of my experience in the game. By the way, it is absolutely possible to complete 100% of the game in less time, I think less than 30 hours if you are good enough.
If you have any question related to a achievement you can comment too, I will be ready to respond as soon as I can.
I hope this guide help(ed) you in your journey ❤️.
And that wraps up our share on Have a Nice Death: Tips and Tricks to get some Achievements – 100% Guide. If you have any additional insights or tips to contribute, don’t hesitate to drop a comment below. For a more in-depth read, you can refer to the original article here by AndrewMVK, who deserves all the credit. Happy gaming!