Mimic Logic: A Guide to Confuse Mode

Confuse mode is arguably the hardest mode in the entire game. So hard, in fact, that it’s unavailable to new players. You first have to prove yourself in Standard, Expert, and Random modes. Therefore, I will assume that you’re familiar with some of the usual tricks for finding mimics and safe chests, such as knowing that a red chest that says there’s a mimic among the red boxes must be safe and must be telling the truth, and I won’t explain how they work for most game modes. I will, however, explain any differences that playing on Confuse mode makes, like how that red chest may still be guaranteed to be safe but isn’t guaranteed to be truthful.

As in most game modes, there will be some puzzles that have multiple valid solutions and require the use of items such as blue crystals to work out which valid solution is the right one. The reason why the game gives you 7 blue crystals at the start of a Confuse dungeon is because this happens much more frequently in Confuse mode, so those 7 blue crystals will usually not be enough to see you through. I highly recommend buying every blue crystal you can from shops, but if you do this and follow the tips from this guide, you may find you end the dungeon with 1 or 2 blue crystals to spare. Or you might not, depending on the puzzles you get.

I will be using a lot of visual examples throughout this guide, so here I will go through the notation I use.

• Red T: This chest is telling the truth
• Orange S: This chest is safe to open (ie, not a mimic), but could be truthful or the confused box
• Yellow C: This chest is the confused box – it’s safe to open, but it’s lying
• Green L: This chest is lying, but could be a mimic or the confused box
• Blue M: This chest is a mimic
• Purple N: This chest is not the confused box, but it could be a truthful safe chest or a lying mimic
• White line connecting two chests: At least one of the connected chests is lying

Additionally, all examples of complete puzzles I show will have 9 chests arranged in a 3×3 grid like this, although the principles will be just as applicable to puzzles with fewer chests. I will use compass directions to refer to the different chests, so the top-left one will be northwest and the middle-right one will be east. Center will still be center though.

To help illustrate the principles this guide advises you to follow, I will go through some examples of puzzles. Here is the first one we will be looking at:

Since you’ll be using a lot of blue crystals in a Confuse dungeon, you want to avoid potentially wasting them on chests that couldn’t possibly be mimics.

In this puzzle, west and southeast must both be safe for the same reasons that they would be safe in most game modes. However, unlike in most game modes, you don’t know for sure that west and southeast are both telling the truth. For all you know, one of them could be the confused box.

A good way to narrow down the positions of liars is to find distinct (ie, non-overlapping) pairs of chests that must each have at least one liar. The most obvious is when two chests make contradictory claims, such as in this puzzle.
Note that I haven’t connected northwest to center or north to southwest, despite those also being pairs of chests that contradict each other. This is to keep things clear not just visually but also mentally. You don’t want to count 4 pairs of chests with a liar and think that means you’ve found 4 liars by mistake.

You may have done some of this during step 1, but it’s much easier to do once you’ve narrowed down the locations of some of the liars.

In this puzzle, all the chests in the rightmost column are making the same claim: “The bottom row has at least 1 Mimic.” This means either they’re all lying or they’re all telling the truth. But the number of liars in a Confuse puzzle is always the number of mimics plus one confused box – in this case, 3 liars. One of them is either northwest or north, as indicated by the white line, and one of them is either center or southwest. That means there is only 1 liar outside of those 4 chests, so the ones in the rightmost column can’t all be lying. They must be telling the truth.
Don’t forget to open the truthful chests so you don’t have a blue crystal simply confirming that they are safe!

With the information from truthful chests, as well as the fact that those chests are safe, you can start to determine exactly which chests in the pairs you found earlier are the liars. In this case, “The rightmost column contains no Mimics” is true and “The rightmost column has 1 or more Mimics” is false.

There’s no need for the white lines now so I’ll get rid of them.
It’s important to note that there is always exactly 1 confused box. This means any group of chests that contains 2 or more liars is guaranteed to have a mimic in it. In this case, the leftmost column has 2 liars, so at least 1 of them is a mimic, which means that west isn’t just safe, it’s also telling the truth.

Since this puzzle has 9 chests and 3 liars (2 mimics + 1 confused box), that means there are exactly 6 chests that tell the truth. Now that west’s claim has been verified, this brings the total number of truthful chests found to 6:

1. North
2. Northeast
3. West
4. Center
5. East
6. Southeast

This leaves northwest, southwest, and south as the 3 liars.

So you’ve worked out where all the liars are. Now it’s time to work out which one is the confused box and any that have to be mimics.

Fortunately, there’s no need for a blue crystal in this puzzle. Why? Well, south claims that the top row has at least 1 mimic, right? But south is lying, so there’s really no mimics in the top row. This means the lying northwest must be the confused box, leaving the other 2 liars to be mimics.
In a more difficult puzzle, you might reach this step and be unable to conclusively solve the puzzle. In which case, as long as you’ve opened all chests you know to be safe, this is the time to use a blue crystal. With any luck, it’ll give you the information you need to finish solving the puzzle.

On the other hand, you may have gotten a head start on this step during a previous step. Perhaps you found a truthful chest accusing another chest of being a mimic, in which case the accused is indeed a mimic. Or maybe you found a truthful chest claiming that a particular chest is not a mimic, but you know that other chest is lying so it has to be the confused box.

Here’s an example now of a puzzle where step 1 can get you very far:
First of all, there are 4 chests claiming that there is no mimic among the red boxes. Since the total number of liars in the puzzle is 3, these 4 chests can’t all be lying so they must all be telling the truth.

Additionally, a blue mimic couldn’t say that there is a blue mimic, so the 2 blue chests claiming that there’s a blue mimic must also be safe. They must also be truthful since there is only one confused box. Whenever 2 or more safe chests agree on something, they must be telling the truth.

And just like that, all 6 truthful chests have been accounted for. There’s no need to perform steps 2 and 3, and all that needs to be done for step 4 is noting that the other 3 chests are liars.
Quickly proceeding to step 5, note that the statement “There is no Mimic among the black boxes” is spoken only by liars. This means there is a mimic among the black boxes. Southwest is the only black box that is not confirmed to be telling the truth, so it must be a mimic.
Now here’s a question for you: is the confused box in the northeast position and the other mimic in the center position, or is it the other way around?

Think about it for a minute.

…

No idea? Congratulations, you’ve run into the main reason why you got 7 blue crystals at the start of your run! Scenarios like this are common in Confuse dungeons, where you’ve found where all the liars are but you can’t work out which one is the confused box.

Don’t forget to open the chests you know are safe first – imagine using a blue crystal only for it to say that northwest is safe. Like, no ♥♥♥♥ Sherlock!

This next puzzle provides examples of other ways to perform some of the steps above.
First of all, since there are 3 liars, any statement made by 4 or more chests must be true. There are no such statements this time, but there are 3 chests (northwest, southwest, and southeast) claiming that there are no red mimics. In theory, those 3 chests could all be lying as long as all 6 other chests are telling the truth. In practice? Let’s see …
According to this, center and east would both have to be truthful mimics. But this isn’t Doubt mode, this is Confuse mode, and there are no truthful mimics! Therefore:

• Those 3 suspected chests (northwest, southwest, and southeast) cannot be lying; they must be telling the truth
• Since center’s claim directly contradicts them, center must be lying
• All other red chests (northeast, east, and south) are safe, but not necessarily truthful

Now let’s look at another way to track down liars: looking for direct accusations. In other words, chests that claim that another specific chest is a mimic. Normally, whenever a chest does this, there are 2 possibilities:

• The accuser is telling the truth and the accused is a mimic
• The accuser is a mimic and the accused is a truthful safe chest

In Confuse mode, however, there are 2 additional possibilities:

• The accuser is the confused box and the accused is a truthful safe chest
• The accuser is a mimic and the accused is the confused box

In all 4 scenarios, however, there is at least one liar between the two chests. With 3 chests making accusations and no overlap between any of them, you can narrow down the locations of the liars even further.
Two things stand out here. The first is that north must be telling the truth because all 3 liars have now been accounted for with those pairs of connected chests.

The second is the northeast-east pair. Northeast has falsely accused east of being a mimic, but northeast has also been confirmed to be a safe chest. There’s only one explanation for this: northeast is the confused box!

Once you know which box is the confused box, all other safe chests must be truthful and all other liars must be mimics.

With that in mind, the solution to this puzzle can only be …

Now that you have a solid idea of how to go about solving a Confuse puzzle, here are some more useful hints to help you out.

In most game modes, when a pair of chests directly accuse each other like this, it means one of them is a mimic and the other is a truthful safe chest. In Confuse mode, it means exactly the same thing. It’s impossible for either chest to be confused.

Imagine if, in this example, the red chest was a confused box. That would make its own claim false, meaning the black chest would be safe, but it would also mean the black chest is lying about the red chest being a mimic. Taken together, it means the black chest would also have to be a confused box, but every Confuse puzzle has 1 confused box. No more, no less. So the red chest can’t be a confused box.

The same logic can be applied if you start with the assumption that the black chest is a confused box, so the black chest also can’t be a confused box.

In most game modes, when a pair of chests directly vouch for each other like this, it means either they’re both truthful safe chests or they’re both mimics. In Confuse mode, just like with the previous situation, it still means the same thing because neither chest can possibly be confused.

Suppose the black chest here was a confused box. That would mean it’s lying, so the red chest would have to be a mimic. However, the red chest’s claim would be true, making it a truthful mimic. Truthful mimics do not exist in Confuse mode, so the black chest can’t be the confused box.

The argument works the same way if you assume the red chest is confused, because that would make the black chest a truthful mimic. So the red chest also can’t be the confused box.

This scenario cannot happen in most game modes. Whether you assume the top chest is a truthful safe chest or a lying mimic, the bottom chest is a kind of chest that doesn’t usually exist. In Confuse mode, however, this situation can and does arise. In fact, it’s very helpful in narrowing down the position of the confused box.

First of all, the red chest must be safe. If it were a mimic, then its own claim would be a lie (so the black chest would be a mimic) and the black chest’s claim would be true. This would make the black chest a truthful mimic, which isn’t a thing in Confuse mode.

Knowing that the red chest is safe, the black chest is clearly lying. If the black chest is safe then that means it must be the confused box and the red chest was telling the truth. If the black chest is a mimic then the red chest was lying, making the red chest the confused box.

Here are some more useful tips I couldn’t fit neatly into another section of the guide.

This is one tactic for the Confuse dungeon that relies specifically on the number of mimics rather than the number of liars. It’s also one you would have probably used at some point in another game mode, but this time it comes with a caveat.

In most game modes, if the blue chest here is a mimic, then that means the red chest must be a mimic, which means the black chest must be a mimic. If it’s not possible for all 3 chests to be mimics, either because the puzzle doesn’t have 3 mimics or because too many other mimics were found elsewhere, then the blue chest must be safe. This means it’s telling the truth, which makes the red chest safe, which means the red chest is truthful, so the black chest must also be safe.

In Confuse mode, everything still applies as normal except for that last sentence. In fact, since no Confuse puzzle ever has more than 2 mimics, the blue chest here is guaranteed to be safe. However, the blue chest is not guaranteed to be telling the truth. It could be the confused box and the 2 chests that come after it in the chain could be mimics.

Some chests like to make claims comparing the number of mimics in two different groups, either the top and bottom rows, the left and right columns, or two different colours. In all cases, there are exactly 3 possibilities:

• Group A has more mimics than group B
• Group B has more mimics than group A
• Both groups have the same number of mimics

Logically, one and only one of those statements is going to be true. This means if you have a situation like in the above picture where one chest says group A has more mimics, one says group B has more, and one says they have the same number, you can group those 3 chests together, knowing that exactly 1 of them is telling the truth and 2 of them are lying.

Note that you can also have a similar situation arise if, say, one chest says there are no blue mimics, one chest says there is exactly 1 blue mimic, and one chest says there are 2 blue mimics. Since those are the only possibilities for the number of blue mimics, 1 of those chests is truthful and 2 are lying.

Following on from the above example about the number of mimics in the top row vs. the bottom row, remember that Confuse puzzles never have more than 2 mimics. So for group A to have more mimics than group B, group A must have 1 or 2 mimics and group B must have 0. If group B had 1, group A would then need at least 2, bringing the total mimic count to 3, which is too many mimics for a Confuse puzzle.

The same logic can be applied to the claim that group B has more mimics than group A; group B would need to have at least 1 mimic while group A would need to have none.

For both groups to have the same number of mimics, either both groups have to have 1 mimic each and the third group (middle row, middle column, or third colour) has to have none, or both groups have to be completely free of mimics and all the mimics have to be in the third group.

This means, for example, that if a chest that says “There is no Mimic among the red boxes” is telling the truth, then any chest that says “There are more Mimics in red than blue boxes” must be lying, and vice versa. But it’s also possible that both chests are lying if there’s actually 1 red mimic and 1 blue mimic.

There are other times when two statements might not be literal opposites of each other but still can’t both be true at the same time. Keep an eye out for those and remain open to the possibility that both chests are lying.

1. Start with chests you know must be safe
   • Chests that can’t be lying for any reason (eg, because then there would be too many liars) are definitely truthful and definitely safe
   • Chests that can’t be mimics for any reason (eg, because then there would be too many mimics or they would be truthful mimics) are definitely safe but may or may not be confused
2. Work out roughly where the liars are
   • 2 chests that make inconsistent/contradictory claims, or one chest directly accusing another of being a mimic, means that at least one of those chests must be a liar
   • If you see 3 chests that all disagree with each other, either about which of two groups has more mimics or the exact number of mimics of a particular colour, 1 of those 3 chests is telling the truth and the other 2 are lying
   • Outside of the above, try to keep your chosen groups of chests that must have a liar separate from each other until a later step if possible
3. Work out where some truthful chests are
   • Once you’ve found as many distinct groups of chests with a liar in as there are liars in the puzzle, all chests outside those groups must be truthful
   • If 2 or more chests are making the same claim, those chests must either all be lying or all be telling the truth
   • If you find 2 or more safe chests that make the same claim, they must be telling the truth
   • If you find 2 safe chests that make contradictory claims, or one safe chest accusing another safe chest of being a mimic, one of those chests is the confused box and all other safe chests you find are telling the truth
4. Determine once and for all exactly which chests are the liars
   • Number of truthful chests = number of chests – number of liars, so once you find enough truthful chests, all other chests must be liars, and vice versa
   • There is always exactly 1 confused box, so any group that contains 2 or more liars must have a mimic in it
5. Work out which liar is the confused box, or use a blue crystal to find it

First of all, thank you to Oni_The_Demon and overmind for their fantastic guides for general Mimic Logic gameplay. The two of them have pretty comprehensively covered the other game modes so I recommend you check out their guides if you haven’t done so already.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3173467113
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3169013240
Second of all, thank you to P4wn4g3 for opening a thread about Confuse puzzles on the Mimic Logic forum, sharing their thoughts about possible rules one can follow, and presenting several puzzles they ran into during their trials. It really made me think hard about Confuse mode.

And finally, thank you for reading this guide. I hope it helps. Please let me know if there are any rules I have missed or any situations that you’re unsure about, as well as any other feedback you might have about this guide.