I've recently been on a Book of Hours binge. After finding a strange softlock during the ending sequence, I started to wonder if the game could have other glitches... and indeed, it didn't take long for me to find something that could probably help in speedruns.

Working title for this glitch is "itemless activation". With precise timing, it's possible to activate many actions which require an item in only 1 slot with the slot empty. So, for instance, you could choose to go swimming without having to fatigue one health.

To do this glitch, open up a window that takes slots. Move an item (object, soul, etc.) inside one of the slots. Click on the item and then hold down the mouse button. Now, when you close the window with 'esc', this will automatically move all items in all slots back to their previous locations. However, your cursor does not get updated until the item's moving animation has finished, so you have a short time when the game thinks you are still grabbing the item, even though it's already on its way somewhere else. Quickly move your mouse just a little bit (it seems that this glitch won't work if you don't move your mouse at all?) and release the mouse button in front of the workstation which can be activated with only 1 slot, then press 'S' to activate the window before the item positions get updated. This starts the workstation without the item.

For an easy way to practice this, you could try dividing change at the Postmistress since it's a short action and you don't lose any items if you mess up the timing. In other words: move a large bill into a slot in the Postmistress window. Click on the bill and hold down left mouse button. Press 'esc' to close the window and immediately afterwards move your mouse a little bit and release left mouse button to re-open the Postmistress window with your glitchy non-existent item. Press 'S' to activate window. The timing is fairly tight.

This doesn't work with every single 1-slot action. For instance, although you can do this trick while renouncing an item, this doesn't save the item from getting slotted in and destroyed.

However, here are the things that you CAN do with the glitch which I've noticed so far:

• You can exchange cash or sell spintria to Postmistress without giving up anything to gain infinite money.

• You can work at Sweet Bones without expending soul or risking maladies during Numa. Or you can hire cheaper workers at Sweet Bone for free.

• You can talk to friendly NPCs while their card stays available for other things. (Maybe helpful for multi-tasking somewhere...?)

• You can learn lv. 1 of any skill without expending a lesson.

• You can examine Inklings without expending them.

• You can swim without expending health or risk maladies during Numa.

• You can get water from the well without expending health.

Other observations:

• I haven't gotten this to work with room unlocking; there's a chance that, much like renouncing, this action immediately just "vanishes" the item in question and thus prevents multiple uses.

• Opening a package with the slot empty results you in getting nothing. The package still exists and can be opened normally.

• Resting a fatigued element of soul at the inn with the slot empty results in a failed outcome even if you insert a tuppence.

• Going to your friend's house with the slot empty results in them giving you the response a non-friend NPC gives at their house if you talk to them without hiring them.

• Some strange interactions regarding Visitors or specific quest items might also be possible (haven't tested those much yet).

EDIT:

Just a few hours later, there's been a breakthrough in the forbidden knowledge of Book of Hours speedrunning! There definitely should be a separate category for this glitch, if anyone is interested enough to use it and if it won't get patched.

I figured out a way to do this glitch (let's just call it "empty slot glitch") at any workstation, allowing you to keep one slot empty when doing any recipe where the number of slots doesn't change drastically. (I.e. where removing an ingredient doesn't delete slots which are necessary for the recipe you are interested in to work.)

The new version of the glitch became possible once I realized this game actually allows you to grab / quick send things with multiple mouse buttons. This means you can do one version of the aforementioned cursor trick by first grabbing an item with LMB, then shift or ctrl + RMB to send it to nearest verb/workstation, then quickly tossing the item to the same workstation... or possibly ambiguously in the range of any magnetic target (it's a bit screen-specific)... to force it to get re-positioned. This makes the item first get sent to the workstation followed by it moving back to its original place automatically, and there's a short time you can press 'S' to operate the workstation while the current recipe is activated but with the item still buffered to move elsewhere.

Maybe it's a bit hard to grasp from a text description alone... I can make a video about it later, if needed.

Observations on "empty slot glitch v2":

• It's possible to do recipes without using memory/soul/skill (pick one). Very useful for saving at least some expensive resources. For example, in my test I could do a Moon recipe with Wormwood Dream without actually spending that memory. However, it seems any physical things like inks and books seem to get "locked" by the workstation in a way that prevents them from getting saved by empty slot.

• It's possible to endlessly re-use lessons.

• During the tutorial, you can use A Drowned Book with Memory: Storm an indefinite number of times to amass a large number of Memory: Chor?, Memory: Shapt? and Memory: Fet? and other elements of the soul. Once game begins proper, at the end of the first day all of these tentative elements of soul turn into actual elements of soul allowing you to start the game with multiples of all the different elements of soul (except Health and Trist).

• As another funny tutorial effect, you can skip giving your friend Health (Half-Drowned). This results in an unused dialogue box from your friend, skips the wait as your health recovers and lets you keep this unique malady soul for the rest of the game.

EDIT:

Still some more observations:

• It's possible to host a Salon with only 1 participant. It always seems to be a quiet one.

• Unfortunately, it seems this tech doesn't help much with exalting friendly NPCs. Offering a beverage with empty slot glitch doesn't work (the beverage vanishes anyway). Exalting with memory with empty slot glitch works, but the ally doesn't actually gain any stats if you don't use a memory. So the biggest gate to completing the game quickly is mostly still there even if you use this tech, although infinite cash and a larger array of available soul elements should streamline the process.

• Reading your diary during the tutorial is like reading any other book: it gets "locked" and its transformation can't be avoided.

• If you keep a Health (Half-Drowned), it will transform into Health (Freezing) once a day has passed. Since this malady soul has the unique "soaked" property, any conjunction where you can put something readable and this health together, the game will assume you're trying to read the soaked diary at the beginning of the game. This action takes 5 seconds and results in nothing.

• You can work at Sweet Bones with Health (Half-Drowned) without gaining fatigue, but the same does not work with Health (Freezing) any longer. (Putting this item in Sweet Bones slots has no response whatsoever.)

EDIT 2:

Small text adjustments. Also... at least some version of this loophole also works in Cultist Simulator.

This is fascinating tech and I'm really excited to see more about it. It sounds like a genuine breakthrough!

I'm not sure I'd do a glitched run of the game, but it definitely bears discussion about adding a category that allows this once more folks have practiced it and seen what it can really do, though.

Thanks for the hard work!

I made two short unlisted videos to demonstrate the glitch. To note, both videos use empty slot glitch v2. The v1 method is pretty much obsolete since v2 is more universal and easier to pull off as well.

In this first one, I use Storm to craft Wistful Air twice. Also, as something I noticed while recording, it seems you can own two copies of a same memory if one of them is held in your cursor or slotted in a workstation. This observation alone could probably also come in handy somewhere.

This second video shows using empty slot glitch in the tutorial. I read the diary multiple times with Memory: Storm to gain additional elements of soul. Other things I demonstrate later in the video is skipping fixing your Health (Half-Drowned) to save a small amount of time, getting quickly introduced to nearby houses, how empty slot glitch does NOT work when unlocking areas (you lose your assistant no matter what) and finally how all the tentative elements of soul turn into actual elements of soul at the end of first day.

I routed an "Evening Falls" speedrun using the new glitch and reached a time of around 12 minutes. Didn't play with a timer, so I'll have to time it later. Could still be better, but I had very solid RNG regarding the unusual helpers. I'll upload it with comments tomorrow.

EDIT: here's the run.

I'll submit this to the leaderboards, although there is a case to be made that glitched runs should be their own separate category.

Some other mild weirdness I experimented with:

• I did a "minimalist" playthrough where I finished Evening Falls without drying my diary and with a Health (Half-Drowned). Nothing special happened, the game ended and the tree accepted my soaked health and diary just fine.

• If you drop something on a workstation and immediately close the window that would appear by pressing 'esc', upon re-opening the window it has no text. The text re-appears if you put something in a slot, and this just seems to be a visual thing.

• If moved wall art has absolutely nowhere to go, it cannot end up at the item storage outside the library and instead will stay in air hovering in a strange way on the right side of the screen.

• It's possible to create an invisible/inactive workstation window by closing it with 'esc' while grabbing it, then moving mouse a little bit and letting go. While the invisible window exists, you can drag stuff on it to open the workstation properly. The invisible window also shows tooltips if you click on it. I can't think of anything useful to do with this.

• If you open "Save" window, then click on the name row before closing the window by pressing on the 'X', the window will re-appear a second time when you try to leave the Pause-menu. If you now press 'esc', the "Save" window stays on the screen while gameplay resumes in the background. Most things in the game world are inoperable, but doing this does allow you to save while time is running. Not sure if it could lead to anything useful gameplay-wise. If you save while grabbing something with cursor, upon loading the game remembers this and sends the item back to its original spot. Saving after winning the game (Evening Falls), the game loads you back inside the "History" menu like usual.

• If you press the quick button to go to the next completed workstation after winning the game (Evening Falls), the sequence where the game zooms in on the tree interrupts and the game becomes softlocked. The ending cannot begin but time is also permanently stopped in the game world. Any picked up items also stay hovering in air instead of being re-positioned correctly.

A glitch update! I found a way to do empty slot glitch with a few new interactions. To be more specific: now empty slot can be done with the 1st slot of 2-slot interactions where the 2nd slot appears conditionally. (For example: when sending a letter, a new slot for postage appears once a letter is placed in the 1st slot.)

To do this: set everything up for a convenient empty slot glitch as usual. Grab and hold onto the thing that goes in 2nd slot with LMB. Grab and hold onto the thing that goes in 1st slot with middle mouse button (MMB). Use RMB on 1st slot item to quick send it and quickly afterwards manually drop it (i.e. the motion of regular empty slot glitch v2). Before the 1st slot item has returned to its original spot, drop 2nd slot item in workstation and press S. This should start the workstation with 2nd slot occupied but 1st slot empty.

Alternatively, you could switch the roles of LMB and MMB, but at least for my motor skills it's easier to do this as detailed above.

List of effects I noticed:

• It's possible to skip using "Old Friend's Address" during the tutorial, which lets you keep the item with you indefinitely. I'm not aware of anywhere else it can be used besides the tutorial, so holding onto it is probably useless. However, doing this seemed to cause at least one side effect: afterwards, I tried drying out my diary at Sweet Bones twice in a row, but the diary stayed soaked. (?) Drying out the diary at a friend's house still worked fine, though.

• It's possible to send letters without using the letter. In every case like this, it seems like you lose the postage money but nothing gets sent and nothing will happen as a result.

• You can talk about weather or memories with no assistant. This seems to have no benefit whatsoever, and the interaction doesn't even have a valid results screen (the window closes automatically). The next time you open a workstation, I think you can see the text of the old interaction on the new workstation for a very brief moment; I haven't experimented if this could still lead to something new.

• You can talk about incidents or spintriae with no visitor. This results in a conversation not starting properly once the short initial cooldown is finished; there's just a "Collect" screen after which the Talk-verb closes.

Overall, I can't think of an obvious good use for this tactic in Book of Hours for now. Still haven't given it a try in Cultist Simulator. That's it for now...