No Results Found Pro Tips
The rules the game does not tell you, from players who finished with a full chart and both endings.
Most No Results Found players hit a wall not because the game is hard, but because they are applying the wrong mental model. This page collects the hidden rules that separate players who finish with a full organization chart from players who filed a report with empty slots. These are not secrets or exploits. They are the designed behavior the game never explains.
Read the How to Play and How to Search before these. These tips assume you have already opened the desk, found the public Church site, and understand that the members-only board exists.
Rule one: every surface is a search surface
The game has four distinct information surfaces: the NIRA desk (room objects, music, memo), the public Church site (homepage, commandments, events), the members-only board (posts, comments, chat logs), and the NIRA Database (after the officer report). Players treat the first two as optional and the last two as the main path. That is backwards.
The room objects on your desk are not set dressing. Search the food on your desk. Search the disc. Search the sticky notes. Steam’s own store copy jokes about searching the takoyaki you ate as a snack. The room is a fourth surface that runs parallel to everything else, not after it.
The public Church site is not the tutorial. It is vocabulary school. Every name, every event title, every odd phrase on that site becomes a search token later. Players who skim the public site spend the community phase re-reading it instead of searching it.
Rule two: copy exact strings, never paraphrase
The search index matches authored strings, not meanings. When you see a name on a photo caption, type exactly that name. When you see a handle in a comment, type exactly that handle. When the in-game wiki prints a lemma title, search that title exactly.
The Marco versus Makor trap is the published example: one letter different, zero results, different person. But the same rule applies to event titles, chemical names, ritual terms, and every other string in the game. Paraphrasing is not a good strategy in this game. It is a fast path to zero results.
This is why the Search Notebook matters. You are not taking notes to remember. You are taking notes because the exact string you copied is the query that works.
Rule three: the organization chart wants confirmed names, not guesses
The chart has empty slots. Those slots feel like a progress meter, and the temptation is to fill them early with names you think are right. Do not do this.
Every slot has two surfaces: a community handle and a legal name. You confirm both before you pin. Players who guess early spend searches trying to prove a wrong guess right. Players who wait until they have two surfaces fill the chart faster because every pin is already confirmed.
Model NIRA Employee is the achievement for filling the chart completely. It is not a speed achievement. It is a accuracy achievement.
Rule four: use the memo before you need it
The memo tool is a designed part of the investigation, not a scratch pad. Players who open it for the first time at the report phase miss the Write First, Think Later achievement and spend the report phase trying to remember names they saw two hours ago.
The memo works best as a running list: candidate names with their community handles, dates from mail that disagree with chat logs, spelling variations you found (Marco versus Makor), and the specific strings you are not sure about yet. When you confirm a name, you already have it written down.
Rule five: screenshot chats and the final report
Chats auto-advance. The final report can skip. English review threads from launch week are full of players who missed the last line of a conversation because they alt-tabbed for ten seconds. There is no pause button. There is no setting to turn off auto-advance.
Screenshots are the workaround. Steam overlay has a screenshot key. Use it before any rolling conversation and before the final report screen. If you miss a line and need it for a chart slot or a report answer, you cannot get it back without a new save.
Rule six: the wiki phase is not optional
After the members-only board, players enter what Korean reviews call a second game: the in-game wiki. Articles link to articles. Some pages are written to mislead. One Korean review specifically called out that the fill-in-the-blank document with the raw-material substitution question felt weakly clued even when guessed correctly.
The wiki is not a reference section you visit when you are stuck. It is the next investigation layer. Treat every blue link as a search path, especially when it names a person, a chemical, a ritual, or a place. The In-Game Wiki page has method for this layer without printing every answer.
Rule seven: DODGE is a separate session
DODGE is a score-attack minigame. It is not part of the investigation. It does not connect to any chart slot or report question. Maniac (1,000 points) and Master (2,000 points) are optional completion badges.
Do not open DODGE during the wiki phase. The skillset is opposite: DODGE wants fast reactions, the wiki wants sustained reading. Players who farm DODGE during the investigation report that they keep wanting to click when they return to the browser.
Rule eight: report answers accept variations after 1.2
Patch 1.0.2 widened the accepted range for report answers. Patch 1.1 and 1.2 continued refining search tags and UI. If you bounced on a report answer in an earlier build, retry on 1.2. The matching is more forgiving in the filing phase than in the search phase.
This does not mean any word works. Exact terms still pass. Near-synonyms that bounced before may now pass. Paraphrasing still does not work.
Rule nine: the title is the punchline
No Results Found is not just the name of the game. It is the description of what the original NIRA investigation got: no results. The case was closed with no accountability for 227 deaths. Your desk is the second attempt.
When the final search returns your own case file, the title stops being a joke and starts being the point. Play the game long enough to feel this. It is why the wiki exists.
Rule ten: the community is funny until it is not
The Church of the Nine-Tentacled Octopus reads like a real closed internet community. Octopus masks. Absurd commandments. Event posts that are petty grievances dressed up as doctrine. Players who treat it as comedy keep reading longer, which is why the Closer to the Truth achievement sits at around 12 percent global unlock.
The shift happens in the wiki phase. When the in-game encyclopedia starts using institutional language for the same events you were laughing about on the board, the comedy recodes as evidence. That is the designed turn. Korean reviewers described it as crying after giggling through the board.
Read the community as a community, not as a puzzle. The answers are in the tone, not in a secret URL.
For the full investigation path these rules support, use the Walkthrough. For the ten Steam achievements these rules help you chase, use the Achievement Tracker. For the two endings these rules prepare you to choose, use Endings.
Frequently Asked Questions
Quick answers for investigators who just hit a dead search.
Why is my chart missing people after I thought I finished?
You likely confirmed names with one surface instead of two. Each slot needs a community handle and a legal name. Go back to the board and confirm every pin against a second source.
Should I use the memo from the start?
Yes. Treat it as a running investigation log, not a last-minute scratch pad. Write First, Think Later wants real notes throughout, not one dummy line at the end.
Can I pause chats during the investigation?
No. There is no pause or manual-advance setting. Screenshot rolling conversations before they auto-advance.
When should I tackle DODGE?
After the report, not during the investigation. DODGE requires a different headspace than reading and searching. Finish the story first, then farm scores.