CONTROL Resonant‘s riddles usually offer useful drops as long as you can crack the code. The laundry puzzle in Central is among the hardest to solve in the entire game, requiring you to turn specific washing machines on and off.
The washing machine puzzle gives you a couple of hints (as is par for the course in CONTROL Resonant), but they are far more arcane than the clues you get for other secrets. This one may stump you if you don’t know exactly what to look for. I didn’t, so I asked an engineer friend for some help, and he nailed it through my awful Excel diagrams without even seeing the actual gameplay (thanks, Rafa!). Here’s how you can solve this riddle.
CONTROL Resonant washing machine Puzzle Solution (Central)
The game gives you two cryptic hints: one is a “fun” number puzzle from the laundry owners, and another is a complaint that “there’s not a single f*cking row where all the machines actually work.”
The washing machines are disposed in a peculiar way, with most displaying an “out of order” sign. The ones that actually work can be turned on or off, which matches the binary used in the code. If you just want the answer, we’ll tell you what you need to do next. But if you’re curious about how to get there (I know I was!), we’ll have the full breakdown after that.
To solve the puzzle, turn on all washing machines on the left half of the room, then only turn on the machine that’s closest to the door on the right wall, the sixth one from the entrance. This should open the secret door in the back of the room, giving you a Health Upgrade and some lore on a secret organization.
How to solve CONTROL Resonant‘s washing machine puzzle in Central
The solution we found is to rotate the coded message 90 degrees counter-clockwise, then invert it vertically. This matches the riddle to the room’s layout, which indicates the machines that should be on (1) or off (0). The second row of washing machines on the right (the one closest to the door) operates as the seventh column in the diagram, starting with the one you must turn on.
This isn’t CONTROL Resonant‘s only puzzle, but after a lot of roaming around, this is definitely among the trickiest. Exploration is usually worth it in the game, though, so keep your eyes peeled for anything that seems remotely enigmatic in the Hiss-infested Manhattan or beyond.
