Original, spoiler-filled message kept below, but it looks like I'm just asking for information about the time-sensitive kitchen event. (Is there a clue about it in the game itself that I've missed? Is there something I need to do at a certain time of day or will it trigger automatically if I'm there at the correct time?)

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original post:

I'm not sure what I can do next, but I suspect it might have to do with the kitchen.

In the main Strange, Texas storyline, the next requirement is to find gasoline (so I can retrieve the fort's dungeon key). Since there's reportedly no gas "in this world" I'm assuming it's to be found in the castle in England.

I believe I've only found three ghosts so far (eastern hallway, music room, billiards room -- or at least those are the three rooms that now contain people), and I'm not sure if all three left key cards behind or if it was only two of them. (notably still locked are the palm tree doors and the doors in the kitchen. not sure if there might be others.)

The kitchen looks like a notable place for a ghost, but I haven't managed to make one appear. (I'm a little suspicious of the fact that the cook is now hanging out in the music room and not someone related to the music ghost quest; hopefully that's not a bug?) I've brought a mirror with me, but don't see anything I can do with it.

I haven't been able to find the right (or left?) tree to satisfy the jester's third clue, but I figure the "courtyard" should be in the middle of the castle and isn't the wedding area off to the west?

Back in Strange, I have one (of two) yellow keys from the smuggler's cave that I haven't yet found a use for and I have one blue key from the alien barrier maze area that I haven't yet found a use for.

And I haven't yet tried bringing one of the large bowls from the kitchen back to the Strange, Texas store (but I've been assuming that's just going to give me money and not proper progress.)

Could someone point me in the right direction?

An event in the kitchen is time-sensitive.

Any chance you could be more specific? For anything else I'd prefer a general clue like that, but I'm pretty sure I've already spent nearly a full 24 hours of game-clock time in the kitchen without discovering anything (though the character did fall asleep at one point, so I guess I missed a few hours), and I'm not sure there's any fun or satisfaction to be had in continuing to wait. I guess I must have lucked out with the other ghosts' schedules (or there wasn't any sting to the time-dependent event triggering when I still had a bunch of other quest items to take care of).

The kitchen event triggers at night. I got stuck there as well, and I just happened to luck out that it was night when I went back to the kitchen to try some more things. If I had to guess, you have to actually enter the kitchen while it's already night, so exploring around the kitchen for 24 hours will not help.

For me, the event triggered surprisingly early, like 7pm or so.

I have a similar problem, I think the kitchen is the next step, but I haven't brought idols to those lower caves after lowering the yellow field. I noticed the other ghosts appear near slimy ground, so I emptied the pot onto the ground. I hope I didn't ruin my chances of making a ghost appear.

Curious. If you're talking about the bubbling pot in the kitchen, I'm pretty sure I haven't been allowed to pick it up or extract its liquid contents (let alone spill it on the floor).

But as for heading down to the lower cave with the idol, it's definitely worth your time.

I ended up discovering a bunch of other things I could do for now (all related somewhat to lowering that yellow field, which I hadn't thought of), but none of those things should have any impact on the kitchen problem, as far as I can tell.

I did. I love the belt, the other item I am not seeing much change, but what I originally had wasn't doing much so why not. I guess its back to the dungeon. I dropped all the fields, but the path down to the fort has gone cold, unless I need those keys to get further down. I saw an event in town, so maybe that changed things in england. I will check out the kitchen first.

and that did it! So i needed to see an argument in town and at 8 oclock, (when I walked in) a ghost appeared! So emptying the pot wasn't a problem, hooray!

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Oh, I missed the earlier reply from seorin about the event triggering at 7pm.

But alas, I've returned at that time and still had no luck.

PsySal, I think I'll email you my save file in just in case, if you wouldn't mind taking a look (though I'm not sure whether I've seen the argument in town or not, so if that's a necessary precursor to the kitchen ghost, this may be a false alarm).

Thanks!

Never mind. ajesster helped me realize that spilling the soup was the necessary triggering action. Until being pressed on it, I hadn't thought to drag something from a searchable object directly onto the floor, and it also never crossed my mind to spill the soup (despite it being mentioned up-thread). In-game, is there anything pointing toward that other than noticing/remembering the slime the other ghosts climb out of? (It was so long ago that I had completely forgotten, I guess.)

Thanks, all. Excited to keep moving on...

I'll note that it happening at night, then, may be a coincidence for me. I tried absolutely everything in the kitchen and explored the entire castle very thoroughly. Eventually, after trying to bottle the liquid, or transfer it to another pot, or anything, I realized I could drop it. However, doing that did nothing and (like others) I was worried I messed my game up by doing it, since is just made the liquid disappear.

Since nothing happened, I gave up and let the game sit for a little over a day while waiting for someone to respond to my question here. As soon as I figured out what I needed was in the kitchen I went back there (night, in game time, which was a first since I usually don't wander around at night) and then the ghost finally appeared as soon as I entered.

So if it's supposed to be spilling the liquid that triggers it, then it's probably working correctly, except the lack of a visual cue and the fact that it only triggered after leaving and coming back threw me off. Sorry for the confusion!

I had this problem, though leaving and reentering at a different time did not fix it.
It did manage to resolve itself after a save & quit, though.
I believe I may have had this problem with the music room ghost as well, as when I first played the lullaby, it ignored it.

Kitchen solutions:

Dump slime
Leave room
Reload your save
Go back in

Doing those in order caused the ghost to appear for me when I reentered after saving.