How to solve the clock puzzle in MADiSON

MADiSON clock puzzle room
(Image credit: Bloodious Games)

The MADiSON clock puzzle is one of the trickier ones to solve, and if, like me, you find rooms filled with ticking clocks a little unnerving, it might take you some time to come to a conclusion. It's pretty hard trying to think straight when you're trapped in a spooky house and being jumped scared at every opportunity.

In this MADiSON clock puzzle guide, I'll explain how to conquer the clock room. You'll need to unlock a certain safe to start this puzzle, and this guide will hopefully give you everything you need to solve it. Since the clock times are different for every MADiSON player, I can't give you the exact locations for each, so you'll still have to run through spooky corridors staring intently at clocks.

How to get the Clock Face 

To solve this puzzle, you're first going to need the Clock Face. You can get this from the locked green safe in your grandfather's office, but you're going to need to find two notebooks to discover the combination. The first notebook is found in a drawer in the workshop after you unlock it with the Clock Key. 

The second notebook is found in the bathroom. If you combine the info on both of them, you get the combination: 3 left, 12 right, 8 left. Crack that safe and grab the Clock Face inside then you can start the puzzle. 

(Image credit: Bloodious Games)

MADiSON clock puzzle: How to solve 

In the clock room, you might have noticed that there are multiple cuckoo clocks that you can interact with. You'll also notice that behind each of them, there are lots of clocks that show a specific time. The goal of this puzzle is to match the cuckoo clock time with that of the clocks behind it. You do this by exchanging clock faces around the house starting with the one you got from the safe. 

To start the puzzle, you need to slot your Clock Face into the right cuckoo clock in the room. This is easy to work out since the clocks behind it will match the time on the Clock Face from the safe. Do that, and it'll release another Clock Face for you to take. Look around the room and find the next cuckoo clock and the time on the wall behind it. Remember that time, since it's what you'll be looking for. The clock with the corresponding time will be located at one of four locations in the house:

  • In the starting hallway
  • The kitchen
  • The attic
  • Outside grandpa's office

The times on each clock are different for every player, so you're going to have to search around for a bit. Once you find the clock with the time you're looking for, exchange for it using your current Clock Face, and bring it back to the right cuckoo clock in the room. Rinse and repeat until you've inserted all the right Clock Faces. The room will black out a couple of times, and then you just need to take a picture of the door with the clock and you're done. 

Sean Martin
Guides Writer

Sean's first PC games were Full Throttle and Total Annihilation and his taste has stayed much the same since. When not scouring games for secrets or bashing his head against puzzles, you'll find him revisiting old Total War campaigns, agonizing over his Destiny 2 fit, or still trying to finish the Horus Heresy. Sean has also written for EDGE, Eurogamer, PCGamesN, Wireframe, EGMNOW, and Inverse.