The porridge is really three linked puzzles: gathering the ingredients, cooking them in the right order, and then dealing with what is moving around inside the finished bowl.
Ingredients
Five things go into the porridge, scattered across the hallway and kitchen:
- wood (for the stove)
- oats
- milk
- a small pot
- matches
There is also a dead mouse to pick up in the same area. It is not an ingredient — it is for the cat, and the order you feed the cat matters (see below).
Cooking
There is a recipe note in the room. Cook in the order it gives: light the stove with the wood and matches, get the pot on, then the milk and oats. The note is the authority here — the game checks the sequence, not just the contents.
The berries
The bowl is not complete without berries, and the berries are locked in a cabinet in Aldous's bedroom. The key comes from the raven at the window, and the raven will not trade until you have shaved Aldous and cut his earlobe.
So the real dependency chain is: shave Aldous → earlobe → open the window → feed the raven → key → cabinet → berries.
Serving order
Breakfast goes down in this order:
bowl → porridge → spoon → berries
Out of order, the scene does not advance.
The insect
Once the bowl is in front of Aldous, something is alive in it. It moves between holes in the surface of the porridge, and hitting it directly does not work — it simply relocates.
Use the berries to block the holes. Plug each escape point one at a time. When the insect has nowhere left to go, kill it.
This is the puzzle people search for as "servant of the lake berries", "blueberries" or "insect berries" — the berries are the tool, not the garnish.
Achievement in this section
Feeding the Cat. Give Rustie, the orange cat, the milk first — before the dead mouse. The clue reads "Kitty wants something. What do cats love?" and it means milk, not mouse. Feed the mouse first and the achievement is gone for that run.
Where this sits
Day 1 Morning, hallway and bedroom. This whole block is also in the free demo. See the Day 1 walkthrough for the surrounding tasks, or the demo walkthrough if you are playing the free version.