A girl kept a dedicated notebook for hacking terminals in Fallout: New Vegas, and a thousand Redditors rushed to help

The second season of the Fallout TV show keeps pulling new players into the classic games. Reddit user MoneyManStan1 shared a story about his girlfriend, who after watching the show decided to try Fallout: New Vegas for the first time – and took the terminal hacking minigame so seriously that she started keeping a dedicated notebook for it.

The community reacted with warmth and enthusiasm, with fans eagerly explaining the finer points of the hacking minigame, which tends to confuse newcomers.

Terminal hacking in Fallout: New Vegas is a word puzzle built on logic and process of elimination. The player is shown a list of words of equal length, mixed in with random symbols. One word is the correct password, and the goal is to guess it. Each attempt gives four tries – pick the wrong word and the terminal shows how many letters matched, but after four failed attempts access is locked permanently.

One key trick many newcomers miss: brackets hidden among the symbols on screen. Finding a group of characters enclosed in matching brackets like [], {}, () or <> and clicking on them will either remove one of the wrong options or restore your remaining attempts.

Veteran players also recommended the "three-attempt" strategy – if the password hasn't been found after three guesses, exit the terminal and reopen it. The words will refresh and the attempt counter resets. It's not elegant, but it completely eliminates the risk of a lockout and lets you keep guessing indefinitely.

The Science skill matters too. A higher skill level means fewer false options are displayed, making it much easier to narrow things down. The Computer Whiz perk goes even further, granting an extra attempt even after a lockout.

The girlfriend's approach – notebook and all – is exactly what many gamers used to do, especially those who grew up in the 90s. Back when the internet wasn't packed with guides and easy solutions, some players kept their own "gamer diaries," jotting down important info and working through puzzles on paper. For those who'd rather skip the minigame entirely, there are online calculators and mods – Better Hacking, for instance, adds a bypass system similar to the one used in The Outer Worlds.

Filming for Fallout season three is set to begin in May. There's still no word on a remaster, remake, or a new entry in the series.