Post by solidjim in Discussion and Feedback [Spoilers Allowed]

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Like one or two other commenters, I tripped up at the end with the interpretation of the final message. Is the note "Go back?" intended as a hint for this? If so, I mistook it as an instruction to revisit the previous puzzles and didn't give it any further thought at the end. It's unfortunate because at that point there are no more inroads to work at if you don't see the trick. I honestly don't know whether making the final clue make sense forwards would make this easier or harder (I started suspecting I'd made a mistake as it wasn't legible.)

Echoing the general praise for the game - the closest comparator I can think of is the treetops area in The Witness. Two separate laugh-out-loud moments of epiphany on puzzle 11. The first puzzle was the most difficult owing to a divergence of cultural knowledge, but that wasn't a showstopper.

Playcebo141 days ago (1 edit)

Hmm, what do you think about having "WAS" added to the 12th blank? https://imgur.com/a/AYQQM4A Or I could just do "W" perhaps. (You interpreted "Go Back" correctly, I was just telling players to go back and solve 1 - 11 properly upon reaching 12. I think I'll move that message to the top of the page.)

Another thing I might do is change the Ink Ring and/or the end of the message -- I purposely hid the U to set up NOW __OY as a red herring (since it seems like potential words), which I'm now realizing was just pointlessly mean.

I'm flattered puzzle 11 was reminiscent of the treehouse -- that area is one of my favorites.

solidjim141 days ago(+1)

Perhaps not WAS as this can be searched for and found in the grid & could become its own red herring. Having just the W would probably have worked for me, but I'm not sure if it could also be similarly misinterpreted.

It's currently the only puzzle where one of the leftover letters is hidden, so amending that might help (by that point I had come to assume this was one of the rules.)

I'm conscious that I'm just one person & a lot of players presumably got this without the nudge. On the other side of the coin, I figured out the letters and numbers in v1.12 without any need for the new hint. Is there a case for formalising the two-tier difficulty system introduced by having 1.12 & 1.13 both available?

(Re: the treehouses, I won't go into specifics as this isn't the venue for The Witness spoilers, but I mean the early puzzles allowing for an internally consistent yet incorrect understanding of the rules.)

solidjim140 days ago

Additional response as I hadn't actually noticed the second image in your link:

I think the ring has value and wouldn't like to bring about its removal - in addition to lending the final puzzle a striking aesthetic and making it look more daunting than it (perhaps) is, it acts as an initial distraction from the significance of the lower squiggle.

If you were going that route, is it feasible to instead re-jig the positioning on a couple of the words so the leftovers are visible? For example, supposing the first two rows were:

LANKOWREUYD
 CCUINGWNR

Perhaps not ideal due to the path taken by the first answer, but the first suggestion that came to mind...

Playcebo140 days ago (1 edit)

My bad, I added the second image later on, after you saw it I think.

I'm glad the ring was doing its intended purposes. I put it back, made it a bit thinner, and nudged it downward to show the "U" without changing too much else .

itch.io

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