Ch 2 - Cipher Puzzle Help?

[DennyBoySenpai]

I've been trying to do this puzzle for some time, but I'll be honest and say I'm not the brightest when it comes to puzzles, or much really lol. I honestly can't get past this brick wall of a challenge and while it's probably really simple in hindsight...but I just wanna get back to story :(

[Galdra Studios]

Hi DennyBoySenpai,

I'm sad to hear you're blocked by the safe puzzle in chapter 2! The puzzle is different for every playthrough, so I cannot tell you exactly what you need to do, but I can let you in on some tips on how to make it simpler to solve!

Hint #1
The puzzle is randomly shuffled in a sequence that is decided when you start your game. It is shuffled similar to the demon banishing minigame, though you don't see it. What this means, is that even though it allows for more than 3 million different combinations, no solution is more than 10-20 wheel turns away from where you begin.

Hint #2
Instead of going back and forth between the two notes you have: the combination and the cipher, write them into a single document. This will give you a replica of what the safe combination should look like, which is much easier to match against. You can draw on a piece of paper, or you can edit a screenshot in an image editing software to move the symbols from the cipher to replace their number in the combination.

Hint #3
I approach the puzzle by considering the edges first, one ingredient at a time. I usually start with the right bottom wheel, but the order doesn't matter.

Disregard the symbols in the center for now, just focus on the two symbols that are not located in the center, for each of the bottom wheels. When these symbols are positioned correctly, you never have to turn the bottom wheels again, which makes solving the rest of the puzzle much easier!

Hint #4
Continuing on from hint #3, use the center wheel and top wheel to place the correct symbol in the two top most positions, again, we disregard the center wheel and only care about the symbols that cannot be turned using the center wheel.

When done, all symbols but those in the center wheel are in their correct position, and you may have completed the puzzle if the center wheel also happens to be correct. This is quite likely. If not, just turn the center wheel one or two times in either direction to complete the puzzle.

Due to the nature of how symbols are shiftet when you turn wheels, once you have all the edges solved, I believe the symbols in the center wheel will always be in the right order, so it's just a matter of turning it if they don't line up correctly with the combination.

I hope this helps, so you can enjoy the rest of the story!

Cheers,

Daniel from Galdra Studios

[JediMB]

Best of luck!

Personally... I'd finished almost every alchemy puzzle in the game before I realized the wheels could be turned counter-clockwise. If that was mentioned at the start of the game, I sure didn't retain that information!

[Galdra Studios]

It's now possible to skip the safe puzzle by having Ann complete it for you