The arrow puzzle... (spoiler)

[Riddley Walker]

I think there are a few major problems with this puzzle.

First off- there is no reset button, so you don't know what is the default position after moving the levers, unless you noticed before hand. This adds to the confusion.

Second- there is a very subjective kind of logic to it, which is a pitfall of puzzle games. Even if you figure out the side arrows present a completely different logic to the up/down arrows, you still have to figure out that the up/down arrows are RELATIVE to the previous arrow. (why not to the first lever always? And how do you treat a lever that has gone a full circle? up, or down? And remember that we don't know what was its default position.)

So I think there are too many leaps of logic here. And remember- we don't even know if we can even solve this puzzle yet or if we have missed something else in another location. The arrow diagram can also fit the number/color puzzle right next to it.

And the hint doesn't actually help in this instance.

[mike]

I totally agree with everything you said. And that is why I consider it a badly designed puzzle. The rest was solid.

[Admiral Sakai]

Yeah, I think this puzzle, at the VERY least, needs a reset button so that the original positions of all the levers can be restored. This would also provide an internal hint that something relative to that original position is important. Even then, there's a lot of ways the flag pattern could be interpreted, so I think a complete redesign is in order.

[Riddley Walker]

Since I wrote this I have finished all 4 chapters of the game, and this is by far the most difficult puzzle in the game IMO. It isn't representative at all of the later, paid chapters, which tend to have quite straightforward observasional puzzles. So all the more reason to edit it I think.

[Admiral Sakai]

What actually *is* the logic to the solution? I spent an afternoon brute-forcing it, and even with the solution in front of me to compare I cannot figure it out.

[Riddley Walker]

Originally posted by Admiral Sakai:

What actually *is* the logic to the solution? I spent an afternoon brute-forcing it, and even with the solution in front of me to compare I cannot figure it out.

See here:
https://www.appunwrapper.com/2019/07/10/meridian-157-prologue-walkthrough-guide/2/

paragraph 22.

BTW for anyone who likes this genre, I can recommend "Facility 47". Recently played it. Very similar premise, but the puzzles are like real world problems, not finding patterns, etc. Pretty good game.

[Admiral Sakai]

OK, so, it looks like it isn't actually relative to the original position at all; I still think it could be made more clear but at least it isn't "mess up and forget to photograph, and you can never proceed" (perhaps this was changed at some point?).

Now that I know the rationale, I think the two things that I think make the puzzle so counterintuitive are as follows: There is nothing connecting what is on the flag to the levers, meaning that it could be the solution to any puzzle anywhere on the island and the levers could have any other clue anywhere else on the island. There is also no indication that you should start with the leftmost lever; these are not numbers or text or something that would naturally be "read" in a left-to-right order. Additionally, I think "lever position based on the previous lever's position" is sufficiently unintuitive that someone would not realistically guess it.

I have two proposals for "fixed" versions of the puzzle.

The first is to have the arrows not be placed all in a line, but actually placed in the direction of the previous arrow to make a two-dimensional "path" (as we've got all that space on the flag). This I think would make it sufficiently clear that the clue relates to the levers because the path occupies a 5-by-4 grid, since it's a path it's obvious you start from the previous position to go to the next, and since the path only *fits* when starting from the very left that is where you have to start. I think this is actually the easier / most intuitive of the two proposed solutions (although what do we do if the path crosses over itself? Might be hard to communicate which is the "first" direction and which is the "second", with just arrows).

The second is to put some sort of symbol or marker on the leftmost lever (possibly color it red and color the first arrow red). Then the flag clue can be mostly left as is, although I am 50/50 on whether making the lever positions relative would be OK here, or they should be made absolute (in which case there would be only down arrows).

[Sunday Driver]

The arrow puzzle is pretty crazy. Glad it isn't representative of the rest. It's nice to see these puzzle games that aren't about running and hiding from monsters with a lantern of some sort.

[cowa.joe]

This is also the puzzle that really tripped me up. Everything else was pretty on the nose. You get a key, you put it in the lock, etc. But this.... why would there be a flag on a flagpole with a cryptic solution to the drawbridge on the island? Even for puzzle game logic that's a big stretch.

I ended up using the hint for this puzzle. And it actually made it even harder. The hint showed what looked like a map where you go forward 4 steps, then to the right 3 steps, etc. etc. That in no way relates to the levers, it makes someone naturally assume you need to need to take steps in that order.

[Wheel Warrior]

I'm so confused, is this thread talking about the Control room in the tunnel, and how the machine with the levers in the building do something with the flag on the top of the pole with arrows? If these two things are connected together I think it's really a great puzzle that you have to walk all over the island and figure out they fit together. I just don't get how they do?

[vertigoelectric]

I completed the prologue without hints enabled, however, I also didn't see the connection between the arrows and the levers. There's actually a pretty massive spoiler in the game for solving the levers. If you zoom out so you're viewing the room as a whole (like when you first walk in), you can see that the levers are always shown in a specific position. This position is actually the solution. The levers can also be brute-forced rather easily.

[76561199486070208]

xd