The puzzles that annoy me (so far)

[dmeister]

Just to start, this game is awesome! No doubt, highly recommended. That said, now that I appear to have gotten a relatively good length in the game, I've finally had to resort to looking up hints for a small handful of the remaining items I've been stuck on and a couple (not all) of those kind of annoy me in how they're designed. This is just me venting a little for personal catharsis, if they didn't bother you no worries, to each their own. 🤷‍♂️ Spoilers ahead:


The Clocktower - So once I noticed the hint about the Clocktower having one of the Sanctum keys, after my next draft of it I looked around and pretty quickly figured out looking around that something probably was supposed to happen there when the clock showed 1:30. (And yes, I realize it's reversed looking from the inside, I'm taking that into account.) So I just kind of looked around in the room and then sat afk for a long time waiting for 1:30 which took quite a while. And... nothing. 1:30 came and went and nothing happened. I spent another 10 minutes looking around carefully to see if anything changed and it didn't. I shelved it for a while, solved a bunch of other things, and finally looked it up online to see what I missed and... I was right?!

I mean, WTH? Is it that I have to get the Clocktower drafted and be there the first time 1:30 strikes that day and I took too long the first time? Is it bugged and sometimes nothing happens? Seriously, real time puzzles like this where you have to wait in real life 15 minutes or 20 minutes or whatever for something to eventually happen are SO annoying! The time lock puzzle in the Shelter was also a little irritating, but at least that one I didn't have to wait in the room, there was a 4 hour window. This Clocktower one is just frustrating.

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The Gallery - So when I found the Gallery I pretty quickly figured out the THIN-K solution and knew the others were rebuses that were probably using a similar theme to "THINK". I eventually got PONDER and REALIZE, but RUMINATE took much longer because the clue for it is TERRIBLE! There's an 8 in a Room? That's the clue? I looked it up afterward to see if I was missing something in the clue and, nope, that's it. Some people were saying "there are words with "IN" in them too like Pins and Fin and Sins" but that's also a big stretch. Compared to the other three clues, and honestly all the other clues for puzzles I've seen in the game, this one is frankly the only one that I'm like "no, that's just a really, really dumb clue."

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Drafting Studio safe - So when I found the tiny safe in the Drafting Studio I pretty quickly realized that the combo would be a date related to the calendar in the room (because what else would it be?) The problem I have with this clue is there are SO many possible dates it could be. The obvious one of Nov 7 is the date on the calendar itself, which isn't it obviously, and then the picture could be any combination of pairs of numbers that you can possibly get from counting various objects like trees, apples, gates, etc. There's 7 apples on trees on the left and 8 on the right, for instance, so maybe July 8? The combinations are huge and the only way to figure this puzzle out is just painstakingly brute force typing in random date possibilities until you stumble on the right one. This is safe code I've come across that the clue is just kind of too vague.

And to be clear, I don't mind puzzles that are hard to figure out. For instance, the clues in the A New Clue book are tricky to solve! But the answers to them make sense once you solve them and solving it isn't just brute force plugging in random things over and over until it works. That's the difference here and why I like the New Clue clues and don't like the Drafting Studio one.

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Sigils - This one doesn't annoy me quite as much as the other two, but I do kind of wish solving some of the tougher sigils was a LITTLE more straightforward. With at least two of them you actually get to see the entire sigil, which is obviously great! Then you have a partial hint or two for the rest, like maybe the "color" for the border or a small fragment of a sigil in a room, etc. And then the rest you kind of have to guess, sort of, from maybe reading about the country or looking at its stamp design or motto. The thing is though at that point the hints start to get really vague, you're kind of just taking random stabs at guessing what the weather is like in the country or if they're "poetic" or whatever, it just feels a little too abstract in a way.

Like I said, this one doesn't annoy me as much as the calendar clue I ranted about above, but I am left feeling like solving these sigils isn't quite as satisfying as I'd like because I still sort of feel like when I solve one it's just because I grinded out a bunch of random guesses until I found the "right" one as opposed to the right one being pretty obviously the right one once you know the answer (if you know what I mean? 🤷‍♂️ )


Anyway that's mostly it for the rant. The other puzzles I've done aside from the ones above were all kind of fun to figure out, or in the case of the location of one of the microchips I finally looked up the solution as said "Oh yeah, that makes sense".

Right now my future tasks still include

- getting the Furnace and Freezer together in the same run (for whatever reason it just hasn't happened so far. 🤷‍♂️)

- getting all 8 classrooms in the same run (I've gotten to Grade 7 but then ran out of room in the building unfortunately. This one does take a little luck to pull off but at least I know it'll happen eventually if I keep playing.)

- Lowering the reservoir specially to level 6 to explore it. (I've fully emptied it and gotten the sigil key and allowance tokens from the bottom, and rowed the boat at nearly full level, but I just haven't bothered to lower it specifically to 6 to see what that does with the boat, which I'm assuming is another hidden area.) Did this one just now. 👍

- Solving all 8 sigils and the Map in Room 46. I can already tell the map's route is tied to hints in the Sigil rooms so these are sort of linked, and I'm guessing I probably need to do at the very least I need to buckle down and wait out the Clocktower key and hopefully figure out where the couple of remaining keys exactly are to finish this up. (Fortunately the Map is hypothetically solvable without opening all 8 door since once you've gotten most of the route you can presumably trial and error the rest. I just don't quite have enough of the route to do that yet.)

- I've seen mention of the Lost and Found room that I never saw in a draft, so I finally broke down and looked up a hint for it and realized I never used a magnifying glass on the one map or, if I did, didn't stop the tiny message on it that leads to that blueprint. So I still need to get around to getting a Magnifying glass, looking at the hint, and going from there. Also did this one.


And I'm sure there's still a bunch more I haven't mentioned that are beyond those above puzzles as well. This is definitely a game that is MUCH harder to 100% complete than it is to just finish the main story goal of opening Room 46, I'll give it that! 😄 (And honestly I have no particular interest in literally 100% completing it. For instance I couldn't care less about the speed run trophy, etc.)

[Gorlom[Swe]]

Drawing room safe: Did you first solve the paintings pairing puzzle? Solving that first helps A LOT.

Your future goals:
You have a small misconception each in regards of 2 of your future goals

[Civil Sky]

i agree that the 4th painting clue isn't fantastic, though between the 8, the theme established by the previous 3 paintings, and the number of letters, i do think you have enough to go on to get to ruminate through a thesaurus.

oh and because i've seen people crash out over this, you do not need to get the furnace and the freezer together; the burning glass can melt everything in the room. in fact, you'll be sorely disappointed when you do get the furnace and the freezer together, because it won't thaw out the freezer box with the letter

[Mercurial]

The drawing studio is fantastic.

You just didn't have or remember the primary clue to solving it.

The gallery sucks, but it's also fairly unimportant and you eventually get three clues that make it much easier, so it's not such a big deal.

[dmeister]

Originally posted by GorlomSwe:

Drawing room safe: Did you first solve the paintings pairing puzzle? Solving that first helps A LOT.

Your future goals:
You have a small misconception each in regards of 2 of your future goals

If you reread my post I clearly solved the painting puzzle, I knew the Drawing room safe was a date. The problem with the clue is the calendar and its picture lead to literally dozens of possible dates, it's not nearly specific enough on which date is the combination.

[dmeister]

Originally posted by Mercurial:

The drawing studio is fantastic.

You just didn't have or remember the primary clue to solving it.

The gallery sucks, but it's also fairly unimportant and you eventually get three clues that make it much easier, so it's not such a big deal.

No, I know the primary clue to solving it. Namely that it's a date, like all the other safe/lock combinations. The problem with the Drawing studio though is the calendar and picture on it lead to dozens of possible dates, it's not nearly specific enough which one is actually the combination. You just have to fumble through until you eventually get lucky and pick the right thing.

It is not a good clue.

[dmeister]

Originally posted by Civil Sky:

i agree that the 4th painting clue isn't fantastic, though between the 8, the theme established by the previous 3 paintings, and the number of letters, i do think you have enough to go on to get to ruminate through a thesaurus.

oh and because i've seen people crash out over this, you do not need to get the furnace and the freezer together; the burning glass can melt everything in the room. in fact, you'll be sorely disappointed when you do get the furnace and the freezer together, because it won't thaw out the freezer box with the letter

I also have not had the burner item on me when I've had the Freezer either. (Mostly because I kept putting the combo Metal Detector/Shovel in the Coat Check to use it on following days. Unfortunately doing that also means I can't make the burner so I just have to bite the bullet, take that item out of the Coat Check, and in a later day use the part to make the burner which I'm assuming also can work in the Freezer to melt stuff probably.

[Gorlom[Swe]]

Originally posted by dmeister:

Originally posted by GorlomSwe:

Drawing room safe: Did you first solve the paintings pairing puzzle? Solving that first helps A LOT.

Your future goals:
You have a small misconception each in regards of 2 of your future goals

If you reread my post I clearly solved the painting puzzle, I knew the Drawing room safe was a date. The problem with the clue is the calendar and its picture lead to literally dozens of possible dates, it's not nearly specific enough on which date is the combination.

You are ignoring half of that solution/clue. Why?

[dmeister]

Originally posted by GorlomSwe:

Originally posted by dmeister:

If you reread my post I clearly solved the painting puzzle, I knew the Drawing room safe was a date. The problem with the clue is the calendar and its picture lead to literally dozens of possible dates, it's not nearly specific enough on which date is the combination.

You are ignoring half of that solution/clue. Why?

What "half of the clue" am I ignoring exactly?

P.S. Just to clarify something, my post was about the Drafting Room, NOT the Drawing Room. I don't have a problem with the Drawing Room.

[rainbowtrout07]

The Drafting room has two independent clues in the room:
1. Once you know that the solutions to the safes are dates, you see a calendar that's open to November, and on that calendar, you "count the small gates" to get November 8.
2. Alternatively, count the apples on the trees--the small trees give you the month and the big tree gives you the date BUT you have to subtract the number of apples that have fallen on the ground from the number that remain on the tree.

[Gorlom[Swe]]

Originally posted by dmeister:

Originally posted by GorlomSwe:

You are ignoring half of that solution/clue. Why?

What "half of the clue" am I ignoring exactly?

P.S. Just to clarify something, my post was about the Drafting Room, NOT the Drawing Room. I don't have a problem with the Drawing Room.

Right, drafting room. Dunno why I called it drawing room. I was stil ltalking about draftingroom.
You overlooked "If we count small gates"... I did too untill someone pointed it out to me. I was trying to merely nudge you in the right direction unless you asked me for the solution. Rainbowtrout07 beat me to it when you did ask.

[Draco18s]

Originally posted by GorlomSwe:

You overlooked "If we count small gates"... I did too untill someone pointed it out to me. I was trying to merely nudge you in the right direction unless you asked me for the solution. Rainbowtrout07 beat me to it when you did ask.

This is such a ♥♥♥♥♥♥ clue. It's placed in a context to imply that it somehow affects all of the safes, but it's only meant to apply to one of them. Without the use of developer telepathy I'm pretty sure that this clue can only be worked out in reverse (same with the apples): that is, by knowing the solution the clue can be solved, rather than by knowing the clue the puzzle can be solved...

[Gorlom[Swe]]

Originally posted by Draco18s:

Originally posted by GorlomSwe:

You overlooked "If we count small gates"... I did too untill someone pointed it out to me. I was trying to merely nudge you in the right direction unless you asked me for the solution. Rainbowtrout07 beat me to it when you did ask.

This is such a ♥♥♥♥♥♥ clue. It's placed in a context to imply that it somehow affects all of the safes, but it's only meant to apply to one of them. Without the use of developer telepathy I'm pretty sure that this clue can only be worked out in reverse (same with the apples): that is, by knowing the solution the clue can be solved, rather than by knowing the clue the puzzle can be solved...

It does apply to more than one of them.
The drawingroom makes use of homonyms. gate -> gait as revealed in "a new clue", page 13 or something
The office counts small counts, further hinted at by the letter in the drawer
The orchyard counts as a safe because a date is used to unlock a small gate.
The underground is still a gate that counts as a safe.
The shelter and budoir admittedly doesnt really have anything that applies apart from the date thing as far as I know.

[rainbowtrout07]

Originally posted by Draco18s:

Originally posted by GorlomSwe:

You overlooked "If we count small gates"... I did too untill someone pointed it out to me. I was trying to merely nudge you in the right direction unless you asked me for the solution. Rainbowtrout07 beat me to it when you did ask.

This is such a ♥♥♥♥♥♥ clue. It's placed in a context to imply that it somehow affects all of the safes, but it's only meant to apply to one of them. Without the use of developer telepathy I'm pretty sure that this clue can only be worked out in reverse (same with the apples): that is, by knowing the solution the clue can be solved, rather than by knowing the clue the puzzle can be solved...

I definitely solved this without any sort of brute forcing or knowing the solution in advance--this one is easy to over-complicate. And it's not true that the main clue only applies to this puzzle. The "count small gates" applies to 5 of the 8 "safes" in one way or another--though not always in the same way

Lastly, I apologize because I thought you had already brute forced this and were complaining about the solution, so I would have been a little less spoiler-y with my explanation (even though I did use spoiler tags).

[Gorlom[Swe]]

rainbowtrout. I do think that dmeister has bruteforced it. It's just that I have a habit of trying to let people figure it out even if they have gotten past it an unintended way.

[PersonalC0ffee]

Originally posted by Draco18s:

Originally posted by GorlomSwe:

You overlooked "If we count small gates"... I did too untill someone pointed it out to me. I was trying to merely nudge you in the right direction unless you asked me for the solution. Rainbowtrout07 beat me to it when you did ask.

This is such a ♥♥♥♥♥♥ clue. It's placed in a context to imply that it somehow affects all of the safes, but it's only meant to apply to one of them. Without the use of developer telepathy I'm pretty sure that this clue can only be worked out in reverse (same with the apples): that is, by knowing the solution the clue can be solved, rather than by knowing the clue the puzzle can be solved...

Not quite.

That one clue applies to every "safe except perhaps the study.