Did I skip a bunch of puzzles, or is the game just trying to confuse the player?

[BraggFonsy]

So I finished the game and got the "RIVEN" ending. However, there was a lot of stuff like the crude fishing rod, the empry computer with the battery slot and the weirdd chip thing that falls down that I never used. Now, I already know that the heart puzzle in the sewers is a red herring, but for the above items I'm a bit baffled. Was that just missdirections, did I skip a big chunk of the game or did I skip some puzzles but managed to finish the game anyways? Is there extra content in the "punished" difficulty that makes these relevant? I can believe that I took the path of least resistance and that I was supposed to backtrack more, but right now I'm just confused.

Edit: Okay, so I loaded a save and backtracked a little. I was expecting to find something relevant to what I've mentioned before, but instead I find a blowtowrch and I'm even MORE lost. I managed to use the fishing rod once, but it's still in my inventory so there's more uses to it.

[Headware Games]

Hey, there was some additional side content added in a recent patch which relates to those items. It's optional content for those who want to seek out more lore.

[Jean-Luc]

Not all items dissapear when there's no more use for them. I think this is especially true for those related to the side puzzle added in patch 6.

[BraggFonsy]

Originally posted by Headware Games:

Hey, there was some additional side content added in a recent patch which relates to those items. It's optional content for those who want to seek out more lore.

Thanks for the reply. In the end I figured it all out. Backtracking was a bit rough, but I had a great "eureka" moment when I put the pieces together.