room 9-4

[deemon]

what are you supposed to do there? I got the snake to eat the key and... run over the buttons which seem to do nothing... and then what?

[kitikami]

You need to have all the switches pressed at the same time for them to activate. The puzzle for that room is about figuring out how to keep all of them pressed at once.

Solution:
The snake gets longer each time it absorbs a key. If you let it eat all three keys without collecting them yourself, it will be long enough to cover all of the switches, which opens the path to the exit.

[deemon]

Thanks for solution ... I never knew and couldnt really figure that part out myself about snake length. Was there hint somewhere before? never saw. Maybe not been there yet and just skipped ahead? :/

[kitikami]

I think in one of the previous rooms (9-2), you can see the snake take a key and if you are paying attention you can notice the difference, but it would be really hard to notice unless you have a reason to look for it. I think the main hint is that if you watch the snake, there is a visual cue as to what is happening (the dust trail behind it suddenly stops when it hits a key, and the back end of the snake freezes for a short time while the head keeps going).

I think the puzzle is more or less designed around giving you reasons to look for that cue. The snake picking up the first key pretty much automatically can be a small hint to try letting the snake pick up the other keys as well, plus it gives you a chance to observe what happens when it picks up a key near the start of every attempt at the level. The idea that the snake is not quite long enough to cover all the switches can also get you thinking about the length of the snake and make the solution a bit more noticeable. But the hints are definitely subtle, and this was one of the rooms that took me the longest to figure out. It's easy to run out of things to try and have no idea what else you could do differently.