OPINION POLL: What do you think was the hardest puzzle in the game?

[Glassman789]

I'm curious to know what other players think were the single most difficult puzzles in the game, including both the core game and the Road to Gehenna DLC.

What puzzles did you have to spend the most time on?

Which ones forced you to look up the solution?

For me, the most difficult one, and the one that I spent the most time on was a puzzle from the DLC. In the Egyptian area there is a puzzle called "Crater". But it's not the tetromino puzzle in Crater that I'm talking about, it's the star in the center of the level. Getting that star requires you to use a special "trick" that is not seen anywhere else in the game. The devs managed to take the existing game mechanics and create this new "trick" necessary to reach the star. It really exemplified the outside-the-box thinking that was required in this game.

What was the hardest puzzle for you?

[MASTAN]

Small Space, Big Solution from DLC had new trick, but crater star? Getting tools out of some area to another is required for getting many stars before. Or what other trick is that you're referring to?

[Glassman789]

Originally posted by MASTAN:

Small Space, Big Solution from DLC had new trick, but crater star? Getting tools out of some area to another is required for getting many stars before. Or what other trick is that you're referring to?

I don't recall the Crater star requiring any outside objects being brought in, at least if you solved it in the intended way. The new "trick" I was referring to was colliding with the hexahedron in mid-flight to drop down onto the star.

[MASTAN]

That move was insta-obvious, you can't drop there othewise. And I think it was somewhere before... maybe in Portal 2.

[K4ever]

I dont remember too much the stars I collected on the regular game, because I played it and finished it a long time ago. Still I couldnt have gotten 2 stars early in the game if I didnt ask for help: One was the one where there is the sphinx, and the other was about the message "the eagle has landed". The first one required you to forget about all the rules of the game so far, and focus on a text you find. I knew what the latter one was referring to, but when I tried to solve it still I couldnt do it. Then I checked youtube and saw that what something was for one person, may be different to another ... in this case its the clock time for 2 different people located in 2 different areas of the world.

As some already know, Small Space Big Solution was my Achilles Heel on Talos, and beat me fair and square. The one in pendulum was kind of hard for me, but I managed to use a block that I took from another level. When I saw a video on youtube about supposedly getting it the intended way, my jaw dropped all the way down. It was superb, but at the same time it was the very first time I saw that mechanic working out in the game. With that mechanic knowledge I was able to solve one or maybe 2 more problems.

Road to Gehenna added several new mechanics to use in order to get everything it has to offer (mostly the stars). I discovered some, got a hint for one of them, and completely couldnt discovered another (the one for SSBS).

[NoMercy Rider]

For regular puzzles, it was Prison Break in World C that gave me the most trouble. I think it largely had to do with any small mistake requiring a complete reset. I was glad to finally get that one solved the first time. After playing the game about 10 times, that is still the puzzle that causes me pause :P

In regards to the DLC, oddly enough, Haircut gave me the most trouble. I never even thought to use one beam to block another beam.

Finally, for stars, I have to second the Crater star. Especially if you get it using "expert mode" and not use items from other puzzles.

[Shooble]

Cobweb. It's far too finicky about where to place connectors and part of it is just dumb luck. I still have trouble with it. But then I overthink everything.

The top of the tower is tough, but only due to a time limit.

[Glassman789]

Originally posted by K4:

I dont remember too much the stars I collected on the regular game, because I played it and finished it a long time ago. Still I couldnt have gotten 2 stars early in the game if I didnt ask for help: One was the one where there is the sphinx, and the other was about the message "the eagle has landed". The first one required you to forget about all the rules of the game so far, and focus on a text you find. I knew what the latter one was referring to, but when I tried to solve it still I couldnt do it. Then I checked youtube and saw that what something was for one person, may be different to another ... in this case its the clock time for 2 different people located in 2 different areas of the world.

As some already know, Small Space Big Solution was my Achilles Heel on Talos, and beat me fair and square. The one in pendulum was kind of hard for me, but I managed to use a block that I took from another level. When I saw a video on youtube about supposedly getting it the intended way, my jaw dropped all the way down. It was superb, but at the same time it was the very first time I saw that mechanic working out in the game. With that mechanic knowledge I was able to solve one or maybe 2 more problems.

Road to Gehenna added several new mechanics to use in order to get everything it has to offer (mostly the stars). I discovered some, got a hint for one of them, and completely couldnt discovered another (the one for SSBS).

Yeah, Pendulum also took me a while to figure out. But I remembered that for many of the puzzles, the name of the puzzle is oftentimes a small clue.

[K4ever]

Originally posted by Glassman789:

Originally posted by K4:

I dont remember too much the stars I collected on the regular game, because I played it and finished it a long time ago. Still I couldnt have gotten 2 stars early in the game if I didnt ask for help: One was the one where there is the sphinx, and the other was about the message "the eagle has landed". The first one required you to forget about all the rules of the game so far, and focus on a text you find. I knew what the latter one was referring to, but when I tried to solve it still I couldnt do it. Then I checked youtube and saw that what something was for one person, may be different to another ... in this case its the clock time for 2 different people located in 2 different areas of the world.

As some already know, Small Space Big Solution was my Achilles Heel on Talos, and beat me fair and square. The one in pendulum was kind of hard for me, but I managed to use a block that I took from another level. When I saw a video on youtube about supposedly getting it the intended way, my jaw dropped all the way down. It was superb, but at the same time it was the very first time I saw that mechanic working out in the game. With that mechanic knowledge I was able to solve one or maybe 2 more problems.

Road to Gehenna added several new mechanics to use in order to get everything it has to offer (mostly the stars). I discovered some, got a hint for one of them, and completely couldnt discovered another (the one for SSBS).

Yeah, Pendulum also took me a while to figure out. But I remembered that for many of the puzzles, the name of the puzzle is oftentimes a small clue.

I still never figured out why the devs needed to put 3 beam blocker orbs in the pendulum level. The one that doesnt needs to be used when doing the ray "pendulum". I thought that one was important for something but never found its use. Maybe to get the star thats located right outside of the pendulum level? I got that one also by using one hexahedron I got out from the Harmony level.

Btw, I just checked online that indeed that third orb was needed to get to that star.

[talescaper]

Most things involving the recording device nearly broke my brain.

[MASTAN]

Originally posted by talescaper:

Most things involving the recording device nearly broke my brain.

If you'd litke to break it more
http://store.steampowered.com/app/286080/

[talescaper]

Originally posted by MASTAN:

Originally posted by talescaper:

Most things involving the recording device nearly broke my brain.

If you'd litke to break it more
http://store.steampowered.com/app/286080/

Just what I need :p I'll take a look when I get home yesterday

[Bob3]

The last set of laser puzzles in the Road to Gehenna. I was legitmately stuck for hours on those.

[talescaper]

I had the impression that the Gehenna puzzles demanded a lot more precision, especially when it came to lasers. Then again, I also felt that a just got lucky on a few occasions, like jumping into the cagein the crater

[Baltimore Opera Hat Company]

Haven't played Gehenna yet.

An escalating situation is probably the easiest puzzle that had me completely stumped. I got Weathertop and Prison Break without too much difficulty since you can run about and experiment with things to see what happens. Escalating situation, well I could see exactly what to do once I got the jammer through the other side of the barrier, but I just couldn't work out how to make that first step. When I came back to it near the end of the game and I suddenly got it I felt so stupid for not seeing the solution right away (jam the barrier by leaving the jammer in a place where you can pick it up from the elevated platform). Rest of it was done in literally a minute or so after that,

The worst part of the game for me was about 12 hours in when I learned about the 'alternate use' button, you know the one that allows connectors to retain their connections even when being moved? Yeah, good luck trying to do Pinhole Windows, Time Flies, Time Crawls, A Ditch and a Fence, and a whole load of other connector based stuff without that. Some of them would merely be incredibly fiddly and frustrating while others are I think literally impossible to do without alternate use.

I looked up walkthroughs for a few puzzles but mostly because I was running out of patience. The recording based ones could be a particular headache mainly because of the amount of mental effort needed to remember what to do, how to record it, where all the puzzle parts are, what your recording is doing while you are halfway across the level, etc. Not to mention getting trapped and needing to reset if you messed it up (undoing whatever you did achieve so far in the process). The interaction between 'real' and recorded objects could also be a bit unclear without a lot of experimentation. As in, you can link a real connector to a recording of a connector, and you can stand on the recording of yourself with a platform, and recordings can break beams and press the plates. But, you can't stand on the recording of a cube, nor place a real object on top of it, and the way the recorded objects disappear after it plays can lead to much confusion and sometimes you wonder where the recording of a object is if you didn't move it since it remains trapped inside the real one. Seven doors of recording was a whole lot of fun for all those reasons although I did get it without a walkthrough, can't claim the same for Alley of the pressure plates, I got so close but couldn't tie it all together without help.

Iron Curtain annoyed me a bit because of the limitations on picking up objects from lower spaces. Up close and Jammed was similar, there's a specific height you need to be above the mine for it to work, blew myself up plenty of times trying to find it. Nerve wrecker was certainly aptly named, the logic wasn't complicated but it was so easy to trap yourself between the synchronicity of the mines.

I forgot the name of this one but I'm sure everyone will remember it (World C I think). It's a flat maze-like level with connectors, jammers and windows, the sigil protected at the very end by a stationary mine and a barrier. It's not too difficult to get most of the way there until you try to figure out the logistics of getting both the barrier and mine jammed at the same time. After failing several times I came back to it and was surprised to breeze through it in one go.

[Ray tracing is faster]

All I know is it's definitely something from Road to Gehenna. The last two levels (numerically) had some really difficult ones. Crater's scale made it harder too.

As for the base game, it was something on the very last level numerically. I found that level considerably more challenging than the rest but nowhere near Road to Gehenna still.