To the developers re the clock puzzle in A3

[soopytwist]

"The Eagle has landed", the words spoken as the lunar modular landed on the moon. That was at 20:18 UTC (if you count Coordinated Universal Time as the time it landed and not whatever time it was in your own country - first stupid idea for this puzzle right there). So that would suggest XX XVIII is the answer to the puzzle...well no it isn't, it's the date instead - 20th July i.e 20 7...XX VII in other words, which IS the solution to the puzzle.

This is worse than that metal Isis puzzle a few years ago and it's "Big Bang" solution.

And by Isis I mean the Egyptian goddess Isis...not the other thing.

[Chazz the Elder]

Publicado originalmente por Warlord:

Publicado originalmente por NoMercy Rider:

It's best to just attach a photo to show what's going on. You are still thinking in terms of a 12-hour analog clock.

You know, I have never seen a 24-hour clock before.

Before NoMercyRider's picture, or before A3?

If you look at the actual clock in A3, you'll see that it has 24 hour divisions on the face.

[blokkemblokkem]

The rest of this game was masterfully done, but this puzzle simply just broke the immersion for me. An "atmospheric" game should not require the use of external, real life tools to complete it. It's gimmicky like blowing into the microphone on a Nintendo DS to create "wind", but at least there you know the system is designed for that type of interaction. The fact that the entire rest of the game rewards you for close examination of every nook and cranny is simply incompatible with this puzzle.

It really pisses me off too because I hadn't been this immersed in a game for a long time and to me be taken out of it by stupidity like this was simply disappointing.

[Jorge Junior]

Publicado originalmente por Desk Rabbit:

There is another way to solve the puzzle that doesn't use any info from the QR code at all.

spoiler:

There are two numbers on the nearby rocks that lead to a solution as well..

These rocks with the numbers are probably right in front of my face, but I couldn'f find them. And I searched... a lot!

[moriarthie]

Oh my god
I'm glad i look this up
Like i would eventually trying to look at those qr codes, i'm screenshooting every thing. So it would take me some time to see the date and i would still be mistaken since i never saw an analog 24h clock.
I understimated you Talos `Principle

[Wingless]

Funny that I accidently solved this puzzle. QR code didn't give me much hope, but I knew the whole thing was a sundial so I started messing with times.

From where I was standing ingame the sun looked like it was under XX so i clicked that...Then it happened to be 7:52am so I just hit VII and it worked. Did spend about 30 minutes of arsing around different combinations, but I lost my mind when I got it right haha.

Only noticed the analog clock on the back of the QR code once I completed it >.<

[muzzy]

I don't have an external QR reader (too old phone), and I can't even alt-tab from the game on OSX (and windowed mode bugs). Decoding the QR would've required taking a screenshot with steam overlay, then QUITTING the game to decode it.

I suppose I could've bruteforced all the combinations, and I did consider doing that. However, I was under the impression that three button presses was the code, not two, because you could choose three buttons out of the 24 before it reset. I failed to consider that the code might've been just two buttons and bruteforceable with two dozen laps around the circle.

In the end I had to spoil this for myself. It completely ruined the atmosphere when it turned out the puzzle was indeed designed to be unsolvable without the use of external tools or dumb luck.

[darksharcoux]

My scanner totally failed to read the QR code, probably due to bad contrast on my screen, or too low fps for my phone camera, so I thought that it was meaningless. Anyway, I couldn't solve the puzzle on my own because of that and had to look for the answer. I think that developers should allow inputing the current time as another possible answer, just to reward players that found the buttons on the pillars and the clock back to the blank QR code. No need to make it more complex...

[soopytwist]

I've since had an iPad and Samsung smart phone since I posted this so I'm all set for Talos Principle 2.

Er... that's if there will be a Talos Principle 2.

EDIT

Just so long as they don't put puzzles like this one it.

[Chazz the Elder]

I'd argue against the "current time" only because the clock is actually showing the current time when you enter the level... I tend to agree with the consensus here that the puzzle is distinct from the usual puzzles in the game and is, while not unsolvable, definitely not the sort of thing the player is likely to be expecting.

[MantarTheWizard]

Publicado originalmente por blokkemblokkem:

The rest of this game was masterfully done, but this puzzle simply just broke the immersion for me. An "atmospheric" game should not require the use of external, real life tools to complete it. It's gimmicky like blowing into the microphone on a Nintendo DS to create "wind", but at least there you know the system is designed for that type of interaction. The fact that the entire rest of the game rewards you for close examination of every nook and cranny is simply incompatible with this puzzle.

It really pisses me off too because I hadn't been this immersed in a game for a long time and to me be taken out of it by stupidity like this was simply disappointing.

Hear, hear. I spent hours on this stupid thing today, and finally googled it, then did some more googling to figure out how in the hell I was supposed to figure out "press 7 then 20" without watching a video on google.
This kind of out-of-game solution nonsense was unacceptable in Fez, and it's unacceptable here. For a game that's otherwise so brilliantly designed, this is surprisingly bad. There was no reason to get cute and try to get people to break out cellphones to read a code that the computer is perfectly capable of decoding for us. Boo!

[bureau44]

I guess I have seen few other 'unreadable' QR-codes in the game, but i didn't care then, thought it was a bug... untill now. Has the game got more hidden stuff like this? My handy is not reading them...

[Chazz the Elder]

As far as I know, that is only one of two "unreadable" QR codes in the game proper, though there is also one in the demo. The other one in the game says something about things being hidden right in front of our eyes; interesting but not, ultimately, important.

[LeeC]

Funny how people take things differently, I actually thought this was clever and a nice touch. Being as old as I am (I was 5 when the moon landing occured), the quote is something I have known for pretty much all of my life. Once the in-game QR reader didn't work, I knew what I had to do. Given there are 24 pillars and the time is generally shown in 24 hour "mission" time, the connection seemed straight forward.

Funny thing is, I spent hours on puzzles I knew other people had done almost instantly, so it was good to find something where my age worked in my favour... it's not a thing that happens a lot. :D

I think given that at some point, you would need to exit the game anyway, unless you play it 24/7 of course, I don't think it was a problem if you had to use online tools. It's good when developers have enough creativity to push your thinking quite literally, outside the box.

But that's just my own persoanl view on this, I liked it.

[bureau44]

I was rather disappointed. Still cannot grasp what justifies that only this particular code out of thousand is unreadable? My phone failed as well, so I spent hours looking for other time references on the map, aligning shdows, obelsiks...
And yes, it is about your cultural/national background. I've never heard the quote.
On what occasion and which time one had said: "Poehali!"? ;)

[Chazz the Elder]

Well, at least it's related: Yuri Gagarin, and I believe it was as he headed for the capsule for the first manned spaceflight ever. Frankly, thinking about it now, I'm a little surprised that the developers, who are from that part of the world, chose an American spaceflight accomplishment here rather than a Russian one... though there may be some remaining anger at the Soviets.