In-game instructions for the Senet puzzle are not comprehensive enough

[Dragon]

This game has a problem with the in-game instructions with Tex's VO narration in regards to the Senet puzzle.

Tex says: "The goal is not to have more than two symbols in each row and column."

That instruction is highly insufficient, because a player can 100% fulfill that rule as it's stated, verbatim...yet the puzzle will still not be recognized as solved by the game.

This problem caused me lots of stress & grief. I had to search the internet to try and find a proper explanation of this rule, and I could not find one.

All I found was youtube videos that show the puzzle being completed --- which is not what I wanted to see, and also another thread on this board, which also totally fails to explain this rule properly in any of the posts that feature in that thread.

In my own game, I was baffled as to why the solution I had made on my board didn't trigger the game to play the solution animation. That was also very aggravating.

So then, having exhausted all my options, I watched a solution on youtube, where that player's pieces were in different places than mine were.

And from that I gleaned that the artwork on the pieces plays a role in whether or not the solution will trigger.

So then I went back to my own game, and I re-arranged the pieces on my board so that there was one horse that is parallel to one pyramid guy in all of my rows and columns (I don't know how to explain this point in proper technical terms).

Then the solution triggered, with the pieces occupying the exact same squares as they were before when it was failing to trigger, with zero changes made to which squares did or did not have tokens upon them.

The only thing that changed was in relation to whether the particular tokens' artwork were featuring a pyramid guy, or a horse.

But, here's the rub...this is where the game designers made a major fubar: where in the rule as given by the in-game VO narration, does it say you have to consider the artwork that is on the token? The game offers zero rules/instructions about that! (even though it needs to).

In other words, the instructions mislead the player by making it sound as if the artwork on the tokens is totally irrelevant to the rules of the game...even though in actual fact, the artwork is not irrelevant.

Hence, this is a huge problem, because it's an example of highly defective communication from the part of the game to the player.

And another problem with the in-game instruction, is that it does not make clear whether or not the player needs to consider diagonal lines as "rows." I've learned from watching the other player's solution that, no, diagonals are not a factor that the game considers.

But I learned that only after I struggled with the puzzle for hours, in part because I was considering diagonals as counting as "rows," since reasonably, they are diagonal rows.

Note: it is possible to solve this puzzle without having more than 2 symbols in any diagonal row, but doing that causes completely unnecessary extra stress/work for the player.

Except most players won't know they are undergoing extra stress/work, due to the game failing to make clear whether or not diagonals are a factor (hence a lot/most players will assume they are, even though they aren't).

Finally, even though I've solved this puzzle, I'd like to see someone please provide a comprehensive explanation of all of the rules of the game in clear simple language that anyone can understand.

As far as I can tell, currently there is no such thing that exists anywhere on the internet. The game itself certainly doesn't provide that either.

If someone does provide a proper explanation, then in future, other players will find this thread via google, and benefit from the rules being explained properly for the first time ever.

And that will enable them to solve the puzzle for themselves, rather than being forced to be stuck on it forever or use the game's bypass function or copy someone else's solution.

[Triosek]

Thanks for help. Tex's explanation was very scarce.

The task is to match Pharaoh with Anubis symbols in rows and columns. Diagonals do not matter. When you know that, Tex's hint that "the goal is not to have more than two symbols in each row and column" becomes unnecessary. Btw. there's more than one solution.

[lukasb]

Well done, Triosek.

Originally posted by Triosek:

The task is to match Pharaoh with Anubis symbols in rows and columns. Diagonals do not matter. When you know that, Tex's hint that "the goal is not to have more than two symbols in each row and column" becomes unnecessary. Btw. there's more than one solution.

Following these instructions I solved the puzzle in about 20 seconds. I had been running around looking for clues for quite a while. I had completely forgotten about the hint system, but as I have learned from this thread, it wouldn't have been to much help.