pressure plate puzzle

[Taragonra]

Is there an ideal route to get this one? Been having a lot of trouble with it

[stephfior]

There are two pressure plates that are the end points as they don’t have Lilly pads connecting them…pick one of those as your start and follow it around the pond

[Vaygrim🔥]

I think maybe there should be a few more hints about this in game, perhaps?

[krakozjabra]

You just need to jump quickly to activate the plates, taking the shortest route. Jump to the ground if there are no leaves or the path is too long.

[/dev/NULL>skydart]

I just found and tried out that puzzle... this one might break me, respectively being the end of my try to end the game with all things unlocked. Timed puzzles are just bad luck, when being on the older end of the gaming family. Double so, when they are jumping puzzles and there is no indicator on how much time is left. Is it from plate to plate? Is it for the puzzle as a whole? No way to know... and some leaves are just far enough from each other, so that one can easily land in the water, when not hitting the jump point and speed correctly. That is a bit sad, but well - back to building houses, I guess.

[Taragonra]

Originally posted by /dev/NULL>skydart:

I just found and tried out that puzzle... this one might break me, respectively being the end of my try to end the game with all things unlocked. Timed puzzles are just bad luck, when being on the older end of the gaming family. Double so, when they are jumping puzzles and there is no indicator on how much time is left. Is it from plate to plate? Is it for the puzzle as a whole? No way to know... and some leaves are just far enough from each other, so that one can easily land in the water, when not hitting the jump point and speed correctly. That is a bit sad, but well - back to building houses, I guess.

I came back to it later with the spring shoes and the glider. Much easier with those.

[/dev/NULL>skydart]

Originally posted by Taragonra:

Originally posted by /dev/NULL>skydart:

I just found and tried out that puzzle... this one might break me, respectively being the end of my try to end the game with all things unlocked. Timed puzzles are just bad luck, when being on the older end of the gaming family. Double so, when they are jumping puzzles and there is no indicator on how much time is left. Is it from plate to plate? Is it for the puzzle as a whole? No way to know... and some leaves are just far enough from each other, so that one can easily land in the water, when not hitting the jump point and speed correctly. That is a bit sad, but well - back to building houses, I guess.

I came back to it later with the spring shoes and the glider. Much easier with those.

Ahhh - very good point! Thank you very much - good idea, I will do the same :)

[/dev/NULL>skydart]

Well, back to this puzzle, with both things in my possession... still seemingly too slow for it.
Please consider at least add a visual cue for the timer. And possibly add the possibly to raise the timer a bit.

I found out that seemingly it needs to be done in 30 seconds. Which means it needs a near-perfect run, no errors or slowdown allowed. Please consider the option to defuse this a bit...

[bolte]

I agree with skydart, and will go one step further: timed puzzles don't belong in cozy, casual games. They are a jarring, disruptive element that simply does not fit with the genre.

Rule 1: No timed puzzles in cozy, casual games. Go with an alternative, such as color coded puzzles where plates need to be activated in the right order, for example.

Rule 2: If the developer's 'artistic vision' (you can't see me, but I'm rolling my eyes), requires timed puzzles, they should not be part of the critical path. They can be used to earn achievements or non-functional bling, such as fur colors or, say, hot pants, but must not be required to finish the game.

Rule 3: If still determined to have timed puzzles and make them part of the critical path, either add a difficulty level that turns off timers and damage, or make the timed puzzle self-adjusting based on failure count.
For example, if someone has hit the pressure plate 10 times and still hasn't gotten the golden acorn, you can safely say you have a needlessly frustrated gamer on your hands. Start increasing the timer automatically until the gamer has the needed time, even if it's 10 minutes. This is a better design, but see Rule 1.

As far as Squirreled Away goes, the timed pressure plates are a bad call. So is the weed-whacking minigame. Taking damage from hedgehogs and thorn bushes is simply unnecessary. The bulldog is probably a mistake too.

I enjoyed the dog personally (stink-bombing him didn't require twitchy reflexes), but I recognize when something's amiss in a game's design. In this case it would be wise to add a setting to make the dog affectionate and non-disruptive, or again, make him self-adjusting, such that getting bit too many times causes the dog to simply walk off and leave you alone.

Squirreled Away is just a few tweaks from greatness.

[EmilyHunter]

Originally posted by bolte:

I agree with skydart, and will go one step further: timed puzzles don't belong in cozy, casual games. They are a jarring, disruptive element that simply does not fit with the genre.

Rule 1: No timed puzzles in cozy, casual games. Go with an alternative, such as color coded puzzles where plates need to be activated in the right order, for example.

Rule 2: If the developer's 'artistic vision' (you can't see me, but I'm rolling my eyes), requires timed puzzles, they should not be part of the critical path. They can be used to earn achievements or non-functional bling, such as fur colors or, say, hot pants, but must not be required to finish the game.

Rule 3: If still determined to have timed puzzles and make them part of the critical path, either add a difficulty level that turns off timers and damage, or make the timed puzzle self-adjusting based on failure count.
For example, if someone has hit the pressure plate 10 times and still hasn't gotten the golden acorn, you can safely say you have a needlessly frustrated gamer on your hands. Start increasing the timer automatically until the gamer has the needed time, even if it's 10 minutes. This is a better design, but see Rule 1.

As far as Squirreled Away goes, the timed pressure plates are a bad call. So is the weed-whacking minigame. Taking damage from hedgehogs and thorn bushes is simply unnecessary. The bulldog is probably a mistake too.

I enjoyed the dog personally (stink-bombing him didn't require twitchy reflexes), but I recognize when something's amiss in a game's design. In this case it would be wise to add a setting to make the dog affectionate and non-disruptive, or again, make him self-adjusting, such that getting bit too many times causes the dog to simply walk off and leave you alone.

Squirreled Away is just a few tweaks from greatness.

Amen to that.

I have all Acorns except for the pressure plate one and for now I have resigned to the thought that I won't be able to complete the game because I'm horrendously bad at such puzzles.

I absolutely agree with bolte, such a task seems completely out of place in this game. Same goes, by the way, for the acorns that jump up to a roof (the one that goes on the roof of the café and then there was one in the Japanese themed area). Especially the café one frustrated me to no end and took me several tries.