Concealing Information is part of the difficulty?

[TautNerve]

[Possible Game Mechanics Spoilers!]
~~~
Hey there, love the game so far.
I have a question though, I assume that knowing the state of your sausages throughout a puzzle is a key factor of being able to complete it. However, at times it is not possible to know if a side that is facing down is cooked or not.

Here is an example:
http://imgur.com/f3UzaXD

Obviously we can see that the lower half (facing down) is not cooked.
But, is the top half (facing down) of the marked sausage cooked or not?
You can not tell, unless I am missing something?

Sometimes I am really focused on some aspects of the puzzle that I kind of lose track of that, as far as I can remember this state is the most troublesome but perhaps there are other states in which you can not visibly see the state of a certain sausage area.

The only way for me to make sure is to either undo a few times to see it in previous states, or flip it in order to see. This potentially throws you off of your current 'zen', if you understand what I mean. Sometimes you are busy working with a couple of other sausages, and suddenly need to return to that troublesome one, and it is quite difficult to remember what's up.

One could say that this is my problem, this is a difficult game after all and I should keep track of the sausages at all times. This is true, the game is difficult, but I do not think that concealing this type of information is part of the core gameplay of a game like this, where you should be focused on the puzzle and the solution process.

This is sort of a general question to people, have you found yourself having an issue with this?
Am I spoiled? Or perhaps do you agree with me. Maybe I'm just missing some visual queue?
Also, this can be sort of an open question to the developer, as well.

P.S: The top half (facing down) in the above picture is not cooked.

[rainwarrior]

No, I don't find it an issue at all, really. I'm about 110 sausages into the game, and I think I have probably forgotten what's on the hidden quarter of a sausage maybe once or twice, but it's never been a significant problem. You already said it yourself: just give it a roll and undo.

Maybe I don't understand what you mean by 'zen'. If anything I do think it's fun that there's a hidden quadrant, the (mild) threat of forgetting keeps me on my toes.

[increpare]

Yeah, that's a fair analysis (given your experience).

What's a good way to show it though? It's a tricky problem! I could tilt the camera to the side to make it more isometric, but then suddenly the controls become slightly more awkward maybe (because up is no longer up it's up-and-left) and visibility-behind-walls becomes worse. If there was a simple way to show the states of all sausages, then I'd be fine with that.


If you moved a bit to the left you maybe could see the side with the camera, maybe.

http://imgur.com/9Dr2Tbw

anyway, yeah. camera/visibility issues are, I think often a thorny thing with 3d puzzle games (at least in my experience). puzzles lend themselves to omniscience, which is much easier to get in 2d than 3d.

maybe you'll get used to it eventually, though.

[Gerald]

Yeah, I don't mind the "invisible quarter" either. Getting that sudden "burnt" screen after double-grilling it is part of the fun :)
Also I think it's unavoidable for that sausage part to be not visible, given the game's viewing angle.
You'd have to alter the view at least a few degrees, which would make the rest of the grid be a lot less readable.

Edit: too slow. What the dev said :)

[increpare]

Also, if you think the problem is bad with an arial camera, you should have seen the first-person joke version - you don't realize how much of the game is spent walking backwards until you've played in first person ...

[Gerald]

Although a small tilt left or right upon pressing q/e or the triggers on the gamepad would be neat.
Not a full 90 degree turn, and it would snap back upon releasing the button.

[rainwarrior]

I've occasionally wondered if the game has a "rotate 90 degrees" button I've been missing out on, though every puzzle I've seen has been careful not to hide anything behind something.

The closest I've seen is a curious little "jail" underneath the world sausage at the end of the 4th island, but it seemed to be inconsequential.

[TautNerve]

Yeah, didn't think about suggesting a solution, just wanted to see what the general thinking is.
I agree with Gerald that that sudden burnt is part of the charm, but it could be nice to have a small camera angle tilt when pressing a certain button/s.
Maybe one button being held switches you from controlling the character to controlling the camera, with just small tilts, not a complete take-over.

However, I also see how part of the charm of the game is having these simple controls without too much fuss. This could be an extra thing that people can use, however, and doesn't need to be fully explored in a 'design sense' to assure familiarity by the players.

I would use it quite often though, if it was available, although I understand that this isn't something that you implement 'just like that'.
Maybe in some future patch though, would be nice.

In the meanwhile my sausage count is still going up, so I wouldn't say that this is detrimental to my experience. If it was something that critical then it would have surely came up sooner in the design / testing process.

[sire?]

As someone who is currently stuck on The Tower, I'm growing to kind of despise the limitations of the camera. I'm finding it to be very difficult to figure out what I'm looking at from the single angle.

[inappropriately_gendered_fungus]

Maybe you could have the browned texture cover more of the sausage when one side is cooked?

[increpare]

Originally posted by fungusdude4:

Maybe you could have the browned texture cover more of the sausage when one side is cooked?

that makes it more difficult to tell that the uncooked bit is uncooked

[ferruix]

Originally posted by TautNerve:

[Possible Game Mechanics Spoilers!]
Here is an example:
http://imgur.com/f3UzaXD

You can tell if the sausages are cooked by looking at the underside facing the camera. I'm currently at 137 sausages and it's never been a problem.

Here's how to tell from the screenshot in the first post: http://i.imgur.com/IhXYebu.png

Edit: Ah, you mean just the north half of the bottom of the sausage. In practice those sausages tend to be fully cooked pretty soon, and so I never forgot the state, since I was actively prodding it around.

[ManateeMonorail]

Well, VR would be the obvious solution here, then you could move your head around to see what's cooked!

[zarat.us]

Originally posted by increpare:

Originally posted by fungusdude4:

Maybe you could have the browned texture cover more of the sausage when one side is cooked?

that makes it more difficult to tell that the uncooked bit is uncooked

Have two versions of the texture, one where cooked edges over uncooked, one where uncooked edges over cooked.

When the sausage flips upside down, switch them, so that the one on top always has a bit less surface to compensate.

[increpare]

elegant proposal, zara! :)

[Bootleg Jones]

I'm thinking it might help if you allowed the player to rotate the camera in 90 degree increments, but I can also understand if that might ruin some aspect of the challenge.