The Great Tower

[nc0]

Thanks increpare for this awesome game.

Spoilers up to second island...

So the Great Tower, that puzzle with the huge sausage stack on the second island, throws a bunch of new mechanics at you – stacking sausages in odd ways, standing on sausages to roll them (least that's how I solved), etc. Most of the second island is about using walls to fork.

Kinda advanced level to encounter this early into the game, right? Not many games would combine that many new mechanics all at once. It was the last one I beat in the second area before advancing. When I first saw it I was like oh hell no.

Others feel the same? I actually liked that it was such a new challenge all at once, felt right for the game. Little curious about it from a game design standpoint.

[inappropriately_gendered_fungus]

I initially thought it was oddly placed in the progression, but after seeing the 3rd area it makes sense.

[Plurmorant]

It certainly can introduce many new mechanics, but solving the puzzle itself can be done without much knowledge of them.

[aliasup]

i think this and cold jag were my favorites so far. right now i'm stuck on the wretch's one in the 4th area, though, so i probably still have more intriguing things to see.

[Warp]

It's definitely an unconventional choice, which is partly what makes it so memorable - you go in expecting a boss puzzle but it turns out to be more of a preview. The scale is also misleading as once you see what to do for one section you can just keep applying it.

[Fachewa]

Yeah, the level is more about forcing you to find a solution by observing the level because the amout of sausage prevents you to just bruteforce it. It's also kind of a sandbox to let you try out interactions with the verticality, how sausage behave when they're stacked etc.

[ferruix]

The level is about being afraid of a giant tower of sausages.

[almonds]

To those have beaten the level: would you say it's significantly more harder than average or on par with the rest of the puzzles in Area 2?

Just asking because the Tower is the only puzzle I have left in the area and it's really creeping me out... I've really enjoyed the scale of the puzzles up to this point (how ingenious solutions arise from a miniscule amount of elements). But this just gives me anxiety every time I boot it up.

Basically: is it as intimidating as it looks? I see some of you have suggested it's not that bad? Guess I'm just looking for some encouragement before diving in to try some more.

[eys]

Originally posted by almonds:

To those have beaten the level: would you say it's significantly more harder than average or on par with the rest of the puzzles in Area 2?

Just asking because the Tower is the only puzzle I have left in the area and it's really creeping me out... I've really enjoyed the scale of the puzzles up to this point (how ingenious solutions arise from a miniscule amount of elements). But this just gives me anxiety every time I boot it up.

Basically: is it as intimidating as it looks? I see some of you have suggested it's not that bad? Guess I'm just looking for some encouragement before diving in to try some more.

I didn't think it was as bad as it looked. Most of my time on it was spent messing around trying stuff but once it dawned on me what I was actually suppose to be doing, solving it was pretty quick/easy.

There are future levels that look 10 times easier but are actually 10 times harder haha.

[WITCHDAGGAH!]

Originally posted by Agent Dale Cooper:

There are future levels that look 10 times easier but are actually 10 times harder haha.

Yeah. Cold frustration was a nightmare to me.

[almonds]

Thanks for the replies! Still haven't beaten the level, but I've made some progress and it doesn't seem so overwhelming anymore. I guess that is one of the points of the level – to scare you and then show that it's perfectly doable.

[domobob]

Originally posted by ferruix:

The level is about being afraid of a giant tower of sausages.

I got so discouraged at seeing the level, haven't touched it since at 2 weeks ago after trying a bit. Dark Souls feels more manageable hahaha

But seeing the people here say it's not that hard, I'll give it another go later on.

[MPO]

Thanks all. Same position.

[Chucklehead]

Great Tower was the level where I was just like "nope". Had played about 7-8 hours and just decided I do not enjoy sausage puzzles enough to put in the effort required to deal with the increased complexity. Interesting game, but not for me.

[MPO]

Yeah, totally valid friend. I pretty much had to use a guide for every puzzle at that point, so I gave up.

[tcassat]

I arrived at the Great Tower today and am thinking of quitting the game.

I haven't had much difficulty until then. I solved all the puzzles before the Great Tower in about 3 hours, which I think is not such a long time considering that the game is difficult.

But the Great Tower seemed to me a whole new level of difficulty. Reading the discussions on Steam I saw many people saying that the puzzle is simple, easy, one guy even said that it is one of the easiest in the whole game, even considering the others in the same world. I considered these comments so unrealistic that I thought I was missing something obvious, and finally decided to watch a video on Youtube... Nah, the puzzle is stupidly more complex than the previous ones.

I needed 3 hours to do everything before the tower, but I am sure I would not find the solution to this puzzle in less than 2 hours, which would make me need almost the same time as all of the approximately 20 previous puzzles.

For me the Great Tower is too cryptic, it requires the use of mechanics that the player doesn't even know exists, it requires a lot of aimless experimentation and trial and error.