Ancient Dam solutions (spoilers)

[rainwarrior]

There was a lot of discussion of this particular puzzle in the "how many sausages" thread, so I thought I'd collect different solutions here.

Sendow's "intended" solution, returns from the grill by walking along the top of the dam:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LMaSp1s3E4I

Sendow's "weird" solution, returns from the grill by walking through the dam:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=29TrkH-rNpA

My own solution, returns from the grill without the dam by rotating the sausage:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tSo9CeHGcPk


I think the "intended" solution does look the most natural, since it makes use of all of the puzzle, especially walking on top of the dam. My own looks a bit convoluted with all the extra work involved in the rotation, and the dam's only function is to lift a sausage through the hole; otherwise I have to put it aside.

[Feep]

I *just* finished this level, the "intended" way.

I actually experimented with your own solution *first*, but I couldn't find a way to unrotate the sausage. Clever use of a blockade to un-skewer the horizontal sausage on the ledge.

The weird solution is *nuts*.

I think this is one of the only puzzles in the game with multiple solutions, or at least multiple solutions that differ significantly. Normally, the game's puzzles are so tight that there exists only one valid path to success.

[szendont]

Awesome, I would have never thought of unrotating the sausage after cooking that way.
It's interesting how both unintended solutions depend on doing a 180° rotation on the pillar(?) on the left, so simply placing a block there[i.imgur.com] would break both.

[rainwarrior]

I don't think there'd be value in preventing the two variant solutions. Only unintended easy solutions are really a problem, and these are both "harder", I think. Meaningful variations like this are good!

Also I don't think my solution required that spot to manipulate the sausage. I could have pushed it onto the second sausage and rotated it from there. The critical point, though, is pulling that sausage off the fork up there, so there probably is something that could be placed in that vicinity to prevent it, if so inclined.

[bennett]

Huh. I solved it by walking through the dam, never occurred to me that this was weird. But I agree, it does seem from the placement of the ladder as though the walk-across-the-top solution was the intended one.

[Nounverber]

I just solved it, using yet another completely different solution. Do you want me to make a video? Not sure I can replicate it though.

Edit:
Solution 1 uses both sausages next to each other in addition to the dam to lock the sausages in place so you can walk over them. The big trick is do it in a way that you can pick thm back up once you are on the lower level without losing the dam.
Solution 2 uses the dam as an elevator to get back to the lower level.

I can't figure out how to embed videos like rainwarrior did.

[szendont]

Wow, nice solutions.
The first one is quite similar to what I was trying to do when I was stuck on the level. (But I didn't figure out I could get the sausages stuck like that).
And the elevator trick is just simply amazing, I had to rewatch that part to figure out what happened :)

As for embedding I think you just have to write the video url on its own line (just the url, no formatting/markup tags) and Steam will recognize it and display it as a widget.

[Nounverber]

Originally posted by sendow:

As for embedding I think you just have to write the video url on its own line (just the url, no formatting/markup tags) and Steam will recognize it and display it as a widget.

I tried that, it doesn't work...

[szendont]

Originally posted by Dr. Mario:

Originally posted by sendow:

As for embedding I think you just have to write the video url on its own line (just the url, no formatting/markup tags) and Steam will recognize it and display it as a widget.

I tried that, it doesn't work...

Works fine for me:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ggU29FfZEus
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U4VDqroSzI4
You have to use the regular url (the /watch?v= one), not the embed one.

[Nounverber]

That was it. I was using the embed url and it would just become a link.

[Tricky Joe]

Some fascinating solutions here; thanks all. I initially tried the level with a pre-rotated sausage but of course I lost the dam, and couldn't rotate the other one. Eventually I spotted the dam-lifting spot; both returns were variants of the "intended" solution although in each case I used different techniques to get the dam positioned properly.

It's funny that a level that seemed absolutely impossible at first should have so many ways to solve it in the end.

[szendont]

Originally posted by Tricky Joe:

Some fascinating solutions here; thanks all. I initially tried the level with a pre-rotated sausage but of course I lost the dam, and couldn't rotate the other one. Eventually I spotted the dam-lifting spot; both returns were variants of the "intended" solution although in each case I used different techniques to get the dam positioned properly.

It's funny that a level that seemed absolutely impossible at first should have so many ways to solve it in the end.

I feel like the amount of solutions is the reason it seems impossible at first.
When you're trying to solve the level you discover several movement patterns that seem to be helpful. But chaining them together to a complete solution doesn't work since they're from different solutions.

[Tricky Joe]

For me, the feeling of impossibility was simply because I didn't think to lift the dam on the rear ladder. Until that point, I was just thinking that I couldn't lift a vertical sausage on those ladders, and was completely stuck.

[the grouse]

Crazy. Finished the game and am looking back thru all the old discussions. My solution was very similar to the 3rd one and the puzzle felt weird to me. Seemed like it had a red herring with the whole platform/ladder on the right.

Glad to see that was not the case. The intended solution is much more pleasing, but I do get a little satisfaction from "outsmarting" stephen and the game-- though I realize he surely knew of this variant (or had it pointed out by testers)

[Simbabbad]

I just completed this puzzle and I'm amazed that my solution isn't in any of the three videos. Mine was a variant of the "intended" solution, with significant differences. It's really interesting to see there are quite many ways to solve puzzles. What a brilliant game.

[Probable Cauze]

Just beat ancient dam after working on it for over a day on and off and my solution was different from all the videos in this thread! I'm pretty sure I couldn't replicate it again. It involved moving the dam to the other side of the gap, but I never had to stack 2 sausages like all the other videos that move the dam across the gap. I had to do a lot of finessing to reinsert the grilled sausage into the hole in the dam, then ride the dam back across the gap and repeat the process with the other sausage.

While I was working on this puzzle, I could tell it was much "looser" than most puzzles. The sheer number of moves available at the beginning is overwhelming, and it doesn't surprise me that it turns out to have many very different solutions. I wonder if this was intentional. Most of the game is so tightly designed until this puzzle, I can't help but wonder if the design of this puzzle is unfinished/unintended. I certainly much prefer the tightly designed puzzles, myself.