Need help on Lead-To-Gold

[Alizona]

EDIT: I found my answer in the Guides secton, specifically "How to golf your solution" explains it nicely. Thanks to whoever wrote that nice Guide!!!

Lead-To-Gold is pretty much the first "real" puzzle in the game, and I already failed it. LOL and sigh

I understand that I have to put the Lead item in one slot, and then put five of the Quicksilvers into the other slot...

...but how do I tell the "Lead" arm to sit and wait while the "Quicksilver" arm repeats five times?

There are two icons that the game has not yet explained to me: Period Override Instruction, and Repeat Instruction. I'm assuming the correct solution to this puzzle involves one of these instructions, but after a few minutes fiddling with it unsuccessfully, I came here for help.

This is not encouraging, failing the very first "easy" exercise I'm given. At least I got the game on sale so it won't be a huge waste of money. LOL But I'll keep at it I guess, I love puzzle games. Why didn't they explain all the commands, is this a "sink-or-swim" type of game?

[benrod]

Don't feel bad. I'm at the same puzzle. It seems like a "pause" command would have been nice.

[viro94]

are you making use of the [repeat] command? the mechanism automatically synchs to the arm with the longest command chain. as long as the mercury feed has orders for all 5 units it should work

[Alizona]

I didn't realize that just leaving blank spaces acts as a "pause" command. The game never explained that part very well, but I guess if they told us everything immediately, perhaps that wouldn't leave much of a mystery. :) Maybe certain things have intentionally been left unexplained as a part of the puzzle for us to try and figure out how it all works... after all, that's kind of the gist of the storyline within the game, the guy who went to school and never paid any attention until the very last minute before graduating. LOL

P.S. I also got stuck on the next puzzle as well. :-) So I suppose I ought to get used to it.

P.P.S. I bought SpaceChem a while ago, and while I did enjoy it for a while, it finally got too complex for my simple brain. Opus Magnum seems to be what people said it was - a graphically improved version of SpaceChem except they removed the area limitation on a solution. I like that change, because being limited by space restrictions was part of what I disliked about SpaceChem... so now I don't have that excuse in this game. A very good design choice in my opinion. I'm happy with my purchase, can't really go wrong for ten bucks!

[benrod]

The next puzzle (sealent) seems to require the bonding form be completely filled out even if not needed for the solution.

[Pothocket]

Originally posted by benrod:

The next puzzle (sealent) seems to require the bonding form be completely filled out even if not needed for the solution.

That doesn't sound right. If you haven't figured it out reply with a screenshot of what you're talking about and I can try to help

[benrod]

Originally posted by Pothocket:

Originally posted by benrod:

The next puzzle (sealent) seems to require the bonding form be completely filled out even if not needed for the solution.

That doesn't sound right. If you haven't figured it out reply with a screenshot of what you're talking about and I can try to help

I was incorrect. Long as one has the required number of bonds (2) everything was OK.

[Alizona]

Well I'm rolling along now, quite nicely... I even won a bunch of that Garden game!! Altho I have to say, the game feels more like dumb blind luck than anything... its not a bad game by any means, but it's also not a hugely fun game either. Basically, I don't waste more than a few seconds thinking about my strategy. I make a decision and go with it... and if my decision was wrong and I end up at a dead end, so what? Who cares, just click NEW GAME and maybe I'll get a win the next time. Repeat ad nauseum.

The puzzles proper, those are fun and challenging, altho now I realize that without the space limiations that SpaceChem imposed, each puzzle is essentially trivial to solve. There are no constraints anymore, and thus, any challenge provided by the game must come from within, it must come from our own motivation. And I just don't think I'm motivated to go back and repeat each puzzle to try and optimize my solutions. I wish I was motivated... but its never really motivated me to try and "beat the whole world" and "become the best" at any particular puzzle. I'm just looking for some fun entertainment, and Zach seems to know what I'm looking for!

[glandergan]

In the garden game, take a look at the board before you start and try to find the metals (lead, tin, etc) - there is one of each. You must match each with quicksilver in order, and it's very easy to get yourself blocked. Reveal the lead and follow this up with the tin, iron, etc.

Also, if you use the salt as a wildcard to remove an element, remember that you have to do this a second time, or you will be left with single unmatchable elements (the number remaining on the bottom help here, they show odd numbers red as a warning).

That's about all the strategy I've developed for the game, but it seems to help.