Which puzzles did you find hardest in the base game?

[YhofChaerkh]

I first tried the game in 2021 and really bounced hard off it. I'm playing through again in 2025, making sparing use of a spoiler-lite walkthrough, and I'm enjoying the game's complex design (while also being honest that my brain can't figure most of them out!).

Which bits stonewalled you the most when you played?

For me, these were key parts that I missed:
1. Timber Hearth: possibly because the game urges you to lift off and go to space, I didn't explore Timber Hearth thoroughly in my first runthrough. In second runthrough, I naturally explored it more thoroughly and found some very important lore about the Nomai, especially at the mines about quantum material. There's a cute Nomai bit in the geysers where they meet the Heartheans' early evolutionary ancestors.

2. Ash Twin and Ember Twin. This was my next planet to explore, which was probably a mistake because it's much more time sensitive and geographically complex. I was able to explore everything, but I missed the importance of the High Energy Lab, possibly because I didn't correctly place a White Hole shard with a Black Hole shard because I missed the visual clue between them, so the experiment didn't work. I never figured out how to use the teleportation towers for whatever reason. The underground complex features a very annoying platforming bit where you need to boost jump against the flow of a sand river and the game arbitrarily makes several apparent safe platforms actually unsafe, causing you to slide off if you try to use them as stepping stones. This feature made me suspect that this was the dev's gentle way of saying "this is not a viable solution to this puzzle and you are pursuing an incorrect lead", so there was no way I would have completed this without looking at a guide and realizing it was actually doable.

2a. White Hole Station: For some unknown reason, I completely overlooked the very important lesson that the Nomai towers ALL can use the "look up at a certain time in their cycle to teleport to a planet" power. This feature is very clearly signposted in the Tower's explanatory script, but I guess I read it once and never internalized it. Had I done so, then I could have reached one of the key bits I missed in part 3. below. This one was 100% on me though.

3. Brittle Hollow: I visited this second after the Twins, which was probably also my mistake because it's another time sensitive and geographically VERY complex area. In my first runthrough I never reached Black Hole Forge and never figured out how to access Tower of Quantum Knowledge. Reaching the Southern Observatory involved a very annoying platforming bit, where the game arbitrarily allows you to boost jump from floor to ceiling via gravity crystals but only in one location on the path - attempting to do this at any of the other apparently-identical locations on that path segment invariably results in a fall and a very tedious back-trek to retry. This had a similar effect to the Twin underground maze platforming bit, above, in that it created an ambiguous "is the dev telling me that I should give up" message.

4. Dark Bramble: By the time I visited this in the first runthrough, I had entirely run out of patience with the game (having put about 30+ hours into it by this point) and I abandoned the attempt immediately. Even in my second current runthrough, I'm leaving this till last because I don't have a gamepad controller yet.

5. Giant's Deep: This was one of the last heavenly bodies I explored in the first runthrough, and I was mentally exhausted and unable to focus, so I didn't make much progress. In the second runthrough, I consider this to be the easiest and most welcoming world to explore. There is no time limit and the geography is constant, allowing you to explore freely. In the first runthrough, I never even attempted to land on the orbital, since I'd already learned from the Sun Station that this was extremely difficult. Luckily in the second runthrough I had unlearned that lesson of unnecessary adversity and did much more exploration. One big benefit was that I figured out how to get into the workshop from underneath the water, and I had also organically found the solution to the retrograde cyclone. However, because I made no progress in point 4. above, I still had not organically discovered the clue about the jellyfish. Even knowing that clue, I found the actual practice of executing it to be another annoying platform-y (or "movement-pedantic") sequence which killed me a few times before I completed it properly. If I hadn't looked up the solution and known it could have worked already, I would quite possibly have interpreted this as a designer message of "you're on the wrong track".

6. Interloper and the secret heavenly body: I presumably had read the Hearth notices about Ghost Matter and the camera, but I hadn't internalized that message. As a result, in my first runthrough, the Ghost Matter crystals were a constant source of anxiety because I had no way of judging their actual lethal range. (And the game's placement of the physical crystals themselves is a bit flexible with regards to the actual death zones.) In the first runthrough, I had seen the wandering body around, but could never land on it. In my current runthrough, I was able to land on it, but could not manipulate the shrine to spawn at the north pole because each version of the Moon had terrain features that blocked progress to the north. I had to look up the solution to get to the goal.

Basically, on the first runthrough, I gave up at 41 hours in, and I had zero information about the bunker beneath Ember Twin, and essentially minimal information about the Quantum Moon and the Nomai ship. I had partially explored the White Hole time anomaly but I walked past the Black hole and White hole experiment, as well as missing much of the solution text about the cyclones and the towers.

I'm playing the game with more frequent recourse to a walkthrough now, since the puzzle solving is evidently not my strong point. I'm loving the plot and the characterizations (especially the scientifically curious and friendly posts by the Nomai), and the central message of acceptance (even of harsh truths) really resonates with me.

[Perseus]

Personally, they were :
-Finding the "dry lakebed at the north pole". That wasn't even a puzzle, for some reason i just didn't understand what it was referring to for a while.

-Getting inside of Brittle Hollow's Tower of Quantum Knowledge. I know i failed to reach it for a while, but i don't remember for how much time i struggled with it specifically.

-Reaching the ATP. There were a lot fewer clues back then, which made the puzzle a lot harder. I ended up "solving" it through persistence. Even afterwards it took me a bit to figure out how to repeat consistently worked.

Originally posted by YhofChaerkh:

The underground complex features a very annoying platforming bit where you need to boost jump against the flow of a sand river and the game arbitrarily makes several apparent safe platforms actually unsafe, causing you to slide off if you try to use them as stepping stones. This feature made me suspect that this was the dev's gentle way of saying "this is not a viable solution to this puzzle and you are pursuing an incorrect lead", so there was no way I would have completed this without looking at a guide and realizing it was actually doable.

I'm pretty sure the platforms are all safe, but that the sand current can make you fall off them if you get too close.

Originally posted by YhofChaerkh:

4. Dark Bramble: By the time I visited this in the first runthrough, I had entirely run out of patience with the game (having put about 30+ hours into it by this point) and I abandoned the attempt immediately. Even in my second current runthrough, I'm leaving this till last because I don't have a gamepad controller yet.

(Side note: Controller isn't required for anything, and won't make anything easier unless you prefer it to keyboard + mouse. "Controller recommended" messages have never been objective ever.)

[Andrés]

THE EYE COORDINATES OMG I was in the ship, and when the thing where you 'write' the coordinates lifted up i was so confused, i thought i had to connect all the points, the loop ended and i inmediately went back to the ship, then i saw a video and the guy showed a strange signs in a paper. I tought 'Maybe im stupid, maybe I didnt figured out and u can get the coordinates by yourself just reading something' So i just put the coordinates that the guy showed, but I didnt get the trophy for the ship log, so I searched where to 'create' the eye coordinates, I never thought that i had to go inside a electrical jellyfish (i hadn't found the dead jellyfish in dark bramble yet) . I felt SO stupid after that, the clues were right there (The probe orbital cannon)

[Bobywan]

For me that was the quantum moon 6th location, I did not notice that different version of the quantum moon had were blocking the north part differently.
And the ATP, I did not notice that the teleporting tower was actually working at the same exact moment the sand column was over you.
I also got spoiled the blind anglerfish before I figured out how to reach the fossile.

[YhofChaerkh]

I've ended my second runthrough at 80 hours' total playtime (probably about 37 hours in the second ruthrough). I cannot solve the problems effectively, and a lot of the fun is taken out by both trying/failing on my own, as well as looking up walkthroughs.

I am not a good fit for this game.

Further "hard stuck" areas for me:

7. Interloper: this is hard to approach, because the autopilot tends to kill you if you use it without adjustment. Once you're on the asteroid, you have a narrow window of time for the ice to melt before it refreezes - if you're in the wrong part of the asteroid, you might miss your chance while looking for it. Inside, there's a lot of binary insta-kill areas which you have to navigate with slippery footing while scanning with your camera. I tried the various tunnels and died repeatedly, eventually looking up the one correct pathway rather than restart and go through the space flight and hidden entrance again.

8. Dark Bramble: this planet has a highly counterintuitive (but helpful and generous, gamewise) mechanic: your momentum, direction, and velocity are all reset to a specific constant value every time you go through a light warp. This fact is never advertised in any clue, and it makes one area much simpler if you understand it. Despite the highly dangerous environment, I was able to figure out most of the "where do I go next and how do I figure it out?" challenges on my own, which was unusual. The final clue in this area is a bit out of place, but does make Giant's Deep much simpler (as point 5. in my earlier post).

9. Sun Station: even after I learned the power of the teleportation towers on Ash Twin, this puzzle was a perfect storm of negative gameplay design for me. Its solution requires you to visit the Sun Tower on Ash Twin, wait until the sands barely reveal the entrance, then run through the rapidly-lowering sand level to navigate the cactus obstacles before the sand lowers too far. Each separate element felt like highly antagonistic design, working against the player: First, you need to wait quite some time until the relevant geography clears your path for you. Second, you have to be in the right place at the right time, as the solution to the obstacle is very time sensitive. Third, you have one shot at the solution, and if you fail to follow the designer's expected route, you're very likely forced to restart (if not outright killed). Failure in any one of these factors, means that the player may have hit upon the right idea, but is now facing an uphill battle of "does this failure mean I just need to try harder and refine my approach? or does it mean that I'm entirely off course?"

10. Secure location: the warp core chamber on Ash Twin was the final straw for my patience, as the mechanics of getting there were specifically counteracted by another well-established physics mechanics in the opposite direction. This was one of the last barriers, as I had found out where I need to take this item, and also what further information I need to submit after doing so.

They say there are two types of mindset: the "fixed" mindset and the "growth" mindset. The "fixed" mindset treats cryptic obstacles and challenges as mounting evidence of one's own lack of abilities, and tends to get discouraged thinking "these are here to get in my way". The "growth" mindset treats them as stepping stones to growth and improvement, thinking that "these are here to be solved".

The game's narrative, plot, aesthetics, and characters are all very positive and edifying - clearly encouraging the player to adopt the same "growth" mindset of the fearless Heartheans and the intrepid Nomai. The journals and notes they leave behind are charming in their devotion to scientific thinking, and feature a wry humor in the personalities of fellow explorers.

However, if the player hasn't already adopted that growth outlook on their own before picking this game up, then the puzzles are not likely to be a source of comfort or satisfaction. This is a very demanding game, like a networking of interconnected puzzles each with its own expected "one true solution". (A very few puzzles can be brute-forced, although the amount of time it takes for a player to figure these obscure methods is truly baffling.)

If the player is of a "fixed" mindset coming into this game, even if they are trying consciously to change this mindset, then this game is unlikely to help. A "delicate web of puzzles" is still, at heart, a series of one-true-solution challenges, and without a Spoiler-safe walkthrough the game can become a bit of a chore.

I wish I could have liked this game.

[Flan]

Quantum moon, I did that thing where you figure out a puzzle and then execute it very slightly "wrong" so you keep avoiding the solution for hours after it because you think the right way is actually not the right way.
Special runner up for the quantum forge which the first time I did I decided I'll reach with my pro super mario skills instead of looking for the right way.

[Poro]

None!!!!....Im just THAT GUY

[Quillithe]

Awkwardly I had a hard time getting to the black hole forge.

Even though the solution is in plain sight and I figured out the similar, less obvious ones first.

And I'm not pro gamer enough to do it with a ship like some people have done

[Brma]

My "solution" to brittle hollow, which I found by chance was went and hung out trying to get in at the base of it where the broken walkway up is. Then eventually it falls into the black hole and you can jet pack in

[Quillithe]

Originally posted by Brma:

My "solution" to brittle hollow, which I found by chance was went and hung out trying to get in at the base of it where the broken walkway up is. Then eventually it falls into the black hole and you can jet pack in

That's definitely the intended solution

[Brma]

Originally posted by Quillithe:

Originally posted by Brma:

My "solution" to brittle hollow, which I found by chance was went and hung out trying to get in at the base of it where the broken walkway up is. Then eventually it falls into the black hole and you can jet pack in

That's definitely the intended solution

Ah. Good to know. I assumed I got there late and broke the entrance. I surprisingly made it through brittle hollow quick and never went back. I hate that place.

[Songbird]

Originally posted by YhofChaerkh:

7. Interloper: this is hard to approach, because the autopilot tends to kill you if you use it without adjustment. Once you're on the asteroid, you have a narrow window of time for the ice to melt before it refreezes - if you're in the wrong part of the asteroid, you might miss your chance while looking for it. Inside, there's a lot of binary insta-kill areas which you have to navigate with slippery footing while scanning with your camera. I tried the various tunnels and died repeatedly, eventually looking up the one correct pathway rather than restart and go through the space flight and hidden entrance again.

8. Dark Bramble: this planet has a highly counterintuitive (but helpful and generous, gamewise) mechanic: your momentum, direction, and velocity are all reset to a specific constant value every time you go through a light warp. This fact is never advertised in any clue, and it makes one area much simpler if you understand it. Despite the highly dangerous environment, I was able to figure out most of the "where do I go next and how do I figure it out?" challenges on my own, which was unusual. The final clue in this area is a bit out of place, but does make Giant's Deep much simpler (as point 5. in my earlier post).

10. Secure location: the warp core chamber on Ash Twin was the final straw for my patience, as the mechanics of getting there were specifically counteracted by another well-established physics mechanics in the opposite direction. This was one of the last barriers, as I had found out where I need to take this item, and also what further information I need to submit after doing so.

7: You can fire the scout. The tunnels are clearly designed to make turning around or trying to check yourself highly infeasible.

8: Even if you don't know this, you know not to make noise with the engines, and that gets you through whether you don't use them at all or use them very slightly.

10. If you read that you need the center point between the twins overhead, and you deduce that this means the sandfall, then it's clear that that's when you need to go. It will of course take a few attempts to figure out how to touch the warp during that window, but since you're actively trying to do it, there's only so many things to try.

[YhofChaerkh]

Originally posted by Songbird:

It will of course take a few attempts to figure out how [...], but since you're actively trying to do it, there's only so many things to try.

This abbreviated sentence perfectly sums up the well-matched player's experience with this game.

Sadly, I put 43 hours, then 37 hours after a restart, into this game. I still needed to refer to a walkthrough maybe a dozen times to make it work. I've heard of people figuring out the whole game by themselves within 30 hours total, and I can't even imagine how I would do that.

I guess my brain just never clicked with it.

[Brma]

To answer the question the hardest puzzle for me was The vessel I didn't know you could move the ball up in the middle to draw lol so I kept sliding it back and forth and couldn't figure it out.

[Iso Koala]

The Quantum Knowledge Tower was pretty bad, in the end the solution was easy, just staying there long enough in the loop, but I always hurried to the area so I could spend more time to solving it early on.

I spent a long time getting on the Quantum moon too, since I while I understood the idea that I need to have picture of it to land on it, I was being wayyyy too complex in the way I do it. I put my scout on the quantum moon locator on ash twins, so that scout would track on it when the locator points at it. Then I would go to the nomai shuttle in attempt to use it to land on it. I tried many many times this way but wasnt succesfull landing it, even though it apparently is possible. Then I tried simpler way with my own ship and it worked immediately. Pffft. I liked my solution better!

Btw. I dont think there is any reason to use spoiler marks after the 1st post in topics like this (for any game), since topic already says that this is a spoiler topic, it just makes reading messages cumbersome when theyre all blacked out, even though obviously anyone who clicks topic like this has played all the game or doesnt care about getting spoiled about everything.

[Perseus]

Originally posted by Iso Koala:

Btw. I dont think there is any reason to use spoiler marks after the 1st post in topics like this (for any game), since topic already says that this is a spoiler topic, it just makes reading messages cumbersome when theyre all blacked out, even though obviously anyone who clicks topic like this has played all the game or doesnt care about getting spoiled about everything.

There is a reason. Someone (like OP when they made this topic) might want to post about puzzles they've struggled with even if they haven't necessarily finished the game themselves.
Sure, doing so inherently carries the risk of getting spoiled, but there's almost no reason not to spoiler tag something, especially when the alternative carries the risk of spoiling someone who might have made a small mistake and opened a topic like this one.