Help!

[angore]

The game was completed, near the Megastructure I wanted to explore the garden, I got into some kind of device and ended up in a chaos-dream from which I can’t get out, everything flickers and balls-bombs ply around, not allowing me to go anywhere, and it’s not clear where to go and why ! How can I get out of there now? Or is this a trap and a finale?))

[steve]

Originally posted by Chika Ogiue:

Checkpoints at the end of each minor area would resolve most of the issues, no matter how linear or easy it may appear. Few people, regardless of age, like repeating the same thing over an over. That's one element of old-school gaming that should be left in the past.

This is so true. This game takes 80Gb on my drive. We had to buy a brand new computer with a state-of-the-art GPU just to play it (and it still drops frames when all settings are in "ultra"). It was nine years in the making. And the year now is 2023. Adding restarts at each room is well within the reach of existing technology. It's almost as if... no, it couldn't be true that... they did this on purpose?

[steve]

Originally posted by tripbillie:

Saving Miranda is optional and you can get an ending without doing it, though as a completionist myself it would also bug me if there was a section I just couldn't do.

As far as we can tell, once you've decided to get into the device, you are committed to saving Miranda. Is there a way to get out and just skip that bit?

Of course, even if there is, your point is quite sharp: we don't buy these things to skip parts. We buy them to play. We actually said, "oh cool, the mines are back!" when we first started this horrible part of the game. But when it turned out that the "let's play chess" style of game that was TTP2 up until then was swapped for a "dance, varmint!" parkour runner (in the dark, fergawdsake!), we kind of expected a Stanley Parable button somewhere to let us skip it and get back to the real Talos Principle.

You know, I remember an indie game I played, maybe eight years back. Same thing happened. Play was all logic up to a point where you had to speed-run your way past a monster in a confusing maze. I griped online about it and, wow!, the dev added a patch where I could push F4 and the monster moved much more slowly.

One lone player had a problem and the dev just fixed it for me. Wish Croteam were like that, especially since it clearly isn't just one lone player this time.

[steve]

Originally posted by angore:

The good news is that I went through it all, tripping over this inappropriate puzzle.

How'd you do it?

[Liam Pope]

If anyone could send me a just-pre-Miranda save game file, I'd happily try to record a safe pause-run-pause walkthrough for you, as I feel sure it's possible (although I've only done it once, so could be wrong).

Or how quickly could I get there from fresh? Need to learn some speedrun techniques, but no idea where to start lol! :)

[Liam Pope]

OK I found a saved game online, and have gone through that sequence a few times.

1. Turn up brightness to max (150%) and maybe up on your monitor too. It helps a lot to make everything almost as visible as the standard levels.

2. It's 100% possible to get through it casually walking from one safe point to the next, with almost no pressure or need for fast coordinated movement.

If I can figure out how to record playing I will record you a walkthrough and put it on Youtube.

[steve]

Originally posted by Liam Pope:

OK I found a saved game online, and have gone through that sequence a few times.

1. Turn up brightness to max (150%) and maybe up on your monitor too. It helps a lot to make everything almost as visible as the standard levels.

2. It's 100% possible to get through it casually walking from one safe point to the next, with almost no pressure or need for fast coordinated movement.

If I can figure out how to record playing I will record you a walkthrough and put it on Youtube.

I would be very grateful for that walkthrough.

[steve]

On my Windows 11 machine, you can record by pressing Alt/Start/R. To stop, press Escape and then click on the stop button (you'll see the controls in the upper right of your screen).

Getting the video can be easy or it can be hard. It might just be in a folder called "Captures" in your Videos directory. If not, look in /users/<your name>/AppData/Local/Temp for a recently modified mp4 file.

[Liam Pope]

It will be done!! I'm invested in your success now! :)

I've got Win 10 so not sure if I can do that. But I've got a latest gen GPU (for this game, lol) so I'd be surprised if between the Radeon software or Steam it can't be done easily enough.

[Chika Ogiue]

Originally posted by Liam Pope:

It will be done!! I'm invested in your success now! :)

I've got Win 10 so not sure if I can do that. But I've got a latest gen GPU (for this game, lol) so I'd be surprised if between the Radeon software or Steam it can't be done easily enough.

And if that fails, there's always OBS as a free option (but it has a learning curve for setting it up). And depending on settings and your PC, TTP2 may have poor framerate in the playback. I use Bandicam myself to record the TTP2 endings as I work through them, it's better playback quality but it's also paid software.

[steve]

Windows 10 uses the same thing. It's the Xbox app, really. I have used it a lot in Windows 10. You may have to fiddle with Settings a bit, if it doesn't work right away. But when it works, it's just those keys pressed to get it going. The recordings can be a bit big, so make sure you have a gig or so to spare.

Thanks for doing this. It might help several of us.

[Liam Pope]

OK I have a video! Thanks AMD Re-live. Now just need to figure out how to get this on youtube in 1440p60. Small steps...

[Liam Pope]

OK I did it!!

Some guide notes...

Go to Brightness Calibration and set it to max (150%).

Section 1 - Just walk in a straight line at your leisure. This mine doesn't even move.

Section 2 - Just walk in a straight line when the mines are safely off to either side.

Section 3 - This is the key. I noticed there is some randomising of the positions of the two mines with respect to each other. Sometimes they are almost in sync with each other, other times one significantly lags the other. For this section to be trivial you need these two mines to be very out of sync. The ideal situation is like in my video - the right mine goes up away from you first, with the left mine going up a good distance behind. You follow the left mine up at a safe distance, then when you reach the area you can swap over to the right through the shallow pond, the right mine is already out of your way going back to the start. It's also easy if the left mine goes up first and the right mine is well behind - you follow up the right mine, swap over to the left, then you have to wait for the right mine to get on its way back to the start and go back over to the right and out. If the mines are in sync it's much harder (or almost impossible) to get past them. If you don't get the mines positioned as you want them you just have to get killed or reload. It's a restart, but sections 1 and 2 are so easy it's not a big deal.

Section 4 - Just follow this mine in at a safe distance, take a detour to the parallel path to the left (or right), wait for the mine to get on its way back to the start, then walk back into the centre path and out.

Section 5 - No pressure here, just grab the box and use it to jump over the low fence.

Section 6 - Just observe this mine and when it is safely over to the right you walk through and out to the left.

Section 7 - Final section. These mines don't even move. Just give them a wide berth and walk round them then head straight to Miranda.

Hope it helps!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A9-BMN3UUtU

[steve]

That looks nice. Thank you so much for doing this.

[Liam Pope]

Wait wait!! I've found something else!

I seem to have possibly stumbled on a glitch that massively brightens the scene to the point it's almost as clear as day. All I do is change some video settings at the beginning, and suddenly everything is brighter. Also some of the glitching effects are reduced. It will fix itself upon death/restart. May well be hardware dependent, so may or may not work for you.

I change Effects and Post Processing from Ultra to Low, but it doesn't seem to have to be exactly that change, changing back from Low to Ultra also worked (I think). It's more the act of changing something that glitches the brightness.

Here's another walkthrough with what I shall coin 'The Miranda Dream Brightness Glitch'...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UYCDEOc7hoI

[Liam Pope]

OK - bit of investigating. It is the Effects setting that needs to be adjusted. Doesn't matter what you adjust it from or to. Just adjusting it increases the brightness of the scene until next restart. Hope it works for you too!