Great demo, but that locker room puzzle was way too cryptic.

[Itharius]

If the locker had chalk marks with the outlines of each of the cipher pieces and the overlays always dragged on top of the background pictures, it would have made it a lot less frustrating to solve.

I hope the puzzles are a little less cryptic in the main game. I don't mind the puzzles being challenging, I'd just like to know whether I'm on the right track to solving them.

[Saegur]

if you try the door first you know that you need a 4 digit number code. there is something that explains the 4 digit order and the sizes of the clips help you to find which overlay would match. I liked this not being self solving (like thinks would stick to each other). I loved that I finally failed the first time on a puzzle. IMHO this is the right difficulty (some adventures once offered two difficulties, which could fix this problem (if it is one))

[Baron Leichtsinn]

nah, i dig. but what confused me first whas that you are supposed to use the mouse button all of a sudden....i was hitting E all over those lockers

[Space is the Place]

Maybe I´m lucky or I play too much adventure games, but the moment I saw those pages with holes I knew what I had to do. It´s quite the popular puzzle in modern adventure games.But the chalk idea is really really good, I think I played an adventure game "recently" that had a similar puzzle and markins to spell it out, couldn´t hurt to add an "easy mode" where these short of visual clues are present.

[BrownBetty Games]

Originally posted by Space is the Place:

Maybe I´m lucky or I play too much adventure games, but the moment I saw those pages with holes I knew what I had to do.

Ditto. I'm really surprised at the comments that mention this puzzle being difficult. I had the hardest time getting through the kitchen!

[EggNut]

Hello and thanks for playing Backbone!
So far, we've watched more than a 100 play throughs and each player approached this puzzle in a different way - some take a minute to solve it, and some take half an hour. It's really impossible to tailor a puzzle difficulty to everyone, because it's such an individual experience. What we want to continue doing is to give you the maximum amount of information you need to solve a puzzle. With this locker puzzle, corresponding papers with numbers and papers with holes are the same size. Holes show numbers and shapes, and there are shapes inscribed on the locker that point you to the order of the numbers in the code. It takes a while for some players to figure out, but it shouldn't be a frustrating experience if you look closer enough - that's our goal.

[Aligned Manatee]

I actually figured out the code but didn't know the order. Turns out I tried every single combination of the 4 numbers except for the right one. The last 2 symbols didn't look like the symbols shown when using the paper with holes but the first 2 symbols were very clearly correct

[JakBgoN]

I liked the puzzle a lot. I came back to the lockers 3 or 4 times before I caught on. I don't play these games too often, but I will be getting this.

[Frosty]

Funny you mention this. I just "beat" the demo, so here's my experience.

I stumbled on the locker first and solved it pretty quickly, but had no context for the information so I just let it go until I saw the keypad.

It shouldn't be too hard to figure out it's a puzzle though. The demo teaches you that you only interact with useful stuff. The fact that there's nothing "Pick Me Up" should automatically indicate it's a puzzle. The trickier part is figuring out what the order of the numbers is (because the paint marks in the corner may not be super obvious to most people, but I think it's clear enough).

Honestly it was nice to see a puzzle that doesn't hold your hand but isn't ridiculously complicated for the sake of being complicated. A nice puzzle, well done Devs.

[ImWalkingHere]

I honestly didn't have a hard time at all with the Locker Room Puzzle! Once I saw that the papers had the cut holes in them and shapes in the top left, I knew exactly what was going on there!

[Artan]

Originally posted by ImWalkingHere:

I honestly didn't have a hard time at all with the Locker Room Puzzle! Once I saw that the papers had the cut holes in them and shapes in the top left, I knew exactly what was going on there!

100% with you. If you have any background in doing puzzle games this was instantly recognisable as a cardan grille. If you know that then this is not a hard puzzle at all most people playing puzzle games will have this type of knowledge.

As such I think this was exactly the right type of puzzle the game should have!

[Leviathan]

Originally posted by QuinnMeisterGeneral:

Originally posted by ImWalkingHere:

I honestly didn't have a hard time at all with the Locker Room Puzzle! Once I saw that the papers had the cut holes in them and shapes in the top left, I knew exactly what was going on there!

100% with you. If you have any background in doing puzzle games this was instantly recognisable as a cardan grille. If you know that then this is not a hard puzzle at all most people playing puzzle games will have this type of knowledge.

As such I think this was exactly the right type of puzzle the game should have!

Without context or any puzzle experience though, it was hard to realize that the cards fit over the different papers. I don't know if I'm just retarded though or what, because once I figured it out after looking up the solution, I felt dumb. Lol

[karohemd]

The annoying thing for me was that the tiles wouldn't stay on top of each other but snap to a random location.

[The_Late_Shift]

I had no issue figuring it out there is one exit it needs 4 digit code 4 symbols on locker and 4 punch cards. I liked that it wasn't convoluted or pixel hunty like old adventure games. I mean I'm not stealing fur from a cat with masking tape stuck to a fence to make a fake mustache glued on with maple syrup to pass as my partners picture on a passport so I can get a car and go save a baby from some vampires. 90's adventure games got ridiculous.

[Flatline]

Personally, I found the puzzle to be just the right difficulty.

Of course, I felt rather foolish when I realised that the code was actually a reference to a long-running tradition dating back to System Shock 1, System Shock 2, and Deus Ex, to name but a few.

[Enfant Sauce]

I don't think the puzzle was really hard and maybe having different difficulty setting like suggested would be the way to go about this.
The only thing is, for the first number, with the subway map, the actual number was represented by the circle of a subway station. It's not a problem, it just feels a little odd with the 3 others being actual numbers, so I wasn't quite sure about this one, maybe it feels a little inconsistent, I'm not sure.