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The Witness |OT|

T

TheSlySoul

Member
danthefan said:
I need a hint please guys if you would, I've two lasers down and 100 ish puzzles done

I'm stuck on a red hexagon puzzle on the roof of a building in the ruined village type area. There's three hexagons on the panel. You can make out shadows from a tree for the top half of the solution but I'm just stuck for the bottom half. Any vague hints please?
Click to expand...
Remember how you tackled the desert? Pretty much same rules.

Edit: The town uses many puzzle rules from other areas, might want to save it for last.
 
F

farisr

Member
So yeah, I've started doing the "take screencaps of puzzles and work them out in photoshop" approach for the tougher ones and it's helping immensely.
 
V

Visualante2

Member
danthefan said:
I need a hint please guys if you would, I've two lasers down and 100 ish puzzles done

I'm stuck on a red hexagon puzzle on the roof of a building in the ruined village type area. There's three hexagons on the panel. You can make out shadows from a tree for the top half of the solution but I'm just stuck for the bottom half. Any vague hints please?
Click to expand...
Come back to it later.
 
D

Deadstar

Member
I feel like the grassy shadow puzzles change the rules too much without teaching you how to solve them. I'm at a puzzle now that I can't figure out and it seems similar to the ones before it. I'm obviously missing something here but I wish the game was better about giving you the tools needed to solve specific puzzles that are midway through a set.

In the beginning of the game you do a few puzzles which teach you the rules, then you use that knowledge to complete harder puzzles. There are some twists along the way but the puzzles aren't usually teaching you something totally new. Am I not approaching these puzzles in the correct way?
 
V

Visualante2

Member
danthefan said:
Hmmmmm will have another quick look and might move on then thanks. There's some puzzles in this area I've no idea how to solve yet.
Click to expand...
The town is sort of a rosetta stone if there was one in the game. It combines a lot of different techniques that you learn elsewhere. Blizzard and I were discussing it. He said because it's quite central it makes sense that you'd come back to it often. I think it was one of the weaker areas.
 
C

CarbonFire

Member
Gurrry said:
Screw it, i need another hint with the tetris blocks. I dont understand what the
set of blocks on top of eachother mean. I cant get the panel to give me any feed back no matter what i do
Click to expand...

The tetromino tutorials really don't do a great job at fully explaining their properties I'm afraid. I had to poke at those for a while before I "got" it.

With that in mind, I whipped up a different tutorial puzzle that I think describes one of their fundamental properties a little more clearly. This is not a puzzle inside the game, so no real spoilers (just for how tetrominoes work).

Puzzle
http://i.imgur.com/hk4ZfFe.jpg

Solution
http://i.imgur.com/zLFkTPB.jpg
 
R

Remembrance

Member
Visualante2 said:
I'm at 8 lasers now. Should I just go ahead and try to finish the game or keep going?

Loose ends I am aware of:
forest bird puzzles, greenhouse elevator puzzle, underground swamp puzzles, beach door, the ship door
Click to expand...

I want to say you have learned everything you need to finish the game. That said, the first three of those were
among my 7 lasers that unlocked the endgame, so I don't have experience with going there without them.
 
S

shiba5

Member
Guess I'm not getting the platinum.
That music box challenge is BS. I got pretty far and had to pause the game because I got a phone call. It turned off the music box. I'm so pissed at myself and it makes me mad just thinking about starting all over.
 
O

OceanicAir

Member
cyba89 said:
You are almost there. There is one sequence with two puzzles left after the labyrinth. You can also get a hint about the labyrinth layout and its puzzle locations earlier on.
Click to expand...

Post end game spoilers:
Well the tip about the labyrinth helped. Far better than randomly bumping into walls like I was. But holy crap I was on the second spinning pillar just about to finish when the song ended agggggghhhhhhh I had such good RPJ (random puzzle generator) . I can see why not many people will finish it. It is physically hard to do (I also love how they prevent cheating by ending the song if you pause. But I'm going to give it another shot or twelve.

Edit:
Woooooo! Finally did it!!!! I crushed it really, got a lot of good puzzles.
 
D

danthefan

Member
Visualante2 said:
The town is sort of a rosetta stone if there was one in the game. It combines a lot of different techniques that you learn elsewhere. Blizzard and I were discussing it. He said because it's quite central it makes sense that you'd come back to it often. I think it was one of the weaker areas.
Click to expand...

TheSlySoul said:
To be fair, I think it is meant to be the last area you tackle.
Click to expand...

Ok thanks guys I'll just move on. Have headed into a
castle
now, will try get through this first.
 
S

*Splinter

Member
shiba5 said:
Guess I'm not getting the platinum.
That music box challenge is BS. I got pretty far and had to pause the game because I got a phone call. It turned off the music box. I'm so pissed at myself and it makes me mad just thinking about starting all over.
Click to expand...
It's pretty tough anyway... I wouldn't expect to get it on your first try...
 
G

Gurrry

Member
What does it mean if the tetris block is turned at an angle

Edit :
does it mean it can be turned any direction?
 
A

Atrophis

Member
Into the endgame today, progress is pretty slow, the panels haven't been too difficult so far although I was completely stumped on one earlier because I hadn't fully grasped one of the properties of stars. With that out of the way I've been stuck on the second level for a while now. Really not sure how to solve this last panel in this series
the series where your solution is entered on multiple panels at once
 
U

ultron87

Member
(Approaching end game, I think, question)
If someone could just give me a yes or no answer to this that would be great: I have seven lasers and I activated the puzzle on top of the mountain. Is the puzzle on top of the mountain solvable with the two statues on top of it?
 
A

Atrophis

Member
ultron87 said:
(Approaching end game, I think, question)
If someone could just give me a yes or no answer to this that would be great: I have seven lasers and I activated the puzzle on top of the mountain. Is the puzzle on top of the mountain solvable with the two statues on top of it?
Click to expand...

Yes. The last solution took me quite a while but it's doable.
 
C

CarbonFire

Member
Gurrry said:
What does it mean if the tetris block is turned at an angle

Edit :
does it mean it can be turned any direction?
Click to expand...

It means you can
rotate
that piece. You still cannot
mirror or reconfigure the piece in any way, it must stay the same shape.
And all other rules for those pieces still apply.
 
M

mrklaw

MrArseFace
Neoweee said:
It is very possible that there may be multiple solutions, but I know one of your conjectures is wrong. It is
#2
. And I can see how being wrong about that tanks your overall strategy.
Click to expand...

Oh damn. You're right,
just enclose both shapes and the 'wrong' shape will be eliminated.
 
M

mrklaw

MrArseFace
Atrophis said:
Into the endgame today, progress is pretty slow, the panels haven't been too difficult so far although I was completely stumped on one earlier because I hadn't fully grasped one of the properties of stars. With that out of the way I've been stuck on the second level for a while now. Really not sure how to solve this last panel in this series
the series where your solution is entered on multiple panels at once
Click to expand...

its a multi stage process, don't try and do it all at once.
 
R

Remembrance

Member
ultron87 said:
(Approaching end game, I think, question)
If someone could just give me a yes or no answer to this that would be great: I have seven lasers and I activated the puzzle on top of the mountain. Is the puzzle on top of the mountain solvable with the two statues on top of it?
Click to expand...

I strongly recommend
taking as long as you need for this one. It is 100% solvable as-is, and the solution is great mental exercise for what's to come.
 
C

CAAAAAAAAAAAW

Member
Deadstar said:
In the beginning of the game you do a few puzzles which teach you the rules, then you use that knowledge to complete harder puzzles. There are some twists along the way but the puzzles aren't usually teaching you something totally new. Am I not approaching these puzzles in the correct way?
Click to expand...
Rather than teaching you rules,
many puzzles are there to show you that the rules you thought up for those types aren't always entirely correct, or aren't enveloping the entire concept
. Though some panels do introduce completely new things and you may have to encounter them elsewhere to get a better feel for how they "work."
 
M

mrklaw

MrArseFace
Mindlog said:
^^ I really liked all those puzzles.

(end game puzzle spoilers)
I also operated under the impression that one of the top right shapes couldn't be selected. That effected the shape I was trying to create since I was locked in on another aspect to the solution I wanted. Will go back and try to pick it out.

Early game mechanics.
You have to confine that piece to a space that only fits that shape.
Click to expand...

I'm pretty sure the top right one is restricted to only one?
the 4 dot L shape would have to touch two sides of the square, with a gap between. Pretty sure that's impossible to select with the start being outside.
 
S

spyder_ur

Member
I have to admit that I'm getting pretty frustrated at the game. Been at it maybe 5 hours and I think the only puzzle set I've fully completed is the
trees
, and mostly think I'm done with the area
where the wall goes down
, although the door the wire leads to doesn't seem to activate anything.

Still kind of enjoying strolling around the island, but the lack of any direction is grating me a bit. Perhaps just not my type of game.
 
R

Remembrance

Member
Atrophis said:
Into the endgame today, progress is pretty slow, the panels haven't been too difficult so far although I was completely stumped on one earlier because I hadn't fully grasped one of the properties of stars. With that out of the way I've been stuck on the second level for a while now. Really not sure how to solve this last panel in this series
the series where your solution is entered on multiple panels at once
Click to expand...

For this one a lot of people tend to
solve the first five in such a way that they have to "reverse" their solution for the last panel.
 
U

ultron87

Member
Atrophis said:
Yes. The last solution took me quite a while but it's doable.
Click to expand...

Remembrance said:
I strongly recommend
taking as long as you need for this one. It is 100% solvable as-is, and the solution is great mental exercise for what's to come.
Click to expand...

Thanks! (Approaching end game)
It felt like it was possible, but I just wanted to make sure I wasn't trying a bunch of ridiculous angles to fit lines around things if it was actually impossible and I was just missing some "remove the statues" switch.
 
G

GhaleonEB

Member
spyder_ur said:
I have to admit that I'm getting pretty frustrated at the game. Been at it maybe 5 hours and I think the only puzzle set I've fully completed is the
trees
, and mostly think I'm done with the area
where the wall goes down
, although the door the wire leads to doesn't seem to activate anything.

Still kind of enjoying strolling around the island, but the lack of any direction is grating me a bit. Perhaps just not my type of game.
Click to expand...

It was intentionally designed that way so if you get stumped, you can wander off and do other things. Every time I get stuck I go an do a bunch of puzzles elsewhere, but coming back I've gotten un-stuck from three places once I cleared my head for a bit.
 
M

Mindlog

Member
mrklaw said:
I'm pretty sure the top right one is restricted to only one?
the 4 dot L shape would have to touch two sides of the square, with a gap between. Pretty sure that's impossible to select with the start being outside.
Click to expand...
I solved it with that understanding as well.
That's possibly a hint, but since my conclusion may be faulty perhaps it isn't. I don't remember the exact layout. However, everything you said about it sounds like the thought process I used.
 
B

border

Member
I am in the treehouse area, not very far into the game. Need help:

I have come across a panel with a single white starburst/sun symbol. I have previously been
grouping starbursts by 2 according to color
but I do not know what to do with a single starburst. What is the rule?

What are the general rules for panels with tetris symbols? The only panel I've encountered them at seems impossible if the rule is just "Draw the symbol exactly as oriented".
 
K

KooopaKid

Banned
CAAAAAAAAAAAW said:
Rather than teaching you rules,
many puzzles are there to show you that the rules you thought up for those types aren't always entirely correct, or aren't enveloping the entire concept
. Though some panels do introduce completely new things and you may have to encounter them elsewhere to get a better feel for how they "work."
Click to expand...

That's a flaw in the game design IMO. From one panel to the next, you are never sure to have the knowledge to solve it. For the same set of puzzles, I shouldn't have to go somewhere else to learn more rules if the main mechanic seems to be the same.
 
S

SomeOneInaHat

Member
gtia60rqt4z7w4onnxfi.gif


Treehouse Laser acquired

border said:
I am in the treehouse area, not very far into the game. Need help:

I have come across a panel with a single white starburst/sun symbol. I have previously been
grouping starbursts by 2 according to color
but I do not know what to do with a single starburst. What is the rule?

What are the general rules for panels with tetris symbols? The only panel I've encountered them at seems impossible if the rule is just "Draw the symbol exactly as oriented".
Click to expand...

Single stars can hangout with any other color, but only one of any other color.
 
B

border

Member
KooopaKid said:
That's a flaw in the game design IMO. From one panel to the next, you are never sure to have the knowledge to solve it. For the same set of puzzles, I shouldn't have to go somewhere else to learn more rules if the main mechanic seems to be the same.
Click to expand...

I'm sure it's a point of pride for Blow that the game teaches you its rules and mechanics without tutorials or exposition, but to me it just seems like needlessly showing off. A lot of times I much would have preferred to be explicitly told how certain tile symbols work. A lot of times you can get two dozen panels into a series and have the wrong idea about what you are supposed to be doing.
 
S

spyder_ur

Member
GhaleonEB said:
It was intentionally designed that way so if you get stumped, you can wander off and do other things. Every time I get stuck I go an do a bunch of puzzles elsewhere, but coming back I've gotten un-stuck from three places once I cleared my head for a bit.
Click to expand...

Yeah I get that. Was hoping for some revelations coming back today. The problem is I'm not sure where to go exactly. I'll keep hopping around and hope something clicks. Just got to the
Greenhouse
and working on those - cool discovery there.

How do you guys know how many puzzles you've solved?

Also, the mechanic of having to go back to a previous puzzle panel if you mess up is just annoying.
 
D

Dan

No longer boycotting the Wolfenstein franchise
border said:
I'm sure it's a point of pride for Blow that the game teaches you its rules and mechanics without tutorials or exposition, but to me it just seems like needlessly showing off. A lot of times I much would have preferred to be explicitly told how certain tile symbols work. A lot of times you can get two dozen panels into a series and have the wrong idea about what you are supposed to be doing.
Click to expand...
But a big part of the game IS learning the rules. Take that away by explicitly describing the rules and that's when it becomes 'just' a puzzle game. Testing and revising your assumptions is everything to this.
 
McFadge

McFadge

Member
Just beat the game. Will need to go back and touch up puzzles I missed finished with 429 +68. My save just before the
elevator
got replaced by one with me inside it, so I guess I'll need to resolve some puzzles later.
Those cylindrical ones were tricky!

Now it's time to go find out
what those randoms panels are about. I must've found about 8 or so
, and hunt down missing
videos
.
 
C

CAAAAAAAAAAAW

Member
border said:
I'm sure it's a point of pride for Blow that the game teaches you its rules and mechanics without tutorials or exposition, but to me it just seems like needlessly showing off. A lot of times I much would have preferred to be explicitly told how certain tile symbols work. A lot of times you can get two dozen panels into a series and have the wrong idea about what you are supposed to be doing.
Click to expand...

But figuring out how things work is part of the game. And a major theme seems to be
that you don't know anything
, and
to always doubt.

McFadge said:
Just beat the game. Will need to go back and touch up puzzles I missed finished with 429 +68. My save just before the
elevator
got replaced by one with me inside it, so I guess I'll need to resolve some puzzles later.
Those cylindrical ones were tricky!
Click to expand...
If you've reloaded an even older one,
you aren't stuck in the elevator
.
 
R

RepairmanJack

Member
border said:
I'm sure it's a point of pride for Blow that the game teaches you its rules and mechanics without tutorials or exposition, but to me it just seems like needlessly showing off. A lot of times I much would have preferred to be explicitly told how certain tile symbols work. A lot of times you can get two dozen panels into a series and have the wrong idea about what you are supposed to be doing.
Click to expand...

But learning the mechanic is part of the puzzle a majority of the time. A lot of that is getting you to think you understand it because it works but then you get down the line and what you thought was working is no longer working. That is the puzzle just as much as the puzzle itself.
 
A

Atrophis

Member
Remembrance said:
For this one a lot of people tend to
solve the first five in such a way that they have to "reverse" their solution for the last panel.
Click to expand...

mrklaw said:
its a multi stage process, don't try and do it all at once.
Click to expand...

I'm playing around in mspaint as usual to help me solve it. I've gone through so many different combinations for this last panel.

I think I just need to draw up a panel with every symbol on it so I can visualise it all clearly.
 
S

*Splinter

Member
McFadge said:
Just beat the game. Will need to go back and touch up puzzles I missed finished with 429 +68. My save just before the
elevator
got replaced by one with me inside it, so I guess I'll need to resolve some puzzles later.
Those cylindrical ones were tricky!

Now it's time to go find out
what those randoms panels are about. I must've found about 8 or so
, and hunt down missing
videos
.
Click to expand...
You can escape the elevator btw
 
G

Ghostmaster

Member
So how many
lasers
are in the game?

I'm at 11, should I just go to the mountain since I have no idea which area could be left apart from it?
 
B

bigwinnerx

Member
The environmental puzzles are really fun to find. I'm hoping there are a lot of them. Anyone have a count?

edit: ay caramba, saw someone's + count above, that makes me very happy!
 
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