trefoilknot on 11/5/2020 at 12:59
@Urumo and prjames
A lot of those questions are interrelated (and yes, related to bonus objectives).
The key to that locked room is inside the room! You'll need to find a way onto the balcony. Nothing to rope arrow, but perhaps some other way...?
The jump to the Platonic Crystals exhibit is tricky, but can be done with normal thief mechanics. To make it a bit forgiving, you can use the diagonal strafe-run technique to get a bit more speed into the jump.
@Jack Lee- thanks! So pleased to hear that!
Swiz on 11/5/2020 at 14:03
I completely missed the poem in the wastebasket, and I'm glad my speculative attempt at a solution wasn't the right one:
I thought for a moment you might want me to melt the corpse with the LimeAway because he'd swallowed it
Calibrator on 11/5/2020 at 16:52
Finished it in 3:32 on Expert with 10,200 loot, 4 bonus goals and 6 secrets.
Lots of spoilers ahead!
I took a funny shortcut:
When using the dial in the room for the talismans my idea was to approximate the images of the seasons with the shapes.
Winter (snowflake) = WHEEL of time => a circle, obviously
Spring = GEARS => hexagon (or possibly the pentagon, but the hexagon is more "even")
Autumn = ARROW => triangle (resembling an arrowhead)
As I couldn't immediately come up with a good idea for the "sands" of Summer I simply tried all the shapes...
Of course I discovered the skies in the four paintings practically after this, combing the rooms! Ha ha!
Critique:
A terrific mission. Very well done!
Certainly a nice mix of different puzzle types which also were very fair.
At first I also thought the mission would have oodles of marble floors but it was quite tolerable.
I fully expected the security system come back to life at some point but nothing happened. Phew! ;-)
All in all a very player-friendly mission and one of my favorites of 2020.
Highlights:
- The "teleporter glasses" (it really is nothing else and if you understand this you have two puzzle solutions at hand)
- The spiral staircase. When I discovered that I was reminded of the double helix staircase in Château de Chambord!
- The opening of return ways after the player got access (keys inside, crystal exhibition gate and especially the west wing). Very player-friendly, again. ;-)
Areas of improvement:
- Many doors can't be opened. It felt a bit too linear, especially at the beginning.
- The solutions are often similar or identical (aleph stone & Menger cube // access via the facade).
- The general layout sometimes doesn't really make any sense in the real world and it sometimes felt that you wanted to give the player access (wine cellar ceiling // ventilation grids).
- And some suboptimal details:
---> The desk of Riemann with his nameplate not facing the door (or at least the sides) but the windows above the reception instead (nobody would do that in real life). And no guest chair?
---> The light switches on the wrong side of the doors (staff offices). Unrealistic and a bit annoying.
---> Why the "rewired" alarm switch? Too easy (thanks to the readable) but made no sense to me.
Stuff I missed (AFAIK):
- The object in "question 3" above and would like a stronger hint than "a lot of these questions are interrelated". :-/
trefoilknot on 11/5/2020 at 17:25
So glad you had fun, Calibrator! And I agree with many of the proposed areas for improvement. I'm learning as I go :)
I'm not sure I understand the shortcut you took, since those shapes don't correspond to the correct seasons, per your method. But it sounds like it all worked out, and you also discovered the intended approach. All-in-all, my mission is not particularly robust against brute force solutions (e.g., only 256 combos for the cube locks), but I'm not too shaken if a player uses an unconventional technique---long as it doesn't break anything; I'm not trying to make a cryptographically sound FM over here!
In terms of unopenable doors, there are very, very few. (I suppose *technically* there are countably infinitely many of them, if you include the guest room hallways). But AFAIR the only unopenable doors (excluding textures) are those in the Seasons paintings, since DromEd would have gotten real mad at me if I tried to make four copies of the entire map! Any door that frobs can be opened somehow. Some of them are trickier than others, of course.
I'll be honest, I hadn't even intended the cutoff floor in the Staff Only Area to be used as a passageway--but whatever works! I just liked the open aesthetic the cutout created, realism be taffed!
This is embarrassing, but I didn't even realize the pool cues frob :eek: It must have been inherited from their parents' properties. They serve no gameplay purpose. I'll FrobInert them for the next patch :)
Calibrator on 11/5/2020 at 18:16
With doors that can't be opened I meant the unfrobbable "texture doors". Too many of those is a bit unrealistic in a "mansion-type" mission (in a city mission it's a necessity). IMHO of course.
Thanks for answering the hint plea - I can sleep well now! ;)
trefoilknot on 11/5/2020 at 19:05
Quote Posted by Calibrator
With doors that can't be opened I meant the unfrobbable "texture doors"
I ran out of cells because I'm a wasteful builder :cheeky:
Sidori on 11/5/2020 at 19:15
Finished it on Expert last night - cleared a couple of bonus objectives and a few secrets, to boot.
My thoughts:
* A really fascinating mission, it had me glued to my seat for the 2-3 hours I played it for! :cheeky:
* The keychain and lockpicks really helped with decluttering the inventory, though I really wished there was a way to take a note of what keys we had picked up or had - perhaps a notes page that lists and updates when you pick up a key?
* I was really pleasantly surprised by the puzzles, as I found them to be neither too difficult, nor too easy - a lot of the puzzles work on [light spoilers?] a sort of 'aha!' principle, where the puzzle is first presented, and then recontextualized by a piece of information I often found soon after. It felt like a perfect balance of challenge - I especially loved realizing thatthe note to Kevel gave a reasonable 'in-universe' hint to discovering several things, although I do wish it wasn't placed so early on in the mission. Another great moment was discovering the purpose of the painting in Brouwers office - I was left with such a stupid grin on my face after I figured out how to steal the cube without getting an electric shock!
* I was really impressed by the environmental details, particularly the infinite stairs and fall. I ended up climbing those stairs just to see how far they would go, before I realized what you had done with them! I had no idea the engine could handle that, nor how you did it, but well done!
* Outside the puzzles, I felt the moment-to-moment gameplay wasn't the strongest. Others have mentioned this, but there isn't a huge amount of detail in guard patrols or the areas themselves, but it's not a huge detriment. After all, the main draw and, I believe, purpose of the mission is to provide an interesting challenge with layers of thematic detail and environmental storytelling, challenging the player to observe and pay attention.
* ENDING SPOILERS: As you had already set this up as the first part of a series, the cliffhanger ending was not surprising, but it did leave me wanting more! I desperately wanted the mission to last just a few more minutes, which I feel is a great sign for how effective this mission is as a setup. Well done! :D
Overall, I felt this was a really great mission and a perfect setup for whatever comes next - you've got me hooked on the concept, and I'm looking forward to the next chapter. :cheeky:
trefoilknot on 11/5/2020 at 20:57
Wow, I really couldn't ask for a better review- thanks, Sidori! :D
Your remark about the puzzles (that 'aha' principle) is exactly what I was striving for.
I think you'll like the next chapter, but fair warning: it could be a long ways off...
T-Linkz on 12/5/2020 at 00:22
Quote Posted by trefoilknot
Hi T-Linkz,
So glad you're enjoying it! It's quite possible you're right. Have you
moved the cubes quite a number of times, and are any of them a little crooked?If so, this is a recently discovered bug, which will be fixed momentarily. In the meantime, if you have a recent save from before you started messing with the cubes, fire that up, and enter the proper combo without a lot of extraneous button presses.
Sorry for the inconvenience :angel:
UPDATE: Issue fixed in v1.05.
The cubes now only turn right, eliminating the issue where they become crooked from repeated left turns.So i can start all over again...??
because i don`t have a save on that moment...?
trefoilknot on 12/5/2020 at 00:31
Can you PM me, T-Linkz? We can probably find a solution that will work for you, depending on how crooked the cubes became. In the initial release there was a bug whereby repeated left turns would make the cubes misaligned. (For whatever reason they would rotate 90 degrees right, and 90+a tiny bit left.) This bug is not present in v1.05 onward.
However this would only cause a problem if turned left over and over and over (which shouldn't happen in normal gameplay unless trying to brute force the solution). PM me a screenshot of the situation and I can guide you on how best to proceed. If you didn't try to brute force them open, then I think it's unlikely that this bug is the issue you're facing. I will likely have a workable solution for you, regardless.
