Just started playing through this! I've been loving the game so far, but some of the puzzles are basically impossible to solve - setups where if you know the solution you can solve them, but if you don't there's no way to make actual progress.
Specifically, the hacking puzzle in the lab is one of these: there's not any 'clean' way of doing it deductively that I can see, and every move affects what future moves are available pretty drastically.
The 'panopticon' is another; the only way I can think of to solve this is to make a spreadsheet, find the correct final configuration, and then use linear algebra (the branch of math, not "y=mx+b") to find the correct set of inputs.
As a very experienced puzzle solver, I get the impression that these puzzles might not have actually been testsolved. Am I just missing hints, or some other method of 'cleanly' solving them? Or is brute force intended - and if so, do you realize how large the state spaces are?
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Edit: In the third room, you can softlock on the plushie puzzle, and you can't skip the sewing puzzle.
Thank you so much for the very thorough comment - I really appreciate it!
I apologize for the state of the puzzlea. I did intend for this to be a difficult, but rewarding experience, but you're absolutely right. We did rush through the beta-testing/test-solving part of puzzle-making so that we could make the jam deadline in time. The puzzles are in a state where they are solvable (one of my friends is already on Room 3) - but also really hard.
In the near future (possibly next week - but unsure right now...), me and my team have plans to neaten them up so that they can be solved more "cleanly", instead of being brute-forced. That way, there's a neat balance between the puzzles in terms of difficulty and solvability.
Yeah, I definitely agree, especially for these two puzzles in particular.
Because of the complexity, trial and error will most likely get you nowhere. And yet the alternatives, in order to intentionally and meaningfully work towards an actual solution, are wayyyy too involved, and most likely not even "satisfying" for players.
And yeah, that's more or less what I did to solve the Panopticon puzzle. ^^;
Personally, I had fun spreadsheeting it all out, but I suspect that the large majority of players will give up out of frustration and just skip it entirely (which is what I did w/ the Hacking puzzle, b/c of the current difficulty).
I understand that y'all had a tight deadline to make, which is why you ended up releasing the impossible "harder" version of the Hacking puzzle, so I'm appreciative that the team is working on things like a puzzle difficulty revisit in a future patch! ♥ (although I'd enjoy having a choice between the current difficulties, and a toned down version for those 2 puzzles in particular, rather than completely gutting them in future version updates).
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so good! some puzzles are very challenging (but I've been given word that the difficulty is being tweaked)
love the design of cautionne!
Thank you so much!! Very glad you enjoyed. :3c
Just started playing through this! I've been loving the game so far, but some of the puzzles are basically impossible to solve - setups where if you know the solution you can solve them, but if you don't there's no way to make actual progress.
Specifically, the hacking puzzle in the lab is one of these: there's not any 'clean' way of doing it deductively that I can see, and every move affects what future moves are available pretty drastically.
The 'panopticon' is another; the only way I can think of to solve this is to make a spreadsheet, find the correct final configuration, and then use linear algebra (the branch of math, not "y=mx+b") to find the correct set of inputs.
As a very experienced puzzle solver, I get the impression that these puzzles might not have actually been testsolved. Am I just missing hints, or some other method of 'cleanly' solving them? Or is brute force intended - and if so, do you realize how large the state spaces are?
---
Edit: In the third room, you can softlock on the plushie puzzle, and you can't skip the sewing puzzle.
Thank you so much for the very thorough comment - I really appreciate it!
I apologize for the state of the puzzlea. I did intend for this to be a difficult, but rewarding experience, but you're absolutely right. We did rush through the beta-testing/test-solving part of puzzle-making so that we could make the jam deadline in time. The puzzles are in a state where they are solvable (one of my friends is already on Room 3) - but also really hard.
In the near future (possibly next week - but unsure right now...), me and my team have plans to neaten them up so that they can be solved more "cleanly", instead of being brute-forced. That way, there's a neat balance between the puzzles in terms of difficulty and solvability.
Yeah, I definitely agree, especially for these two puzzles in particular.
Because of the complexity, trial and error will most likely get you nowhere. And yet the alternatives, in order to intentionally and meaningfully work towards an actual solution, are wayyyy too involved, and most likely not even "satisfying" for players.
And yeah, that's more or less what I did to solve the Panopticon puzzle. ^^;
Personally, I had fun spreadsheeting it all out, but I suspect that the large majority of players will give up out of frustration and just skip it entirely (which is what I did w/ the Hacking puzzle, b/c of the current difficulty).
I understand that y'all had a tight deadline to make, which is why you ended up releasing the
impossible"harder" version of the Hacking puzzle, so I'm appreciative that the team is working on things like a puzzle difficulty revisit in a future patch! ♥ (although I'd enjoy having a choice between the current difficulties, and a toned down version for those 2 puzzles in particular, rather than completely gutting them in future version updates).