Post by Hades in TERMINUS comments

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Thank you for your input. Sorry you're not liking the design choices. The camera is zoomed in for a few reasons but there is a debug command to zoom out; You're free to use it, but there are times where it'll reset so you'll have to input it again sometimes. The pitfalls are disabled on Easy action difficulty if they make the game annoying, as well as make enemies not KO you that fast.

As for the hard riddle, you misunderstood: cryptology is a study that deals with decrypting/solving codes, and the two hints the hard riddle gives you are SUPER important. The game gives you two massive hints on what method you need to look for (you're absolutely free to use google for this one). The hard riddle is meant to be like some puzzles in Siren with the intent of people sharing their solutions/hints/ideas online. They don't have to, but it's welcome.
Those 3 little messages tell you which hand to use and where, you just need to decode the message. People who are familiar with the method should recognize it after at least one of the hints. (one literally spells out the name of the method) I'm sorry if you don't agree with it. The player who started hard riddle mode will finish it some time soon, so if you're still interested you can check it out later. I'll post a link here a day before the stream so that whoever wants to see what hard riddle is like, they can know in advance. Merry Christmas (if you celebrate) and have a good one.

Crack_Smoking_Warlock4 years ago (2 edits)

I'm confused - your saying the notes with numbers on them are a code, and once you understand it you can find a hint in the highlighted number? How does a player with no previous experience in this cypher method decode it?

Edit: So after some googling, I learned about something called the Polybius cypher, which essentially assigns double digit numbers from 1-5 to letters in a system like 11=A, 12=B, 21=F etc. I decoded one message using that cypher to be "five Matthew", which obviously means minute hand at 5. Sorry if I come across like a highly critical ass here, but my point about puzzles not requiring outside knowledge is that outside of someone who has studied Cryptology before and actually heard of this cypher, there is no way I can fathom a player approaching, understanding and solving this puzzle. It's not so much a solution to work out as it is just a knowledge test - if you know this method, it's easy, if you don't, it's impossible. It would be like presenting a puzzle that consists of 5x5 to someone who has never heard of multiplication, they would have no idea what to do. If other comments here hadn't eluded to cryptology, I could have stared at those notes forever and never understood them, simply because there is nothing about a series of double digit numbers that makes my brain go "wait, what if 13 means C?"

Hades4 years ago

Congratz on figuring out the puzzle. ~~You're about to face another puzzle but that one won't require outside knowledge... still, it will be very cryptic; Imagine piano puzzle v2.0 from SH1.~~ I'm aware that this riddle difficulty will be unfriendly for players that don't know these specific methods/riddles but I still want this difficulty to contain riddles which require thinking outside the box. (meaning: hints are in the game but the solution requires outside knowledge or looking it up on the net if there's no one who shared their knowledge) ~~Also that polybius cypher is called smitty tap code, and the name for it is in room 24.(or whichever room with the plush it is)~~

I appreciate your input and criticism. I will take it into account when/if making riddles for the full game. I am aware that not everyone will agree or like it, but this is how I'd like to make this game. (and if it's too difficult for players, the option to change difficulty levels will always be there; albeit with less extra content on easier difficulties)

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