In honor of the new map that I will be releasing (of a completely different sort) for the Week #6 contest, I have decided to release the solutions for L37.
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Puzzle #1: Introduction
Puzzle #1 is a fairly easy puzzle. It has two main puzzling elements: firstly, the disorientation of finding oneself thrown into the map with no directions other than "begin", and no visible means of affecting the game, and secondly, the fact that many people do not think of the alliance status window as an active game control (in fact it can be quite useful in UMS: for instance, for retreating in massing games). The reason for the latter's relevance is that, as hinted at by the "Obelisk of Hatred" (and the absence of other options), the solution to the puzzle is for everyone on the team to un-ally everyone else.
There is one further aspect to Puzzle #1: it causes disorientation even after it is solved. It does this simply by being much easier than the other puzzles in the game: with the initial disorientation caused by the way the game starts, players tend to latch onto the way Puzzle #1 goes as some indication of the overall shape of the game, as giving them a clue as to the level at which they should think to find the solutions. And that would be a mistake, since the game promises-- and delivers-- nothing of the sort.
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Puzzle #2: The Path of the Lizard
"The path of the lizard requires an empty soul and dull movement."
The meaning of the first of these should become fairly clear after a bit of experimentation: get five soul and you have to restart. This system, implemented for most but not all of the puzzles, is designed to keep players from bypassing puzzles by stumbling around in the dark until things go their way: by guessing, in other words. Sorry, but you have to actually figure out these puzzles.
The second part is somewhat more cryptic. The question here is: how can the Zergling that you are given demonstrate "dull movement"? Even if you only move it in short steps, it still takes them in sharp, hopping motions; longer motions are done with swiftness, which also does not count as "dull". You could try making a dull shape, such as a circle, with your motion, but you'll still be walking with a Zergling, so even if the path is dull, the movement will not be. In addition, there are many ways to define any particular shape within the level area, which makes it unlikely that any solution of that type will be correct.
The problem with solutions like these is that they take the clue on face value, which is a mistake. You are given clues, not solutions; solving the puzzle often involves figuring out some novel, non-straightforward way of interpreting the clue.
The key here is the shape of the level area: basically, a "+" sign. On such a terrain form, there are four primary directions of movement: you might call them North, South, East, and West, but you'll be better off if you decide to conceive of them as Up, Down, Left, and Right. Those directions can be, and often are, abbreviated U, D, L, R. The solution to the puzzle is to move down, then up, then left, then left again: or DULL. Any other movement to an end will interrupt the code; you will be given a unit of Soul, which indicates that you can start trying again. If you wait long enough after entering part of the code, it will once again count as in incorrect entry, resulting in soul and having to start over.
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Puzzle #3: Bus Station
This is a puzzle about removing your assumptions, and then having faith in your solution. The key player-catching factor here is the assumption that the game works by the same rules as the Puzzling, namely, that everything has a purpose. Lizard 37 is all about feints and misdirection, about figuring out what you will think and then making sure that that is not the way to the solution, while simultaneously giving you enough information that the actual solution is fair. Players assume that the solution will have something to do with the things in front of them: the beacon, the patrolling zealot, and so forth. But in fact, that is not the case.
The secondary player-catcher here is impatience: when nothing happens, players tend to assume that what they are doing is not working, and they try something else. The solution to this puzzle is simply to do nothing for an extended period of time-- which resets every time you go to the beacon. Impatient players will tend to lose faith and attempt to solve the puzzle by brute force-- that is, by running to the beacon over and over in the hope of getting lucky and just happening to arrive at the right time to solve the puzzle. This approach will result in the puzzle continuing forever, or at least until you run out of time.
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Puzzle #4: Shifting BranchesThe clue to this puzzle ("This sentence is not a paradox") indicates that, for once, straightforward logic is the way to reach the solution. Of course, it is not going to be an
easy logic puzzle: what would be the fun in that?
The basic design of the puzzle, as hinted at by the terrain, is a classic 8-3-5 transferring puzzle: you have three containers with maximum capacities of 8 units, 3 units, and 5 units, and have to separate the contents of the eight-unit container into two groups of four without any partial transferences. This much is simple enough; you can find the solution fairly easily using Google, if you're that sort of person. The nasty part of the puzzle is that the controls aren't constant. Yes, the single terrain squares are the "active" ones (so long as nobody else is stepping on one)-- but what each one does shifts every time you make a move.
Think of the pattern of the controls as descending: so you get 8->3 first, then 8->5, 3->8, 3->5, 5->8, 5->3. If you number these as 1-6, you can conceive of the controls as two lines:
4 5 6
1 2 3
Next, envision a pivot point placed more or less at the
right of those two lines (actually in the middle of 5-6-2-3), and corresponding to the center of the puzzle. Every time you make a move, the controls rotate a quarter turn clockwise on that pivot, to a new direction indicated by a map ping for the person who made the move. The initial direction of the controls is pointing up and to the left (so up-left-left = 1 and up-up-left = 4).
Of course, because of the shifting nature of the controls, and the fact that you can't get everywhere without stepping on a button (which will cause shifting), your team will need to coordinate as to who goes to which button from where. Now that you know the general pattern, though, that should be a simple matter of accurately keeping track of where the controls are and what the next step is in the solution of the base puzzle: so I will leave that much to you.
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Puzzle #5: And Here My Troubles Began
In homage to "The Puzzling", Puzzles #5 and #6 both require some coordination in addition to thinking. They are also both quite difficult. Quite honestly, I'm not quite as fond of them as I am of the other puzzles, since they've got a fair dose of annoyance measured against their cleverness...but hey, this map was made in a week, and some of the later puzzles more than make up for it.
Puzzle #5 is a fairly difficult bound masquerading as an easy bound. While the fire that is visible must be avoided, the "hidden" obstacle is an alternation type (i.e. which type of square is safe alternates, with a small movement time in between so that the player can get to the next square). Sharp-eyed observers will have noticed a new thing appearing in the center of Puzzle #2's area when #5 started; the new thing indicates whether or not you have "died" by changing wireframe color (it's a "Mark of Swiftness", which you should already know sounds like a bad thing for the Path of the Lizard: so you want it to be red). If you have died, you must restart the puzzle by bringing everyone on the team back to the start.
The rest of the hint ("Trust no one; keep even those closest to you at a distance, for they might betray you at any moment") indicates the solution condition for the bound: you need to get everyone as far away from everyone else as possible. You do this by having one person reach the end of the bound, getting a second to stand at the middle of the "turn", and keeping the third at the start (for the member of your team who is worst at bound-type games).
If you think that's rough, the next one is even worse...
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Puzzle #6: Conductor
The key to this puzzle is figuring out how to "conduct your life" in a puzzle clearly based on sound. The solution? Act like a conductor!
Acting like a conductor, unfortunately, is not as simple as it sounds. Conductors, you see, have to indicate the notes (by burrowing) just before they sound (start the piece using the Kerrigan). Furthermore, the notes are arranged (if I recall correctly) in order of initial sounding rather than in order of pitch-- so it goes medium-high-low.
This one will take quite a bit of practice to get the timing down. Fortunately, you have plenty of tries...though, of course, the overall timer is still running.
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Puzzle #7: Truth"Sometimes the truth is clearest to eyes that cannot see."
Between that hint and the terrain, what could the solution be except for the number 37...in Braille!
Braille is sometimes described in text with a solid circle for where the bumps go (here, I'll use B) and an O for empty spaces: in this case, you will indicate the bumps with unburrowed units, and the Os with burrowed units.
You're looking to make the following:
B B B B
O O B B
O O O O
When you're done, confirm the entry using the Kerrigan. Each wrong answer will give you a soul, so be right!
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Puzzle #8: Labyrinth
#8's catch is that it's a maze without an exit. A puzzle-solver's tendency when they see something maze-like will be to try to find a specific goal-point, and avoid the dead ends. The clue here ("The journey is often more important than reaching the destination") indicates that the solution is the exact opposite: your goal is to travel the whole maze, including the dead ends.
That much is easy. The tricky part is that by now, you're probably quite low on time, and the maze has the biggest puzzle area in the game: so you need to travel it as efficiently as possible. I'll leave that much up to you.
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Puzzle #9: Lizard 37"There's nothing quite like reaching the end at the last minute."
When players see this puzzle, with the explosions in the middle of the lizard-shaped area, they try to to get past the explosions and into the head. After a while, it becomes clear that, though the explosions look like an easy bound, they don't play fair: if you're about to get by, an extra explosion occurs to send you back. It's not much of a stretch to figure that you need to wait for the timer to be at or below 1:00 to get through the bound. And this much is true: the obstacle can, indeed, only be solved in the last minute.
Of course, even in the last minute, the bound is still impossible to pass, and that is where players panic.
At that point, they've come all this way, and have burned their remaining time waiting for "the last minute"...only to find that they still can't get by! They now have under a minute to try and figure out what the heck is really going on and do something about it...otherwise, unless they saved the game, it'll be back to the very beginning, including another trip through those oh-so-unkind reflex puzzles. Good times.
In the interest of making people kick themselves, the actual solution is fairly simple and straightforward, though the layout is designed so that you'll find yourself moving away from it. You see, the hint never specified
which end it was talking about.
Now, the tail end of the lizard is narrow, so for you all to be at the end, one or two of you may have to burrow. If you're all touching the very tip of the tail, and the timer is under a minute, you'll win.
Or at least, you'll have gotten to the credits. Is it really winning if you've gotten there using these solutions? No, not really. But at least you get to see the credits.
Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Aug 27 2010, 5:44 pm by FoxWolf1.
None.