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It wasn’t clear to me if I had immunity to monogames or whether I was simply avoiding any game whose meat hooks hung so conspicuously from its external surface. It was a puzzle. And along came Blue Prince to solve it.
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Normally, I would put a link to subscribe in the post (“if you want to read this newsletter”) but that’s the thing Mailchimp has just stomped on – you no longer get the automated mail with the last twelve newsletters. I think I’ll be off Mailchimp on the next newsletter and will have a better handle on it.
My same exact feelings on Blue Prince – it was gripping, very much so, until it wasn’t, very much so again. I knew there are more secrets, possibly right in front of me, but the game has so many times patronizingly pointed out the solutions that I’ve also stopped trying to piece things together and started to wait for the “hints” (read: answers) to be dropped at my feet. The game leaves you with no room to figure things out yourself, so why should I continue to play?
As a side note – of all the games to not have an auto journal, why is it this one?! I had to resort to screenshotting every text I came by, which put yet another damper on my will to continue.
Oh interesting, quite different to how things worked for me – although I can see the, er, blueprint for how this might happen.
There have been times where I was pleased to figure something out and then later (as you point out) the game drops the answer at your feet. The laboratory machine, for example, isn’t one of the most difficult puzzles but somewhere else they just hand you the answer. I wasn’t upset about that, so much, I can see the game is trying to offer alternate routes and hints to help struggling players… what bothered me was the big reward was just the answer to another puzzle I’d already solved 😀
The issue I have now is that I do not have enough clues or able to piece together clues I have to clearly understand what I’m doing; I have been hoping for some more hints but I’m not sure they are forthcoming. And to just “try something” requires a lot of work. I’ve been digging around the edges of guides and I don’t think I would work half of this stuff out. It’s beyond me.
the structure of the “late game” puzzles in blue prince is certainly ungainly. the friction to find or to solve them varies greatly, and not in a way that seems to make sense (such as to encourage solving them in a particular order without forcibly gating them).m
and then when you have exhausted all the mechanically solvable puzzles in the game, there are still a huge number of clue-shaped objects left lingering. i have stopped trying to make sense of them myself, but still go check out discussions online from time to time and it seems that the general community also has no viable theories for how they fit together. so maybe they dont?
it ended with a whimper, but i still had tremendous fun with it along the way. im probably soon going to stop thinking about blue prince altogether—i just first need to finish this themed sudoku im trying to set. i keep trying out new rule variations that seem promising before running headling into a dead end—so kind of like the early game of blue prince itself. fitting.
Weird that Societe Generale would name their new investment service after some classic children’s book characters…
Was the leading link supposed to go to ‘what sticks’? Perhaps you’re throwing some oblique shade at the art games crowd – which don’t get me wrong, I’m here for – but I don’t see the monogame connection beyond a vague sense of disrespecting the audience’s time.
“I’ve got a lot of words on Blue Prince that I somehow have to strain out of my rear into something coherent”
I’m choosing to tactically insert the word ‘brain’ into this sentence and move on.
Blue Prince – yeah but what is it though? I know everyone who has played it will be like ‘noo, don’t ask that question, just come to it unspoiled’ but honestly I almost only experience games vicariously now (which didn’t stop me from buying a Switch 2 because I’m an idiot), so I’m definitely looking forward to some ED words on it!
vfig I had another Blue Prince session just after putting this out last night, and I really shouldn’t have, because my Prince sessions are now legendary in length. I was absolutely pleased to have had suddenly figured out how to get the (ROT13) erq pebja sebz gur pybfrq rkuvovg. Indeed, I only found this blueprint recently, somehow I had missed picking it up until I saw it in Joseph Mansfield’s playthrough and I was like sitting up, shouting at the screen, WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT — which is an unfortunate hallmark of some of my Blue Prince play which completely missed certain obvious (???) things. Another thing I’d missed which is YMMV as obvious was ybfg naq sbhaq.
I want to see through to the end of some of these threads I’ve got dangling but I’ve lost much of the mojo now. Need to close the book on it so I can start playing else like the Spooky Express demo or something.
CA Uh, no that link wasn’t meant to go to What Sticks. It was actually meant to go to The Path to Hell although I think I was far more acerbic in an older newsletter I just found: Monotony which tingles with the phrase “And that’s where I’m wondering whether the AAA industry has a brain.”
Blue Prince is what the cool kids are calling a deckbuilder roguelike but they’re wrong because you don’t really have that much authority over your deck and it is already stacked when you start a new game. You build a house using cards from this deck and you spend most of the time figuring out what the cards actually do. It’s a first-person experience so you explore the house as you’re building it. You’re supposed to find a room that “can’t exist”. At first, it’s not clear where the puzzles are but gradually you begin to see things, see things that need to be solved, and much of the time you’re trying to put down certain configurations of rooms to make something happen or try something out.
A lot of players become frustrated because you seem largely at the whim of the cards and complain about “RNG!?!?”. It has been explicitly charged with “disrespecting the player’s time” because of this. However, Blue Prince is a deeply complex machine and you’re meant to work on multiple axes at all times, which mitigates this – which makes it a solid brainfest, an absolute joy. And there are some great surprises in there, just fantastic.
The trouble is I’m now at the point where I don’t have many things left to do and don’t even know how to do them. So we’re back to half an hour of grind to attempt something which may or may not work out. And there isn’t much joy to be had in looking up solutions and executing plans, but that is where we’re at.
joel a écrit: “I’m now at the point where I don’t have many things left to do and don’t even know how to do them. So we’re back to half an hour of grind to attempt something which may or may not work out. And there isn’t much joy to be had in looking up solutions and executing plans”
there are some puzzle games where looking up solutions is useful to get past a sticking point because it allows you to progress to the ending.
blue prince is not one of those.
the post-credits stuff is a puzzle hunt, not a progression towards an even bigger revelation. so looking up solutions is always the wrong answer: if you are not enjoying the post-credits puzzles, better to stop playing, because merely knowing the answers gives you nothing; if you are enjoying the post-credits puzzles but just stuck, far better to ask someone to give you a tiny, tailored hint to get unstuck, so you can still keep the fun of solving the puzzles.
(yes, i am volunteering here. please hmu on bsky or discord with what youre stuck on and what you know and i will be very glad to help dig the puzzle-solving cart out of the mud.)
i suppose the third option is you are enjoying the puzzles well enough but just unhappy about the amount of time needed to do certain things. but i fear there is not good answer there; looking up solutions will bring no joy, but simply putting the game down leaves an unscratched itch…
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i was maybe going to comment on the laurie penny piece, but actually no; because i havent read it and am not going to. i long ago got a strong impression from her writing that she was a self-promoter first, everything (and everyone) else second. so i will continue to avoid. (this reminds me of another person who writes about games who has firmly shown that aspect of their character and so i now also avoid. but i will not say more about that here in public)
I’m so sorry to hear about your mother, Joel. Will contribute to the discussion later–the Blue Prince discussion seems like it’s related to what CA said in the last Crashbook about frustration, though of course I haven’t played Blue Prince–but later. (If only because I have stuff to do other than producing my wall-o-text.)
I posted that before reading the comment thread closely so I missed this: “Blue Prince is what the cool kids are calling a deckbuilder roguelike.” Really, Joel? Really?
Y’know, I didn’t actually want to write about Blue Prince in the newsletter because I was worried I wring out too many of my Proper Writing Thoughts ahead of Actually Writing Them. However, the shift of Mailchimp forced my hand and the only thing I have been really playing is Blue Prince. So, what else am I going to talk about? I have this lovely long thread on Bluesky about my feelings playing Blue Prince and, well, I can’t really end it because of getting stuck in this late game bog.
vfig I had considered reaching out! However, I’m already spoiled enough to know what I’m doing next. I’ve had some brilliant moments like realising what the pnfgyr pvcure was but then also simultaneously realising I was missing an important chunk of it. I am starting to suspect a question I want the answer to will never be answered. But we will see.
Separately: I wouldn’t say I’m LP’s greatest fan either and we all know I’m also not the greatest fan of “confessional writing”. So I don’t know how I wound up reading this one!
You’ve also got me wondering about no-hints Games Writer you’re talking about and I’m thinking it’s Gregg Burnell. Slam dunk.
Matt Thank you, sir. I have been meaning to respond to your earlier comments but I’ve not had the energy for Electron Dance activities at all for the last week.
I thought I could squeeze through the deckbuilder roguelike phrasing because I was disagreed with it, but I guess I’m cancelled now. (Man, I’m also building up some anger about “roguelikes” with “permanent upgrades” between runs.)
I’ve been hiding under a Baba-shaped rock so haven’t tried Blue Prince yet (or the unofficial pico8 Snakebird sequel!?). But interesting to read about it. Whether and wherever the site and newsletter go from here, best of luck, always nice to see a notification in my inbox (or, when the moon is blue, my youtube subs).
taking care of yourself > writing for ED. you don’t owe us anything!
one reason i bounced off of blue prince is because there was so much to do, and i’d rather play a bunch of other cool things… and just not really my kind of game anyways? cool idea, though!
Joel, please don’t feel obliged to respond to my comments! I just leave them to know that your posts are appreciated. And because I like talking.
So my thoughts on frustration are maybe a bit more related to my usual level select thoughts. The level select is a way of shaping your agency–aside from the way it gates content, it signals what you are Expected To Do and what is Bonus. If you do the critical path you’ve got an experience that the author designed to deliver you puzzly bits in a satisfying way. For instance Corey said that Crate Expectations might be too early in Bonfire Peaks, and part of that is that its placement expects you to do some slightly tricky assemble-the-shape-that-will-be-useful-when-you-put-it-down when you haven’t learned that much yet–even though you don’t remotely need to solve that level to progress in the overworld.
And one of the biggest expectation shapers is the credit sequence, because that tells you “now you have attained a complete experience.” Which is why I wrote a whole essay about the timing of one credit sequence. But it seems like Blue Prince, like Animal Well, subverts that, in that when the credits roll there’s a lot of stuff hanging out there screaming HAVE YOU FORGOTTEN SOMETHING? (A catchphrase for Wizardry 4 and its hidden endings, a game I have most certainly not played.) This breaks the usual contract that if you go through the game and reach the ending you will have done What You Should and achieved a Satisfying Experience. Even if your experience really was satisfying! That little light dangling before us makes us want to snap at it, though we may know it’s attached to an anglerfish.
For a game I have played, Baba Is You does this a bit but in a not contract-violating way IMO. The ending is unlockable so early, gated mostly by the fact that that puzzle is such a giant pain (OK, I looked up a solution), that it’s clear that it’s not meant to shape your experience. You can just go through and do puzzles. Ditto the fact that completing an area (in a way that unlocks the next) happens long before finishing the puzzles in the area, but doing so doesn’t kick you back to the world map. There is a secret ending that requires Some Stuff and by its nature makes you go linear, but most of the game is a collection of collections of puzzles.
On the other hand, Monster’s Expedition shapes this satisfying experience where you can get through it by tinkering, and explore kind of leisurely, and discover some secrets by experimenting and thinking “what if I try this?”–and then in the postgame reveals a bunch more objectives where you’re like “How the hell do I even start?” And I know those are meant to be optional. But it’s still frustrating.
Anyway I’ve been doing the Bonfire Peaks Lost Memories DLC Part 3, and in BPLM I found myself thinking “I can see the ending! I want to push ahead to it!” which is totally the wrong spirit. My sense is that I like Part 1 best and Part 3 more than Part 2, though that may be a bit bitter because I’ve got two puzzles I never could solve in Part 2, but then I have to reflect that I said that Bonfire Peaks is about renunciation and the thing I am renouncing is thinking I can do these puzzles right now, and also you had to explain a couple of the Part 1 puzzles to me.
Matt: I’m always interested to read these thoughts, because I feel like they open a window on the vast expanse that is the game design possibility space. So even at the danger of repeating myself, I will ramble in kind..
The contract is a tricky business: whatever they might try, I suspect designers ultimately throw up their hands and say, “shouldn’t the player take some of the responsibility for deciding at what point they’re satisfied? Do you want to play this game or don’t you?!”
I guess one hazard here is that there are many ways to satisfy that itch as there are different categories of discrete, identifiable challenge in the game, and these might not align with what the designer considers to be core to the intended experience.
And so for me, in the Dark Souls games, this was bosses: I didn’t need to root out every piece of equipment; I didn’t need to experience every NPC invasion; I didn’t even need to resolve the game’s storyline quests (which given how prone they are to breaking – thank Gwyn.)
I just needed to kill every boss that I was aware of – which itself is a tortured heuristic, because I would often discover bosses I hadn’t found in my playthrough once I permitted myself to look at a wiki on reaching an ending, and feel obliged to go back and defeat them.
(BUT! This is contradistinct from scouring the wiki to satisfy myself that I had uncovered every boss. Ignorance is bliss.)
In a puzzle game, at least, these concerns might seem obviated: a puzzle is a puzzle is a puzzle. But then you can start thinking about secrets and categorically different puzzles (environmental puzzles? Meta puzzles? Blovian puzzles?). And then the desire for assistance from on high as to sorting the sheep from the goats creeps back into the picture: UI clarification, level select clarification, credits screen clarification.
And another wrinkle is that some people (apparently??) are not, in fact, obsessive monomaniacs: they want to sample a little of everything, although perhaps not all of everything.
I suppose one solution would be to dispense with concerns about framings and nudgings and just be as explicit as possible: draw a box (perhaps a literal one) around the ‘golden path’ of levels/challenges/etc and expressly label it as such. Serious, non-glib question: do you think this would be better?
matt w, CA: yeah, i think encouraging players to be active and consciously choosing if they want to continue engaging is a good thing.
i stopped playing a monsters expedition when i hit the credits, because i hadnt enjoyed it much, and although i could still see plenty of unsolved puzzles in it, i was done with it, and the credits gave me a good opportunity to put it down. i have seen many other people making the same decision with blue prince once they reach the credits—but i couldnt: my own appetite for its puzzles was far from sated by then.
vfig: Yeah, giving players ‘the out’ is definitely a good thing. I’ve been there too – the ordinary ending for the Witness was my opporunity to bail. I enjoyed the straight logic puzzles; but defintely not enough to start hunting down the environmental ones.
I think something that might be useful to bring in here is the idea that the player-collectible dynamic is auto-inverting: when there’s a lot of them out there, it’s fun; you feel little pressure as you will likely be tripping over them without much conscious effort.
But as you get closer to completing the full set, the effort required for each successive one increases in a way that feels non-linear. You can spend more time traipsing around places you’ve already been, worrying about what you might have missed. At the same time, you’re way more invested at 139/140 doodinks than you were at 30: the idea of surrender also becomes more galling in a way that feels non-linear.
I think designers need to consider this mechanic carefully if they’re going to use it. There are plenty of things they can do to help, from providing UI tools and game mechanics to help the player definitively narrow their search area, to consciously de-emphasising the importance of collectibles, to providing off-ramps for the less dedicated as we’ve discussed.
First off, Joel, I’m so sorry about your mother. It sounds like it came at the exact best/worst/I-don’t-know moment as well, given all the other stuff going on? Ugh. Sending you good thoughts.
The Laurie Penny hit me quite hard: I too was never quite sure if I am autistic. I got tested a few months back and I’m kind of on the edge of the spectrum. But when she talked about unmasking and getting divorced and losing her job as a result…?
I’ve not had that misfortune. Everyone I unmask around is lovely. But I still mask, because what if…? (Plus I find it a helpful tool in communicating with neurotypical people, otherwise they just get confused. But… oof.) And I’m a guy. I can get away with “oh no, he’s just a strange genius.” Women generally can’t, and that’s shit.
I have been playing Blue Prince, and it is hands down one of my favourite puzzle games of all time. But I think this is because I’m playing it with my partner, and celebrating small revelations is WAY more fun with somebody else, especially if their brain and your brain are both the same kind of spicy. If I’d been playing alone, I probably would have dropped off by now. But because we’re on this journey together, it’s inherently a funner experience.
(As an example, my highlight so far has been qrpbqvat ovgf naq cvrprf bs n svpgvbany ynathntr. Zl cnegare vf n yvathvfg. Guvf vafcverq zr gb tb onpx gb na byq cebwrpg bs zvar, n uvtuyl tenzzngvpny uvrebtylcuvp ynathntr gung hfrf pbzcbhaq jbeqf. Fb zr, zl cnegare naq gur tnzr ner nyy irel zhpu ivovat.)
I think BP starts out strong, but yeah, the real problem is the fact that it’s very hard to get feedback on later puzzles without doing an hour of (possibly useless) busywork. Like, if you *think* that putting the Great Crystal in the Crystal Chest (I’m making things up for the sake of an example) will unlock the Secret Trapdoor, you would have to spawn the Great Crystal room to get the crystal, then spawn the Crystal Chest, and make sure you also spawn the Trapdoor Room. And yes, there are systems that you can take advantage of to make that a little smoother, but it’s frustrating. I have tried to solve the pynffebbz puzzle about 6 times now, and 3 times I have been ONE ROOM AWAY, but I just didn’t roll the right room at the last moment. And maybe after all that, you’re wrong? What if you spend an hour doing the Crystal Quest, only to realise that actually, no, the Great Trapdoor has nothing to do with the Crystal at all? If the gameplay loop to ask that question (“Does the X open the Y?”) is short, then that’s great puzzle design where the player can iterate on their ideas. But as the puzzles get deeper and more obscure, that loop becomes longer. So it makes more sense to just google the puzzle, because at least you’ll know if you’re even on the right track WAY faster.
I appreciate that the game has those hints (they’re actually just in-game solutions to puzzles) to make sure that if you keep playing you will get it eventually. But I wish there were some kind of general hint system that could draw your attention to stuff you’ve missed that the game thinks maybe you should look at again. I missed one thing just because I didn’t notice teeeeeeeny tiny writing on one miniscule bit of a map. If my partner hadn’t looked up some tips online, we would’ve missed it forever.
So yeah, I am in the weird position of being totally gaga for this game but because I love it so much, I see the flaws all the closelier.
I know words from strangers on the internet aren’t worth much, but for what they are worth, I’m really sorry about your mother.
Also, before actually contributing to the conversation (haven’t had time to read the suggested links yet), I want to say, take care of yourself before Electron Dance. Your writing is always interesting and insightful, so take as long as you need and I think we’ll all be here for it. Also, it gives me the time to do my quarterly re-read of the Aspiration.
Wow these are great comments and I feel like I have a lot to say in response to them!
…just giving you a heads up so you can stock up on supplies, find a sheltered location, fortify your defenses, etc.
Okay everyone, whoops, I just wrote a thousand word comment in response here and I decided it was probably best to save them for my Blue Prince essay series coming soon to a digital website near you. So, well done, Matt, CA, vfig and James.
Johan Thank you for dropping by and giving me the encouragement to keep writing 🙂 Baba, now there’s a game I should go back to. Never finished!
daniel Much appreciated! And, yeah, that’s the monogameness about Blue Prince, that it’s not a game but a lifestyle choice. Fancy devoting all your free time to unravelling this one game? It’s not a pure puzzle game but a strange hybrid that can delight and confound in equal measure.
James Thanks! I had really been looking forward to getting some control but it was like I didn’t even get a few weeks to enjoy any of that exciting freedom. It’s the most trapped I’ve felt in many years.
Hey, your “highlight so far” was also something I found surprisingly involving. I started doodling bits on a page and realised I actually had a ton of information at my disposal and genafyngrq nyzbfg gur ragvergl bs gur Gbzo yrggre va bar frffvba. Other uses of this knowledge was somewhat less engaging, because it was like one word here or one word there instead of cracking a code.
The way Blue Prince hints things to help you along (and there are some moments when they just literally drop the answer on you and you’re like WTF MAN) but I lost the faith that it would help me out with some of these challenges. With some, I was vindicated. With others, I felt bad when a new hint surfaced. But then again.. some of the hints are baffling until AFTER THE FACT. ooohhhhhh that’s what you meant
Lorenzo And a thank you to you to, sir. I’m touched that someone still remembers The Aspiration that fondly. I torture myself these days that I don’t think I could write in the voice of The Aspiration anymore!
OK, so the Shaped Experience. CA, no I don’t think it would be better for every game to whomp you on the head with the Golden Path. Most games are honestly pretty good at communicating expectations, and allowing some freedom if that’s your bag! Not all and it doesn’t work for everyone. I had a great time with the main game of A Monster’s Expedition pottering around opening up islands as they came, which becomes absolutely mandatory eventually because there are later areas where you absolutely cannot calculate in advance how what you’re doing will open a new pathway.* Which also seems in the spirit of the individual puzzles.** But if I remember correctly, one thing that bugged vfig about this was the number of seemingly reachable spaces that to either had be left behind or reached through very counterintuitive puzzles that broke the rules that had been set up so far. (Well, vfig, checking back on your comments it seems you also don’t like Sokolikes where they depend on positioning your avatar, which is definitely going to leave you looking for the out!)
And with Monster’s Expedition, there are many times that you could go somewhere new, but you can also toodle around working on puzzles that can be reached without shenanigans, but which also clearly don’t get you closer to the end–but they do get you more puzzles (and Philippa Warr jokes), which is presumably what you’re here for. If you enjoy the game. Which is a common level-selecty thing. I posted my awful unlock pattern on my Cosmic Express replay, where I kind of made a beeline for Nova, which is very much not the point! What are all the levels there for if I’m not playing them–including the ones that are marked out as Yikes by their larger size. Another effect of the Shaping here is that, bulling through toward the credits, I haven’t mastered the mechanics enough to do the Nova puzzles.***
…and then there’s Stephen’s Sausage Roll, which tells you very strongly, fuck you, you are going to do all these puzzles. You owe it to them. Which is fine, very clearly signaling expectations! And Bonfire Peaks which signals some things more as side areas and lets you know that you don’t have to solve everything to move on but that does encourage you to hit puzzles before moving on because what are those side areas for if not to be done? (I find this clearer in the DLC than in the main game.)
So the thing about the Secret Game is it takes this shaping and turns it against you. You’ve done the game and got your out! No you haven’t, not really. There’s all this stuff hanging out there unanswered and everyone is talking about that instead of the things the game was guiding you toward. Like how absolutely none of the online discussion of FEZ is about getting to the normal cubes or the clever mechanic that sold it. It’s possible to do this well, to give people the satisfaction of saying “I really enjoyed this and if I have to read about the secrets it’s fine.” But also possible not to.
Though this is also partly down, as CA suggested, to the player. Is it the dev’s fault if the player doesn’t know what they can get from the game? If they Peter Principle themselves, taking a game that has said “Hey! You did enough! It’s fine!” and deciding to make themselves suffer? Maybe not! Thinking of CA’s comments about frustration on the last Crashbook, my reaction to getting stuck after making progress**** (I’m not proud of this) tends not to be ragequitting but rage raging.***** Which was somewhat my experience with A Monster’s Expedition, in that in the postgame, after I’ve done the things that come naturally and the optional puzzles that I was able to get by looking at something and saying “ooh! what if?” and having it work, I am still going around looking at more of these very clearly marked as extremely optional puzzles and getting frustrated at them. Though I think it is partly a design issue! The possibility space suddenly blew up so there’s no way to tell if you’ve made progress, or even where to start trying, which is not how it worked before! Reminds me that the key thing about That Puzzle in Stephen’s Sausage Roll is that it cut the possibility space way down.
Anyway it seems like a matter of emphasis. I just remembered that Celeste has hidden layers, and some of these depend on wildly obscure riddles, but nobody really cares because it signals very strongly that you done good if you complete the game the normal way, and the optional content isn’t really the sort of thing that leaves a hole in your chest if you look up how to unlock it.
END PART I
*Especially this one area where you have three ways to go, they all culminate in take a raft back to the hub, but once you’ve done all three the rafts collide in a way that lets you push one off in a new direction. Somehow this is designed so that it works no matter what order you do the “spokes” in.
**By which I mean, a lot of the puzzles are about breaking into new state spaces, such as moving a log an odd number of squares to change parity, or getting a log away from its stump so you can push it from the end without just restoring it to the stump. Where often it will either become quickly apparent that either the new state space is a (possibly reversible) dead end, or it will be progress. In this way the puzzles themselves often reward pottering and seeing where things take you, instead of reasoning backward from the end state. Though a lot do require you to intuit the end state, and “becoming apparent that you’re in a dead end” is relative not only to your having absorbed the mechanics but also to your having an idea of what the island’s end state is, so.
***I do very much want Joel to know that I have since gone back and solved Andromeda 14. Along with a bunch of other levels. In the one where I hadn’t got one way out of an Ursa Major level, I was falling for obvious Schmuck Bait, which I knew was Schmuck Bait, but it took me a ridiculously long time to see how I could make a non-obvious start to the level without immediately disqualifying myself!
****As opposed to something like Lo Fi Ping Pong where I couldn’t do it at all at the beginning and was like, hey! I quit! That’s it! Joel also mentioned bouncing off it–so to speak–and I think one thing for me is that the shortest level was “Do ~86 things errorlessly.” Too much! I knew I wasn’t going to enjoy the difficulty curve.
*****The subtext, which may become unsubtext is “Please don’t put it in the newspaper that I dislike The Witness because I couldn’t do the puzzles.”
Not Part 2–and I’m sorry, Part 1 was more just me rambling than a grand design (yes there’s a difference!)–but some beautiful soul appears to have made a progressive hint sheet for the snowmen in a Monster’s Expedition. I may take a shot at some of them now!