I got it eventually, thanks!
I feel like a way out is just a troll.
Also, the last three levels after the top gate (7 flowers) are just... Wtf
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Baba Is You | OT Is Open
- Thread starter More_Badass
- Start date
I feel like a way out is just a troll.
Also, the last three levels after the top gate (7 flowers) are just... Wtf
I'm both shocked and impressed that they managed to put the "end" of the game so close to the beginning, and made it relatively easy too. I guess the idea is they want to give everyone a decent chance to see the credits, whether or not they have the skill and/or patience to go through some of the harder levels.
Anyone know if there are multiple endings?
Anyone know if there are multiple endings?
Lake Extra 2 will drive me off the wall. I've found 3-4 different, significant ways to take it on, but I just can't get them to work just right.
I've been at it for 1.5 hours.
Had to drop it for the day.
Ingenious. That was time well spent.
I've been at it for 1.5 hours.
Had to drop it for the day.
Ingenious. That was time well spent.
Here's a quick hint:
The flag enclosed by walls is a red herring. Try to turn the other objects outside to WIN
I'm very impressed with the strong identity that stages have in this game. In most puzzle games, the slow ramp up where you learn a mechanic and slowly see it turn more complex is good for learning but means that levels will naturally blur together. Looking through this thread, just seeing level names or mentions of certain aspects makes me remember exactly the level in question.
Yeah, that one took me a while. It relied on a phenomenon I had run into before but hadn't thought how it could be useful until finishing this level.
Ok loving the game so far but prison just seemed like total bs. Had to look it up and the answer did not seem doable without help. Only sour point in the game thus far, otherwise it's incredible.
are there any more levels that have completely unexplained game rules like prison? The mechanic used was never shown before that I remember and felt like a bug more than anything lol. Would never had thought to try that nor did it feel like it should work. What is the logic behind that move? If the spaces are full, force overlap? Confused
Not at all. All objects will overlap by default. I.e., if a wall is not stop, or push, then you can walk straight over it.
Text, however, is by default push, it's one of the normally invisible rules. So you can always move it around, and text will collide with text - but not other things, that are not stop or push. This is used numerous times in prior levels, like pushing stacks of rules across water and the like. It's just normally a hindrance in regards to moving objects.
Text, however, is by default push, it's one of the normally invisible rules. So you can always move it around, and text will collide with text - but not other things, that are not stop or push. This is used numerous times in prior levels, like pushing stacks of rules across water and the like. It's just normally a hindrance in regards to moving objects.
I only really figured it out because I started to think aloud and list the various things I can do and whether it can or can't work. I'd been mucking about in the Prison for a long while, and over the course of experiments I'd often observed the behavior that solves the level, but only after actually talking myself through the options did I actually realize how it can apply.
I think I have a criticism forming, but I'm struggling to articulate it, and there's very much an argument that it's not a particularly valid criticism anyway, but see what you think. I'm going to put it all behind spoiler warnings, but the specific puzzle that sparked it off is Island-10 - Evaporating Water, so if you've done that, it's safe to read:
(I'm also going to compare it to The Witness, but only in a general sense for how The Witness teaches you things - and because I'm starting to think like The Witness in my understanding of the puzzle design:)
Late addition: Okay, I've just realised something else from looking at a few levels I've completed before. This might amuse you. Contains spoilers for Island-4, but I recommend you've read the above screed first!
(I'm also going to compare it to The Witness, but only in a general sense for how The Witness teaches you things - and because I'm starting to think like The Witness in my understanding of the puzzle design:)
WATER IS SINK.
Evaporating Water is all about manipulating SINK in a number of ways. You use it once to fill in a gap over a river, and a second time to destroy a skull blocking your way to FLAG. I was fine with the second part, but I needed help for the first, and the reason I needed help was because I hadn't properly learned what SINK really meant.
The Witness is about learning a language; you are told nothing about symbols, and through experiments you deduce how they're used. Sometimes you get puzzles that may contradict your earlier assumptions, and you have to rethink the rules you've learned, and see if they can be modified in a way that's consistent with previous behaviour but also opens up new potential. That was a source of much confusion in the The Witness thread way back; I remember a few people suggesting that the rules changed on the player unexpectedly, but that wasn't the case; the rules hadn't changed, you just needed to refine your understanding.
Critical for this, though, is the fact that those puzzles that throw you a curveball - they are universally simple. Critically: Simple enough that you can very rapidly deduce that what you thought you knew has to be impossible for this puzzle to be solvable. Once you can establish that fact, then you can start rethinking your understanding of the rule in question.
In Baba is You, it's similar, with one key difference: We're not working with abstract symbols, we're working with words, which is a double-edged sword. On the one hand the behaviour of the word is already immediately implied by, well, what the word says - but on the other hand, sometimes the behaviour of that word is a bit more nuanced than the immediate interpretation of the word; sometimes you need to ignore what you *think* the word means and instead experiment to confirm what it *actually* means.
The absolute baseline in-game interpretation of SINK is "When Object A has SINK, if Object B occupies the same space, both Object A and B are destroyed".
I think the problem with Evaporating Water is that it expects you to refine your understanding of SINK in a couple of ways. You need to get it to that simple rule above, but I don't think the game leads you in that direction very well. My problems boiled down to not fully-understanding SINK and that I wasn't expecting SINK to destroy text (I believe this is also the first instance where you have to do that?)
Too often prior to Evaporating Water, SINK is used as just a death state. There's only a couple of instances before then where the problem is building a bridge over it - which means there's not much opportunity to *experiment* with interacting text with it. I can imagine a very simple level that would teach it: Four-block wide river with WATER IS SINK, FLAG on the other side, and a Keke in place with a KEKE IS MOVE; the solution boiling down to "Get Keke to walk into the river, then push KEKE IS MOVE after him". You can easily tweak it a bit to also teach the idea of SINK itself being a trait of the mobile entity, just do a touch more to lock in the notion that SINK destroys both objects.
(Brief aside #1: It slightly bothers me that SINK is a more potent destructor than even DEFEAT. SINK applies to anything; DEFEAT - if I'm interpreting its underlying rule correctly - only applies to things which are YOU)
And yet, as I type all this, I have to concede that everything I'm complaining about is stuff I could have deduced with experimentation. So maybe all I *really* want is new concepts to be introduced in a more sandboxy environment where you can experiment freely with objects? More opportunity to *play* with SINK would have been a help. It's what The Witness does - but then again, there's a corollary to that, which is that The Witness only has a fairly small language of symbols when all is done. Baba is You is clearly going to have many more individual rules to comprehend. On paper it gets away with that because the rules are implied by the text on it, but the text isn't necessarily as specific as the player's understanding of the rule needs to be.
(Brief aside #2, a minor niggle: We have MELT and HOT, obviously related. It's mildly irritating that FLOAT and SINK are not related to each other. Again, I guess that's a factor of Baba is You using words that have specific interpretations that imply things rather than abstract symbols - it does make me wonder if Baba is You may struggle in some other languages)
Evaporating Water is all about manipulating SINK in a number of ways. You use it once to fill in a gap over a river, and a second time to destroy a skull blocking your way to FLAG. I was fine with the second part, but I needed help for the first, and the reason I needed help was because I hadn't properly learned what SINK really meant.
The Witness is about learning a language; you are told nothing about symbols, and through experiments you deduce how they're used. Sometimes you get puzzles that may contradict your earlier assumptions, and you have to rethink the rules you've learned, and see if they can be modified in a way that's consistent with previous behaviour but also opens up new potential. That was a source of much confusion in the The Witness thread way back; I remember a few people suggesting that the rules changed on the player unexpectedly, but that wasn't the case; the rules hadn't changed, you just needed to refine your understanding.
Critical for this, though, is the fact that those puzzles that throw you a curveball - they are universally simple. Critically: Simple enough that you can very rapidly deduce that what you thought you knew has to be impossible for this puzzle to be solvable. Once you can establish that fact, then you can start rethinking your understanding of the rule in question.
In Baba is You, it's similar, with one key difference: We're not working with abstract symbols, we're working with words, which is a double-edged sword. On the one hand the behaviour of the word is already immediately implied by, well, what the word says - but on the other hand, sometimes the behaviour of that word is a bit more nuanced than the immediate interpretation of the word; sometimes you need to ignore what you *think* the word means and instead experiment to confirm what it *actually* means.
The absolute baseline in-game interpretation of SINK is "When Object A has SINK, if Object B occupies the same space, both Object A and B are destroyed".
I think the problem with Evaporating Water is that it expects you to refine your understanding of SINK in a couple of ways. You need to get it to that simple rule above, but I don't think the game leads you in that direction very well. My problems boiled down to not fully-understanding SINK and that I wasn't expecting SINK to destroy text (I believe this is also the first instance where you have to do that?)
Too often prior to Evaporating Water, SINK is used as just a death state. There's only a couple of instances before then where the problem is building a bridge over it - which means there's not much opportunity to *experiment* with interacting text with it. I can imagine a very simple level that would teach it: Four-block wide river with WATER IS SINK, FLAG on the other side, and a Keke in place with a KEKE IS MOVE; the solution boiling down to "Get Keke to walk into the river, then push KEKE IS MOVE after him". You can easily tweak it a bit to also teach the idea of SINK itself being a trait of the mobile entity, just do a touch more to lock in the notion that SINK destroys both objects.
(Brief aside #1: It slightly bothers me that SINK is a more potent destructor than even DEFEAT. SINK applies to anything; DEFEAT - if I'm interpreting its underlying rule correctly - only applies to things which are YOU)
And yet, as I type all this, I have to concede that everything I'm complaining about is stuff I could have deduced with experimentation. So maybe all I *really* want is new concepts to be introduced in a more sandboxy environment where you can experiment freely with objects? More opportunity to *play* with SINK would have been a help. It's what The Witness does - but then again, there's a corollary to that, which is that The Witness only has a fairly small language of symbols when all is done. Baba is You is clearly going to have many more individual rules to comprehend. On paper it gets away with that because the rules are implied by the text on it, but the text isn't necessarily as specific as the player's understanding of the rule needs to be.
(Brief aside #2, a minor niggle: We have MELT and HOT, obviously related. It's mildly irritating that FLOAT and SINK are not related to each other. Again, I guess that's a factor of Baba is You using words that have specific interpretations that imply things rather than abstract symbols - it does make me wonder if Baba is You may struggle in some other languages)
Late addition: Okay, I've just realised something else from looking at a few levels I've completed before. This might amuse you. Contains spoilers for Island-4, but I recommend you've read the above screed first!
I've just looked again at Island-4: Bridge Building?. So... yeah, that's an excellent level for teaching you that you can use text to form a bridge over water. I guess I just... forgot? Or found some other solution? I know I did one with some sort of ludicrous setup of bringing the FLAG IS WIN text over to the left-hand side, but that may have been the (similar) Island-3.
I don't know if that invalidates my previous gubbins or bolsters it! Did I miss the lesson, or just learn it and forget it? I guess that's another The Witness-relevant thing: When it's teaching you something, it absolutely hammers it home!
I don't know if that invalidates my previous gubbins or bolsters it! Did I miss the lesson, or just learn it and forget it? I guess that's another The Witness-relevant thing: When it's teaching you something, it absolutely hammers it home!
A question, because I did solve prison, and thought it was fair game:
I mentioned looking for hints before, and while I solved Prison and thought it was a fair puzzle, when I was looking for stuff on Island-10 I saw what they said about Prison, and the solution they presented *did* read like an unintentional bug; the one I implemented felt entirely honest; it just required proper understanding of what it meant to have no traits.
So... which solution for Prison did you actually do?
So... which solution for Prison did you actually do?
This is so great, and incredibly clever. My girlfriend, roommate and I were really getting into it last night. It's so good!
So.... this works?
The normal solution at the end should be 'Door is Push'. I first tried doing 'Door is Open' instead of 'Door is Shut' which had no effect. Then I tried having both statements 'Door is Open' and 'Door is Shut' at the same time which made the door disappear - because they contradict each other?
"Is Open" gives an object the ability to open a shut object. Perhaps unintuitively, "Door Is Open" does not mean that the door will be open, but rather that the door essentially becomes a key that will open something else that has the "shut" state. In this case since the door has the "open" state and the "shut" state the door has unlocked itself.
Yeah that level legit seemed impossible to me for a good 30 minutes. I showed a picture to my friend who hasn't played the game and she said "can't you do X?" to which I replied "no I can't...wait a minute YES I can" and then I figured it out.
The third island extra level is driving me crazy. Any hints?
Also I wish I was playing this on 3DS instead for less weight and a smaller size when trying to extra relax.
Also I wish I was playing this on 3DS instead for less weight and a smaller size when trying to extra relax.
100%'d Lake World in a roundtrip commute. Very clever and elegant puzzles. Hope it keeps introducing new elements.
My only criticism is that starting out, it took a bit of experimenting to figure out what could be subjects, predicates, or both. I would've preferred being handed most of that knowledge ahead of time because it could be rather time-consuming trying to line some grammar up for it to not register.
My only criticism is that starting out, it took a bit of experimenting to figure out what could be subjects, predicates, or both. I would've preferred being handed most of that knowledge ahead of time because it could be rather time-consuming trying to line some grammar up for it to not register.
I am loving this game. It's hard in the way that a really good puzzle should be, in my opinion, where the answer is hard to find but makes perfect intuitive sense in hindsight.
I think experimentation being key is kind of the intention. That's why it's so easy to undo or restart a level, they want you to try various combinations of things to see what works.
Move either the words wall and sink towards the jellyfish and see what happens.
This feels like something I should love, but will drive me to throw my switch through the window.
It also sounds like of like an 'anti game' - the kind of thing I'll be applying my (too many) years of gaming rules too, and my wife will walk past the TV and go 'why don't you try X', and I'll laugh and go 'don't be silly, thats not how games work. See.......oh it worked'
It also sounds like of like an 'anti game' - the kind of thing I'll be applying my (too many) years of gaming rules too, and my wife will walk past the TV and go 'why don't you try X', and I'll laugh and go 'don't be silly, thats not how games work. See.......oh it worked'
That would be nice. Though it shows when you've completed them all in a world so that sort of solves that problem since it's obvious which still have levels left.
So many times I've "stumbled" into the solution for a puzzle with a crazy guess and thought "Huh, that actually works?" -- if you're stuck, most of the time remember the following: the solution generally is *not* hard, so if you're doing something really weird you're probably not on the right track, and you need to try things that seem like they probably won't work, because they often do (and then add a new trick to your bag of rules)
Can someone explain to me the solution for level 13 in the first lake area?
First time I had to resort to a guide and I still don't get exactly why it works.
I'm guessing certain commands override others.
First time I had to resort to a guide and I still don't get exactly why it works.
I'm guessing certain commands override others.
Or "Flag is Rock" or "Flag is Sink" or...
"Flag is Flag" means that it can't be changed. A flag is always a flag.
1- Wall is Shut: makes the door like a the door which can be open by a key
2- Star is Open : make the star as the key
3- Key is win : so you can win when you touch it
4- remove the key from : you can't win until you remove this because key is win can't override it when it is the first command
2- Star is Open : make the star as the key
3- Key is win : so you can win when you touch it
4- remove the key from : you can't win until you remove this because key is win can't override it when it is the first command
Yeah that is kind of what I was thinking with wall now acting as a .....
Thanks.
This is a great idea.
Is the 'oh crap I moved the block or word one tile too far to the edge of the screen' thing supposed to be part of the game?
I can't stand that.
It's part of the game but you can just undo all your actions so it's not a big deal if you do it by mistake.
I'm still having such a great time with the game -- it's my GotY so far -- but since I'm not even a third through it yet, I'm a bit nervous that levels will eventually require me to utilize every obscure technique I've learned (and probably already forgotten) up to that point and I won't have an easy way to brush up on them. Is that an issue the late game has?
Yeah it's supposed to be part of the game but that's why there's a robust undo feature.
It says something about the fact that I only play this game when I am dog-tired after work that I straight up forgot about the Undo stuff.
Thanks all. I'm an idiot.
Baba Is Permadeath.
This game breaks my brain way more than I was expecting. I was having trouble like 3 puzzles in. Maybe tonight might not be a good puzzle night for me.
The Fall world is kicking my butt. Maybe Ruins is easier.
..Dang it. I need to stop figuring out levels after I've turned the game off.
..Dang it. I need to stop figuring out levels after I've turned the game off.
Loving this game. The prison level had me staring at my screen for awhile doing nothing but contemplating how it was even possible... solved it by the end of my lunch break!
Bunch of other levels like that too, but can't remember their names. One thing I really like (somebody mentioned this already) is that there aren't really any filler puzzles to get you used to a mechanic. Some games boast "300 levels" but a third or more are super basic.
Not. The. Case.
Bunch of other levels like that too, but can't remember their names. One thing I really like (somebody mentioned this already) is that there aren't really any filler puzzles to get you used to a mechanic. Some games boast "300 levels" but a third or more are super basic.
Not. The. Case.