Dang, you have some chatty friends spoiling all the fun! 
He became weak! Originally there was an option: hotspotCheater
But it seems like itās now enabled by default.
I was surprised to see it enabled by default on Hard. I understand enabling it for the casual experience but in my opinion that feature is a bit incompatible with the āHardā spirit.
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Oh OK. Thatās how I remember it:
- I accidentally came across the book title when poking around in the library. But I didnāt pick it up
- After reading the handbook I knew I will have to disable those SR-01 once in the factory. I also remembered the book title but couldnāt find the book anymore. The library computer couldnāt be used.
- Only after entering the factory and using that control panel the characters knew which book to look up in the library. And then the IndexTron 3000ā¢ was finally helping.
Maybe you have to fail this puzzle once similar to the flashback?
Well, itās implemented as a global setting. Itās a little bit similar to playing with a controller where you can cycle through near hotspots: you can use it on hard mode, but you donāt have to.
Itās all a matter of discipline
But using those features is still better than resorting to looking something up onlineā¦
Twice. After having being stuck for a long time:
- radioactive puddle
- zaping the lock
I had done everything in the chapter and these 2 were required to get in the factory.
I wish I didnāt.
Oh I never knew IndexTron3000 would help on that. I picked that book earlier when I saw the name.
I did not look at the panel and could use the IndexTron 3000ā¢.
But I tried walking through the SR-01s. Delores (which I was playing with) then mentioned that she would need some Manual to reprogram them.
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Couldnāt find the Book of the Dead so I tweeted Ron and he gave me the perfect guiding hint.
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Perhaps enabling that feature would also be a kind of easy modeā¦
Then again, I am totally with Ron that the game has to be designed so that it is not necessary. I think he succeeded. Fortunately I did not know about it for my play through.
This is the first adventure game I completed without 000,00 hints.
But I should consider as helps that
- I played first in casual and then in hard mode (because I firmly wanted to avoid hints and never thought I could do it by myself in hard mode);
- I always looked to the to-do lists (which are generally a great help for me also in my everyday life);
- when I have a familiarity with something, (this happens to me also in my everyday life, give me a complex problem and, given a constant attention from me, the first day I will be scared and anxious, the second Iāll became more relaxed, the third Iāll probably be enjoying solving it) so the fact that I recognized settings, elements of story and characters, and a certain feeling of trust in puzzle design capability of the devs gave me an internal self-confidence and then the gameplay worked really well with me.
So the deep and unconscious ability of our brain to find a place to our requests while we are giving attention to other things (mostly during sleep) to me happened only one time.
I was stuck at the Sexy Riker puzzle and, as in the old days, I stopped without solution. Which came soon, after I loaded the game hours later.
Apart from this, it was an overall familiarity that helped in my self confidence, like if the pauses of the above example have been spended yet during my following of the blog.
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I deserve that badge.
Although my first adventure (MI1) was completed without any walkthrough, I needed one suggestion by a friend (use compass with key). Back then I felt very guilty, since I though Iāve could have done that by myself.
The same happened for all the adventures which followed (Indy3 -which I played after-, MI2, MI3, Fate of Atlantis, Day of the tentacle, Sam & Max, Full throttle). No walkthroughs, just chatting with friends for mutual hints.
Too bad that with the internet also walkthroughs came! They spoiled me The Dig, since I couldnāt resist to find a little help here and there, but I wasnāt satisfied at last.
Walkthroughs were handy to complete Zak and Maniac Mansion. I used to play these games back then and I was stuck. I remained stuck for a long time, before looking for walkthroughs. I think Iād never complete those too games without a solution, too hard for me.
Even If I had plenty of reloading, plenty of suggestions by friends, I had GREAT satisfaction in completing Indy3, since itās really an hard game. Iāve been stuck in the castle for maybe two years.
Now, as many people here I can proudly state that I completed TWP, for the first time, without ANY external help.
I managed to get through Thimbleweed Park without any external help, however I didnāt complete all the puzzles to do so.
One puzzle I got stuck on involved getting into a specific hotel room, but a bug caused the door to remain open without me having to figure out the solution to the puzzle.
The other puzzle involved trying to get into the factory. At that point, I was quite eager to make more progress, so I decided to brute-force it rather than spend an unknown amount of time finding the proper solution. Amusingly enough, I was then immediately presented with another puzzle that required brute-force of a more literal variety.
Anyway, after completing the game, I was unhappy with having bypassed puzzles in the process, so I went back to those parts of the game to figure out the proper solutions. Figuring out how to get into the hotel room took me a while, but finding the clues I needed for the factory puzzle turned out to be pretty simple. Once I was satisfied that I had legitimately solved all the puzzles needed to beat the game properly, I ended my Thimbleweed Park media blackout and checked out the website for the first time, so here I am.
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I know the puzzle that you are referring to. Indeed, it must have been amusing applying brute force in that way after you used it in a more āmetaā way.
I assume that you brute-forced the puzzle related to clocks?
Welcome!
And I assume the second puzzle involved explosives?
[quote=āNor_Treblig, post:55, topic:288, full:trueā]And I assume the second puzzle involved explosives?
[/quote]
No, the puzzle Iām referring to is the very last puzzle required to get into the factory. Though I laughed at the anticlimax from the puzzle youāre referring to.
Yep, thatās the one.
Oh I see, getting some helping hands.
Did you also try putting all the other characters into that room beforehand?
[quote=āNor_Treblig, post:57, topic:288, full:trueā]Did you also try putting all the other characters into that room beforehand?
[/quote]
I didnāt think to do that. Iāll have to try that in another playthrough.
Though now that Iām thinking about it, I remember one last trivial āpuzzleā I didnāt figure out the first time, but it wasnāt actually necessary to complete the game. For whatever reason, I never figured out how to turn on the light in the first room of the sewers on my initial playthrough. After completing the game, I went back to figure that out, and was embarrassed to realize how easy getting the light turned on really was. The first time around I assumed I needed to get Franklin involved.
I hate looking up walkthroughs, but getting stuck for hours and hours is awful, especially when the world gets bigger, the playable characters multiply, and your inventory items grow. Then the number of possible item/object/player combinations to try is exhausting. The new hint-line feature is cool, but it seems like there could be a way for the game to know when you are stuck, and then offer subtle hints via dialogue.
The game has a way to understand in which point of the story (or puzzle chart) the player is, but there is no way for the game to know why the player is stuck.
Maybe heās stuck because he missed something, maybe itās because he has not understood a connection between two facts. Even for humans is difficult sometimes to understand what kind of problem the player has and I donāt think that this helping process can be automatized by the game to the point of giving correct hints via dialogue.
The current solution (the hint line) works because it gives to the player hints about all the puzzles of that section of the game, leaving to the player the task of understanding which hint solves his problem.
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