Grievances | Anchorhead
A short list of puzzles and solutions that seemed unrealistic to solve on my own.
Showing the skull to the drunk doctor
I got the doctor to tell me all about Edward, Anna, and William. He explained that he buried William in the crypt. Since I had already been there, I ran back, searched for William’s coffin, and took away his skull (Why? Because I could.)
I showed the skull to the doctor and his reaction was something along the lines of “W… Why are you showing me that?”
…And then nothing.
It turns out, I needed to ask about crypt to trigger (I’m guessing) the flag that I had heard everything he had to say. But since he had already told me that William was buried in the crypt, it would have never occurred to me to ask about the crypt. Maybe if this was my first time hearing about the crypt, but that was not the case.
This logic gate felt a little too rigid.
Twisting the golden spheres
I saw the spheres, remembered them from my dream, and noticed the fingerprints on them. Obviously, I have to touch them.
I touch them, and nothing happens. I try to pull on them, move them, push them, and always it’s “It doesn’t budge”. I rub them, and the fingerprints go away (this was a nice detail)
Within all that, I would have never come up with the verb twist. “It doesn’t budge” suggests pretty strongly that there’s no way to move the spheres. I did not think to try other ways of motion.
Some hints here would be been really nice! Even if “try another way to moving them?” is too in-your-face, something like
pull the spheres
You try to pull the spheres away from the wall, but cannot get them out of their ensconcement.
gives a subtle hint that this particular direction was not fruitful.
Cutting free from the straitjacket
- Notice that there is a window at the end of the hall.
- Realize that it has cracks
- Decide to wedge your broken bit of glass into a crack to cut yourself free
I would have never come up with that on my own! I think the main thing is that the window itself is too subtle. I guess some games are like that, where you just have to comb each room for every tiniest detail. And I guess if you’re going to have a puzzle like that, you ought to do it in a small enclosed area, which the asylum is.
But consider that you probably will have a time-bomb waiting to eat you, and this becomes a lot less feasible.