[MOD] The One Room Round Robin Part 3

[THOM]

(edited by Zo Kath Ra)
IMPORTANT NOTICE to everyone who came here from Steam or Nexus
There's a problem with the Grimrock forum. When you register, it doesn't send an activation mail.
After registering, please send a message to the ORRR3 team, containing your chosen username.
You can do this on Steam or Nexus, or you can send an e-mail to:
zo [underscore] kath [underscore] ra [at] protonmail [dot] com
The ORRR3 team will then activate your account on the Grimrock forums.



"You are travelling to Bardwell in the Peacebound Lands, when suddenly a wave of strange force drives through you and makes you fall unconscious…"

The One Room Round Robin Part 3 is the latest release of this multi-modder project.

15 developers – including some of the best of the Grimrock modding scene – have each created areas of the game, in various styles, always full of new ideas, puzzles, assets and effects. All of them are unique, amazing and contain many surprises, while everything is tied together by an extensive story about an abandoned village, strong magical powers, and the Dark Tower.

Features

• 20 Modders' Locations
• Over 20 Levels
• Extensively crafted Global Areas
• Elaborate new Spell Set
• Never encountered Enemies
• Re-balanced Weapons
• Non-Player Characters
• Optional Quests
• 62 Secrets
• 17 Achievements
• Support of Parties with fewer than four Champions

Now on Steam and Nexus.

Please have a look at the next post which collects a lot of hints and helps.

[THOM]

This section will offer help, hints and solutions. Continuously all central questions will be taken up.

Problem with importing a party
Legend of Grimrock II offers the possibility to start a Grimrock game with an imported party from an existing savegame. This is also possible with ORRR3.
But unfortunately it is quite likely that the party of the savegame contains components that ORRR3 (or any other Grimrock mod) doesn’t support. This inevitably leads to a crash.
This is due to certain parts of the mechanics of the game that are not easy to get around.
We therefore recommend that you start ORRR3 only with a new party.


Catacombs

*Room THOM: Abandoned Area!*
I finally reached the crowned skull but I don't know what to do with it.

HintShow

There is another crowned head in this room. But it's not an item.

SolutionShow

In the north-east corner of the room is a painting on the wall. Use the crowned skull on it.

*Room AdrTru: Tomb of ancient Knights*
What to do with the frame at the wall? It's said that there are "small recesses" on the surface of the frame's back.

Hint1Show

You may have found a sheet of paper.

Hint2Show

The frame at the wall has "black dust" on it. Can you imagine what could make that?

SolutionShow

Put the paper on the frame and rub a torch on it.

Forgotten Bog

*Room Xanathar: Digs and Bogs Co*
What does all that crystals in the lowered terrain ("minefield") mean?

HintShow

Think of the game Minesweeper.

Village East

*Room Dhomochevsky: Ascension*

I don't understand "light three dimensional axes".

Hint 1Show

To solve this puzzle you need to light up the floortiles in a way that they show certain symbols.

Hint 2Show

The wanted symbols are letters. How can letters describe three dimensional axes?.

Hint 3Show

Think in a mathematical way. Three certain letters can describe the three dimensional room.

SolutionShow

You have to lighten up the floortiles that they show an X, a Y and then a Z (while the Z is hard to do in this 3x3 grid).

About the button combination puzzle:

Hint 1Show

To solve this puzzle you need the lists of digits you may have found at several spots in the whole room.

Hint 2Show

Each list indicates one certain number that must be entered by pressing one button.

Hint 3Show

Think about summing up the numbers on two of the lists. There are several possible ways...

Hint 4Show

Most tricky is the "Right" list: Think about the mathematical meaning of those numbers.

SolutionShow

The final combination is: 7,9,2. - The "Right" list must be taken as binaries (only two numbers, 0 and 1) - this means a 2 as the solution.

*Room Skuggasveinn: Wizard's Enclave*
I can't find the red gem to proceed.

Hint 1Show

You have to find a secret area of the map. Have a look where it could be and how to reach it.

Hint 2Show

This area can only be entered from above...

SolutionShow

You have to jump down the waterfall from a certain spot. Stand on the surface on its top on the right side - then step forward.

*Room minmay: Tower of Babble*
-- see next post in this thread for full solutions --

*[Secret] Secret Refuge*
What to do in the room with the goromorg?

HintShow

The goromorg must be moved. Doing this is connected with the direction you choose... The last step is the hardest, because if the goromorg is fast enough in casting a spell he won't move...

Asylum Dungeon

*Room Aaneton: Hall of Queens*
I have trouble in solving the final puzzle.

Hint 1Show

The puzzle is based on chess.

Hint 2Show

You have to place the crowns in a way that they wouldn't attack each other if they were chess Queens. There are two possible solutions.

*Room THOM: I.M.J.W.*
I wonder what to do with all the stone slabs.

Hint 1Show

Do you understand what's painted on the slabs?

Hint 2Show

The stone slabs represents parts of a map. Which one is it?

SolutionShow

It's the gameworld of ORRR3 what is meant. You have to arrange the slabs beside the lines of bricks that they show the actual game map.

*Room sps999: Potion's Lab*
What to do with the signs, the potion recipes and the bodies on the altars?

Hint 1Show

Consider the bodies as dead patients and the altars as beds.

Hint 2Show

You have to put the appropriate recipe to the patient. Not the potion itself.

Hint 3Show

The signs tells the patient's symptoms and what happened after he consumed a certain potion. You have to find the combination, which potion leads with which symptom to the mentioned result.

SolutionShow

Symptoms:
Pain, No Bleeding
Results:
Potion had no effect
=> cure_disease (1 Etherweed, 1 Falconskyre)

Symptoms:
Bleeding
Results:
Potion cured bleeding
=> healing (1 Blooddrop Cap)

Symptoms:
Already Dead
Results: [the patient is alive and attacks the party]
=> resurrection (2 Blackmoss)

Symptoms:
Fever, Nausea
Results:
Potion had no effect
=> cure_poison (1 Blooddrop Cap, 1 Mudwort)

*[Secret] Dormitory*
There is a small button in this room. What does it do?

Hint 1Show

Elsewhere you can find a note about four diamonds. This is a hint to open a secret here.

Hint 2Show

The four diamonds can be found inside the dormitory, but they are no items.

Twisted Forest

*Room Duncan1246: Thelonius's Hermitage*
What to do with the horn in the 'Fire Ordeal'?

Hint 1Show

Blowing the horn can make you jump. You have to find the right spot were it works.

Hint 2Show

Watch where you jumped - from and to. You'll notice the floor tiles will light up eventually. That way you have to draw a certain path.

Hint 3Show

Remember what is written on the sign at the wall...

SolutionShow

Figure out a route to light all floor tiles you jumped on. You will also have to make two jumps over the firepits.

*Room Diarmuid: Halo in Reverse*
I don't understand how the light and dark puzzle works.

Hint 1Show

You need to lighten and darken the floor-rings so that they shows certain shapes. Which shapes, is described in a scroll you can find.

Hint 2Show

The trick with the room of Diarmuid is that you have to operate on the upper AND lower circles. To do this right, mind the name of the room.

Hint 3Show

While you light the upper floorpads you have to darken the lower ones. And vice versa.

Solution Step 1Show

The first upper circle has to be completely lighten, while the circle below has to be completely darken.

Solution Step 2Show

The lower circles must be competely dark with lighten corners (inner and outer ring). The upper circles have to be arrangend in the opposite way.

Solution Step 3Show

All three upper circles must be competely dark but show a lighten + shape. The lower circles have to be arrangend in the opposite way.

Dark Tower

*Room Jgwman: The Lost Archives*
What to do in the beginning when lots of fireballs flying around me?

Hint 1Show

You may have found an item that will help here.

Hint 2Show

The Staff of Binding casts Force Fields. There is another Force Field in this area. Do you see what it does?

Hint 3Show

Force Fields can turn fireballs. Check out, how...

SolutionShow

If cast from the right side Force Fields turn the fireballs and you can direct them into the targets at the walls.

ORRR3 in general

Number of Secrets per areaShow

Cemetery global area 0 secrets
Room 1. Eleven Warrior Abandoned Town Cemetery 1 secret

Catacombs global area 0 secrets
Room 2. AdrTru Catacomb of Ancient Knights 1 secret
Room 3. THOM Abandoned Area! 1 secret
Room 4. Azel Die Brueder Grimm 1 secret
Room 5. THOM #2 One Room Around Robin Hood 2 secrets


Abandoned Village global area 3 secrets

Village East global area 2 secrets
Room 6. minmay #2 Tower of Babble 8 secrets
Room 7. Dhomochevsky Ascension 10 secrets
Room 8. Skuggasveinn The Wizard's Enclave 1 secret


Asylum Grounds global area 4 secrets
Room 9. Aaneton #2 The Rat Laboratory 2 secrets
Room 10. sps999 Potion Labs 1 secret
Room 11. THOM #3 I.M.J.W. 3 secrets
Room 12. Aaneton Hall of Queens 2 secrets


Twisted Forest global area 1 secret
Room 13. Duncan1246 Thelonius's Hermitage 0 secrets
Room 14. The cube TheCube's Room 4 secrets
Room 15. Diarmuid Halo in Reverse 4 secrets


Dark Tower global area 2 secrets
Room 18. AndakRainor Enchanted Tower 2 secrets
Room 19. Jgwman The Lost Archives 0 secrets
Room 20. minmay The Colour of Magic 0 secrets


Forgotten Bog global area 0 secrets
Room 22. not by I. not by A. As good as it gets 2 secrets
Room 24. Xanathar Xanathar's Digs and Bogs Co. 5 secrets

62 secrets in total

[minmay]

ORRR3 is a hard dungeon in places, so here are some no-spoiler tips:
- You need to complete a certain number of rooms in each area, but you don't need to complete all the rooms; if you're stuck on one room you can skip it.
- Take advantage of the new spells! A party with the right spells is many times more powerful than one without them.
- There's no shame in going on Discord and asking me about that one puzzle you're stuck on!

How to play the locked class (recommended if you want a solo character):

SpoilerShow

On the character creation screen, type in "Toorum" as the name of the first champion, then press enter (or click elsewhere). The other three characters will be disabled, and you'll get the Ranger class (which only Toorum can use). Allocate your skills, stats, and traits as normal. In addition to the listed benefits of the Ranger class, you'll get the Thunderstruck trait, giving you +50% base movement speed and +100% cooldown rate.

It is possible to carry over race-exclusive traits (such as Mutation) to Toorum. This is due to a quirk in how character creation trait selection works, and cannot be fixed. For the same reason, it's not possible for us to get rid of the "Some characters have unselected traits" warning message.

Toorum's portrait won't appear during character creation or on the Load Game menu, but it will appear when in-game. This is because I found out that Champion:setPortrait() can leak memory so I switched to using the PartyComponent.onGetPortrait hook, which doesn't have the memory leak, but also doesn't work on the load game menu.

Full hints, solutions, and information for my own rooms, in a lot of nested spoiler tags:

SpoilerShow

Tower of Babble (in the south of the Village East level):

SpoilerShow

General theme and mechanics - read this before reading any hints:

SpoilerShow

Aside from one secret, the puzzles in this room are all about interpreting text clues. Unfortunately, some of the puzzles may be near-impossible to solve on your own if you are not fluent in English. I am not proud of this.
In addition, if you give up on a puzzle and start leaving the room, you will find hint and solution scrolls for the required puzzles. Thus, even an illiterate player can complete the room, but they probably won't get the secrets.

The Auto-Fishing System button will retrieve any items that fall into the water in this room.
The healing crystal will follow you up the tower, so it will always be nearby.
The room has several boss battles but no other enemies. The first boss is designed to prevent you from finishing the room with extremely low-level characters.

Ground floor

SpoilerShow

Hints (remember to check the in-game hint scroll too):

SpoilerShow

There are two panels of buttons here. Each panel has a sign above it, and that sign indicates how to press the buttons on that panel. There is also a "key" sign hinting at what the other signs mean. The button panels are independent of each other.

SpoilerShow

The words on the signs are words, but they don't form sentences. Instead, look at what they have in common with the "key" sign.

SpoilerShow

The "key" sign has 'b' on the left, 'bb' in the center, and 'bbb' at the right. The buttons are also arranged horizontally.

Solution explanation:

SpoilerShow

The number of 'b's in each word indicates which button should be pressed. The sign saying "bib bubble bah" means "press the middle button, then the right button, then the left button".

Solution for secret:

SpoilerShow

The panel with six buttons is an extension of the exact same mechanics, but exponentially harder to "solve" accidentally, requiring that you actually know what the signs mean. "fibbertigibbet" has four 'b's, so it means you should press the fourth button from the left. The full sequence is 241653.

Floor 1

SpoilerShow

Hints (remember to check the in-game hint scroll too):

SpoilerShow

This has the same general setup as the ground floor. This time the "key" sign has a full sentence. The word "Concentrate" is important.

SpoilerShow

In Grimrock, what does concentration typically mean?

SpoilerShow

The sign is telling you to open the rune panel to cast a spell. You don't need to actually cast anything to solve this puzzle, though.

SpoilerShow

The rune panel is a 3x3 grid. The 3x3 grid of buttons is also a 3x3 grid.

SpoilerShow

The signs next to the doors have sequences of capital letters. Each letter stands for something.

Solution explanation:

SpoilerShow

The signs list the first letters of elements on the rune panel. 'F' is fire, 'A' is air, 'E' is earth, 'W' is water. The fire rune is in the top left corner of the rune panel, so 'F' means to press the top left button. Thus the sign reading "A F W E" is telling you to press the top right, top left, bottom right, and bottom left buttons in that order.

Solution for secret:

SpoilerShow

The "E B A P W D S F L" sign has the exact same logic, and this answer should be entered using the same buttons. This time, though, you need to know more than just the four primary elements! The order is bottom left (earth), center (balance), top right (air), center right (physicality), bottom right (water), bottom center (death), center left (spirituality), top left (fire), top center (life). Yeah, I should've made it shorter...

The special secret you might miss:

SpoilerShow

There's an arquebus dangling from a rope tied to one of the banners sticking out from the water. From this floor, you can break the rope by throwing an item at it or casting a damaging spell at it. After the arquebus falls into the water, use the Auto-Fishing System button to retrieve it. You have to pick up the arquebus for the secret to trigger.

Floor 2

SpoilerShow

Boss information:

SpoilerShow

The Guardian of Earth has 350 health, 10 protection, 0 evasion, and immunity to sleep, blindness, poison, and freezing. It sees invisible. It heals from poison damage, but takes 150% shock damage.
It throws poison bolts with an attack power of 16 (remember, this attack power is increased by 40% on Hard and decreased by 40% on Easy). It is slower at throwing than a Grimrock 2 Uggardian is; it's more like the speed of a Grimrock 1 Uggardian.
Unlike an Uggardian, however, it can turn and throw a poison bolt at the same time. Thus, standing to the side of it is not particularly better than standing in front of it.
Also unlike an Uggardian, the Guardian of Earth can heal itself for between 50 and 150 health. It can't heal above its original maximum of 350 health. It is guaranteed to heal at low health if the healing isn't on cooldown, so you can't just chip it away; essentially, this boss acts as a DPS check to prevent you from doing the rest of this room at like level 3. If you want to get past it with a low level party, you'll need to spend some lightning bombs.

Hints (remember to check the in-game hint scroll too):

SpoilerShow

The "key" sign here, "Show what is missing", doesn't have any wordplay this time. It's telling you exactly what to do. Just in a vague way.

SpoilerShow

There are two 3x3 panels of small buttons on this floor. The buttons can be lit and unlit by clicking on them. This is how you need to "show what is missing".

SpoilerShow

There is a sign above each panel; think about what is missing from that sign. You'll need to read the text carefully.

Solution explanation:

SpoilerShow

One sign has every letter of the English alphabet except for 'x'. You need to draw an 'x' with lit buttons below that sign. So light the buttons in the four corners and the button in the center, and leave the other four buttons unlit.

Solution for secret:

SpoilerShow

The sign with all capital letters has every letter of the English alphabet except for 'T', so draw a 'T' with lit buttons below that sign; light the top three buttons, the center button, and the bottom center button, leaving the other four buttons unlit.

Floor 3

SpoilerShow

Hints (remember to check the in-game hint scroll too):

SpoilerShow

There's no "key" sign for this one, just two panels of light-up buttons again, and signs above them. This time, each sign just flat out tells you what needs to be done.

Solution explanation:

SpoilerShow

For the 6x3 panel of buttons, you need to create a pattern where each lit button is adjacent to either one or two other lit buttons, and no unlit buttons are adjacent to other unlit buttons. Diagonals don't count as adjacent. This leads to the solution of

Code: Select all

LL.LLL
L.LL.L
LLL.LL

Hint for secret:

SpoilerShow

For the 6x4 panel of buttons, you need to partition the panel into groups of 4 contiguous lit or unlit buttons. In other words, into tetrominoes. Do not overthink this. Don't even worry about "The right must be an inverse reflection of the left".

Solution for secret:

SpoilerShow

You can just alternate vertical lines of lit and unlit buttons:

Code: Select all

L.L.L.
L.L.L.
L.L.L.
L.L.L.

You can mirror that solution and it will also work. The other possible solution is this:

Code: Select all

LLL...
L..LL.
..L.LL
LLL...

(again, you can mirror it however you want).

Floor 4

SpoilerShow

Boss information:

SpoilerShow

The Guardian of Water has 500 health, 5 protection, 10 evasion, and immunity to sleep, blindness, poison, and freezing. It sees invisible. It heals from cold damage, but takes 150% fire damage.
It throws water balls with an attack power of 16 (remember, this attack power is increased by 40% on Hard and decreased by 40% on Easy). These do not deal cold damage; they are not affected by resistances, you can only dodge them. Like the Guardian of Earth, it doesn't throw them as fast as an Uggardian, but it can turn and throw at the same time.
The Guardian is immune to its own water balls, but this is pretty much trivia since the only ways to hit it with its own water ball are things like casting Force Field in the middle of its throwing animation.
This Guardian can't heal itself, but it can create a massive cone-shaped blast of cold damage with attack power 16. When the Guardian starts charging this attack, red 'x's will appear on the floor to indicate which squares it will hit, and you'll get a warning noise if you're standing on one of them, so get off of them quickly!
The Guardian can turn and charge this attack at the same time, too. Because of the cone shape, it is far easier to dodge when you're close to the Guardian, and is impossible to dodge if you're too far away when it starts charging - so stay close to the Guardian!

Hints (remember to check the in-game hint scroll too):

SpoilerShow

Cryptic signs are back, and even bigger grids of lit/unlit buttons. For this one, you will be lighting most of the buttons.

SpoilerShow

One sign has the four compass directions on it. This indicates how you should translate north/south/east/west in the world to up/down/left/right on the panel of buttons. Although since the panel of buttons is on a north wall, your intuitive guess for that would probably be right anyway.

SpoilerShow

But the compass directions are still an important hint because they indicate that you need to look at something in the world around you.

Solution explanation:

SpoilerShow

The floor. You're supposed to look at the floor at your feet, and for each square on the grid, light the corresponding button if there's floor for you to stand on there, and leave the corresponding button unlit if there's empty air there. The dimensions of the panel correspond to the dimensions of this floor of the tower.
In retrospect this is a super tedious puzzle; I should have at the very least inverted it so you only have to light up a few of the buttons. But really I shouldn't have made it at all.

Solution for secret:

SpoilerShow

And the secret, tied to the other panel of buttons, is even worse; it wants you to do the same thing, but for the previous floor. And the in-game automap isn't of any help, you have to walk down there and count the squares yourself. And then you also have to note that the panel is on a west wall instead of a north one and rotate the map accordingly. Look, I made this garbage years ago and very quickly, I promise that every puzzle I ever made after this and every puzzle I ever release in the future will be way way way less crap than this one.
Anyway here's the solution:

Code: Select all

LLL....
L.LL...
LL.LLL.
..LLL..
.LLL.LL
...LL.L
....LLL

Floor 5

SpoilerShow

No main puzzle here, just pull the lever and read the unimportant sign if you want.
Solution for secret:

SpoilerShow

Get the Jade Crab item by solving the optional puzzle on floor 2, then put it in the alcove labeled "Green Claws" here. Yeah, if the previous floor didn't make it obvious enough that I ran out of time making the room, this one sure does.

Floor 6

SpoilerShow

Boss information:

SpoilerShow

Stepping out of the alcove area will summon the Guardian of Air, unless you left a piece of meteorite ore in the alcove. As with the other Guardians, you'll have to defeat it to complete the room.
The Guardian of Air has 1250 health, 5 protection, 20 evasion, and is immune to sleep, blindness, poison, and freezing. It sees invisible. It heals from shock damage, but takes 150% poison damage.
It has several attacks; most of the attack powers listed here are subject to the +40% / -40% difficulty modifiers.
- Throwing lightning balls with 16 attack power. It can throw and turn at the same time, and unlike the previous Guardians it throws them at Grimrock 2 Uggardian speed, so you won't be able to reactively dodge them if you're adjacent!
- Charging up and blasting the area in front of it with lightning. This has 10 attack power. Like the Guardian of Water, warning 'x' symbols will appear. Also like the Guardian of Water, it can turn and charge this attack at the same time. Unlike the Guardian of Water, this attack isn't a cone, it's more of a jagged line.
- Calling down a bolt of lightning from the sky with 16 attack power regardless of difficulty (I forgot to apply the multiplier lol). It will always target your position, but you have a second to run away from that position before the lightning strikes, and you get a helpful warning 'x' again.
- Charging lightning in both of its hands, then creating two consecutive checkerboard-pattern blasts of lightning with 10 attack power each. The 'x' symbols are provided once again. This attack covers the whole arena, so you can't run away from it; the only option is to stand on the safe squares between the dangerous ones. Just standing still will get you hit once; try not to be so bad at dodging that you get hit twice!

Solution for secret:

SpoilerShow

You must open the doors for all the other optional puzzles (i.e. solve all of them) in the room. This will open the door at the top and let you get the Sylendian Staff and the Scrambled Memory.

Items and experience obtainable from Tower of Babble:

SpoilerShow

Experience points: 3,250

Meteorite ore

Arquebus (firearm, shoots pellets, 45 attack power, 4.5 cooldown, 3% jam chance, 4% backfire chance, requires Firearms 2)
- The arquebus also has a completely useless secondary attack with 50 attack power, 5 cooldown, and the same jam/backfire chances.
Branch
Sylendian axe (heavy weapon, axe, 29 attack power, 3.7 cooldown, requires Heavy Weapons 1)
Sylendian dagger (light weapon, dagger, 14 attack power, 3 cooldown, requires Light Weapons 1)
Sylendian glaive (heavy weapon, axe, two-handed, reach, 35 attack power, 4.2 cooldown, requires Heavy Weapons 3)
Sylendian hammer (heavy weapon, mace, 44 attack power, 5.5 cooldown, ignores 15 protection, requires Heavy Weapons 2)
Sylendian longbow (missile weapon, shoots arrows, 27 attack power, 4 cooldown, Volley special attack (same as the vanilla bows))
Sylendian staff (staff/orb, +25 energy, +4 vitality, +2 willpower, +30% earth spell power, requires Earth Magic 2)
Sylendian sword (light weapon, sword, 19 attack power, 3.5 cooldown, requires Light Weapons 1)

Rogue boots
Shaman cloak
Torn breeches

9 arrows
4 cannon balls
40 pellets
2 quarrels
5 rocks
2 shuriken

1 blooddrop cap
6 etherweed
4 falconskyre
2 mudwort

1 healing potion
1 shield potion

5 horned fruit
1 pitroot bread
3 silver roaches
2 turtle eggs
3 turtle steaks

2 sacks

Jade crab
6 memories of messages (useless; just contains story text)
Scrambled Memory (useless; just contains story text)
3 scrolls (useless; just contains story text)
1 scroll with some meaningful but completely useless numbers
7 hint scrolls
5 solution scrolls

The Colour of Magic (up the spiral staircase in the Dark Tower):

SpoilerShow

Note: There are several rendering bugs in the Mac version of the game that really rear their heads in this room. The room is still fully completable, but some things will be harder to see. Also it will look like ass. Sorry, I didn't know about this when I made the room 4 years ago...
It will also be hard to see some things if your rendering quality is set to Low.

This room has no monsters and no ways to take damage or die. Your characters' food bars do not deplete while in this room, either, and starving characters will not "suffer from starvation" while in this room. There are obvious gameplay reasons for these things, but there are also Lore(tm) reasons for them!

If this room appears to be totally empty, you are carrying too much light with you. Cast the Light and Darkness spell to suppress your light sources. If you don't have any magical light, unequip your torches.
Now you should be able to see a lot of stuff on the walls next to the entrance door. Read the wall text if you like, then try clicking the stuff on the other wall.

SpoilerShow

This room has 42 puzzles using the same mechanics, and they can be solved in any order. You only need to solve a tiny fraction of them to get the Balance Crystal. Solving more can get you some other nice items and a little bit of experience, but is NOT necessary by any stretch of the imagination. Only do it if you enjoy it.

The control panel next to the door has the following elements:
- At the top, a bar shows your progress in obtaining credits. Credits are awarded for solving the puzzles in this room, and harder puzzles are worth more credits. If the bar is halfway full, it means you've earned half the credits.
- Below the bar, the number of the puzzle you're on is shown, but using arbitrary letters as numerals, and also it's not in base 10. You would probably rather look at the level number in the top left of the screen instead.
- Below that are two triangles that you can click on. The left triangle takes you to the previous level, the right triangle to the next level.
- Between the two triangles, a hexagon will be shown if you have solved this level.
- Below that is the number of credits that solving the currently selected level is worth...again using arbitrary letters as numerals and not in base 10.
- At the bottom left of the panel is another triangle. Clicking on this one will take you to a place where you can spend your credits. Next to the triangle, your current credits are displayed, but as you might have guessed by now, not in base 10.

The goal of each puzzle is to hit all of the floating torus knot thingies with beams of light. The floating torus knot thingies can either be in receptors on walls, or on small pillars anywhere in the room.
You'll do this by moving various movable pieces that reflect, refract, or otherwise alter the beams of light. There are full in-game instructions for the controls for this. Unfortunately, when I made this room I hadn't yet analyzed Grimrock 2's camera enough to be able to write proper mouse controls. So there are no mouse controls (well, you can click on a movable piece that you're standing right in front of, but that's it).
I strongly recommend using the top-down view (press your weapon swap key) to do this. Walking around on the ground lets you observe a lot of Grimrock's graphics quirks but it is really unsuited for the process of solving the puzzles.

Now, about that place where you can spend your credits:
- There's a triangle at the top of the screen that you can click to go back to the main room.
- Items are floating around this area; their cost in credits is shown beneath them. To "buy" an item, simply click on it to grab it. If you don't have enough credits for it, nothing bad will happen, you'll just fail to grab the item.
- You can return items by dropping them in this room, getting a full refund on your credits. This is noted in the items' tooltips, so you don't need to remember which items came from this room.
- Solving every puzzle will give you exactly enough credits to take every item. However, most parties will find some of the items useless.

General hints for solving the puzzles:

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- Do not force yourself to solve them in order, unless you want the room to last as long as possible.
- Sometimes it's easier to work backwards from the target(s) than it is to work forwards from the laser emitter(s).
- The names of many of the levels are hints about how they're solved. Not all of them, though.
- If you are colourblind, you can still identify the colours by brightness. Blue is the faintest, red is a bit brighter than blue, green is brighter than red. However, this is obnoxious enough that you'd probably rather just skip all the puzzles with multiple colours. Sorry.
- If you're on a level that uses both prisms and green lasers, the green lasers have a much more restricted path than red or blue ones, because prisms can't change the course of green lasers at all. So start by trying to figure out where the green lasers need to go; this will tell you where you need to put some or all of your non-prism pieces.

A very easy console "cheat" if you want to skip this room, either because you've done it before or because you just don't like it:

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Code: Select all

minlib.lasers.solveAll()

will immediately solve all the levels in the room for you, awarding all the credits and experience and the achievement. But make sure to only enter this command when you are actually inside the room! I forgot to make it check if you're inside the room, and it'll crash and burn if you try to call it while outside the room.

Hints and solutions for each specific puzzle (solution screenshots are from an older version, so some levels will look different, but the solutions themselves haven't changed):

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1. Refraction

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Mirrors can turn laser beams by 90 degrees. You just need to move the mirror to direct the laser into the target. You really aren't supposed to get stuck on this one.

Solution

2. Curl

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You can rotate pieces by using the same keys you use to turn your party. You uh, aren't supposed to have trouble with this one either.

Solution

3. Symmetry

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Mirrors are double-sided.

Solution

4. Loop

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This puzzle is pretty similar to the last one. Remember, mirrors are double-sided.

Solution

5. Mouse

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This puzzle introduces walls, which block lasers. And also block everything else. Look for the path to the target that requires the fewest turns.

Solution

6. Three

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This puzzle introduces a three-pronged splitter piece, which can split a laser beam into two beams if rotated correctly. You can split a beam and then split the splitted beams again, the beams don't lose power or anything.

Solution

7. Spread

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You'll need to make a long chain of beam splits here. Each split should use one beam to hit a target, and the other beam to hit another splitter. The last splitter is an exception and will need to hit two targets.

Solution

8. Starlight

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There are just enough mirrors to hit all the targets; you can't waste a single one. Start by hitting two of the targets in the four-pillar cluster.

Solution

9. Reflection

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This puzzle introduces a mirror that reflects incoming beams right back into themselves. This is not useless.

Solution

10. Colour

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This puzzle introduces colour. I didn't need to tell you that. Coloured targets must be hit with a beam of their colour, and only a beam of their colour; a blue target must be hit only by a blue beam, and a magenta target must be hit by both red and blue, but not green.

Solution

11. Mix

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This puzzle is just there to beat colour mixing into you, in case you didn't notice it in the previous level. A cyan target must be hit by both blue and green; a magenta target must be hit by both red and blue.

Solution

12. Merge

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The splitter can be used to split a beam, but it can also be used in reverse.

Solution

13. Wire

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The last four levels were really easy to introduce new mechanics. This one is an actual challenge again. You'll need to use the splitters for both splitting and merging.

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The two mirrors should both be placed in the center column, one on each side of the green targets.

Solution

14. Prism

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This puzzle introduces the prism piece. When a beam enters from the clear side of a prism, any red in that beam will come out the red side of the prism, blue will come out the blue side of the prism, and green will come out of the green side of the prism.
This is symmetrical: red that goes into the red side of a prism will come out the clear side, and other colours that go into the red side will just stop there.

Solution

15. Coupling

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Separate the white beam using the prism first, then split the green beam with the splitter.

Solution

16. Seven

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You don't have any mirrors, but you can use prisms as mirrors for red and blue beams, and you can also use prisms to block out colours you don't want.

Solution

17. Correction

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The mirror should be in the center of the level.

Solution

18. Bidirectional

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Prisms can't be used to change the direction of green beams. Despite this, only one of the mirrors is needed for the green beam.

Solution

19. Flower

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Note that the targets are already lined up by colour; you don't need to put anything in the center.

Solution

20. Bleach

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You can use the same splitter to both split and combine.

Solution

21. Secondary

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After separating the white beam into red/green/blue and combining two of them into yellow/magenta/cyan, you can split that secondary colour and reuse its colours to create the other two secondary colours.

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Remember that you don't need to use a prism to combine two beams: you can also just direct the beams into each other.

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Use a prism to make magenta, then another prism to split the magenta beam. If you do this in the right direction, it will set you up well for making yellow and cyan.

Solution

22. Backscatter

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Revisit level 9, "Reflection", if you're having trouble with this one.

Solution

23. Intersection

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Every target on this level needs to be hit with green, and prisms can't change the course of a green beam, so there are only a couple of ways you could place the mirrors.

Solution

24. Reduction

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Probably my favourite level. Did I mention that mirrors are double-sided?

Solution

25. Filter

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This puzzle introduces filters, which limit which colours can pass through them. If you're playing the Mac version (or using the OpenGL renderer on Windows), emissive colour doesn't work with modulative blending, and as a result the filters will appear almost entirely black with only faint specks of their actual colour (from the particle effects) - sorry!
Anyway, you want to split the white beam before using any mirrors.

Solution

26. Absence

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This puzzle introduces movable filters...okay, not that exciting. Because the filters are secondary colours, they'll only filter out a single primary colour each, and you need to filter out two primary colours for each target.

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Start by splitting the white beam. Put one of the split beams through one of the filters, then split it again, so you'll have two beams of the same secondary colour, and one white beam. You'll need to use the remaining two filters twice each to turn these into the three primary colours.

Solution

27. Reuse

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This is like an easier version of the last puzzle. Not sure why I put it after it. Let alone right after it. Start by splitting the white beam. You'll need to use both filters twice.

Solution

28. Convert

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This puzzle introduces the converter, which changes colours to other colours. Its rotation determines whether it cycles red -> green -> blue or red -> blue -> green; the colours on top of the converter indicate which colours will come out for each colour that comes in.

Solution

29. Pair

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Because there are only two converters, you'll need to use long snaky green beam to hit all of the green targets.

Solution

30. Roundabout

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First figure out how to make magenta with just blue, a converter, and a prism. Then you can worry about getting the red target too.

Solution

31. Blues

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The position of the blue and red targets should give you an idea of where to put the prism.

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The prism belongs directly between the blue and red targets.

Solution

32. Infinity

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Remember, splitters can both split and merge.

Solution

33. Asymmetry

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I don't remember why I decided to include this puzzle, it's pretty dull. Split the green beam.

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Don't combine the blue or red beam with the green beam, you need them for the magenta targets.

Solution

34. Return

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This is where things get hard. You know by now that the non-diagonal mirror will be used with a splitter. Think about how you can use that to get all these secondary colours.

Solution

35. Morass

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This is easily the worst level, and annoying to navigate, and I really should have gone to the effort of replacing it with something better. Sorry.
So why did I add it in the first place? I liked the central gimmick of it: you start with the right coloured beams for the targets, but can't actually reach the targets with them, so you have to break the beams up.

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Instead of disassembling and re-assembling the two beams separately, use the green from the cyan with the blue from the magenta, and the red from the magenta with the blue from the cyan. This requires fewer mirrors.

Solution

36. Cycle

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You only have four pieces that can actually change the path of a beam - the rest "just" change the colour - so it should be pretty clear where to put them.

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Then think about the one place the filter can be.

Solution

37. Rotation

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This puzzle introduces the rotator, which rotates all incoming beams clockwise or counterclockwise (indicated by the spinning particles on top). I added this piece and a few levels to give players a break from the rather over-demanding converter and prism levels.

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Rotators are special because they are thoroughly asymmetrical. Reflecting a beam back into one always does something.

Solution

38. Forthscatter

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The locations for the rotators should be easy to figure out, but you need to be careful about where you put the clockwise ones and the counterclockwise ones.

Solution

39. Clock

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You can hit the same rotator more than once!

Solution

40. Weave

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Green needs to go everywhere, but red needs to only go in certain spots. Think about how you can combine the prism, the splitter, and that one mirror. Sorry, I really can't think of a good hint for this one.

Solution

41. Tumble

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Kind of a calm before the storm situation, here. You're not gonna like the next level if you needed help with this one. That said, start by using the prism to divide up the white beam before it reaches the white target - really!

Solution

42. Finale

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You need to squeeze all three secondary colours out of one red beam and one converter. This means you will have a beam that follows a very long and complex path.

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You need a loop to even get started making more colours, so make one out of the four splitters. You did beat level 32, "Infinity", right?

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Positioning the filter correctly with the converter will get you up to two secondary colours.

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With the four splitters arranged correctly, the mirror can be used to create a second loop.

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You need the filter, converter, prism, and mirror all in fairly specific places to get the correct colours to the correct targets. You could do this with trial and error, but before you resort to that: think about how two of the targets are the same colour, and what that tells you about where you should put these pieces.

Solution

Items and experience obtainable from The Colour of Magic:

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Experience points: 10,000

Balance crystal

Berserker's cap (light armour, helmet, +5 protection, +10 accuracy, 10% faster cooldown rate, +5% critical chance)

Iridosmine rod (heavy weapon, mace, two-handed, 122 attack power, 10 cooldown, -20 accuracy, ignores 40 protection, requires Heavy Weapons 5)
- Since it requires Heavy Weapons 5, it will never actually act as two-handed. Its weight of 32.4 kg is physically accurate for the volume of the 3D model. Yes, this is inconvenient, but see the Sylph Cage below.

Manabound rifle (firearm, uses no ammo, 64 attack power, 3.5 cooldown, +20 accuracy, 10 range, ignores 15 protection, uses Willpower as base damage stat, 3% jam chance, requires Firearms 4)

Necklace of the Druid (necklace, vitality +10, immunity to poison, disease, and all wound conditions)

Ruin (light weapon, sword, epic, 27 attack power, 2.8 cooldown, +10% critical chance, requires Light Weapons 4)

Repeating crossbow (missile weapon, shoots quarrels, 22 attack power, 4 cooldown, fires 3 bolts per attack)

Sceptre of Colours (staff/orb, epic, +10 energy per level of the wielder's Concentration skill, +1 strength per Fire Magic level, +1 dexterity per Air Magic level, +1 vitality per Earth Magic level, +1 willpower per Water Magic level, +5% power for all spell schools, requires Concentration 1)
- Prismatic Beam secondary attack: costs 75 energy, 1 second buildup, 5 second cooldown, fires an instant penetrating beam with unlimited range, dealing pure damage with a base attack power of 30 (follows the usual spell damage formula and is considered to use all five magic skills).

Sylph Cage (staff/orb, epic, +25 energy, +3 dexterity, 20% faster cooldown rate, +30% Air Magic spell power, requires Air Magic 3)
- Weighs -20.0kg, so carrying it will actually make your inventory lighter.

Thunderous Trident (heavy weapon, spear, two-handed, reach, can attack underwater, epic, 57 attack power, 5 cooldown, +15 accuracy, shock damage, requires Heavy Weapons 4)
- Hitting a monster with this weapon will cause lightning to arc to any other monsters on its square, any monsters on squares adjacent to it, any monsters on squares adjacent to those monsters, etc. - in other words, it hits all connected monsters. But it can only hit each monster once. The lightning's attack power is equal to the damage you dealt with the initial hit before accounting for resistances/vulnerability.
- By the time you get this weapon, the Arena is the only place where it's likely to be useful, but it is very useful there.

[andyroosta]

Been looking forward to this one..thanks!

[THOM]

Sadly we had a cringe making false start.

We had to re-upload the file just after we had done it the first time, because we had a simple but ugly bug that crashed the "character creation" board.

Now everything should work and we hope you will enjoy the mod.

[Pompidom]

Played it for about an hour, here's my experience:

First area, the "shoveling" cemetary area.

Worst first room ever. Your party starts off the mod completely starved and you make them "dig" through a bunch of squares that increases your hunger even more resulting in a full party starving to death.

Bruteforcing the 2 levers is the only thing you can do pretty much to get to all the piles of dirt to dig through until you get the key.
And that's about it. A key I can't use, 2 gates still closed off with no idea how to open them. None of it was fun or enjoyable. Bored of the "room" It's about as default as can be. I'll give it a 2/10 for "trying"

Big sigh of disappointment, open cheat console, spawn a bunch of food and head on. I go down in the catacombs.

Destroy the sign of the closed off area (collapsing mines)
No explanation what to do. Brute force some items on the skeleton corpse, eventually it disappears by giving it a mushroom? Just makes no sense.

And that's it, Totally stuck. Bruteforce the rocks on just about everything. Nothing. I find the skull crown which I can't use anywhere.
Ugh. maybe if it didn't look so default, I could have tried to give it more effort, but the "default" looks as if it was built under 5 minutes put me off for even sticking around as it was clear I was getting nowhere solving this mess.

I reload the mod back to a point before I get shut in the collapsed mine. Find a secret button, The "magic in the walls" puzzle with the archer stuck in the cage. Agonizing groans of boredom. Nothing makes sense or is even remotely enjoyable. Invisible floor triggers with no way of telling they are there and they accept rocks to open walls. I get 2 gems, manage to get trapped by the ghost in the most stupid way ever which is offcourse my own fault. Again, default looks dungeon walls as if it was made in 5 minutes time.
None of it made sense, none of it was enjoyable, default log2 dungeon walls i can't stand looking for more than second.

Instant alt + F4

TLDR, 3 rooms played, all 3 of them were freakishly boring, default looks without effort and uninspiring to say the least.
Fun, entertainment overall, I'll give it a 3 and that's me being generous.

I'm sure the mod contains good stuff, but the entire beginning was so incredible disappointing, that I had 0 interest to play on.

Harsh criticism, I know. But it's simply my personal opinion.

I'll try again with the editor file later on to check the rest of the mod, but at this stage, I can't be bothered to waste my time playing these garbage beginner rooms.

A game should be "fun" and "enjoyable". Somewhere along the way this was all forgotten it seems.

ORRR2 had some crappy rooms as well, but at least the person that created the whole prison epilogue at least made the mod enjoyable from the start.

In ORRR3 there is no beginning, you just enter crappy rooms from the get-go

[THOM]

Hi Pompidom - wow, you are very fast...

I feel sorry, that you were disapointed. So, let me try to guide here a bit.

FOOD: There should be a lot around in the first level. Sure you found all?

DEFAULT WALLS: I'm afraid, that's a personal opinion that I can't change.
But just don't forget we had to keep the filesize under 100 MB - otherwise we couldn't offer it on Steam, and that was the aim from beginning on. And be assured: There is not only default-stuff in the mod...

*Abandoned Town Cemetery*
Why you can't use the key you obtained? Havn't you found the lock that it opens? In the south-west of the room?
Or have you used the key and stuck before the next gate?

HintShow

The floor in front of this gate looks a bit different.

SolutionShow

Throw an item on it.

The second gate near the entrance of this room locks a secret. So it's obviously not obvious to open...

*Catacombs: Abandoned Area!*
So you finally reached the crowned skull?

HintShow

There is another crowned head in this room. But it's not an item.

SolutionShow

In the north-east corner of the room is a painting on the wall. Use the crowned skull on it.

Does this help?

[Pompidom]

I'll restart the mod and give it one more try when I'm in the mood for it. Because it's clear that I'm not in the mood for it now. I have to go to work now, I just woke up early, saw it posted on Nexus and gave it a go without coffee in my system.

I don't know what to say, I played 3 rooms, and I simply found all 3 of them awful.

Gameplay, the puzzles, the layout. Just everything together. It was just default crappyness.
There was no entertainment value. Nothing to distinguish it from your average crappy default mod.

I didn't enjoy it as a player and I also didn't enjoy it on a technical level as a fellow modder.

Combined with the empty default looks, with all these empty alcoves, I simply don't feel like wasting my time trying to solve some obscure puzzle I can't figure out. I understand all the corpses and stuff has been removed as for the instability of the structure as was mentioned by the note, but all you're left with is a crappy looking empty room with empty alcoves. I find the crowned skull and I found the painting of a crowned individual, but no clue what to do there. It certainly didn't strike me to throw the skull against a wall painting. That's again a thing of not making any sense. I simply tried placing the skull on the nearby alcove, as that makes sense. That was not the solution so I called it quits. It doesn't help that feeding a mushroom to some skeleton knight corpse makes it vanish leaving me stumped what to do there as well.

Details, light, atmosphere. It's all 0. This has nothing to do with mod size. Just some random worldPosition trickery can do wonders here. Remove torches so you are forced to build maps with light sources that cast off shadows by placing objects smart in front of them.

This is just drawing some tiles in the editor in less than a minute and calling it a day.

[Pompidom]

Played at work, and simply rushed through skipping the tier 1 rooms for now. The mod definitely opens up in quality and enjoyment when you reach the abandoned village and I can actually start enjoying the mod

I shouldn't be playing/reviewing games without coffee on a monday morning being a complainy pants and all.

[lostsol]

Really enjoying this mod but I need some clarification on this:

Forgotten Bog

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A message popped up:
"You have reached 2 of 6 in completing this room. But you can't make 6 anymore - just 5."

If this is just about secrets, no big deal, but I will have to debate restarting if I missed out on achievements, items or content (I have not been making multiple saves....).

Thanks