PATHOS - A puzzle game like Psychopath
 

Hey folks. I made a game called PATHOS that came out on Steam the other day. I thought some other old fogies like me might enjoy it since it's uber-inspired by Psychopath. It might be the hardest puzzle game on Steam but hopefully it's just as fun.

Tim Halbert, who did the original music for Psychopath, did our soundtrack and local legend DarkManticoreX2 helped test/destroy 75%of my original solutions.

It's $6.29 for another 5ish days. It'll drop to $4.89 whenever the next Steam sale pops up (not Christmas, we don't qualify since we're new).

http://store.steampowered.com/app/679300/PATHOS/

Re: PATHOS - A puzzle game like Psychopath
 

Ooh, hype. I might pick it up when it goes on sale - I loved the original pp & pp2 and am kind of sad the whole thing has just died.

Out of curiosity, who wrote the hardest puzzles?

Re: PATHOS - A puzzle game like Psychopath
 

This actually looks pretty fun.

Re: PATHOS - A puzzle game like Psychopath
 

Would buy if had money

Re: PATHOS - A puzzle game like Psychopath
 

All the puzzles were designed by me -- you miiiiight remember my name KingOreO from pp1 and a little pp2. There's about 170 total, though a handful are 'cinematic' and whatnot. You can disable story elements if that ain't your thing.

Re: PATHOS - A puzzle game like Psychopath
 

Is PATHOS more or less difficult than Psychopath ?

Re: PATHOS - A puzzle game like Psychopath
 

The first half of the game is easier on the whole I'd say, mainly because we're introducing new mechanics -- giant blocks, ice blocks, rotten, etc. and we wanted the solutions to be more fun than punishing. We took the difficulty curve seriously, as you don't need to complete every level to continue on.

The second half has some nice hard levels, classic pp1 and pp2 stuff, as well as some real devious solutions using a bunch of the new mechanics all at once.

There's also 24 lateral thinking 'puzzle' achievements, 2 in each world. There's a hidden world, secrets sprinkled across the game and even some stuff that breaks the 4th wall. /end salesman

Re: PATHOS - A puzzle game like Psychopath
 

i think i'll actually check this out because psychopath was great fun

played for 45 mins so far
level select is a bit too segregated, i liked being able to see every single level at once to see the progression - having to scroll through all the different level sets feels wonky

imo the level start screen, where you have to hit start to play the level is a bit unnecessary as well, as all that information can be contained in the actual level screen (difficulty, and level name) without needing the extra 7 seconds of downtime. since there's nothing stopping the user from quitting out safely from wherever they want to stop, it feels like that screen can be taken out.

there was a weird progression issue in terms of level difficulty curve where a bunch of the early levels use the 3 block "lock" that really isn't a lock, and can just be maneuvered around otherwise, then all of a sudden, an actual 3 block lock pops up, with backtracking needed and it felt weird not introducing the simple concept in its entirety before jumping into the good psychopath stuff

i digress, i'm on honeycomb atm and i'm having fun reliving the psychopath days

oh also the lateral thinking puzzle achievements is very convoluted, and the way they're named "Breakthrough" made it seem almost like i would be "skipping" a level if i pressed 'B' which i didn't want to do. That screen itself is kinda confusing as well, given that i've gotten like 1 of them, and after visiting the screen, can't really distinguish the one that I got from the rest of them

Re: PATHOS - A puzzle game like Psychopath
 

ey YoshL, I knew pp vets would give me the best criticism.

A couple of the menu things were consequence of a couple different overhauls. We initially had all the level info on the 'world select' screen but it looked insanely busy. There was probably a way to work it out but we just couldn't find one.

I know what you're talking about with the 3 block locks, and all I have to blame is Manti for at least one of those where I intended something else.

The breakthroughs may get a name change, never thought about skipping. There's a bug where achievements aren't making a ding noise and the pictures aren't turning to color once solved. Should be fixed tonight or tomorrow afternoon.

Glad you're having fun with some of it though!

Re: PATHOS - A puzzle game like Psychopath
 

yeah once you figure out that you can just back into the menu and pick anything, it becomes clear that breakthroughs aren't actually level skips or anything lol

Re: PATHOS - A puzzle game like Psychopath
 

:twisted::twisted::twisted::twisted:

Re: PATHOS - A puzzle game like Psychopath
 

tb to pp1 27 and then LiNk To ThE PaSt

i definitely do remember you (kingoreo) actually - think you made some really hard pp2 levels i could never do lol

as an estimate - how hard would the hardest levels be? like pp1 late 60s, or maybe even comparable to forgive me/pp2 masters?

Re: PATHOS - A puzzle game like Psychopath
 

I'd say not quite as hard as pp2 master except for maybe 4-5 levels. Also, I don't have a clue how to embed images on this thing.

But here's a level from each of the last 4 worlds not including super final world and the hidden one: http://www.kingoreo.com/randomscreens.jpg

Re: PATHOS - A puzzle game like Psychopath
 

The warp level is evil

Re: PATHOS - A puzzle game like Psychopath
 

Looking forward to playing it :D

Edit: Honeycomb was solid :)

Re: PATHOS - A puzzle game like Psychopath
 

Haven't really played Psychopath but this a cool game, done all puzzles up to Respite V for now. Looking forward to the harder ones!

I agree that the breakthrough wording is pretty poor and took me a while to actually check it out because I thought it was some form o hints system.

Not having a "step back" button and having to restart the entire level each time I misclick or try to sketch out a solution is pretty annoying, especially when most levels are laid out as a sequence of independent sub-problems. I'm guessing it's to give less incentive to brute-force but I don't feel it's worth the annoyance.

Re: PATHOS - A puzzle game like Psychopath
 

Whoa, KingOreO, long time no see.

Wish I had known about the development of this game!
I'll definitely give it a look once exams are done!

Re: PATHOS - A puzzle game like Psychopath
 

@Reach glad to see you playing! Surprised at all the Honeycomb comments so far -- some thought it was too much of a jump in difficulty.

@AutotelicBrown awesome you like it, not having played pp and all! -- and that's precisely the conflict we had when thinking of putting in a 'rewind' function, but we just decided it would undermine some of the decision making.

@hi19hi19 hey man I'm pretty sure I played all your custom pp1 levels. I dunno why we kept dev under wraps, wasn't really the greatest marketing idea ._.

So the current road map is to introduce the level editor and Steam workshop support sometime in February as a free update. Was thinking of gathering the best user-made levels and adding another world or two to the main game in the future as well.

Re: PATHOS - A puzzle game like Psychopath
 

Yeah, wish I had known of the game earlier.

Loving the game so far. Very hard as of world 6. Some of the new mechanics are brutal.

Honeycomb is quite hard for world 3, but fun. Personally the most brutal difficulty spike so far was Bad Directions in w5. Holy crap that level man.

Achievement question: The clear all levels in a particular world achievements don't work.

Edit: And I spoke too soon. World 7 was brutal. Soundtrack is fantastic and makes the struggle so much better though :) KEEP the definite highlight of W7, favorite level so far.

Edit 2: W7 Short Circuit - Without spoiling the solution, isn't the solution to that level inconsistent with the logic? Probably the first solution I don't personally like.

Edit 3: Officially 2 off on 9 stages. Fuck. me.

Re: PATHOS - A puzzle game like Psychopath
 

Oh hell, didn't see the edits.

Makes me so happy, Keep was probably my favorite. Everybody hated Short Circuit -- thought I'd try a "one off" level like One Plus One but alas

Re: PATHOS - A puzzle game like Psychopath
 

Yeah Keep was amazing tbh.

Would like to play further, haven't had much time so I'm stuck on world 8 or 9 2 off on a ton of stages. My biggest 'issue' with the puzzle design I think is that the difficulty curve for some of the new mechanics is extremely harsh. I'm not sure if I'm just bad at some of the new stuff I've never seen (particularly the ice blocks) but some of those are so open ended I'm sitting there just guessing randomly and not even sure why the shortcuts that work are working.

Would have helped me build up to those with some more easier levels using those mechanics. Not sure what others think of it though.

Re: PATHOS - A puzzle game like Psychopath
 

Aye I need to work through the game to set records on the final levels before reach gets there


Eeeeeee

Re: PATHOS - A puzzle game like Psychopath
 

I remember having a LONG design discussion with stargroup about difficulty curve, when he was making his own Psychopath clone with idk someone else

One of the many conclusions we both came to is that most levels have way too much visual complexity. For example a 15x15 board is 225 disparate things your eyes and brain needs to process, it's a huge visual shock just when you load the level, or if you're not playing and you lean over and start spectating a friend playing the game. That initial shock alone turns a lot of people off puzzle games like this.

We wound up agreeing that anything but the absolutely most advanced levels can fit on like 8x8 or less. I remember stargroup had picked like 50 or so levels for his prototype that were mostly like 5x6 or 7x9 boards that were still relatively difficult.

Plus, even from a relatively experienced puzzle gamer's point of view I found that size more fun. Restarts were less punishing, solutions were usually limited to just 1 or 2 tricks and getting them was immediately rewarding; moving on to the next level is a much better feeling than going from 8 off to 6 off, for example. It felt like a more flowing and elegant game experience.

In short, this kind of game calls for way more smaller and easier levels than most tend to think. Part of the quality of the original Psychopath was just how easy it was before Link to the Past, which was usually everyone's first wall. Helped build familiarity and ease people into the game (and build exploitable bad habits! heh) Obviously there eventually needs to be harder levels and longer levels for variety, plus the fact larger boards opens the chance for many more false paths, but... I remember how fucking fiendishly difficult my custom level called Psycho was and that was only 15x15. (In fact I could never find the last 2-off trick someone else had found...)

Anyway rip stargroup


Hopefully this game lives up to my design expectations :) I'm pretty hyped to play it.
Maybe once finals finish (next week ;_;) I can... start making custom levels again! hehe

Re: PATHOS - A puzzle game like Psychopath
 

Filtering the excess of information in a large grid is like an orthogonal skill to being able to devise an actual solution. I think it's perfectly fine if the "catch" to solve the puzzle is easier compared to another small grid puzzle in the same point of progression. I feel the problem arises when the designer underestimates/ignores that form of difficulty due to not being able to experience it firsthand in their own puzzles.

I actually thought Short Circuit was cool although I'm a bit biased due to not being a stranger to parity problems. Keep was interesting but there is so little you can do that the solution becomes a bit too obvious. My favorite so far is Fool's Goal.

Currently sitting on entire world VIII cleared while missing Recall from VI and Stasis, China Shop, Musical Chairs, and Impact from VII. I personally found world VIII considerably easier than VII (even considering the puzzles I already solved).

On another note, is this supposed to happen (spoiler for Buddy System solution):

Re: PATHOS - A puzzle game like Psychopath
 

That would likely mean you found a shortcut I didnt find in testing.

Re: PATHOS - A puzzle game like Psychopath
 

I'm like 50 moves off on that level. I can't understand these blocks at all.

I'll see if I can reverse engineer a solution now. lol


Re: Hi19

Yeah, with the original psychopath design, huge levels aren't really a problem per se because the logical deduction is relatively constrained. Even the longest, most enigmatic labyrinths can be reduced to logical blocks that can be solved.

The added elements add a significant amount of complexity because many of them allow for much larger branching possibilities than the traditional block design. There's one level with the red circles where I can solve the puzzle 2 off in like 8 different ways and the logic between all of those solutions and the perfect solution is virtually identical.

I don't have a problem with this per se, just that the difficulty curve for this game seems far harsher for many of the new mechanics for this reason. At least to me. Others might feel differently. For the record, I never really played psychopath2 either so my imbalance with respect to certain mechanics could stem from that.

I also haven't really sunk many hours into this game yet so I've got to sit down and play it some more 8)

Re: PATHOS - A puzzle game like Psychopath
 

Damn, world IX really picks up in difficulty.

Alright then, I was afraid it could be related to the breakthroughs as I haven't worked on those yet. Found a couple more sub-optimal requirements:

Spoiler for China shop solution:


Spoiler for Baby steps solution:


Spoiler for Passcode solution:

Re: PATHOS - A puzzle game like Psychopath
 

Yeah, working on world 9 myself. It's tricky.

Sick optimizations btw. I just finished many of those levels myself today @ the step count the game recommended. They were fairly difficult as is. I wonder if their ordering is appropriate with the revised step count.

edit: Waka in World 9 is so random lol I solved it in 202 but surely there is a more optimal solution.

Re: PATHOS - A puzzle game like Psychopath
 

Alright, finished the main story and I'm a bit confused with what I'm supposed to do at Cruel Chamber in the Coping world. Up to that point I'm still missing: Musical chairs (world VII), Wiggle room, Cascade (world IX), Playrooms, Lockmess monster, Trash Heap and Bonefish (world X). Lockmess monster in particular is the first one I feel like I've already exhausted my options and got stuck with off by 2 solutions.

Waka really gives the impression that there's a better solution but after experimenting a bit it seems very few choices actually matter in the final move count.

Also got a couple more optimizations along the way.
Spoiler for Frigid Engine solution:


Spoiler for Jar of Nothing solution:


Spoiler for Six Bits solution:


Spoiler for Tetric solution:


I'm actually curious what the listed move count solution looks like for most of those because I'm finding those optimized ones as my first solution.

Re: PATHOS - A puzzle game like Psychopath
 

I'll give those a try today and let you know if I find original solutions.

Musical Chairs is infuriating. The solution is quite good, but the level is much much harder than where it's placed. Such a sigh of relief when I beat that thing.

edit: Here's buddy system as intended:

Six Bits intended: (IMO even with the optimization this level could be moved down, it wasn't very hard)

Re: PATHOS - A puzzle game like Psychopath
 

Goddamn, finally solved Musical Chairs and got the all stressful levels achievement. I agree it's pretty hard for the point it's presented although what really made me waste a lot of time was missing a very simple optimization after getting the core of the solution down.

Thanks for those! And yeah, in terms of plain puzzle without a gimmick/red herring Six Bits is way too easy for world X.

Time to test my luck on world XII.

Re: PATHOS - A puzzle game like Psychopath
 

holy moly @AutotelicBrown

Really good finds -- especially China Shop, we all felt there was a 38 solution in there somewhere :/

I'll have an update ready to go by the time you read this with fixed solutions, as well as a small change to Cruel Chamber since it had some old colors.

Also swapped Musical Chairs and some other small stuff too. We didn't have the ability to swap levels because of how we built the game but we recently changed some of it and this swap was definitely overdue.

*another tester shaved 2 steps off of Moonbud and an additional 2 steps off Frigid Engine, down to 148, since I read your posts. This is in the update as well.

Re: PATHOS - A puzzle game like Psychopath
 

Game is going to be absolutely savage with all of the steps updated.

In the meantime I'm 2 off'ing pretty much the entirety of what I have left of world 10. There's some real soul crushers in there. The good ol "Oh, yep that's it" to 2 off :(

Yeah...what the hell is up with this one? lol

First traditional level I can't solve. Was like two off third try and I've walked through each move and don't see any optimizations.

Must be blind. Old age :(

Re: PATHOS - A puzzle game like Psychopath
 

World XII is brutal damn. Barely managed to unlock world XIII and cleared its first level. Only glanced at the remaining ones and I'm already pleased with what I see, looking forward to attempt them later.

Lockmess monster still baffles me and I feel I'll be pretty mad once I realize what I'm missing.

Great to see quick updates, I'll have to revisit Moonbud and Frigid Engine then.

A couple more optimizations for good measure.
Spoiler for Magic Bullet solution:


Spoiler for Warehouse Duty solution:


Spoiler for Wellspring solution:


Spoiler for Four's a Crowd solution:


Edit: Moonbud was simple but still no idea about Frigid Engine.

Edit2: One more, spoiler for Karst solution:

Re: PATHOS - A puzzle game like Psychopath
 

I like the increased complexity with the additional blocks. Looking back at Psychopath 2, most of my preferred levels are on the smaller end (something like duke's Level B). Hopefully we'll get more small tough levels like that. Something like Bonefish - looks really simple. I was stuck at 110 for days - hardest level in the first 14 worlds imo.

Lockmess Monster has a really good two-cut, but definitely a facepalm moment when you do see it.
Looking forward to seeing what the final step counts for The Beast's Belly and Chaos Machine are.
PP1 vets should like world 13.

Do we have an ETA on a level editor?

Re: PATHOS - A puzzle game like Psychopath
 

Okay exams done.

Will get game by the end of this week probably.

ETA on a level editor? lol

Re: PATHOS - A puzzle game like Psychopath
 

Finally solved it and can confirm. I'm particularly mad because I toyed with the right idea early on but forgot a crucial detail.

Bonefish is indeed deceptively hard, have yet to solve that one.

Slowly progressing through world XIII - Four's a Crowd, Hallways, Circuit Board, and Nexus down - and surely, making things harder for everyone! :twisted:

Optimized solution for Circuit Board:


Optimized solution for Nexus (probably improvable if I could keep track of what I'm doing):

Re: PATHOS - A puzzle game like Psychopath
 

Still curious about Lockmess monster. Closing down the office for Christmas next week so I should have time to really sink my teeth into some of these harder puzzles. In the meantime Mr. Brown here appears to be breaking the game, lol @ 10 off on one of those puzzles. I'm sure I'll enjoy that one when I get there now D:

Bonefish is indeed brutal. I got fairly close to a solution early on and now everything I try is a hot mess and not even close. Another one in w10 was driving me similarly crazy and involved 3 ice blocks and an orange movable piece. I'd like to talk to whoever forgot the other like 10 moves needed there thank you.

Edit: W12 Orchid, Holy shit Bravo.

W12 Wellspring 183. I'm reasonably certain this is optimal but testing for 181 before I send solution.

**Yep Wellspring 181 and I'm not convinced this is optimal either so I'll be back if I hit 179.

Re: PATHOS - A puzzle game like Psychopath
 

Nice catch, managed to find 181 as well but I don't think it's improvable from there.

Orchid is indeed very cool, haven't revisited it yet but I'm at +12 steps from solution. Got down three more from world XIII (Into the Depths, Crawl Space and Amok), those traditional levels are so pleasant to work on.

For now I'm having a lot of trouble with some escort missions: Trash Heap on X, Bunker Buster and Spelunking on XII. Up to world XII I'm only missing those, Bonefish and Orchid.

Re: PATHOS - A puzzle game like Psychopath
 

Yeah I think 181 is the ticket, there are two ways to do it but I don't think any other iterations yield a 179. I'll check it again when I get time but I'll probably just get back to working on world 10 and 12. I've finished pretty much everything else but have a lot of 2 off in world 10 and haven't even touched much of 12 (spent all my time on Orchid).

Re: PATHOS - A puzzle game like Psychopath
 

Wellspring is doable in 166

Re: PATHOS - A puzzle game like Psychopath
 

Yeah, just realized there was a very simple optimization left lol

There rest of the solution is the same though so I'm guessing that's optimal.

Re: PATHOS - A puzzle game like Psychopath
 

The optimizations in some of these open ended stages are absolutely wild.

Warehouse is absolutely busted, I got 353 but I don't think that is even close to optimal, another 10+ moves can probably be shaved off easily.

My only concern is that some of these levels are going to be scary difficult to beat for people when completely optimized. Thankfully you can leave many levels incomplete and still move onto the next world later in the game, which is great design imo.

Re: PATHOS - A puzzle game like Psychopath
 

Pushed an update with these new routes minus Warehouse Duty. Got Wellspring down to 164 as well.

Re: PATHOS - A puzzle game like Psychopath
 

Warehouse is likely improvable, I got 349 without really trying to optimize. Some other more open-ended and/or ice block levels with larger optimizations that I posted are probably improvable as well for the same reason (Magic Bullet, Four's a Crowd, Karst and Nexus). They are super annoying to optimize without a clear goal though (which I guess is the reason they didn't have great solutions in the first place) so I'll only revisit those if I clear the rest of the game or someone else posts a better solution like just happened for Wellspring.

Interesting to know it's possible to shave 2 more on Wellspring, I'll see into it later alongside Frigid Engine.

Re: PATHOS - A puzzle game like Psychopath
 

Nice find on Wellspring. I struggled to get to 349 on Warehouse so I'm kind of hoping that one is optimal.

Found a 272 on Karst, but it doesn't feel optimal yet.

Re: PATHOS - A puzzle game like Psychopath
 

For now the best I could find on Warehouse is 343. Spoiler for solution:


edit: Finally solved Trash Heap and got the all Agonizing levels achievement. At least I was rewarded with an optimized solution (112 moves):

Re: PATHOS - A puzzle game like Psychopath
 

272 on Karst should be optimal, I don't see how it could be optimized without a level break (My solution is the same thought process as autos but with path optimization on the bottom).

But who knows. I suppose my rule for this game should be to never assume a solution optimal on some of these harder levels lol

Re: PATHOS - A puzzle game like Psychopath
 

Picked this up and prepared to sink a couple hours into it. I really enjoyed psycopath so I'm sure this will be money well spent.

Re: PATHOS - A puzzle game like Psychopath
 

Now that Christmas antics are over, back to some Pathos.

Cleaned up Magic bullet @ 176/180. Two different ways to do it, though I don't see any optimizations.

Edit: Onto world 13. oh my.

Re: PATHOS - A puzzle game like Psychopath
 

Circuit Board eviscerated @ 254/314.

Fairly convinced now this is optimal but it might not be. Man this level is like an onion. I LOVE this level!

One of my favorite levels ever (PP1 included).

devs: https://media.giphy.com/media/NnGGHE0muVqpO/giphy.gif

Edit2: Ah fuck, Four's a Crowd Busted @ 180/192. This level rapidly became a nightmare. I *think* this is the fastest possible solution.


Edit3: I'll happily confirm Nexus solved @330/330 though, I banged my head around breaks on this one for a long time but none of them are possible. 330 looks solid. Couldn't break Hallways either.

Edit4: Small fix @ Crawl Space, 257/259. I'm not convinced 255 isn't possible, but done playing with it for now. (Amazing level too btw, up there with Circuit Board)

Re: PATHOS - A puzzle game like Psychopath
 

I'm struggling to keep up with you guys setting new records. I hadn't managed to re-beat Four's a Crowd after the first optimisation yet, now I'm way off again.

You missed a bit on Circuit Board, 252/254 is possible. That's a fun level, nice spot on the alternative route.

Re: PATHOS - A puzzle game like Psychopath
 

Nice 252, I figured it was possible but looking for those last 2 steps sometimes is time consuming.

Re Four's a Crowd: This is probably deserving of Traumatic now, probably need input from others to see if anyone else can solve it or if more moves can be shaved but I really hope not, I put quite a bit of time into disproving the logic behind any other approaches lmao

Many of these levels in World 13 are super good, this is top notch puzzling. Some of them are time consuming to find the last few moves in though. I want enough bits to see the last worlds but man you need a lot of bits.

Into The Depths has a wild goose chase cooked into it in that there's a 6 off solution that is wildly wrong and it takes a completely different approach to win. Have no idea if this was intended but man that was rough.

Rack and Ruin also has the absolute motherlode of 4 off solutions too.

Re: PATHOS - A puzzle game like Psychopath
 

Yeah, you need to beat pretty much everything to unlock the last worlds, as well as a bunch of the puzzle achievements to unlock world 16. I've hit a brick wall on those and haven't managed to unlock it yet.

World 13 made me want to go back and play some of the old classic Psychopath levels again.

Cut a bit more on Four's a Crowd - 176/180

Re: PATHOS - A puzzle game like Psychopath
 

I kinda feel bad about all these broken records, but feeling decent that most? Of the tougher levels are holding up.

Re: PATHOS - A puzzle game like Psychopath
 

You're further than me then. I too have been enjoying world 13 the most as a psychopath fan, so I haven't cleaned up world 12 and 10 and am missing bits that I need to go back and get. I want to unlock everything though because I want to see how hard the puzzles get.

God damn you re Four's a Crowd though. I honestly have no sweet clue where you saved 4 moves. I'd be happy never touching that level ever again lol

As for the Breakthroughs; yeah, I have four of them solved but all by accident. Two of them were actually cool and I unlocked them solving strange things within the puzzle itself that was I was disappointed didn't work, but enjoyed getting an achievement for it.

With that said, are there ways of telling which levels actually have Breakthroughs in them? I guess what I'm confused about is how I go about figuring out which levels I'm supposed to look for clues in. Are the names puzzles in and of themselves and related to the level names? I'm not sure, the last one I unlocked has a title with a reference to quantum mechanics. I did take quantum mechanics in undergrad, but I'm not even sure which level it goes with. A Schrodinger's achievement.

Re: PATHOS - A puzzle game like Psychopath
 

maybe something simple like, once a player has completed all the levels in a world, highlight the one(s) with a breakthrough

Re: PATHOS - A puzzle game like Psychopath
 

Yeah, there's no way of telling exactly which levels have them in. Some levels have slightly off-colour squares that seem to indicate there's one on that level linked to the square, though there are a few levels like that that I haven't been able to figure out. The achievement names, descriptions, and icons are meant to be clues to figure them out. There are quite a few where I have no idea where to even begin.

Re: PATHOS - A puzzle game like Psychopath
 

Nice find on circuit board, that level is so memorable that I was able to remember each detail of my previous solution from two weeks ago straight away and managed to find the 252 solution as well.

And thanks for making me revisit crawl space, found an alternative route with a 221 solution. I haven't found the -2 in the original solution though, so it might affect the new route as well.



Indeed world 13 is very good overall. I'm not really excited to revisit four's a crowd though! Glad (and surprised) Nexus haven't been improved, I don't want to touch that again either. Aside from those quickies today I haven't really touched the game since unlocking world 14, will probably return to finish the hard stuff once I get more free time next month.

Maybe it's a bit late to bring this up but I think it'd be cool to make some sort of spreadsheet to share the progress and/or new optimizations from people here.

EDIT: ok got 176 on four's a crowd.

Re: PATHOS - A puzzle game like Psychopath
 

Yeah, we should probably have an updatable spread for the devs or something since the breaks are happening so frequently.

Just the nature of this type of thing, some of these levels really require a ton of testers (ran into issues even just publishing 65-72 on the original psychopath).

Amazing find on crawl space. Gosh, I was so certain when playing it that I was going to break it but I just couldn't see that. Beautiful find, I'll try and -2 it when I get time.

Then again I was certain Nexus was breakable but couldn't break it, 330 might be breakable but I honestly think that level just has an illusion of complexity. When you break down the warp gates on paper the logic is extremely constrained.


Edit: Finally cleaned up Orchid to finish off all Traumatic levels and get achievement IX, but haven't beaten many agonizing and tortuous so I'm still 40 bits off world 14. Urg, I'm 2 off on Pipe Organ, Blot and Lockmess Monster (WTF IS THIS? I've spent at least 10x longer on this level than any other level. I don't get it? Can someone just PM me a hint and put me out of my misery?), and Wiggle room. I absolutely hate these god damn orange block levels. Not clicking for me!

Re: PATHOS - A puzzle game like Psychopath
 

Just pushed an update to Steam with the new step counts.

I think we're going to add a ticker for Breakthroughs for each world. Until then, there's two in each world (not including Respites, cinematics or not-full worlds (does include Pathos world)).

Re: PATHOS - A puzzle game like Psychopath
 

Bought this game thanks to this thread and my extreme interest in puzzle games like this. I've been playing it off and on for the last few days, and before tonight I'd reached the end of VIII save for Stasis, Feng Shui, Turbine, and Prison Break (VII harder than VIII for sure).

Finally went back and made it through the rest, managing to pull off a 98/100 on Prison Break yiss. Spoilers obviously, there's a lot of retreading in this one.


Time to start IX but I'm terrified about what's to come.

Re: PATHOS - A puzzle game like Psychopath
 

Wow, nice find. I definitely didn't think there were two more moves to squeeze out of that one. That's going to make it a real annoyance to beat now that's for sure.

And it definitely doesn't get better. I'm completely done with world 13 now but I still need to finish two more levels in world 10/12 to unlock world 14 and man I've hit such a wall on some of these levels.

All the levels I have left are 'orange block' or 'red circle' levels (save lockmess), which ostensibly I'm terrible at (Or they're underrated in difficulty). I'm 2-4 off on every level I have left other than maelstrom and bunker and neither of these levels make any sense to me (Obvious goal, opaque pathing). I'd rate them as far harder than anything in world 13 so what do other people think of these levels?

I completed Wiggle room the other day after being 2 off for awhile, and honestly I don't even understand how I beat it. I was confused when it happened because the solution appeared identical to failed solutions, and when I tried to replicate the solution I wasn't able to do it. Optimizing these levels isn't clicking with me and it's making some of them a real shit show to find the remaining moves in D: That and sadly whoever tested these levels optimized them vs many of the ice block levels which were completely unoptimized so no leeway lol (seriously where are the last four moves on bonefish, fuck this level dry).

Re: PATHOS - A puzzle game like Psychopath
 

I didn’t really have much difficulty with the circle levels. Thought those were kinda easy when testing tbh.

The orange block and ice levels were not my forte, which is why you’re finding so many breaks on them I guess.

There’s a couple of end game levels I didn’t fully optimize, I’m trying to get there and optimize them before you guys get to world 14 lmao.

Re: PATHOS - A puzzle game like Psychopath
 

Probably just a blindspot of mine then.

If the world 14+ puzzles don't involve red circles or orange blocks I really really want to try them.

Should probably just lock myself away on the weekend until I figure out these damn circles.

Excited to try out a level editor for this game though, I can only imagine the kinds of nightmares its possible to build.

Re: PATHOS - A puzzle game like Psychopath
 

Re: PATHOS - A puzzle game like Psychopath
 

I thought world 13 was easier overall than some of the preceding ones but wasn't sure if that was because I'd played so much Psychopath in the past. I found orange block levels overall the toughest, and it'd probably take me a while to find the solutions to a lot of them again. Bonefish is still the hardest though imo - but I haven't rebeat all the ones that have been optimised yet.

That one's going to be a nightmare to optimise. I really hope the current record stands but don't expect it to.
-

Chaos Machine is doable in 900. Don't think it's optimal yet but should be fairly close. There's too much going on in it and I'm losing track of what I've tried.

Re: PATHOS - A puzzle game like Psychopath
 

Doable in 900.

900...

Alright well at the very least I want to see what that looks like so I'm gonna have to clean up world 12 this weekend.

As for Bonefish, yeah I'm not sure about this one. I've found two ways to 110. I'm wondering if I'm just missing something subtle or if this level is what I would deem a "wild goosechase" level. By far the most sinister effect of some of these new mechanics is the potential to devise puzzles that have several complex solutions 2-4 moves off that are irreducible and completely wrong but not obviously so, whereas it's much harder to do that with traditional levels (Pipe organ the only one in this game that I can think of).

Re: PATHOS - A puzzle game like Psychopath
 

I saw some record breaking on six bits, brought the new solution down to 134

Re: PATHOS - A puzzle game like Psychopath
 

Oh, I actually knew about this one and didn't post it here.

Here's a few other optimizations I'll post here.

Baby Steps: 89/95
Jar of Nothing: 100/106
Magic Bullet: 174/176

All of these move these levels solidly into thoroughly annoying territory.

A gentlemen named Davidspencer also found an optimization on spelunking but I can't beat it normally so can't confirm lmao

In other news I haven't beat a single puzzle I've been stuck on now for awhile. Waiting for level editor, might try them again at some point when I'm feeling inspired. Still really want to see the final puzzles, but the last 2-4 moves on some of these misc puzzles elude me. They might yield to brute force like wiggle room but I suspect I'll be similarly disappointed with the solutions.

Re: PATHOS - A puzzle game like Psychopath
 

Yo KingOreO, long time no see.

Eventually I'll check this out and respond with something but in the meantime if you wanna catch up or discuss some game design stuff hit me up with some way I can reach you, like Skype/Discord/etc. Same goes for anyone else in this thread who likes this stuff.

Re: PATHOS - A puzzle game like Psychopath
 

Played a couple worlds, this is a different approach from the same vision I had for this game. Like hi19hi19 mentioned, I preferred to stick to much smaller levels generally, but these levels are generally pretty darn good too, though difficulty curve I think could use some major work to bring it to a larger audience. I like the attempt to bring story into it and I wanted something of the sort too, but it's bit dry for me personally or maybe I'm too dumb to understand what's going on.

There are some themes in some of these levels that are just gorgeous and I'd love to steal some of them if that's okay. Ideally, I do want to get a bunch of people together who have been working on various similar projects and just release something that will bring in a new fresh audience for the game.

Re: PATHOS - A puzzle game like Psychopath
 

I wonder how this game is selling. It's one of the best puzzle games I have, and I suspect this game could be quite a bit more popular with some tweaking to make it more friendly. I very much enjoy the allure of a sadistically difficult puzzle game too, but the build up has to be right.

I'm OReach on steam if you want to chat sometime, I like to talk about this kind of stuff.

Right now I'm still very excited for the devs to release level editor, since I'd like to expand the universe of what is possible within the engine here with the puzzles and tackle some new content. I haven't gone back to the handful of puzzles I haven't finished yet, might someday.



EDIT: Devs, any word on updates? Editor?

Re: PATHOS - A puzzle game like Psychopath
 

Real quick update for those that are interested.

PATHOS is going to go on sale very soon and will be ~$3.99 in an effort to reach a greater audience.

Mac and Linux support will be released within the week, as well as controller support for planned Switch and PS4 ports.

The level editor and necessary Steamworks integration will unfortunately not be here until around June/July as most of us pivot to our next project. In the meantime, if you're interested in designing levels that I plan to release in a puzzle pack in the future, send me a PM. I'll send you the project via Unity so you can access the same tools I have. I'm only going to send out a handful of these to spare some complexity on my end.

Re: PATHOS - A puzzle game like Psychopath
 

Hi Brett,

The update has caused a host of input errors. Inputs regularly get eaten now. It doesn't appear to break the step counter but it does make the game pretty unplayable and should be fixed ASAP.

Also sent a PM re: making puzzles for the pack, would definitely like to join in on that.

Re: PATHOS - A puzzle game like Psychopath
 

is respite 6 supposed to have the exit available without collection the yellow pieces of gold?

===

i'm nowhere near as versed in solving these things as others, i'm stuck on a bunch of levels all over, in worlds 4-6
Lefty Loosey... - 2 off for the longest time
Bad Directions - still yet to find the route
The Doldrums - 4 off
Over-under - haven't actually given this one a go
It Takes Two - don't even have the correct solution, i'm like over 20 off
Double-Cross - I see what i need to do, no route yet
Fool's Goal - 2 off in like 3 different ways aaaaaaaa

==========

had some "i'm actually dumb" moments
knocked out lefty loosey, bad directions, and the doldrums, can now move on to world 7 hoo

really quickly got worm hole, musket tears, and hoodwinked, didn't give too much else a good shot. i feel like i stumbled upon the solution really luckily for musket, because i got it like, on my first try, and hoodwinked felt so much more like an original psychopath puzzle

Re: PATHOS - A puzzle game like Psychopath
 

Just popping in here to say that PATHOS is the best puzzle game I've played since Spacechem. Honeycomb in world III was a huge difficulty spike btw; I was just randomly moving around until then but now I suddenly needed to actually think hehe.

First 6 worlds are easy enough. World VII has some real interesting levels. I liked Keep a lot. Still stuck on Impact, which, as a stressful level, should be one of the easier ones. I have like 100 ways to be 2 off. Psychopath traumas all over again ;). Having fun with VIII now.

Very well-made game. I prefer it over Psychopath since it finds more creative ways than grid scaling to ramp up difficulty. Keep up the good work, devs!

EDIT: Not sure if I'm the first one to find this, but Bonefish 100/104!

EDIT: Magic Bullet 170/174. This level took me 3 minutes lol

EDIT: Completely stuck on most remaining maps on XII. This world is simply brutal. X and XI were creative, but also quite annoying tbh :P

Re: PATHOS - A puzzle game like Psychopath
 

Bump for attention. Noone seems to be playing this game and the Steam forum is dead, so I'm turning to you nerds for help.

I'm struggling with some world XII and XIII puzzles and a few earlier ones as well. Does anyone still recall the solutions for levels like Wiggle Room (2 off), Spurn (2 off), Blot (4 off), Karst (4 off) and Virions (like 18 off lol)? I solved almost all traumatic levels in XIII, but am still stuck on a few of those agonizing and tortuous levels :/. Any hints are welcome. If I can PM someone for more specific questions, that would be awesome as well.

Re: PATHOS - A puzzle game like Psychopath
 

Sadly I think devs abandoned the game. Understandable since it didn't sell, but it's so fun :(

Wiggle room was notoriously difficult for me, I still don't know how I solved it. I was 2 off forever and then just randomly solved it. My only hint is that the real solution is very nearly indistinguishable from 2 off solutions so just keep banging out combinations.

Spurn...this one was very interesting. My hint here would be that this level is extremely deceptive and don't get caught up in optimizations of your current route. There are actually several very unintuitive ways to solve this level; look for them and the solution will follow.

Virions was one of the most annoying levels in the game for me. I spent forever on it and am still stuck like 4 off so if you solve this one give ME a hint ;)

Amazing optimizations on magic bullet and bone fish. I still haven't solved bone fish @ 104. Maybe I'll see if I can engineer based on picture lol.

If you want to help eachother see some of the final puzzles, I am in need of a solution to lockness monster ;) despite beating the entirety of world 13 LOL. I would like to see/try some of the final puzzles but don't have the drive necessary to go back and beat some of the shit like maelstrom and virions.

PM me or just add me @ OReach on steam if you want to discuss/ask specific questions.

Re: PATHOS - A puzzle game like Psychopath
 

Nice find on Magic Bullet. Haven't managed to re-solve Bonefish at 100 yet, 104 was tough enough.

I can't be much help as I've forgotten most solutions in the last few months. I do have a screenshot for Karst's solution I can pm if you'd like.

Reach - I assume you're two off on Lockmess Monster. If you want to try and spot the trick in a different more condensed level, look up GTFI on Psychopath 2. Took most people there a long time to find it in just a 36 step level. Alternatively can pm the solution to this one too if you like.

I need to find one more breakthrough to open the final world. Has anyone had much luck with any of these?