2020 Valkemarian Tales Help?

[sorenna]

Okay, none of the other puzzles gave me much trouble, but the "orbs on an altar" puzzle has me completely baffled.

 

Does the solution reset every time the orbs are removed?  It seems like it couldn't do so without making the "clue" crystals useless, but if it doesn't reset, then I have no idea how something like this happens:

 

 

How can there simultanously be two orbs correctly positioned in the sequence Blue/Orange/White/Purple, and three orbs correctly positioned in the sequence Orange/Blue/White/Purple?  The only thing they have in common is the purple orb appearing in the last slot. 

 

Okay so apparently I am blind, and they actually have TWO things in common: the last two orbs are White/Purple.  I'm going to try one more combo as an experiment...

Edited October 28, 2020 by sorenna

[Shadowdrake]

You can leave out colors and have multiple orbs of one color. It appears you don't need a purple.

[sorenna]

16 minutes ago, Shadowdrake said:

You can leave out colors and have multiple orbs of one color. It appears you don't need a purple.

 

Can you explain?  How would leaving out purple help? 

 

It feels like I'm missing something fundamental: how do the "clue" crystals relate to the orb positions?  The orbs aren't placed in a square, so they don't obviously correspond to the 4-corner positioning of the crystals; but the crystals light up in different positions even when the same number of orbs are correct (Example: the 1st combo, with 1 correct, has a bottom right crystal lit, while the 4th combo, which also has 1 correct orb, has the top right crystal lit.) which suggests they're indicating more than just number.

 

They presumably indicate specific places on the row of orbs, but there's nothing to suggest which one, so it's like a double puzzle: if I knew how the crystals related to the orbs, I could figure out the orbs, and if I knew how the pattern for the orbs, I could figure out the crystal positions, but trying to figure out both simultaneously means I don't have enough data to work out either!

Edited October 28, 2020 by sorenna

[wbmorgan]

5 minutes ago, sorenna said:

The top two "clue" shapes/colors are the first two, from the left, ie position #1 and position #2. The bottom two are #3 and #4. You won't necessarily use all four colors in the solution. I had one that was orange, orange, purple, orange. 

 

 

Can you explain?  How would leaving out purple help? 

 

It feels like I'm missing something fundamental: how do the "clue" crystals relate to the orb positions?  The orbs aren't placed in a square, so they don't obviously correspond to the 4-corner positioning of the crystals; but the crystals light up in different positions even when the same number of orbs are correct (Example: the 1st combo, with 1 correct, has a bottom right crystal lit, while the 4th combo, which also has 1 correct orb, has the top right crystal lit.) which suggests they're indicating more than just number.

 

They presumably indicate specific places on the row of orbs, but there's nothing to suggest which one, so it's like a double puzzle: if I knew how the crystals related to the orbs, I could figure out the orbs, and if I knew how the pattern for the orbs, I could figure out the crystal positions, but trying to figure out both simultaneously means I don't have enough data to work out either!

 

[Pilauli]

28 minutes ago, sorenna said:

how do the "clue" crystals relate to the orb positions?  The orbs aren't placed in a square, so they don't obviously correspond to the 4-corner positioning of the crystals

Pretend for a moment that the orbs go in a row like this:

 

1  2  3  4

 

In that case, the clue crystals go in a grid like this:

 

1  2

3  4

 

And yellow means "the orb that corresponds to this clue crystal is the right color for its place" and white means "the orb in the corresponding slot is a color that appears in the sequence, but it's not in the right place."

 

So for your second attempt, the first orb was wrong and all the others were correct.  And your last attempt, where there are two orbs correct, actually has the last two correct.  If you look, you'll see that the last two orbs match between the second and last attempts, not just the very last.

 

Definitely, be aware that there can be more than one orb of the same color.  There's no little mark for the blue orb, so I know that it doesn't appear in your final sequence at all.  So now if you just test some other colors in the first slot, you should be able to figure it out pretty fast.

 

I hope this helps!

[sorenna]

Thank you so much!

 

I couldn't figure out if it was supposed to go in rows

1 2

3 4

 

or in columns

1 3

2 4

 

or a ring

1 4

2 3

 

or what!

Edited October 28, 2020 by sorenna