Spoiler free strategy guide, tips and developer insights

Since launch is imminent, I thought I'd put together a spoiler free guide that can help with progressing through the game, as well as compile some key observations I've seen during play testing.

Completing Trials

General Tips

• Think Paradoxes: In the context of the game, a paradox occurs when Zeno’s past and present selves do conflicting actions, such as attempting to put an object in 2 different states at the same time. The result of the paradox can be the key to solving the trial.

• Explore Interactions: Interactions can happen between two objects in a trial, or between Zeno’s abilities and one of the objects. The most common type of hint I tend to give is of the form “What happens if you combine X with Y?”

• Remember to use Time Freeze: Although any trial can be solved without it, freezing the past timeline can make timing Zeno’s past self a lot easier. If you find yourself thinking “ok, now I have to wait for a few seconds” before rewinding, remember: you can just keep going and use Freeze after rewinding.

• Plan Ahead: While most trials in the game can be solved relying on intuition, some of the end game trials require being more methodical. Examining the whole solution before executing it can help save time and keep you focused on more promising solutions.

• Rule out incorrect options

  Identify the circumstances under which certain actions must be performed, and don’t bother exploring solutions that contradict these circumstances.

  For example

  if the trial has a collapsible bridge that leads to an isolated area with a time fragment, then we can conclude that Zeno’s past self route must end in this area. No point exploring solutions where Zeno’s past self ends elsewhere.

• AddedGenerate and test hypothesesIf the circumstances of a certain action can’t be immediately ruled out, make an assumption and test it. For example: “Let’s assume that in the correct solution, the blue switch is pressed by Zeno’s present self”. Spend time experimenting under this assumption, and if you reach a dead end, generate a new hypothesis.

Trial Specific Tips

• T50: This trial took the longest during development. Despite my best attempts to guide play testers through level design to do otherwise, some still spent most of their time trying to get the physics system to do things it simply can’t do. The intended solution for this trial is very easy to execute, so if you find yourself trying to pull a convoluted move and you’re feeling that the game physics isn’t cooperating, odds are you’re not on the right track.

• T60: The first step to solving this trial is realizing that there are too many paths to keep track of in the short term / working memory. One solution is to take a screenshot of the level and draw some arrows on top indicating the connections between the walls.

• Defeating Lucix: Reuse what you’ve learned from T15, T18 and T38.

Acing Trials (Earning 3 stars)

• The shortest path between two points is a straight line. Don’t limit your movements to the 4 cardinal directions; make sure to move diagonally as well. You can explore this in T03.

• Check level info to know the target time.

• Acing trials sometimes requires coming up with an entirely different solution. If you find yourself executing a solution perfectly and you’re still 3 seconds or more off, odds are you need to come up with a different one. The target