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I can never quite tell if those audio logs are meant to be the in-story creators of the island, or the actual game developers recording conversations they've had and they're really just that full of themselves. I suspect it's a mix of both.
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Oct 8, 2016 17:57
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Tenebrais posted:I can never quite tell if those audio logs are meant to be the in-story creators of the island, or the actual game developers recording conversations they've had and they're really just that full of themselves. They're definitely fictional characters talking about the fictional project to create the island rather than the actual development of the game, although I imagine a few conversations from development served as inspiration for the fiction. There's various follow-up theories to this that I like a lot and one that I think is probably true based on what I know about JoBlow, but let's sit on it until we hear a few more of this batch of audiologs. Fedule fucked around with this message at 01:03 on Oct 9, 2016 |
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Oct 9, 2016 01:00
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Oh, I totally get that these audio logs are basically "the plot" of The Witness. But a lot of them seem rooted in decisions the game developers were making. Especially one later on about how there aren't any quotes about atheism to balance out all the religious ones. (Barely a spoiler but just being safe)
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Oct 9, 2016 01:20
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AlphaKretin posted:I guess it's less "bonus challenge area" and more "bonus puzzles-we-made-while-bored area". I might go back and change that to the video title to be honest. Tenebrais posted:I can never quite tell if those audio logs are meant to be the in-story creators of the island, or the actual game developers recording conversations they've had and they're really just that full of themselves. Fedule posted:They're definitely fictional characters talking about the fictional project to create the island rather than the actual development of the game, although I imagine a few conversations from development served as inspiration for the fiction. Real curious to hear the theories though!  The use of the this image is protected by Fair Use (17 U.S.C. § 107). Any and all takedown notifications sent referencing § 512(c) will be null and void Episode 51 - Carl Sagan (14 Puzzles Solved)
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Oct 12, 2016 16:43
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I'm sensing some kind of lack of enthusiasm here. You are almost done!
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Oct 12, 2016 18:06
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Yeah the Sagan discussion is what makes me think the audiologs here are at least partially based on what the actual devs were thinking, and in this case a way of excusing themselves for not having atheist quotes.
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Oct 12, 2016 18:59
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They stood upon the cusp of The Challenge and turned away, unworthy.
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Oct 12, 2016 19:01
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I'm going to say this real quick, since it bugged me when the other LP kept trying to solve them, but those puzzles above the "inner sanctum" are all examples of impossible puzzles. Also: Jesse posted:This is like, uh.. we're in hell. We're in literal hell. me, crying brokenly posted:You have no idea.
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Oct 12, 2016 19:50
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cant cook creole bream posted:I'm sensing some kind of lack of enthusiasm here. Tenebrais posted:Yeah the Sagan discussion is what makes me think the audiologs here are at least partially based on what the actual devs were thinking, and in this case a way of excusing themselves for not having atheist quotes.  Bruceski posted:They stood upon the cusp of The Challenge and turned away, unworthy. LogicalFallacy posted:I'm going to say this real quick, since it bugged me when the other LP kept trying to solve them, but those puzzles above the "inner sanctum" are all examples of impossible puzzles. Speaking of "this next video"  Episode 52 - The Challenge (1/?) (03 Actual Puzzles Solved)
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Oct 15, 2016 17:28
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So let's break the parts of the Challenge down for folks trying to keep up. The first entry: simple stuff to whet the whistle. The Pedestal: same The Quartet: Puzzles light up in a random order, both in location and type, but there's always the big maze, one with starbursts, et cetera. Elimination Triplets: Only one puzzle from each trio is solvable, so you need to learn to recognize that quickly. The Maze: two triangle puzzles wait here to be solved before you can continue, but their locations and the nature of the walls can be hard to discern when you're inside. Maybe there is guidance to be found elsewhere, maybe it's the only real bullshit part of this challenge, or maybe it's both. The Pillars: <REDACTED>
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Oct 15, 2016 18:26
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I love in the Hall of the Mountain King for that moment at 9:25 when the violins go full Thrash Metal. 
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Oct 15, 2016 19:32
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Most of my attempts at the challenge end with me running around the maze in a panic, scrambling to find those puzzles. And you know 'In The Hall Of The Mountain King' was specifically chosen for its frantic pace and panic-inducing nature.
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Oct 15, 2016 20:27
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I might have made a mental note that those set of puzzles on the top were examples of unsolvable layouts, but I don't think I fully realized that it was intentional until it was pointed out here. I think that is cool, that they've added this there, and that I still find something new about the game after months of having finished it. The Challenge did drive me half mad though. Each part of it I found to be more "fair" than some other puzzles (I'm mostly thinking of the annoying flashy layouts in the proper mountain area, and the rainbow throwup in the mountain caves) and it has some new tricks of its own. But all parts together and especially the last part, make it quite frustrating. Towards the end, I was just muting the music because I had started diverting my hate towards that and it was unfair to the classic song, and because my neighbors probably were starting to think that I had gone crazy playing the same music segment in repeat for hours.
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Oct 15, 2016 21:01
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I beat my head against the Challenge for a while, then walked away from the game. On a whim I recently went back to it, beat the whole dang thing when Mountain King was just starting up. Everything just clicked.
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Oct 15, 2016 21:05
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In my experience, run after run, you start making consistent progress, as you consistently (or 90% percent of the time) can reach a certain step and get to struggle with that till the music ends. I did have to put it down after a few attempts when I first encountered it, because it was like 3:00 am. I think I solved it a few days later after quite a few more attempts. In the final run , I think it helped that the randomized layouts I got were relatively easy, and I got to the last section quite quickly so I was less nervous when solving that.
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Oct 15, 2016 21:14
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The Challenge is actually the reason I stopped playing The Witness. I was going for 100%, but after getting trashed by the Challenge a few times I gave up and dropped the search for 100% altogether. I got through the maze... once, I think. The panels with the impossible puzzles, I always saw them as a sort of timer. The change on the notes and measures of the song, so they sort of show where you're at in the song, and therefore how much time you have left. Maybe. I dunno.
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Oct 15, 2016 21:40
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Since you're winding down the LP here's a couple non-Challenge related things: -There's 3 audio logs in the area you wandered around in the last 5 minutes, 1 in the music room, 1 in the room with the box, 1 in the room with the cart full of sand -Did you figure out what that non-movie puzzle in the box was for?
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Oct 15, 2016 21:56
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ManicVolcanic posted:The panels with the impossible puzzles, I always saw them as a sort of timer. The change on the notes and measures of the song, so they sort of show where you're at in the song, and therefore how much time you have left. Maybe. I dunno. I never saw them as a timer, though each layout is linked to a different note of a different instrument, and does change on the measures. I'm assuming nobody is saying anything because they don't want to spoil it for the gang, but to be clear: people do know how to solve the walk-in maze, right? Also, it would have helped the behind-the-scenes audio logs to be remotely believable if that one woman reader could come up with anything close to a natural speaking voice during the conversations.
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Oct 16, 2016 00:03
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Ahahahahahaha I'm so glad I don't have to play through it but as long as that remains the case the Challenge owns.  E: But seriously, that video was the most entertaining thing I've watched all week. AlphaKretin fucked around with this message at 11:57 on Oct 16, 2016 |
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Oct 16, 2016 11:52
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So yeah, the unsolvable puzzle displays are just a straight up three-digit display counting down the remaining measures in the music. The first panel represents a digit using the number of squares in the shapes, the second using the number of yellow rounded squares, and the third using the number of dots. Also there really was an audiolog in the water by the gramophone...
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Oct 17, 2016 00:39
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Finally chiming in on that ending! I'm going to try and do quotes like all you cool people.frozentreasure posted:Thoughts about the ending, Antichamber, Portal, bait-and-switch I agree with just about everything you've posted! The lasers, and the world itself, were clearly designed to highlight the mountain as the climax of the game. Once there, your only reward is slightly harder puzzles and then immediately having all your progress reset. If I'm being honest, though, saying the ending was a letdown for me isn't entirely accurate. After the tens of hours we spent with the game, it was pretty clear they weren't going to change things too drastically or suddenly offer a compelling explanation for the island. Instead, it just felt like a big missed opportunity. JBlo had the chance to capitalize on my lowered expectations with a spectacular finish, but instead we got a wonkavator ride. frozentreasure posted:Personally, I had an inkling after awhile that the game wasn't going to try and tell me anything when I got inside the mountain. Pretty much! I'm glad you brought up Antichamber, though. I really enjoyed that game, and don't remember feeling let down by the ending at all. I think the main difference for me is that the world in Antichamber was quite obviously a game world, and no effort was made to make it seem believable. In The Witness, by contrast, the designers put in a lot of time and energy making the world seem believable, lifelike, and intentionally constructed. The expectation is set up (through world design, and due to its structural similarity to Portal) that the ending will shed light on the island's construction, but the player is just left with soggy calves and a pile of unanswered questions. Ultimately, JBlo wants people to discuss and analyze his game, and in that respect he seems to have been successful! But I have to think he could've achieved that goal and still put together a more interesting ending.
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Oct 18, 2016 08:02
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Mr. Highway posted:shots fired at Portal 2 Oh man, you hit the nail on the head about the game's themes. I'd caught on to the theme of obsession (aided, no doubt, by the fact that we started the game with the "bonus ending" wherein JBlo obsesses about shapes in the real world), but hadn't yet put my finger on the theme of scientific inquiry. And now that you point it out, I can see that it was staring me in the face the whole time!! It perfectly encapsulates the feeling of discovering new mechanics, and working out the hidden intricacies of mechanics you thought you'd mastered. It also ties up a lot of the audio diaries and videos into a tidy, conceptual bundle. I also like your summarization that The Witness is a game purely about puzzles, and that players are given no motivation to solve them other than their own desire to do so. Personally, I would say about 80% of my motivation came from the desire to solve more puzzles; the other 20% came from seeing more of the visually stunning world, and the hope of learning more about the obviously fake island. On those fronts, I think the ending failed to deliver. The ending was probably the least beautiful area, and the final wonkavator ride just shows you the island you've already seen. And the subtle mystery of the island's construction is definitely intended as a hook to grab players like Katie and myself, only to leave them wanting at the end. You make a bunch of other great points that I will not acknowledge because I need to go to sleep!
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Oct 18, 2016 08:32
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With all the ending talk, note that this secret area does actually tell you - if in vague terms - what the island is. The girl in the last audiolog there compares it to a dream with your memories of real life suppressed, and ties with the ending-at-the-beginning to show it to be a Matrix-like virtual reality. I think there's a couple of other logs expanding on it further. Interesting that the bonus secret hidden area rewards you with the story, which is otherwise completely absent from the game. I don't know how much you could draw an artistic point out of that fact, though, since it seems to betray all of the ideas about how it critices games for throwing gameplay at you as just an obstacle to progressing the story. One point I saw made on the internet a couple of months ago seemed interesting to me. The structure of what you're doing on the island is rather similar to the structure of a thought. A series of synapses pass on signals, drawn from a variety of different senses, all heading toward a central core, before it is all cleared off to be done over again. Anyway, The Challenge is probably my favourite part of the game. The crescendo in Mountain King is a perfect soundtrack to running in a panic through the wall maze searching for those triangle puzzles. I too came back to re-play that section around the time you guys found the secret area, and like the guy a few posts up, finished it in one go with a lot of time to spare. Despite the fact it took me hours to solve the section the first time. Pro Tip: If any of the puzzles are taking too long to solve, just deliberately mis-solve them. That'll switch off the puzzle, and when you re-solve the one before it will generate a new one. Sometimes that's quicker than bashing your head against a tricky one. Another tip: For the sets of three, it helps to identify little patterns that are impossible to solve. Like this.
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Oct 19, 2016 13:43
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Bruceski posted:The Pillars: <REDACTED> BioEnchanted posted:I love in the Hall of the Mountain King for that moment at 9:25 when the violins go full Thrash Metal. LogicalFallacy posted:Most of my attempts at the challenge end with me running around the maze in a panic, scrambling to find those puzzles. AbstractNapper posted:I might have made a mental note that those set of puzzles on the top were examples of unsolvable layouts, but I don't think I fully realized that it was intentional until it was pointed out here. I think that is cool, that they've added this there, and that I still find something new about the game after months of having finished it. ManicVolcanic posted:The Challenge is actually the reason I stopped playing The Witness. I was going for 100%, but after getting trashed by the Challenge a few times I gave up and dropped the search for 100% altogether. I got through the maze... once, I think. whitehelm posted:Since you're winding down the LP here's a couple non-Challenge related things: frozentreasure posted:I never saw them as a timer, though each layout is linked to a different note of a different instrument, and does change on the measures. AlphaKretin posted:Ahahahahahaha I'm so glad I don't have to play through it but as long as that remains the case the Challenge owns. Fedule posted:So yeah, the unsolvable puzzle displays are just a straight up three-digit display counting down the remaining measures in the music. The first panel represents a digit using the number of squares in the shapes, the second using the number of yellow rounded squares, and the third using the number of dots. Tenebrais posted:...Thoughts and tips... Thank you for the tips! I started figuring out that 3rd one after it got me a couple times.  Episode 53 - The Challenge (2/?) This one is all challenge attempts
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Oct 19, 2016 17:40
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Haha, I had the exact same reaction to seeing those pillars the first time. Also can I just say, I like the little splash you add for each attempt. It looks nice.
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Oct 19, 2016 23:48
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Trigger warning: if you struggled with The Challenge and never figured out what they figure out at the start of that video, there WILL be cursing.
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Oct 20, 2016 00:39
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Tenebrais posted:Also can I just say, I like the little splash you add for each attempt. It looks nice. Oh, poo poo, I thought that was the game. Yeah, kudos, Joe!
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Oct 20, 2016 14:13
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Tenebrais posted:Also can I just say, I like the little splash you add for each attempt. It looks nice. AlphaKretin posted:Oh, poo poo, I thought that was the game. Yeah, kudos, Joe! Bruceski posted:Trigger warning: if you struggled with The Challenge and never figured out what they figure out at the start of that video, there WILL be cursing.  Episode 54 - The Challenge (3/?) (02 Actual Puzzles Solved)
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Oct 22, 2016 18:05
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Aww man. That looked so close! To be fair, I never did the challenge. Maybe there are 2 other pillars on the far side. But good job anyway.
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Oct 22, 2016 19:16
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Seems to be a fair bit of desync in the video. Seems to fix itself about 9 minutes in.
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Oct 22, 2016 21:03
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You were really close now. Like I wrote before the last step of the challenge (the pillars) gave me the hardest time. But you've reached them quicker than I did (it took me a while to figure out a quick way to tell to invalid panels for the second row, and then to connect the maze with the panel that shows you the way.
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Oct 22, 2016 21:41
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The black/white pillar is pretty easy because there are only two ways it can go; vertically (the lines exit on the opposite side) or horizontally (lines exit on their own side) and the placement of the dots makes it clear which way it's gonna go. The other one gave me a lot of trouble because you need to hold the whole board in your head at once. I think I wound up solving it pretty much by accident.
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Oct 22, 2016 22:45
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homphgomph posted:Episode 51 - Carl Sagan I'll just leave this here 
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Oct 25, 2016 03:36
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I approve of the group chat being called "The Fight House" as that describes this game literally perfectly. No other combination of words is more similar to The Witness than that one.
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Oct 25, 2016 07:23
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cant cook creole bream posted:Aww man. That looked so close! Tenebrais posted:Seems to be a fair bit of desync in the video. Seems to fix itself about 9 minutes in. AbstractNapper posted:You were really close now. Bruceski posted:The black/white pillar is pretty easy because there are only two ways it can go; vertically (the lines exit on the opposite side) or horizontally (lines exit on their own side) and the placement of the dots makes it clear which way it's gonna go. The other one gave me a lot of trouble because you need to hold the whole board in your head at once. I think I wound up solving it pretty much by accident. ManicVolcanic posted:I approve of the group chat being called "The Fight House" as that describes this game literally perfectly. No other combination of words is more similar to The Witness than that one. Frustration starts setting in...  Episode 55 - The Challenge (4/?) All challenge here! And because it's been nothing but Challenge videos, for a change of pace, here's a non Witness bonus if you'd like!  F2OGGY (this was very impromptu and not well thought out, so forgive the skype box)
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Oct 26, 2016 16:20
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Oooh, I could feel the frustration setting in. The worst part of that is that being frustrated actively makes you play worse: I'm not that good at the game, but I was getting all the ones that you guys were restarting at, primarily because I hadn't been trying and failing at the Challenge for however many hours. I'd put money on you guys doing much better at it as soon as you come back in a new session.
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Oct 27, 2016 06:39
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homphgomph posted:
 What did I just watch? 
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Oct 27, 2016 14:22
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One of the things I did to help with The Challenge is make sure my maze solution was really easy to remember. If I couldn't make an easy to remember solution on that pillar puzzle I would just go and reset because it was so close to the beginning. Another thing I remember doing was giving up if the second song started before I got to the second triangles puzzle, because I knew I would need a lot of time for the pillars.
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Oct 28, 2016 23:52
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ManicVolcanic posted:Oooh, I could feel the frustration setting in. The worst part of that is that being frustrated actively makes you play worse: I'm not that good at the game, but I was getting all the ones that you guys were restarting at, primarily because I hadn't been trying and failing at the Challenge for however many hours. I'd put money on you guys doing much better at it as soon as you come back in a new session. AlphaKretin posted:
whitehelm posted:One of the things I did to help with The Challenge is make sure my maze solution was really easy to remember. If I couldn't make an easy to remember solution on that pillar puzzle I would just go and reset because it was so close to the beginning. Another thing I remember doing was giving up if the second song started before I got to the second triangles puzzle, because I knew I would need a lot of time for the pillars.  Episode 56 - The Challenge (5/?) (12 Puzzles Solved)
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Oct 29, 2016 16:25
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That pillar may not have been a hail Mary, but it was a cross. You where really lucky with those pillars.
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Oct 29, 2016 18:06
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