The Talos Principle

2015-01-08 04:16:39 am

Hey guys,

I haven't seen any discussion here, but a few youtube videos scattered around show that at least someone is interested.
I however do not have much skill in working details out, and I would appreciate some pointers from some of the more experienced people around Cheesy

As far as I can tell there are 2 categories that could be run
Any%/Low% Collect all the Sigils from World A B C and finish the game.
100% Collect all the Sigils from World A B C, Star worlds, and complete the tower puzzles. (There are 'Blue' Island worlds which come with Sigils only the Puzzle solutions are required and they only unlock helpers so Im not sure if this needs to be done to make it a true 100%)

There are 3 endings to the game the first is the only viable one for any% as it is in world C the last you unlock so this is obvious. The second is to Ascend the tower ending in a sort of auto scroller the last is to unlock Level 6 of the tower and finish the final puzzle. So I would guess it would come down to speed but I'm not 100% sure how a multiple ending game like this should be run.

Some things I have found so far in my investigations bunny hopping is slightly faster than just running. Jumping down a slope can give a small speed boost if the landing is on the slope.
I haven't been able to find any skips to get any Sigils without completing the puzzles, Croteam seems to have done a good job stopping you from that however I could be wrong.

There is a ingame timer but it resets when you use the 'teleporters' so for a speed run an external timer would be required.

Happy to try any suggestions or listen to any comments you may have.

Thread title:

Hey guys,

I haven't seen any discussion here, but a few youtube videos scattered around show that at least someone is interested. 
I however do not have much skill in working details out, and I would appreciate some pointers from some of the more experienced people around :D

As far as I can tell there are 2 categories that could be run
Any%/Low% Collect all the Sigils from World A B C and finish the game.
100% Collect all the Sigils from World A B C, Star worlds, and complete the tower puzzles. (There are 'Blue' Island worlds which come with Sigils only the Puzzle solutions are required and they only unlock helpers so Im not sure if this needs to be done to make it a true 100%)

There are 3 endings to the game the first is the only viable one for any% as it is in world C the last you unlock so this is obvious. The second is to Ascend the tower ending in a sort of auto scroller the last is to unlock Level 6 of the tower and finish the final puzzle. So I would guess it would come down to speed but I'm not 100% sure how a multiple ending game like this should be run.

Some things I have found so far in my investigations bunny hopping is slightly faster than just running. Jumping down a slope can give a small speed boost if the landing is on the slope.
I haven't been able to find any skips to get any Sigils without completing the puzzles, Croteam seems to have done a good job stopping you from that however I could be wrong.

There is a ingame timer but it resets when you use the 'teleporters' so for a speed run an external timer would be required.

Happy to try any suggestions or listen to any comments you may have.

amtiskaw

2015-01-11 04:55:49 pm

I have only just started playing this game, but one trick I discovered while messing around is that you can pick up jammers from the opposite side of the force-field that they're jamming. The game attempts to prevent this by pushing you back across the force-field threshold if you pick up a jammer from the other side. However, it's possible to place the jammer close to an end of the force-field, angled diagonally away from the centre, such that its pick up hit-box seems to extend past the force-field, letting you successfully pick it up from the "wrong" side.

It seems like this could be used to shorten quite a few puzzles that require detours to collect extra jammers.

Urkel

Edit history:

Urkel: 2015-01-14 05:47:39 am

2015-01-14 05:19:24 am

You can skip the intro zone by going out of bounds and walking on the walls. The sigils you get here is only used to escape that place, so it's not needed
EDIT: Only the three greens can be skipped, but you need all sigils from all worlds, so there's no point

ekimekim

2015-01-17 03:28:53 am

There's a few places where you can use inter-puzzle connections to skip intended solutions, and a few others where clever ledge-hopping can work too.

As to categories, I think all three are viable but personally I feel like transcend ending (reach the top of the tower) and Messenger ending are the two most interesting categories.
I suppose you could also include a 101% with all puzzles, all Messengers, all Stars, all Easter Eggs, all Terminals, then transcend with MLA coming with you (note that this action causes a bonus stinger in the credits, which makes it "more content" than ignoring or arguing with MLA in my opinion).
That'd be some run though!

Also to note, you don't need to do all the Tower puzzles to reach the Messenger ending, just any one level (so you can reach a terminal connected to the elevator, and unlock floor 6).

We should also look into the Serious Sam strats since this is the same engine.

frozentreasure

2015-01-18 07:03:34 pm

What if we just called the categories their endings? "Transcend", "Messenger", "Eternal Life" and then "100%"? If you wanted to differentiate stars and sigils you could have "All sigils" and "100%", I guess (though is it possible to get Eternal Life without having every regular sigil? Might just be the same as that).

Aginsun

2015-01-25 07:28:17 am

for the Transcend ending it seems you can skip floor 2, not sure about 3-4, seeing the codes seem to be randomly generated for the device manager of the floors.
this means though that you can skip 9 red puzzles, saving probably around 5-6 minutes?
also you can skip the first 3 greens by not using them, but collecting them instead so you don't have to do 3 longer puzzles later on saving around 1-2 min at maximum, seeing the green puzzles stop after zone B.

RNC1839

Edit history:

RNC1839: 2015-01-25 10:58:34 am

RNC1839: 2015-01-25 10:57:59 am

2015-01-25 10:57:31 am

I was reading this: https://steamcommunity.com/app/257510/discussions/0/627456359667882611/

Apparently you can interact with the snake in all the terminals and manipulate him to unlock every bit of data in the MLA, including the elevator codes. So you can skip a total of 30 red sigils. I'm not sure how big of a time save that will make, but I think it will be pretty good. With this you'll only need 19 red sigils, 4 for floor 1, 15 for floor 5. I have a list of all the shapes needed and what levels they can be found on and will see which ones are the fastest, to route it the best, later.

As far as categories some of them seem kind of arbitrary to me
Transcend - Any% - skip 30 red sigils, skip all stars
Eternal Life - Any% - get all red sigils (I think that's how it's unlocked)
Messenger - Any% - skip 30 red sigils, get all stars, get all white sigils (should be possible)
Messenger - 100% - get all red sigils, get all stars, get all white sigils, true 100%

I feel like a Transcend and Eternal Life 100% are a bit silly but certainly still reasonable
Transcend - 100% - Same as messenger 100% but go up the tower
Eternal Life - 100% - Same as messenger 100% but go through C ending

Even then I wouldn't really count Eternal Life as an ending because it just spits you back into A1. But that may just be me.

Also I wouldn't count the terminal files or audio logs as part of 100%

I was reading this: https://steamcommunity.com/app/257510/discussions/0/627456359667882611/

Apparently you can interact with the snake in all the terminals and manipulate him to unlock every bit of data in the MLA, including the elevator codes. So you can skip a total of 30 red sigils. I'm not sure how big of a time save that will make, but I think it will be pretty good. With this you'll only need 19 red sigils, 4 for floor 1, 15 for floor 5. I have a list of all the shapes needed and what levels they can be found on and will see which ones are the fastest, to route it the best, later.

As far as categories some of them seem kind of arbitrary to me
Transcend - Any% - skip 30 red sigils, skip all stars
Eternal Life - Any% - get all red sigils (I think that's how it's unlocked)
Messenger - Any% - skip 30 red sigils, get all stars, get all white sigils (should be possible)
Messenger - 100% - get all red sigils, get all stars, get all white sigils, true 100%

I feel like a Transcend and Eternal Life 100% are a bit silly but certainly still reasonable
Transcend - 100% - Same as messenger 100% but go up the tower
Eternal Life - 100% - Same as messenger 100% but go through C ending

Even then I wouldn't really count Eternal Life as an ending because it just spits you back into A1. But that may just be me.

Also I wouldn't count the terminal files or audio logs as part of 100%

Aginsun

2015-01-25 11:41:38 am

it really depends on how quick you can unlock the data in the terminal and if you need some puzzles for it, so the best is to just go and time all the puzzles, time how long it takes/when you can unlock all the data from the terminal, and see if it is worth skipping those puzzles. Do we have some kind of irc for this to figure this all out or no?

RNC1839

2015-01-25 12:41:54 pm

Well you would need to talk to the snake as you collected the first sigils. You do need to go into C no matter what run you do and I think that's where you can unlock everything, by making a deal with him.

As far as an irc I don't know of one, I have a mumble we could use. I was going to stream some of this stuff soon, probably just timing the 19 sigils needed and then doing a test run through. I'll record my times and post them in a pastebin.

Aginsun

2015-01-27 02:43:43 pm

as far as info I have found, it seems you cannot skip 30 sigils, the trigger doesn't happen until a bigger amount of red sigils is collected. This would make the transcend exit alot slower than orginally hoped for.

frozentreasure

2015-01-28 01:28:32 am

What about the Messenger Ending?

Aginsun

2015-01-28 07:42:43 pm

A total of 45 red sigils are required to finish the Transcend ending, making it only a few sigils shorter than the Eternal life ending.
For the messenger ending I still have to test how many sigils are required, but it's quite the setback for the transcend ending.

frozentreasure

Edit history:

frozentreasure: 2015-01-28 08:54:28 pm

2015-01-28 08:54:03 pm

Plus it's not just 45 red sigils, you have to get the yellows to get the puzzle elements for other red sigil puzzles, plus the greens to get to B and C. How many does that total to? From memory, there are 95 regular sigils in the game, and at a basic guess it sounds like we're getting close to having to get all of them.

What happens if you try to go to Transcend or Messenger without enough red sigils to hit the trigger? And is it definitely the sigil count and not either visiting a certain level/number of levels or progressing enough in conversation with the snake?

Aginsun

2015-01-29 02:45:01 pm

I have finished the game with collecting all the yellow/green sigils and 45 red sigils, fairly certain it is the 45 count, seeing I visited all the worlds after I collected 19 reds, then did 1 in each world, then 2 etc. until I hit 45 and I could unlock the entire archive.
This counts up to 86 sigils according to the backup screen, which is almost all of them.

For the messenger ending I will go and check that tonight, and post any results I got here.
Also, I setup a IRC for everyone to join #TheTalosPrinciple

ekimekim

2015-04-03 02:02:37 am

Hi, I'm finally getting back into running and this is right up on my list. Anyone made any progress on routes? What about all this business with the number of sigils required for each ending?

Somefatguysarm

Edit history:

Somefatguysarm: 2015-04-23 09:00:44 pm

Somefatguysarm: 2015-04-23 08:59:37 pm

2015-04-23 08:56:09 pm

I like the concept of the 100% Transcend ending because it involves solving all puzzles, excluding the messenger puzzle required for that ending of course. The any% transcend also seems appealing but that is 19/49 red sigil puzzles to be completed which means you gotta figure out which 19 puzzles are the shortest