competor/Why I stopped playing SOLAS 128? (Thinking about game design)

## Why I stopped playing SOLAS 128? (Thinking about game design)
*** Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version) ***

I'm playing SOLAS 128 and this may be the first puzzle I've ever played that doesn't fit my values so well.
All parts of the video I complain about it.

- Tsugumi Kuchino 🔄 competor (@GugenTV) April 12, 2022

What's happening!?

I abandoned to beat this game completely in the video. I'll follow each part to see what didn't work for me and what was said both good 👍 and bad 👎, in order. All of this is my subjective opinion.

#1 https://youtu.be/RsY9DWJPv2A
4:28 👎 Red color has another meaning.
The three primary colors are important characters in this game, but you have added the rule 'pink is moving, red is rotating' to that important element of color. I was puzzled by the suddenly increased role that red has at the start of the game. Why did they present this information in color when the walls, mirrors and the unplaceable diagonals mark on the floor, are all achromatic? Why not use shape or animation?

6:18, 8:20 👎 Fast forwarding makes the song ridiculous. 👍 But the fast forward button itself is OK.
It's just a cassette tape style performance, but it's cool music, so it would have been nice if it was possible to not raise the pitch.

#2 https://youtu.be/4Qfa0-BI0VA
13:30 👎 Multiple meanings of white are confusing.
Mirrors are white and reflect light. Walls are white and do not reflect light. They are both the same white......

18:50 👎👎 Hard to understand the light collision rules.
When yellow and red collide from 45° and 270° directions, they reflect at 180°, not 157.5°. Why? Why also choose 180° directly across instead of 135° at an angle? I considered hypotheses that a higher composite number of original light has a heavier mass, which makes it more difficult to bend the angle, or the hypothesis that in this world we prefer to bend horizontally and vertically rather than diagonally, but I could not come up with an answer that I was comfortable with. It's a core mechanic of this game, but it's at odds with my own intuition, and I will continue to be stuck with it.

If you wanted to convince players that this is the way it is in this world, you should have done a careful tutorial on it. At least, it is not something to be put out on a complicated level like the one in this video.

22:50 👍 The colors are identifiable by their shapes.
Many people are not good at converting colors in their brains between RGB and CMY, even if they understand the logic behind it, so it is good to be able to understand what is being synthesized by the icons.
Another example, the game "Filament", RGB was represented by three lines "<" and "|" and ">". Personally, I think Filament-shapes are easier to understand than SOLAS-shapes.
https://youtu.be/IgmK8zglvH4

#3 https://youtu.be/kBWp8hooVbM
32:50 👎👎 I don't enjoy matching lights in 4 beats.
I wonder if the grid should at least be able to distinguish between even and odd moving squares? Or so I think. While this is also a core mechanic, it is not something that can be calculated in advance like a logic puzzle, but rather, you have to solve it by making it anyway and then keep adjusting where the beats fit well. Personally, I don't like that kind of thing. I personally don't like such puzzles, because it is a task that requires the use of hands, not brains. It's not attractive as a thinking puzzle.

14:17 👎 The mouse is sucked into the grid on its own.
Please add an option to turn this feature on or off. It was unnecessary for me because it malfunctions in a weird way and I can't place it where I think it should be.

30:20 👎 The tutorial on sharing items can be broken through with an action skill.
That's not good! I thought so, but since the game keeps the light coming out at a certain tempo, I can do actions using it (or rather, use it in the latter half of the game, for example, to take out a single piece of light.) So it's hard to denounce this as a wrong move, isn't it?
In the game "Entanglement: Chapter 1", I had experienced the technique of sending the ejected photons using an action skill, so somewhere in my head I thought that such a technique would come to SOLAS as well.
https://youtu.be/OvlOPg91PD4?t=1183

#4 https://youtu.be/31oTm2Hs9rk
5:39 👎 Square represents 45°, diamond represents 90°.
Isn't it usually the other way around? The correct way to understand this shape, this is not a square, but a collection of 4 arrows, and the direction of the arrows represents 'whether to output diagonally or vertically relative to the input'. So, I thought that my feeling and the implementation of the game are the exact opposite.

12:30, 33:43 👎 Light collision rules are difficult to understand
Ibid.

37:45 Summary.

#5 https://youtu.be/2RyzqWf40rE
16:47 👎 Hidden Passage.
What do you think? Do you guys like it? Hidden passage. It's an essential gimmick in Metroidvania games, but in Mario Maker, it's called "kid's stuff". Hidden passage is a gimmick that can be easily implemented by any game creator who wants to surprise players with a twist, but the reputation of hidden passage differs from game to game.
What do you think? Hidden passage in puzzle games. "In fact, only this wall is passable. If you tried, you'd realize it, right?" Would you be convinced? At the very least, I think it is a minimum requirement to create a trigger for thought, like the "there is a door in an obviously strange position" like this game. Without it, it's unreasonable (≒ shitty game).
So, if you can give a correct lead-in, is it okay to implement hidden passage in puzzle games? I think this is NO. Huh? Why? Because, hidden passage are "If even one hidden passageway is allowed to exist, the player must continue to search the existence of the hidden passage throughout the game. In other words, this is forcing the player to check all areas. Even if the developer did not intend to do so, and it was just a one-shot joke, the player's mind is already tainted, and there is no way to go back.
There was also this in a game called "UNDERSTAND". Even Osorezan says he hates it!
https://youtu.be/gzI6yXnvN58?t=973
https://youtu.be/DsmThEXYYP0?t=3073
I can forgive hidden passages and rooms if they have nothing to do with the main story, like in The Talos Principle. But only if "the player can correctly judge whether it has nothing to do with the main story or not". From that perspective, ElecHead's pointless hidden room is an example that didn't work well because I couldn't decide whether it was a necessary puzzle or just a joke. (The poop symbols came from a place where 'there's a breakthrough though it look like a dead end,' so putting poops where it's really a dead end is not consistent in level design.")
https://youtu.be/K1wxFrCYp-A?t=596

43:00 "The room that cannot be solved at this time" is difficult to understand.
I wanted it to be a little easier to understand. Also, while the game design is language-independent, I thought it was half-hearted to use the existing symbol "?".

#6 https://youtu.be/fh48cCWxTbI
28:58 👎👎👎👎 Placing objects that are not needed for the puzzle.
Objects that are intended to trick the player are called red herrings, Objects that are not needed to solve the puzzle and have no purpose other than to trick the player are pure red herring. Among puzzle creators, there is a debate about whether red herrings are good or bad. I think if the player feels comfortable being cheated, it's okay, if not, then bad. In other words, there is no correct answer; it is just subjective. However, there must be a reason to explain the basis of  this subjective view, and I am trying to verbalize it. Here is what I think at this point.
Pure red herring is not a good design. but if it looks like red herring at first glance, but in the process of solving it, it actually has usages that you would never imagine! is a pleasant deception, so it is good red herring.
Some may say, "Items are neatly aligned and arranged, so this level looks beautiful, it's nice," but if the installation for the sake of appearance interferes with the puzzle, why okay? Take the appearance or take the function. If it doesn't affect the puzzle, the better it looks, the better it works. Baba Is You, with the inaccessible walls and the grass growing behind them or near the goal, that's good because it conveys the atmosphere, isn't it?

#7 https://youtu.be/Ntf3tmiqH-k
Nothing special. It's 👍difficult and interesting.

#8 https://youtu.be/zlF2CotZhJE
12:30 👎 I'd like to see a way to make this huge level less annoying to players.

Simply a difficult puzzle this is. Freedom is the painfulness for puzzles. So, you put various restrictions on the puzzle to guide the player's thinking. Then, at this level, you could, for example, is to remove unnecessary guiding patterns on the floor, or reduce the number of cells that can be placed, or add more walls to prevent light to narrow down the choices. "Filament" is a game like that puzzles with a huge number of choices. It's hard to solve, it's only a brute force game.

17:40 👍 Good Red Herring example.

#9 https://youtu.be/fUwYCwob5Dc
29:40 👎 The information displayed by the i-button is worthless.
When you press the i-button, the object displayed changes. This kind of unexpected phenomenon seems strange to the player. The information conveyed by this information sign is subtle and I could not quite understand the intention of its existence. (1) Making the invisible visible (hidden passage, switches under the filter), (2) "Uniquely" expressing the ON/OFF of buttons with squares and diamonds. (3) Turn off the grid and diagonal floor display.
Since these are only functions to assist that are difficult to see in a level. I wonder if this button would have been unnecessary if the UI design in the game were improved.

#10 https://youtu.be/GLSyf3l_6gc
40:55 👎The one-way traffic of the light is confusing.
The "<" and ">" symbols on the entrance and exit of the light gate indicate the direction the light can go. In other words, if it is marked with "<", the light can pass to the left. But this is WRONG. The gate with "<" in which the light was entered did not pass to the left. The correct answer is that the side with the depression in the wall where the gate is located is the entrance, and the side without the depression is the exit. I don't get it!
It is also strange that the gate is identified by the presence or absence of a depression. The depression is supposed to have been designed for a functional purpose, to shave off the corner so that light coming at an angle would reach the gate, but it is not clear that it also serves as an input/output symbol?
Were the "<" and ">" symbols used to indicate the possibility of screen transitions? What can I say, the design should not be designed to confuse players in such a situation.

#11 https://youtu.be/HXA5bYT4K8E
1:01:05, 1:12:00 👎👎👎👎 Placing objects that are not needed for the puzzle(2)
The switch is false, the two blue lights are false, the diagonal guides in the background are false, I hate this puzzle! It's bad enough that I took the liberty of reading too much into it and assumed to create a mechanism to send the red and blue lights upward while continuously toggling the switch. I think it is inappropriate to be placed before a checkpoint. I think I understand the fun of a puzzle that dares to present this kind of jokes, but I would be disappointed if they did that in this "cool" game.

This is where I lost faith to the creator of this game. A puzzle game is, after all, a communication with the creator through puzzles. I feel disappointed and heartbroken when I feel like "I was foolish to expect such a game".

#12-14 https://youtu.be/91zWFeoHHX0
👍 Level design of the entire green area.
Difficult and challenging, yet elegant in its solution. Very interesting.

19:37 👎 The hint function has disappeared.
A direction that makes quite a bit of sense. No, I understand the meaning as a game direction, and I understand that it is an area where it is difficult to give hints from a puzzle point of view, but what is the hint function in the first place? If they knew what the hint function was, they wouldn't have done it this way (or maybe they wanted to imitate Undertale?). The hint function is designed to help people who cannot solve puzzles, so it is wrong to say "if a player can get to the end of the puzzle, he/she does not need any more hints". The game should not limit the use of hints by saying, "After this point, I won't allow you to use them." In other words, it is half-hearted. If you made a hint function, take care of it until the end! That is the only word I can say. I still want a hint for the second half of the green area (the top of the map).
However, I am not so convinced with this opinion, and if it is explained to me that "the hints are designed not to appear in the last area" (which is actually how it is implemented), I am not that bothered. I wonder, maybe the result is the same, but I didn't like the process.

#15-16 https://youtu.be/2-gzDM9O8jQ
42:39 👎 Unnecessary rotating mirrors are placed.
Doing that again... there are two of them and they both don't need to be rotated, bad design.
But I think the cause of difficulty is not only this but it was possible to bring light from the outside. Why not design that light cannot be brought in from above level? Because we have seen so many mechanisms that immediately block light in the next area, I have a hunch that this area is designed to allow light to "dare to pass through". Because this is a thinky puzzle game!

#17 https://youtu.be/-7vqtXSbXOI
3:00, 19:20 👎There is no way to shorten the travel time between multiple levels.
Only worthless waiting time left there. You could have solved this problem by just installing one gate between the two maps. I waste time opening the map and waiting to scroll slowly. This is a problem that can be solved by either shortening the time it takes to move around the map, or designing the map that you can see nearby areas without leave here.
In the game "Obduction", there is a puzzle where you have to go back and forth between two worlds frequently, and I was really fed up with having to wait 20 seconds for each move.
https://youtu.be/2LQ86yAMMZ4
Similarly, there is A Monster's Expedition, a puzzle game that looks over the entire map, but in this case, once you select a destination, you can fast-travel in an instant. I could also easily see the surrounding conditions necessary for the puzzle. Compared to this game, SOLAS's map is not user-friendly.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLqnMDAwv_U-xnZI3e-NG8jMNjWvNwRST-

More about the map: 👎The whole map is difficult to use.
Another point of concern was that the handling of unused areas of the map remained unclear until the end of the game. It is impossible to determine whether it is an empty space or a room that has not yet been visited. The coordinates exist, but you can't enter because there are no rooms.
So what if, for example, the i-button is also available on this overall map? When the i-button is pressed on the overall map, the current task becomes recognizable by the glowing of rooms that are still unsolved. The inaccessible coordinates are represented by a diagonal pattern just same as the background that cannot be placed in each levels, so that the presence or absence of a room can be determined. This feature should be made available after the ending. It would be rather good.
Ah, that brings me to another idea. As a meta-puzzle, how about making this whole map as manipulable as a regular level, so that each room can be rearranged? If a room conforms to the "pink is move, red is rotate" rule, it can be moved around on the map. This would greatly change the light's path of entry. This would be interesting as well.

17:10 👎👎Placable cell is hidden by the filter.
That's the kind of thing that makes player hate you! It's not a good joke. Even if you use the i-button, you can't find this palce. I don't want to have important information hidden in a logical puzzle. It's unfair (also I'm not good at object finding games).

#18 https://youtu.be/oEH4XX8rCb0
1:02:30 "The room that cannot be solved at this time" is difficult to understand. (2).
This misunderstanding could have been avoided if the light was not sent out from the upper left corner of the room.

1:15:24 Overall summary

After video recording
I found all four hidden letters. One of them was "click the gate that is not at the edge of the screen to move to the unfound next level", which I thought was very sneaky.

I wrote a lot of sentences because my negative feelings got the upper hand, but in total, I think it is well made game, except for some levels that I hate.
	* Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version) *

	I'm playing SOLAS 128 and this may be the first puzzle I've ever played that doesn't fit my values so well.
	All parts of the video I complain about it.

	- Tsugumi Kuchino 🔄 competor (@GugenTV) April 12, 2022

	What's happening!?

	I abandoned to beat this game completely in the video. I'll follow each part to see what didn't work for me and what was said both good 👍 and bad 👎, in order. All of this is my subjective opinion.

	#1 https://youtu.be/RsY9DWJPv2A
	4:28 👎 Red color has another meaning.
	The three primary colors are important characters in this game, but you have added the rule 'pink is moving, red is rotating' to that important element of color. I was puzzled by the suddenly increased role that red has at the start of the game. Why did they present this information in color when the walls, mirrors and the unplaceable diagonals mark on the floor, are all achromatic? Why not use shape or animation?

	6:18, 8:20 👎 Fast forwarding makes the song ridiculous. 👍 But the fast forward button itself is OK.
	It's just a cassette tape style performance, but it's cool music, so it would have been nice if it was possible to not raise the pitch.

	#2 https://youtu.be/4Qfa0-BI0VA
	13:30 👎 Multiple meanings of white are confusing.
	Mirrors are white and reflect light. Walls are white and do not reflect light. They are both the same white......

	18:50 👎👎 Hard to understand the light collision rules.
	When yellow and red collide from 45° and 270° directions, they reflect at 180°, not 157.5°. Why? Why also choose 180° directly across instead of 135° at an angle? I considered hypotheses that a higher composite number of original light has a heavier mass, which makes it more difficult to bend the angle, or the hypothesis that in this world we prefer to bend horizontally and vertically rather than diagonally, but I could not come up with an answer that I was comfortable with. It's a core mechanic of this game, but it's at odds with my own intuition, and I will continue to be stuck with it.

	If you wanted to convince players that this is the way it is in this world, you should have done a careful tutorial on it. At least, it is not something to be put out on a complicated level like the one in this video.

	22:50 👍 The colors are identifiable by their shapes.
	Many people are not good at converting colors in their brains between RGB and CMY, even if they understand the logic behind it, so it is good to be able to understand what is being synthesized by the icons.
	Another example, the game "Filament", RGB was represented by three lines "<" and "\|" and ">". Personally, I think Filament-shapes are easier to understand than SOLAS-shapes.
	https://youtu.be/IgmK8zglvH4

	#3 https://youtu.be/kBWp8hooVbM
	32:50 👎👎 I don't enjoy matching lights in 4 beats.
	I wonder if the grid should at least be able to distinguish between even and odd moving squares? Or so I think. While this is also a core mechanic, it is not something that can be calculated in advance like a logic puzzle, but rather, you have to solve it by making it anyway and then keep adjusting where the beats fit well. Personally, I don't like that kind of thing. I personally don't like such puzzles, because it is a task that requires the use of hands, not brains. It's not attractive as a thinking puzzle.

	14:17 👎 The mouse is sucked into the grid on its own.
	Please add an option to turn this feature on or off. It was unnecessary for me because it malfunctions in a weird way and I can't place it where I think it should be.

	30:20 👎 The tutorial on sharing items can be broken through with an action skill.
	That's not good! I thought so, but since the game keeps the light coming out at a certain tempo, I can do actions using it (or rather, use it in the latter half of the game, for example, to take out a single piece of light.) So it's hard to denounce this as a wrong move, isn't it?
	In the game "Entanglement: Chapter 1", I had experienced the technique of sending the ejected photons using an action skill, so somewhere in my head I thought that such a technique would come to SOLAS as well.
	https://youtu.be/OvlOPg91PD4?t=1183

	#4 https://youtu.be/31oTm2Hs9rk
	5:39 👎 Square represents 45°, diamond represents 90°.
	Isn't it usually the other way around? The correct way to understand this shape, this is not a square, but a collection of 4 arrows, and the direction of the arrows represents 'whether to output diagonally or vertically relative to the input'. So, I thought that my feeling and the implementation of the game are the exact opposite.

	12:30, 33:43 👎 Light collision rules are difficult to understand
	Ibid.

	37:45 Summary.

	#5 https://youtu.be/2RyzqWf40rE
	16:47 👎 Hidden Passage.
	What do you think? Do you guys like it? Hidden passage. It's an essential gimmick in Metroidvania games, but in Mario Maker, it's called "kid's stuff". Hidden passage is a gimmick that can be easily implemented by any game creator who wants to surprise players with a twist, but the reputation of hidden passage differs from game to game.
	What do you think? Hidden passage in puzzle games. "In fact, only this wall is passable. If you tried, you'd realize it, right?" Would you be convinced? At the very least, I think it is a minimum requirement to create a trigger for thought, like the "there is a door in an obviously strange position" like this game. Without it, it's unreasonable (≒ shitty game).
	So, if you can give a correct lead-in, is it okay to implement hidden passage in puzzle games? I think this is NO. Huh? Why? Because, hidden passage are "If even one hidden passageway is allowed to exist, the player must continue to search the existence of the hidden passage throughout the game. In other words, this is forcing the player to check all areas. Even if the developer did not intend to do so, and it was just a one-shot joke, the player's mind is already tainted, and there is no way to go back.
	There was also this in a game called "UNDERSTAND". Even Osorezan says he hates it!
	https://youtu.be/gzI6yXnvN58?t=973
	https://youtu.be/DsmThEXYYP0?t=3073
	I can forgive hidden passages and rooms if they have nothing to do with the main story, like in The Talos Principle. But only if "the player can correctly judge whether it has nothing to do with the main story or not". From that perspective, ElecHead's pointless hidden room is an example that didn't work well because I couldn't decide whether it was a necessary puzzle or just a joke. (The poop symbols came from a place where 'there's a breakthrough though it look like a dead end,' so putting poops where it's really a dead end is not consistent in level design.")
	https://youtu.be/K1wxFrCYp-A?t=596

	43:00 "The room that cannot be solved at this time" is difficult to understand.
	I wanted it to be a little easier to understand. Also, while the game design is language-independent, I thought it was half-hearted to use the existing symbol "?".

	#6 https://youtu.be/fh48cCWxTbI
	28:58 👎👎👎👎 Placing objects that are not needed for the puzzle.
	Objects that are intended to trick the player are called red herrings, Objects that are not needed to solve the puzzle and have no purpose other than to trick the player are pure red herring. Among puzzle creators, there is a debate about whether red herrings are good or bad. I think if the player feels comfortable being cheated, it's okay, if not, then bad. In other words, there is no correct answer; it is just subjective. However, there must be a reason to explain the basis of this subjective view, and I am trying to verbalize it. Here is what I think at this point.
	Pure red herring is not a good design. but if it looks like red herring at first glance, but in the process of solving it, it actually has usages that you would never imagine! is a pleasant deception, so it is good red herring.
	Some may say, "Items are neatly aligned and arranged, so this level looks beautiful, it's nice," but if the installation for the sake of appearance interferes with the puzzle, why okay? Take the appearance or take the function. If it doesn't affect the puzzle, the better it looks, the better it works. Baba Is You, with the inaccessible walls and the grass growing behind them or near the goal, that's good because it conveys the atmosphere, isn't it?

	#7 https://youtu.be/Ntf3tmiqH-k
	Nothing special. It's 👍difficult and interesting.

	#8 https://youtu.be/zlF2CotZhJE
	12:30 👎 I'd like to see a way to make this huge level less annoying to players.

	Simply a difficult puzzle this is. Freedom is the painfulness for puzzles. So, you put various restrictions on the puzzle to guide the player's thinking. Then, at this level, you could, for example, is to remove unnecessary guiding patterns on the floor, or reduce the number of cells that can be placed, or add more walls to prevent light to narrow down the choices. "Filament" is a game like that puzzles with a huge number of choices. It's hard to solve, it's only a brute force game.

	17:40 👍 Good Red Herring example.

	#9 https://youtu.be/fUwYCwob5Dc
	29:40 👎 The information displayed by the i-button is worthless.
	When you press the i-button, the object displayed changes. This kind of unexpected phenomenon seems strange to the player. The information conveyed by this information sign is subtle and I could not quite understand the intention of its existence. (1) Making the invisible visible (hidden passage, switches under the filter), (2) "Uniquely" expressing the ON/OFF of buttons with squares and diamonds. (3) Turn off the grid and diagonal floor display.
	Since these are only functions to assist that are difficult to see in a level. I wonder if this button would have been unnecessary if the UI design in the game were improved.

	#10 https://youtu.be/GLSyf3l_6gc
	40:55 👎The one-way traffic of the light is confusing.
	The "<" and ">" symbols on the entrance and exit of the light gate indicate the direction the light can go. In other words, if it is marked with "<", the light can pass to the left. But this is WRONG. The gate with "<" in which the light was entered did not pass to the left. The correct answer is that the side with the depression in the wall where the gate is located is the entrance, and the side without the depression is the exit. I don't get it!
	It is also strange that the gate is identified by the presence or absence of a depression. The depression is supposed to have been designed for a functional purpose, to shave off the corner so that light coming at an angle would reach the gate, but it is not clear that it also serves as an input/output symbol?
	Were the "<" and ">" symbols used to indicate the possibility of screen transitions? What can I say, the design should not be designed to confuse players in such a situation.

	#11 https://youtu.be/HXA5bYT4K8E
	1:01:05, 1:12:00 👎👎👎👎 Placing objects that are not needed for the puzzle(2)
	The switch is false, the two blue lights are false, the diagonal guides in the background are false, I hate this puzzle! It's bad enough that I took the liberty of reading too much into it and assumed to create a mechanism to send the red and blue lights upward while continuously toggling the switch. I think it is inappropriate to be placed before a checkpoint. I think I understand the fun of a puzzle that dares to present this kind of jokes, but I would be disappointed if they did that in this "cool" game.

	This is where I lost faith to the creator of this game. A puzzle game is, after all, a communication with the creator through puzzles. I feel disappointed and heartbroken when I feel like "I was foolish to expect such a game".

	#12-14 https://youtu.be/91zWFeoHHX0
	👍 Level design of the entire green area.
	Difficult and challenging, yet elegant in its solution. Very interesting.

	19:37 👎 The hint function has disappeared.
	A direction that makes quite a bit of sense. No, I understand the meaning as a game direction, and I understand that it is an area where it is difficult to give hints from a puzzle point of view, but what is the hint function in the first place? If they knew what the hint function was, they wouldn't have done it this way (or maybe they wanted to imitate Undertale?). The hint function is designed to help people who cannot solve puzzles, so it is wrong to say "if a player can get to the end of the puzzle, he/she does not need any more hints". The game should not limit the use of hints by saying, "After this point, I won't allow you to use them." In other words, it is half-hearted. If you made a hint function, take care of it until the end! That is the only word I can say. I still want a hint for the second half of the green area (the top of the map).
	However, I am not so convinced with this opinion, and if it is explained to me that "the hints are designed not to appear in the last area" (which is actually how it is implemented), I am not that bothered. I wonder, maybe the result is the same, but I didn't like the process.

	#15-16 https://youtu.be/2-gzDM9O8jQ
	42:39 👎 Unnecessary rotating mirrors are placed.
	Doing that again... there are two of them and they both don't need to be rotated, bad design.
	But I think the cause of difficulty is not only this but it was possible to bring light from the outside. Why not design that light cannot be brought in from above level? Because we have seen so many mechanisms that immediately block light in the next area, I have a hunch that this area is designed to allow light to "dare to pass through". Because this is a thinky puzzle game!

	#17 https://youtu.be/-7vqtXSbXOI
	3:00, 19:20 👎There is no way to shorten the travel time between multiple levels.
	Only worthless waiting time left there. You could have solved this problem by just installing one gate between the two maps. I waste time opening the map and waiting to scroll slowly. This is a problem that can be solved by either shortening the time it takes to move around the map, or designing the map that you can see nearby areas without leave here.
	In the game "Obduction", there is a puzzle where you have to go back and forth between two worlds frequently, and I was really fed up with having to wait 20 seconds for each move.
	https://youtu.be/2LQ86yAMMZ4
	Similarly, there is A Monster's Expedition, a puzzle game that looks over the entire map, but in this case, once you select a destination, you can fast-travel in an instant. I could also easily see the surrounding conditions necessary for the puzzle. Compared to this game, SOLAS's map is not user-friendly.
	https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLqnMDAwv_U-xnZI3e-NG8jMNjWvNwRST-

	More about the map: 👎The whole map is difficult to use.
	Another point of concern was that the handling of unused areas of the map remained unclear until the end of the game. It is impossible to determine whether it is an empty space or a room that has not yet been visited. The coordinates exist, but you can't enter because there are no rooms.
	So what if, for example, the i-button is also available on this overall map? When the i-button is pressed on the overall map, the current task becomes recognizable by the glowing of rooms that are still unsolved. The inaccessible coordinates are represented by a diagonal pattern just same as the background that cannot be placed in each levels, so that the presence or absence of a room can be determined. This feature should be made available after the ending. It would be rather good.
	Ah, that brings me to another idea. As a meta-puzzle, how about making this whole map as manipulable as a regular level, so that each room can be rearranged? If a room conforms to the "pink is move, red is rotate" rule, it can be moved around on the map. This would greatly change the light's path of entry. This would be interesting as well.

	17:10 👎👎Placable cell is hidden by the filter.
	That's the kind of thing that makes player hate you! It's not a good joke. Even if you use the i-button, you can't find this palce. I don't want to have important information hidden in a logical puzzle. It's unfair (also I'm not good at object finding games).

	#18 https://youtu.be/oEH4XX8rCb0
	1:02:30 "The room that cannot be solved at this time" is difficult to understand. (2).
	This misunderstanding could have been avoided if the light was not sent out from the upper left corner of the room.

	1:15:24 Overall summary

	After video recording
	I found all four hidden letters. One of them was "click the gate that is not at the edge of the screen to move to the unfound next level", which I thought was very sneaky.

	I wrote a lot of sentences because my negative feelings got the upper hand, but in total, I think it is well made game, except for some levels that I hate.