This section is a lot like a puzzle game, and to be honest, Puzzle games are fascinating in terms of game design. You have to make a puzzle or logical question that is both solvable, but satisfyingly challenging. Without giving any verbatim clues, the game developers have to integrate you into the puzzle and lead you to the logical conclusion (or leave you just short of it).
Bleak Falls Barrow features tons of Iconography everywhere, and the symbols used to solve the puzzles are seen hidden or in the background quite a few times. The lintels and tympanums all have various hieroglyphic-like symbols. These are all supposed toead you to the solution without giving it outright. When we get to the first stone puzzle, we can see part of the puzzle completed in various sections of the room. Also, we get to see someone try to break through without modifying the stones and how that ends up for them- prompting us to be a bit more considerate of our actions. Therefore, we have to run around the environment around us and find the full final sequence.
The final puzzle, where we use the golden claw, is the one that relies extensively on hidden symbols. I'll be honest, the first time I played this game I didn't notice these and had to look online to solve it. The second time I played though, I looked around carefully for the hints. There are loads, actually. Its not something you'd likely notice if you played games very often though. Often, once you've played a game once or twice you start to zone out and just "grind" the quests out so to speak. A puzzle like this is a good way to slap the player back into focus, so to speak. You can't exactly grind and click the slash-my-sword button when there's a puzzle wall blocking your way. I imagine that is the reason these puzzles work so well; they're a fun quiz of how much you were paying attention for new players, and a test of if you were really playing the game for veterans.
Putting in terms of a "Quiz" is 100% true, and I personally failed because as you once did, I looked it up on the internet... Anyway, that's beside the point, the game creator had to write this game in a way that presented different versions of challenges, but prove the mental game is as strong as the physical game of your character. These are both up to us as players, and enhancing both skills are vital to moving on!
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When I was going through the last puzzle, I actually couldn't figure out how to get through it. I ended up just switching the pieces until I opened the door. It's good to know that there was actually a solution hidden somewhere! I did really enjoy the puzzles as well, and agreed that it's a good way to get readers out of the whole button smashing routine.
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