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However, it took me far longer to figure out how to get the final cog, which was suspended from the ceiling. The first came easy, and the second was just gated behind a simple sliding jigsaw puzzle nearby. So I examined the level from top to bottom, searching for the cogs in question. There was a barred gate, and the only way to get past was to power up a giant mechanical contraption that was missing three cogs from its engine. Even the very first puzzle is a real noggin-scratcher and one I struggled with. You will spend most of your time fiddling about with these lever-based puzzles, and they’re pretty enjoyable. While in other cases, turning a crank might swap out a room for a completely different environment. Sometimes, it’s as simple as hitting a lever so that a drawbridge shifts to a perpendicular angle letting Lloyd walk up to it and onto the ceiling.
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Throughout each chapter is a smattering of levers that shift the camera’s perspective or change the layout of a room. The trial and error puzzle-solving nature of games like Limbo and Inside are here, yet there are not quite as many brutal fail states.
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It would be easy to undercut that mystery if the gameplay wasn't up to snuff, but thankfully Darq's mechanics are pretty clever.
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