Puzzling Places-Beta Announcement
In February, we migrated our original Puzzling Places [Prototype] to Oculus’s new App Lab platform under a new name: Puzzling Places — Beta!
Today, we’re launching Puzzling Places — Beta v4.1, our biggest feature and content update to our free preview app yet, which will now be the main app to play Patreon puzzles with moving forward.
Update v4.1
The update includes a total of 6 puzzles to play (one new freebie!!), ranging between 20 pieces all the way to 200 pieces, with new and immersive soundscapes, new audio regions, updated environments, and more.
Puzzling Places — Beta now includes:
- Ice Cream Stairs — (20 pieces)
- Boat Josefa — (100 pieces)
- Devil’s Slide Bunker — (100 pieces)
- Tsuruga Castle — (100 pieces)
- Tatev Monastery — (updated to 200 pieces)
- Market Square in Gliwic — (200 pieces) <- new freebie!
Feature-wise, we’re continuing to develop new ways of making the puzzling experience better.
Today, we’re launching:
- Groups. Grouping provides a way for players to organize the pieces into stacks, reducing clutter and creating a more zen puzzling environment.
- Remastered Audio and new SFX. We’ve revamped the apps entire audio library with new sound effects, immersive soundscapes, and regional audio locations. Each puzzle is it’s own little world.
- A new Puzzle Finale Event. Reaching the puzzle’s final piece is always a moment of great anticipation, excitement, and relief.
- Settings Menu. Players now have a way of customizing the app to their liking by choosing to puzzle with reference photos, change locomotion settings, as well as other minor adjustments.
- A full list of changes, bug fixes, improvements can be found on our Changelog.
Patreon Puzzles
Moving forward, we will be retiring the Puzzling Places — Patreon app in order to streamline and simplify things into one app: Puzzling Places — Beta.
Downloading and installing your Weekly & Monthly Patreon puzzles using the same SideQuest <> Patreon integration works just like before, the only difference being that you’ll be using the Beta app listing on SideQuest instead of the Patreon one.
For Oculus App Lab players that do not have SideQuest installed, you can also download the puzzle files and manually install them in the steps outlined here.
If you have puzzles downloaded and would rather not re-download them, you can also manually transfer the puzzle files from the Patreon app into the Beta app (in the steps outlined here). Note: We have updated all the Patreon puzzles with small improvements such as new scales (bigger puzzle pieces), new ambient audio (no more flies buzzing around!), and better environment colors, so we do recommend for you to download them again.
All your puzzles’ savegames remain in your Quest even if you delete or redownload the puzzles from Patreon. This way, you can rest assured that all your hard-earned progress finishing the puzzles will not be lost. However, if you do ever want to backup your puzzle savegames, we’ve outlined the steps for that as well.
Moving forward
Our plans are to launch the full-feature Puzzling Places app on the Oculus Quest Store later this year. Until then, we will continue developing and updating the Puzzling Places — Beta app through Oculus’s App Lab and SideQuest listings.
