So what do you suggest instead of sigil puzzles? There are no visible alternatives to make anything with sigils without implementing new features to the engine, which requires source code, which requires developers, which are busy with other projects at the moment.

Just saying as a mapper, sigil puzzles are an important part if making campaign with deep story.

As I said others may like them and if I am the only who feels that way feel free to ignore me. That said, I do not see how the Tetris puzzles have anything to do with having a deep story (thats' what terminals are for) nor that an alternative type of puzzle would be needed if they did not exist. If they could be skipped or you could simply open the door when you have collected the required number of sigils, all you would "miss" is the time spent rearrranging them in different ways which I personally experience as a chore and is not based on the same kind of logic/thinking than the puzzles themselves which are the reason I play Talos.

I was aware that implementing a "skip" option might be an issue for developpers, and that this is not going to happen, which is why I suggested a simple alternative that does not require anything of that kind, i.e., merely making them as simple as possible (for instance, if you need 15 siglis to go through a door, you can break that down into 3 doors of 5 sigils each). I am sure there would be others.

Again, I do not mean this as a criticism and am really thankful for the time and effort authors spend on doing campaigns. I just thought that for me this would improve the experience, and that others might feel like I do, but maybe I'm wrong.

By the way, here's a sample of reactions to a Tetris puzzle guide that suggest I might not be the only one, after all.

https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=354590899

I should also qualify what I said: there is a criticism implied in what I said, but it is entirely directed at the devloppers for the design decision to include this kind of puzzles in the game. It does not mean that I do not otherwise love the game and I have the highest respect for what Croteam has done. But since it would indeed be unrealistic to expect this will be modified and a skip option wil be added, I am addressing the people who though they had nothing to do with it, can do something about it in their own work.

Again, just a suggestion, albeit a strongly heartfelt one.

I do know that sigil puzzles are a problem for some people, but there is no possibility (even via scripts) to remove sigils from player's inventory, we HAVE TO add sigil puzzles to spend them.

Why Im pointing out to a deep story - that's because when a mapper makes a level (for any game) with according story and appearance, he always try to make the level feeling like original game, no matter what. That means, mapper takes official style of objects, mostly - official assets, and - inavoidable - officially supported gameplay features.

Descending from `somewhat` difficult sigil puzzle to several simple ones wont help this because of the same reason, it's such a workaround of original feature, that it removes any sense of same game. Only will help for campaigns which are no more than puzzle bunches.

Also, actually sigil puzzles are logic based as well, you just have to find a proper approach to solving them. For example, if your available sigils can be taken as symmetrical (e.g., S, L, L, T, O, T, J, J, Z), then what you need is to use half of those to build only one half of the puzzle, then reflect the solution to the other half.
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Although I accept the suggestion. I will try to make a possibility to spend Tips (which you normally use for getting an advice on solving puzzle) for instant solving arrangers, maybe even special bot will be required for that...

I appreciate your answer and though I disagree that difficult Tetris puzzle are necessary to get the feel of the original game, I respect that opinion. Or rather, I think it would improve the feel not having them. I went through them with frustration only thinking I have to do this to get to the next good bit, and would be put off to replay some of the later levels because the frustrating part starts taking more and more time compared to the good part. If there was an autofill I would have no second thought about using it. A tip system would indeed be a progress towards that end for me, I was only going for the easiest solution.

Also, I do not say that they are not logical, what I am saying is that they involve a kind of logic and thinking that has nothing to do with the real puzzles, and that one may like one and not the other. It was a questionnable decision to put them together because it is assuming that if you like one you should like the other. It would be similar if the Tetris puzzles were Sudoku, for instance. By contrast if you like Portal you probably like Talos (the real puzzles part) and vice-versa because they involve similar puzzle soving techniques/thinking.

Just thinking about it, "tips for sigil puzzles" can be done as a modding resource, so everyone willing could use it)

:) is that a nudge nudge?

Anyway, I'll look into it as soon as will be free from creating levels geometry :)

I've tried creating the system. This seems to be impossible, because there is no way to check if the player has enough sigils to solve the arranger. Sry :(

Shame. Thanks for trying though.

As a "consumer" my experience is still that easier Tetris puzzle would not spoil the experience and feel of the game, but that is me. Another workaround of this type would be to use sigils that are all the same or similar and simple (e.g. blocks and bars) . But I concede that these solutions, unlike the one you tried, would not respect those (if any?) who do want these puzzles to be hard.

Hmm, I've just found one possible way. I'll explain technical part, 1) to be clear; 2) not to forget it myself :D
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It is possible to get player's inventory string, which tells which sigils player holds at the moment. For example:
DT2;DI4;DI5;DJ4;**7;DO2;DO3;DL2;DL3;DI3;DJ3;MJ1;MI1;MI2;ML1;
The code of each 3 letters is that the first letter is sigil type (D - "Door", green ones, M - "Mechanic", yellow ones), second letter is sigil shape (O - square, L - ...well, L-shape, etc), and the third letter (which is a digit :V) is the ordinal number of sigil in the whole campaign.

Now, about sigil puzzle itself. Those are set up an interesting way. It doesnt really matter sigil from which puzzle you took (that means, ordinal number doesnt matter), it only matters on shape and type.
Sigil puzzle, for example, has the following needed sigils string: "TTILLJO". This means that it needs two T-shaped, one I-shaped, two L-shaped, one J-shaped, and one square-shaped sigils for solving.
The type of needed sigils is set as a separate parameter. Let's imagine that our sigil puzzle has "Door" type, means it will require green sigils.

Now we need to check if the player is able to solve the puzzle. And there is our problem. There is no way to get which ones the arranger require, BUT I think I can do a workaround for this.
It is possible through script to get a name of any specified object. Name is a completely free (almost everywhere) parameter, we can type anything we want there.
The idea is that we use another robot to solve the puzzle. To do that we need to set up bot markers. And that's what we do - put string of needed sigils into name of those markers. For example, if the puzzle needs TTILLJO of D type, we put string "7DTTILLJO" as a name. 7 - means 7 sigils (that's needed to not get out of range when checking sigils), D - "Door" type, and TTILLJO - sigils. We get second letter (D there) and run a cycle for 7 times, acquiring every sigil letter and checking if it is stored in player's inventory. If everything matches - we can finally call the robot to solve the arranger and spend Messenger Hint.
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Done with technical part :P
Now the problem is that if I release as a modding resource, it will be pretty complicated setup for modders, because it needs manual data type for each arranger on each level.
I'll try simplifying everything as much as possible, ok.

https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/286687821237059594/382046192458137600/unknown.png?width=699&height=641

It is almost done, but I keep getting game crashing when the bot tries to solve the puzzle :V

Thanks for the hard work. Let me know if you manage to solve the crash problem, and I will try it out.

Since you are using a bot for this, I was thinking that this could also be used as a source of additional puzzles, i.e. like stars. If you don't have Hints or want to spare them, you need to free the bot for it to help you with the puzzle.

Hi there, 2 things to add.

1. If I'm not wrong, when "tutorial hints" are active, an outline of the shape of the sigil appears in the puzzle area, even if you're not hovering over it with the piece. Perhaps then the tutorial system could be exploited so that the outline would appear at the place where you are supposed to put the sigil? No idea if this is possible, just throwing the idea
2. I found out that you can indeed skip sigil puzzles if cheats are enabled (by rigth-clicking on one of the two icons). As far as I am concerned I'll be happy to simply use that from now on., but again maybe this is something that can be exploited, for instance by having a script that would turn cheats on temporarily.

That second thing maybe could be explotied, I'll look into that. Thanks!