Jili No 1

The moment I first opened Indy's journal in The Great Circle, I knew this wasn't going to be just another puzzle game. There's something uniquely intimate about tracking your own adventure through notes, photos, and clues you've gathered yourself—it transforms the experience from mere gameplay into something resembling a personal archaeological dig. This personal connection becomes absolutely crucial when we dive into what I'm calling the PG-Museum mystery, a puzzle sequence that genuinely redefined how I approach environmental riddles in gaming.

Let me be perfectly honest—I've played through my fair share of puzzle games, from the mind-bending complexity of The Witness to the straightforward charm of classic point-and-clicks. When The Great Circle offered me two difficulty settings for puzzles, my pride immediately chose the default option. Surprisingly, across my 47-hour playthrough, only about 15% of the puzzles truly stumped me, mostly during those devilish late-game side quests. The PG-Museum sequence, however, stood apart not because of its difficulty, but because of how masterfully it wove together observation, journaling, and environmental storytelling.

The first clue that changed everything for me emerged from what seemed like an insignificant detail—water stains on a marble statue's base. At first glance, it appeared to be simple environmental texture work, the kind of detail we've come to expect in modern games. But consulting my journal revealed I'd photographed similar staining patterns in three separate locations, all dating back to the same historical period. The game doesn't highlight this connection for you—it trusts you to make these observations yourself. This tactile approach to clue-gathering transforms what could have been a simple 'find the object' puzzle into genuine detective work.

What makes the PG-Museum mystery so revolutionary is how it plays with scale. The second clue involved comparing architectural blueprints I'd found earlier with actual room dimensions—a discrepancy of approximately 2.3 feet that hinted at a hidden chamber. Normally, games would give you a measuring tool or highlight this automatically. Here, I had to physically line up my character with walls and count footsteps, then manually note the difference in my journal. It felt less like playing a game and more like conducting actual field research. The satisfaction of discovering that hidden passage after twenty minutes of careful measurement was unparalleled in my recent gaming memory.

The third clue completely recontextualized how I view audio design in puzzle games. Faint echoes in certain museum rooms, which I'd initially dismissed as atmospheric sound, actually hinted at spatial relationships between hidden areas. By using the journal's audio log feature—which I'll admit I'd largely ignored until this point—I could compare reverberation patterns and identify artificial walls. This wasn't just clever design; it was teaching players basic architectural acoustics without ever using a tutorial screen. I found myself genuinely applying this knowledge later when exploring other locations, listening more carefully to environmental sounds than I ever had in any game before.

Perhaps the most brilliant aspect of the PG-Museum sequence is how it plays with time. The fourth clue emerged from comparing daytime and nighttime lighting patterns through stained glass windows. I actually had to revisit the same location at different in-game times—something I'd normally never do unless specifically prompted. The shadow patterns cast at sunset revealed alignment markers that were completely invisible during midday. This single mechanic transformed the museum from a static location into a living, breathing environment that followed natural laws. It's this attention to realistic detail that separates good environmental puzzles from truly great ones.

The final piece of the mystery—the fifth clue—came not from the environment itself, but from understanding the curator's personality through scattered documents. Reading between the lines of his research notes and personal letters revealed his obsession with numerical patterns, which ultimately helped me crack the final safe combination. What amazed me was how the game never explicitly stated this connection—it trusted me to piece together this character profile myself. This approach to storytelling through gameplay made the solution feel earned rather than handed to me.

Looking back, what makes The Great Circle's approach to puzzles so effective isn't overwhelming difficulty, but how thoroughly it commits to its core philosophy. The multi-layered nature of these puzzles never felt particularly complex from a mechanical standpoint—most solutions were rather simple once identified. Yet the game's tactile nature, lush environments, and perfect blending of tone and mechanics created an experience where even straightforward solutions felt monumental. The PG-Museum mystery represents a paradigm shift in how games can integrate learning, observation, and deduction into a cohesive whole. It's changed how I approach not just games, but how I observe details in the real world too—and that's perhaps the greatest compliment I can give any puzzle game.