Path of the Stars Puzzle
The Path of the Stars Puzzle is a promotion for the upcoming release of Shadow of the Tomb Raider. Over a course of five weeks on every Monday a new level will be released on tombraider.com. Solving each puzzle gives the player and a plus one the opportunity to win a journey to one of the reveal events in Los Angeles, Montreal, or London on 27. April 2018.
Contents
Level One
The first level was released on 19 March 2018. It consisted of a three rings of Maya symbols that needed to be aligned in a way that the same symbol points up in all three rings. Subtle differences between the glyphs make this quite challenging. As a reward for solving the puzzle one gets the first constellation piece.
To get the first crowd unlock the puzzle had to be solved 5.000 times by the community.
Gallery
Maya Glyphs - Aligned
Constellation Piece
Crowd Unlock
First Community Reward Unlocked
First Community Reward
Level Two
The second level was put online on 26 March 2018. It also consists of rings of Maya glyphs that need to be aligned; however instead of three like in the first level, there now are five rings that need to be positioned correctly. As a reward for solving the puzzle one gets the second constellation piece.
To get the second crowd unlock the puzzle had to be solved 5.000 times by the community.
Gallery
Maya Glyphs - Aligned
Constellation Piece
Crowd Unlock
Second Community Reward Unlocked
Second Community Reward
Level Three
The third level was published on 3 April 2018. This time each Maya glyphs represents a numerical value; two of them have to be aligned in a way that their combined value result in one of the four digits of the release date of the game: 0914.
Audio File
The first two levels rewarded the community after successfully solving the puzzle 5,000 times with pieces of a photograph. This time the reward comes in the form of an audio file:
Lara: "To find the hidden city, go south along the shore where you find the pink fish."
Jonah: "I found something for that: It's pink dolphins, found only in the Amazon."
This audio file hints at a "hidden city" that Lara is trying to find. How Maya glyphs - native to Central America - connect to the Amazon, which is mainly located in Brazil - South America -, remains to be seen.
Gallery
Rules
Glyphs that combined give 4
Glyphs that combined give 9
Glyphs that combined give 0
Glyphs that combined give 1
Constellation Piece
Audio File Playing, Third Community Reward
Level 4
The fourth level was published on 9 April 2018. The goal of this level is to use three rings of Maya glyphs to form 2018, the year in which the game will be released. On the one hand this is harder as last time - one more ring of glyphs, and the the digits have to be found in the correct sequence, so first two, then zero, then one, and finally the eight -, but the colour of the centre indicating how close the player is to a solution as well as the fact the later digits are hinted at by highlighting their position compensates for that.
Audio File
Like in level 3 the community reward is a audio file.
Lara: "I know it's not practical, I know that it's hard to believe, but you need to trust me!"
Jonah: "The Creation God. Is that what Trinity's after?"
This confirms that Trinity is again playing a vital role in Shadow of the Tomb Raider. Exactly which Creation God is meant - there are several in Maya mythology - is as of yet unknown.
Gallery
Glyphs that combined give 2
Glyphs that combined give 0
Glyphs that combined would give 8, but not in the correct sequence
Glyphs that combined give 1
Glyphs that combined give 8
Fourth Constellation Reward
Level 5
The fifth level of the puzzle was published on 16 April 2018. After collecting all the constellation pieces in the previous levels, the player has now to assemble them into a complete constellation. The first piece has to be placed by dragging and dropping it on the first (outermost) ring. The second pieces goes into the third, the third piece into the fourth (innermost) ring, and finally the fourth piece into the second ring. After that, rotate the first ring until the arrow over it points to west by north-west; it should be highlighted now. Then rotate the other rings until they line up, the completed constellation is that of Orion.
Gallery
Placing the First Piece
Placing the Second Piece
Placing the Third Piece
Placing the Fourth Piece
Orion Assembled
Crowd Unlocks on Twitter and Flickr
The first unlocked piece of the torn-up photo was released on Twitter on March 20. Two more images were posted later that week that are not available from within the game.
- First community piece from the puzzle
- Published 20 March
- New piece not in the puzzle
- Published 21 March
- New piece not in the puzzle
- Published 23 March
- Second community Piece from the puzzle
- Published 28 March
- New piece not in the puzzle
- Published 30 March
Note: The sixth an final piece was never released; instead the complete image was published on Flickr on 30 March.
Links
- The Puzzle can be played on tombraider.com.
- [1] Puzzle Pieces Animation
