Busy Gamer News

Hi,

We're sorry to hear about this and we're trying to reproduce the bug. If you can give us any further information it would be greatly appreciated. Things such as exactly which puzzles and mode you were playing, when the saved puzzle disappeared, did you have more than one puzzle saved. Also, if anyone else has encountered problems of this nature, please email enquiry@eidos.co.uk, putting 'FAO Caspar Gray, Puzzle Arcade Save Bug' in the subject line.

Kind regards,
Caspar Gray
Eidos UK

I originally tagged this as a Puzzle Arcade save-eating bug since that’s what appeared to happen back in December when it first surfaced. As of today, I’d reclassify it as a hidden puzzle issue since my lost puzzles reappeared just now after I cleared out the most recent two puzzles I had been working on.

Let me start at the beginning and explain what happened as best I can recollect it:

In an effort to collect some of the harder Xbox 360 achievements, I started several puzzles and saved three puzzles:

1) The Battle of Colors: 1092 pieces, expert, classic
2) Toledo, Spain: 3-level fractal, intermediate, turbo
3) Colored pencils, 294 pieces, intermediate, turbo

I started #1 and finally figured out that you have to connect at least two pieces (or put down one in turbo) to save your game. I spent about 30-40 minutes sorting pieces, connected my first two pieces and then saved with the intention of coming back later to chip away at it. This will be a long project, so for a distraction I...

Started #2, and did the first 10-20 third-level fractal pieces. I also recognized this would take a very long time, so I...

Started #3. This one was much easier and enjoyable, so I finished it in a couple of sittings the same day.

When #3 was completed, I started yet another fun puzzle, the dynamic version of the one with the snowboards (4 Seasons? Don’t have the game open to check right now) with about 250-300 pieces. I did a small portion of this and then saved.

I then went back to my saved puzzles and the snowboard puzzle was the only one there! After much troubleshooting, I determined that #1 and #2 were gone so I created a new version of #2 (Toledo, Spain with 3-level fractal) and decided I would not complete the snowboard puzzle or start any others until I finished the fractal one.

Today I finally completed the fractal puzzle and went back and finished the snowboard one too. After completing it, I went to my gallery and decorated the walls a little, and then went back to my saved games not expecting to find anything there. I was surprised to find my incomplete original puzzles #1 and #2 were back!

I don’t know what happened to cause them to go missing. My first suspicion was that I lost them by completing #3 and immediately starting another puzzle instead of revisiting my saved games section. I also wondered if maybe the immense size of all of the saves caused an overload, since it appears all saves are stored in a single file instead of separate ones on my hard drive.

So the bug is apparently something that causes you to temporarily lose access to some of your saved puzzles. It’s also annoying that you have to lay down a piece or two before you can save, since the larger puzzles beg for some serious sort time and the first time I attempted the expert classic puzzle challenge, I didn’t realize the issue and simply threw away 20-40 minutes of work.

Overall, fantastic game and I’m definitely going to buy some puzzle packs. I’ll just be wary of working on too many puzzles at once, which is a shame since it’s fun to have some smaller diversion puzzles while working through the massive ones.

Thank you very much for the extra info - this will prove invaluable in getting to the bottom of the problem!

The developers have now confirmed the nature of the problem. It is linked to switching profiles. Basically, most games force players to go back to the main menu to switch profile, but CTXM wanted to allow people to switch profile anywhere. Unfortunately, they’ve not implemented it correctly and switching profile on screens other than the main menu can cause the game to lose saved puzzle history.

If from now on you only change profile at the main menu screen (this is the first menu that comes up after the title screen. It’s the one where you choose single or multiplayer – not the next one along where you choose the puzzle style) you shouldn’t encounter the problem again.

Interesting. It's possible I did this once, a long time ago.

By profile I assume you mean changing gamertags/Xbox Live logins. We have three profiles on our Xbox 360s, but my wife has never played this game and my son (who is not on Xbox Live but has his own gamertag) has played it a couple times. We certainly do not do this regularly. It's possible that once I complete my 1100 piece puzzle, it will cease happening if I never switch profiles outside the main menu. For now, the game continues to hide my giant puzzle whenever I start another one, until I complete the new one(s).

FYI, you can change profiles anywhere in any game on Xbox 360 by simply selecting the guide button and signing out - which I wouldn't do while playing a game but might do just as soon as I quit and save out of one.