I did a 1:40:34 right after my 2:51:18, but I don’t know how. This thread is here to find out if there’s a repeatable trick buried in that fluke. Here’s the video:

I didn’t plan a route beyond prioritising value town and the like. Previously that always meant that I’ve had to unlock so many doors that I complete every single puzzle and then some, but in this run I stayed on Balance the whole time, slowly bouncing my way between a few puzzles at a time. By the end of my run, I must have solved 5(10 + 10 + 10) = 1(10) + 2(10) + 3(10) + 4(10) + 5(10) over twenty times in a row.

Here are a couple of save files from that run, to help us reproduce the fluke. The first was copied after all five plane levels plus ae 1 (38:00 in video), while the second was copied long after I beat the game.

• https://bucket.daz.cat/rng0a.dat • https://bucket.daz.cat/rng0b.dat

• 2:50 — accidentally rebooted by pressing Ctrl+Alt+Del a second time while trying to do a loss cancel • 3:15 — deleted ssgwin.dat (this should be a clean slate) • 3:30 — turned New Player Hints off inside the plane workshop rather than in the technology center (to obey timing rules) • 3:45, 3:55, 4:10, 4:25, 4:35 — solved four puzzles and opened a fifth before remembering to back out and set Puzzle Customization • VMware glitch • dumb luck

The game repeats puzzles sometimes, at the very least on the Windows version with Puzzle Customization set to a single type. Whether this is because there are duplicates in the puzzle data is unclear. Eventually the game will decide that you’ve completed the type you’ve chosen, and locks that type of puzzle in the Off state. Rinse and repeat for all puzzle types and the game will unlock everything, but from then on the game will also set everything to On after each puzzle, which makes setting a specific Puzzle Customization annoying.

I think I’ve figured it out!

Solve one puzzle with the default Puzzle Customization (might want to repeat this step if you get Balance puzzles), then turn everything other than Balance off. From then on, you should only get Balance puzzles, no matter how many doors you open.

I used this technique in three WR submissions:

• plane% in 33:18 (save file after finished)
• ae% in 35:33 (save file after finished)
• auto% in 33:03 (save file after finished)

If you get a balance puzzle, then exit and re-enter to get another puzzle, does it still work?

I assume you mean before setting Puzzle Customization to Balance? It still works! Check out this demo (save file afterwards):

• 0:00 — unlocked all 19 locked doors in plane 1 (no Balance)
• 4:00 — unlocked 6 doors in plane 1 (no Balance)
• 5:20 — backed out of 92 non-Balance plus 6 Balance
• 6:46 — set Puzzle Customization to Balance
• 6:54 — unlocked all 19 locked doors in plane 1
• 9:14 — unlocked all 39 locked doors in plane 2
• 16:21 — unlocked all 39 locked doors in plane 3
• 25:14 — checked PC screen: 6/43 Balance puzzles

I’ve also found that solving one puzzle before Puzzle Customization isn’t enough for a full-game run, even though it works for single-building runs. On the other hand, the submission below stays on Balance by solving four puzzles. One of those was a Balance puzzle, though it didn’t yet count as completed.

This is really interesting,nice find!

i’ve finally figured out how to reproduce this (as of 2025-05-18). it works in Wine as well as in 86Box with Windows 95/98/2000 (haven’t tried bare metal Windows), and in both version 1.12 (ssgwincd.exe and ssgwin32.exe) and version 1.2 (ssgwin32.exe).

it seems mashing the Enter key after you solve a balance puzzle, but before the music plays and the congratulations text shows, lets you unlock the door without marking that puzzle as done. it may have something to do with the window of time it takes for the scales to animate their way to balanced, which may be very little time depending on your setup or emulator config. i’m not 100% sure how it works, i would have to further reverse the binary to know for sure.

the most reliable way i’ve found to do this trick is to press and hold the Enter key before placing the final blue weight, and release Enter after you’re through the door. if you do that, it should work almost every time. if not, try pressing and holding the Enter key before picking up the final blue weight, or try taking at least three seconds to solve the puzzle.