The Witness never had to give plausible mechanical context to its line-drawing challenges, and Resident Evil’s bizarre puzzle mechanisms are handwaved as being the work of eccentric architects and mad scientists. Every machine feels like it could be a real device and has a logical purpose tying into the overarching quest.
One of Cyan’s stated goals with Firmament was to create a grounded, coherent setting, and it succeeded maybe too well. I puzzled my way through the entire adventure in a little under 10 hours with only a couple snags. One extends the range of the Adjunct, one lets you bounce your interface to targets out of direct reach, and one unlocks a handful of heavy-duty locks found later on. Simple and intuitive, complicated only by a couple of unlockable abilities given at the midpoint of each of the three realms. The interface on a huge quarry crane lets you cycle between three modes moving the arm forward/back, up/down, and extending/retracting the grabber, all done with just two buttons and the mousewheel. More complex machines let you pick additional interactions with the mousewheel. Each machine is controlled simply by twisting your Adjunct left or right (physically in VR, or Q & E on desktop) to control one linear function, whether it’s a door opening and closing, elevator rising or falling or something more esoteric. Point it towards anything interactive (clockwork sockets highlighted with blue paint) to tether your extending laser-cable to it, then start fiddling. It’s never a mystery as to when it's puzzle time: there’s no inventory management or pixel hunting in Firmament, just manipulating big steampunk machines with the Adjunct gauntlet.
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