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Path Deduction Puzzle

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Like its sister puzzle Hamiltonian Path Puzzle, a Path Deduction Puzzle is a Stock Video Game Puzzle about walking a predetermined path, but there's a trick to it and something bad happens if you go wrong.

The trick here is that you can't see the right path, but there are some hints as to what it is. The right path might be literally invisible, which would be a use of Invisible Block as well, which also works for generic platforms. Fake Platform might be used instead, for a puzzle where everywhere looks like it's walkable, but some places actually just make you fall when walking right on it.

Punishments that aren't just "fall through the floor" are possible, too, as long as the goal is to find the right path. Stepping on the wrong place might cause a monster to appear, or damage to be dealt, for instance.

All those failures are just indicators of the wrong path and likely help with the "Deduction" component of this trope, to find the right path. Sometimes it's as easy as having a map, but the right way might just be visible every so often, or maybe indicates the right path initially and you just have to Trial-and-Error Gameplay your way to your destination, braving whatever consequences of failure there are.

Blackout Basement is similar, but everything can't be seen just because it's too dark, with the usual solution being to light the place up somehow and that it's usually a way to block progress entirely, instead of being a puzzle to get through. This trope doesn't overlap with The Maze unless there are branching safe paths that lead to dead ends at least.


Video Game Examples:

    open/close all folders 

    Action 
  • Aztec Challenge: In one of the Commodore 64 stages, the player is given three chances to hop from block to block, and hope they don't activate a trap. This is luck-based, and possibly unwinnable at higher levels because no path is guaranteed.

    Action-Adventure 
  • ANNO: Mutationem: In one Skopp City side quest, Ann arrives in a blacked-out area with hidden Invisible Blocks. To illuminate the blocks, Ann needs to use scan the area to make an outline showing the platforms' placement to jump across without falling.
  • Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood: During a mission investigating The Banker, Ezio impersonated a guard tasked with delivering the money collected from Egidio Troche to the banker's party. Getting there requires Ezio to walk a specific path that is only guided by the reaction of the other guards who accompanied him, with them questioning Ezio when he took the wrong route.
  • The Legend of Zelda franchise:
    • The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past has areas where there are invisible floors suspended over bottomless pits. There are several different ways to figure out where it's safe to walk, including lighting torches, activating the Ether magic medallion, or studying the movements of enemies walking on the floors.
    • The Legend of Zelda: Oracle Games: During the underground path that leads to the Sea of No Return's island in Oracle of Ages (where the eighth dungeon awaits), Link reaches a room with a very dark abyss that can only be overcome by traversing an invisible path (or a path that is technically visible but overshadowed by the pit's darkness). To avoid falling down while traversing the path, Link can use the Cane of Somaria to observe whether the tile ahead is walkable or not (if it is, the Cane's created block will remain in place; if it isn't, it will fall down).
    • The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess: In order to get to the Big Bad in the final dungeon, you have to go through a room full of Fake Platforms. Changing into your wolf form lets you see ghosts that point the way; aside from that, all you can do is avoid the ones that killed you last time.
  • Little Big Adventure 2: Downplayed by the Dome of the Slate, one of the tests Twinsen must complete to pass the Wizarding School exams and be recognized as a wizard. The floors it's safe to walk on are invisible at first but become visible in a small radius around Twinsen as he walks through the dome's interior, and there's a map next to the dome's entrance which the player can use to memorise the safe route if they wish.

    Action RPG 
  • Elden Ring:
    • Getting to the Heretical Rise is only possible by crossing an invisible bridge from the other side of a chasm. The starting point is a broken bridge, though navigating it safely is best done by dropping shiny stones ahead of you.
    • The Hidden Path to the Haligtree is a large bridge spanning a bottomless pit, with a second smaller, invisible bridge underneath it that leads to hidden areas and a boss. Rainbow stones and other items that persist when dropped continue to be useful here, but there are also enemies that can be lured out; The All-Seeing A.I. means they can pathfind over the bridge just fine, inadvertently showing you where it's safe to walk.
  • The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim: While finding your way into Sky Haven Temple, you have to cross a room whose floor is a bunch of tiles with pictograms on them. Step on the wrong tile, and you get hit by darts. Fortunately, the safe path across the room is marked by tiles with one particular pictogram on them.
  • Genshin Impact: The desert region in Sumeru has invisible walls and pathways that need to be walked on to unlock certain puzzles. This was partially done to maintain the desert's empty visual horizon.

    Adventure Games 
  • Full Throttle: You need to make your way through a minefield to a gang's hideout on the other side. The gang knows the secret path through the mines, but you don't. How do you make it through? By stealing a box of battery-powered bunny rabbit toys and setting them loose across the field, to the tune of "Ride of the Valkyries." The rabbits will either mark the parts of the path with no mines, or explode when they hit a mine and remove it as an obstacle. Release enough rabbits and you'll be able to walk to the other side.
  • The Lurking Horror: Although it is a regular homogenous maze, there's an item that provides the path required to go through the maze without the player having to map it out. Without it, the player has to resort to dropping items to figure out the way forward or back out.
  • Monkey Island series:
    • The Secret of Monkey Island: There is a forest maze that requires navigating through. In this maze, the player can buy a map in order to find the location of treasure. Additionally, there's a Stalking Mission where the final step shows the shopkeeper using the sign before reaching the sword master.
    • Tales of Monkey Island: There are a few maps in the game, which contain images and footsteps between them. In the forest, approaching one of the sides has an audio cue that matches the image, giving the route to progress.
  • Przygody Reksia: Some of the games have puzzles where you need to figure out the path:
    • Reksio and the Pirate Treasure: In first part of the volcano, you have to walk through lava river by stepping on stone slabs, but if you will pick the wrong one it will sink in lava and send you on start. To find the right way you have to read stone drawing from maze just before it.
    • Reksio and the Time Machine: In Ancient Egypt, you have to walk through The Snakes' Cleft, where walking on the wrong slab sends you back to the beginning:

    Environmental Narrative Games 
  • Deconstructed in The Beginner's Guide: in Coda's final game, which is functionally a giant middle finger to Davey, there's a huge maze with invisible walls. Touching one of the walls triggers a disorientating flash and annoying noise, then sends you back to the beginning of the maze. It's not meant to be completed by a reasonable person, so Davey just creates a bridge over the entire maze to bypass it.

    Fan Games 
  • Pokémon Uranium: The high-tech Vinoville gym has invisible paths across dark pits, which send the player to the basement and make them climb back up. The paths can be briefly illuminated by touching the pillars at the start of each one, but they fade to blackness again after a second or two, so once the player is actually walking the path, it's all up to memory.

    First-Person Shooter 
  • Level 6 of Descent 3 has a puzzle where you need to follow a certain path through a Martian temple to find an item you need to progress in the level. If you step off the path, a forcefield appears blocking your way to the item, and you have to exit the temple and try again. Clues to the correct path are found by following the blood stains on the floor, and the subtle arrows on the ceiling.
  • Final Doom:
    • TNT Evilution map Last Call requires jumping from platform to platform, but going in the wrong path kills the player. The correct path is hinted at by a series of torches in the starting corridor, which matches the colour of torches on the platforms.
    • The Plutonia Experiment: The Well of Souls level, where the player must cross a deep chasm filled with a damaging floor. There is an invisible bridge across this chasm, but it's a challenge to determine its boundaries. There is a small help by shooting into a hole in the left wall, which will raise four small posts that mark the four corners of the bridge.
  • Quake I Mission Pack No. 1: Scourge of Armagon: The second level of the second episode, "The Black Cathedral", features one of these at the very end where a path to the ending must be opened. When Ranger arrives at the site of the puzzle, the player is greeted with the message "Watch your step". The path is initially darkened, but a secret switch above the button lightens the path. The blocks not belonging to the path, once stepped in, fall into a lava pit.
  • Star Trek: Elite Force: In the first game, there is a part in the final level where you have to cross a deep chasm by following a winding path of invisible forcefields from one side to the other. The best strategy is to use your phaser to shoot underneath your feet to light up the forcefield panels, so you know where it's safe to step next.

    Interactive Fiction 
  • Colossal Cave: Humongous Cave has a few mazes that operate in this fashion, either added or modified from the base game. "Witt's End" requires you to keep going east, the clue is given only in the Hint System that costs 5 points. The "Fog-Filled" maze requires extinguishing the lamp and following the light glow (although only the visible glow in the pink fog room is relevant to exit). The Catacombs requires a map to navigate, wrong routes bring the player back a room.

    MMORPG 
  • EverQuest: The Deep, a great abyss located deep inside the moon of Luclin, has a massive gorge in the middle of the zone that halts progression. There is a bridge that spans across the gorge, but it's only a trap to lead foolish players to their deaths. There's actually an invisible solid bridge elsewhere to actually get cross. Even with the in-game map pointing out both ends thanks to player input, it is not uncommon for one person to tread across the bridge and leave a Trail of Bread Crumbs by dropping items on the ground for other players to follow.
  • Wynncraft:
    • Eldritch Outlook has an entire room where you have to parkour using invisible platforms. You can figure out where you have to go if you look down, as you'll see that the area where the invisible platforms are located are denoted by glowing blocks.
    • A challenge room in Orphion's Nexus of Light requires the player to complete challenges and gather resources to complete the room. One way the player can do this is by completing a parkour course with invisible platforms, which are only revealed by looking at the gold blocks falling from above.

    Platformer 
  • Donkey Kong Bananza: The Precarious Powdery Path challenge course requires DK traversing through a hidden pathway that is covered in petals. To find the covered path to avoid falling into the frozen water, DK has to use his clap to dispel the petals and unveil the way to the banana.
  • Quack Shot Starring Donald Duck: In the final level, The Island, the path leading to King Garuzia's temple is invisible, but the platforms in the path become visible when Donald walks across them. There are gaps in the path that Donald will need to jump across, and if he doesn't watch his step, a long fall awaits him, costing him a life. If Donald successfully makes it across the path, he comes to King Garuzia's temple, where Garuzia himself serves as the Final Boss.

    Puzzle Games 
  • The 11th Hour: The Billiard Balls puzzle, with nine pool balls that start blank and turn into numbered colored balls with each step, but only one path is correct due to invisible barriers.
  • Chip's Challenge: One of the reasons why Level 131 (titled Totally Unfair) is so difficult to clear is because its primary puzzle features a blind version of this trope. The preceding Level 122 (titled Totally Fair) revolves around entering a large room with water tiles where Chip has to lure an enemy into a brown button in order to disable a trap in another area and grab two computer chips necessary to open the level's exit; Chip has to take a careful look at the layout of the enemy's path, in order to see where it has to move in order to reach the button without falling down into the water. Most importantly, Chip has to study this path, because Level 131 has the exact same design and layout as 122, but it prevents the character from entering the enemy's whereabouts at all; as a result, he has to position himself next the right border of the now-closed room, and then start moving up and down in a way such that he can remotely guide the enemy into the button without making it fall into water. To make matters worse, whereas Level 122 has a time limit of 300 seconds, Level 131 reduces it to only 60, so there's no practical way to complete this level without having played, cleared and studied the other one first.
  • The Fool's Errand: The Hermit requires the player to follow a set path on a grid, revealed one quarter at a time, before the player has to complete the whole path at once — which is more of an endurance test. After this, the player is shown the solution to the 4th key of Thoth, which also requires following a path in the same style.
  • Professor Layton: Several puzzles revolve around figuring out the path that characters must take, or have already taken, in order to reach a desired destination. Examples include reaching a rural house located in a field with several branching roads in Curious Village and a series of puzzles based on traversing an aerial path before the Bostonius runs out of fuel in Azran Legacy, only to name a few.
  • We Were Here: There's a grid of tiles, and stepping on the wrong one activates a trap. The person navigating the maze needs to speak with the person in the library, who then relays instructions to get past. However, since the patterns are generally fixed, it's still possible to memorize the possible solutions and keep trying one of them.

    Role-Playing Games 
  • Baldur's Gate III: Within the Trial of Shar is one trial where the player must the other end of a pit of shadow. The solid path is barely visible from a distance but completely disappears when you move a character near it. It's often considered the most difficult of the three trials because failure means death to your character. Common methods of beating the trial involve dropping items on the ground and shifting them over the path to lay it out, or using a Fly spell to just fly over the pit, or using portal doors or translocation arrows to open up a doorway at the objective.
  • Barkley, Shut Up and Jam: Gaiden has a room in Cuchulainn's Tomb where the exit is across an invisible labyrinthine path hanging over a large pit. This room also has a convenient bag which your character can sprinkle sand from to check for solid path ahead.
  • Dubloon: the first challenge in the Treasure Tower is crossing a floor of colour-coded panels by stepping on colours in order provided in a side corridor. A misstep will result in getting impaled by spikes.
  • Etrian Odyssey IV: Legends of the Titan: The second floor of the Bonus Dungeon (Hall of Darkness) is divided in two halves. The one at the right is a wide room with patches of harmful green fluids in various tiles, while the one at the left is a wide room where visibility is very low and features an invisible maze whose "walls" are seemingly-normal floor tiles which, if stepped upon, will warp the player's party back to the start of the room. While it's possible to navigate through it by trial and error, it would be extremely time-consuming, so there's obviously a clue to figure out the maze's layout: Go back to the wide room with the acidic tiles; it turns out their collective placement telegraphs the layout of the invisible maze, and you can examine it in full in order to draw the maze you have to traverse afterwards (just keep an eye on the patrolling pumpkin-headed FOE). The floor does make the player go through two pairs of rooms (with each pair showcasing the duality between acidic tiles and invisible mazes) before reaching the two wide rooms, in order to showcase the gimmick with an Antepiece, so it averts Guide Dang It! unless the player is not paying attention to the signals at all. A similar, but much smaller, version of this puzzle appears in the third floor of this dungeon, alongside a wide array of other navigation-based puzzles and obstacles to become part of a Metapuzzle that is key to weaken the Superboss before facing it in battle.
  • Planescape: Torment: At one point, you have to pass through a field of square tiles which insta-kill you if you deviate from the correct path. The catch is that there are zero clues in the game to the correct path — which is not a problem, since the Nameless One can die as often as you want and come back to life no worse for wear, so he can just brute-force the maze by dying and coming back to life until he gets to other side. In fact, the maze was specifically designed by his past incarnation to only be solvable by himself.
  • Pokémon Gold and Silver: The Ecruteak City Gym has an invisible floor, and falling off sends the player back to the entrance. In order to battle the Gym Leader, Morty, the player must find their way across the floor. The trick is to follow the gazes of the Gym's trainers, as they're staring in the direction the path takes.
  • Ruphand: An Apothecary's Adventure: The "Bridge Map" allows Brill to figure out the location of the invisible bridges near where she gets the map. Or the player can see the shadow of the correct path in the floor below, where Brill drops if she walks off the path.
  • Three Fairies Hoppin Flappin Great Journey: The Bamboo Forest has sections with unmarked traps that make a small path of non-trapped area, where the traps can be bypassed by an item later in the game, but at the moment, the player must use deductive reasoning given the examples of some marked traps' relationship with raised sections of the forest.
  • Undertale:
    • The ruins has a spikey floor where only one path is safe. Toriel literally holds the player's hand as they cross it together. Returning later shows that the spikes were made out of rubber.
    • A later part of the ruins has a room which will drop the player down to another room should they step on the wrong spot. Not only does the game leave a visible hole where the player misstepped, the room the player is dropped into has flowers on the ground marking the correct area, and if they still keep falling into the room below, eventually the holes will get covered up, removing the puzzle entirely.
    • Papyrus posts one as a challenge. The player has to traverse an unmarked snow filled area correctly or get zapped by an orb. Which he promptly realizes he is still holding when the player takes a wrong step, resulting in Papyrus getting zapped by it. He then traverses the path to deliver the orb to the player, leaving obvious footprints where the safe path is.
    • Papyrus posts a "randomly generated maze" with a lengthy rules explanation:
      • By sheer "randomness", the generated path is a single perfectly safe line with unpassable walls along it.
      • Later in Hotlands the randomly generated maze makes a surprise return, this time with a time limit. While not random, the player is not expected to solve it in time, being a setup for Engineered Heroics.
  • A Very Long Rope to the Top of the Sky: Walking across the fragile land of the swamp that can break under the party's steps has the right path match the path of spikes in the cavern underneath the swamp.

Non-Video-Game Examples:

    Fan Works 
  • Personality Conflicts: In "Shadow Hearts", the Rangers visiting Eltare meet with the Tribunal of Morphin Masters, and it's decided to send them to the Caves of Alshar — "The testing grounds for first-year students", where the magic of the caves produces three challenges from things the challengees know to test both their wits and courage, and passing will prove them worthy of the Power, which will add more strength to their words when they testify at Zordon's trial. The first test relies on this trope — it turns out to be identical to the third one in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, where 'Only in the leap from the lion's head will he prove his worth.' Taking those words literally, the test includes a lion-like rock formation in this first cave (hinting in-universe at the reference and allowing the Rangers to realize what's happening), and below it, as in the film, there's a bridge that blends in with the abyss below, allowing them to continue once they solve the puzzle.

    Film — Live-Action 
  • Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade:
    • The second trial in the Grail Temple has Indy has to only step on the letters that spell out God's name (Jehovah), as all of the other tiles will cause him to fall to his death. He slips up and nearly falls at first, because, as his father points out, in Latin, Jehovah begins with an "I".
    • The third trial, "the Path of God", consists of having to cross a deep chasm; the clue to the solution reads, "Only in the leap from the lion's head will he prove his worth." There turns out to be a narrow bridge across the chasm, carefully made to blend into the background from the entrance; Indy tosses a handful of sand onto it after crossing so that it's more visible.

    Live-Action TV 
  • Squid Game: An example that's invoked, denied, then re-invoked. The fifth game, which involves stepping on a sequence of one of two suspended glass platforms with only one of them strong enough to support a person's weight, is intended as a purely Luck-Based Mission, but one of the players worked in a glass manufacturing plant and was familiar with the differences in light reflection with tempered glass. When the game masters respond by turning out the lights, they instead throw marbles at the platforms to hear what sound they make.

    Tabletop Games 
  • Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition: In D&D Encounters module Web of the Spider Queen, this is presented as such in a room filled with tiles, a path of which are marked as safe. This room is dark, meaning that only a character with dark vision would be able to see the path. Subverted gameplay-wise, it's treated as a skill check or challenge instead of path deduction, and dark-vision characters don't get a particular advantage on these checks, with the claim that the path is treacherous even for those who see it.

    Webcomics 
  • Kill Six Billion Demons: During The Caper, one of the lethal traps in Mammon's Infinite Vault is a completely invisible path within a completely invisible room, suspended above a Bottomless Pit. And the room and path themselves are also thoroughly boobytrapped, and those are invisible too. It claims the life of one of the crew (mostly because Oscar shoved him in for demonstrative purposes), and they need to deploy one of Cat Master's cats to guide them through without setting off anything else.

    Western Animation 

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