Amaranthine - Shadow of Torment - puzzle question

I am in the last quarter of the game, and have made the tree grow in the Path of Kings, passed through the Spiraling Hallway, gotten into the Reliquary, and gone up past the spider webs to the Hanging Gardens, etc. I hope that is enough background info to tell you where I am.

I found a "Spade"-shaped object and inserted it into that sphere floating above the Queen's Lake where the guy is laying wounded. I now am faced with a puzzle composed of squares with Roman numerals, shapes and colors, and what looks like plus and minus signs (?). Some squares are fixed in place, others are to be moved around. I am charged with rearranging the movable ones so that "...each side of the tiles is surrounded by the correct elements." This is not quite enough info to go on. I have the on-board walkthrough, but it does not elaborate on these instructions; it just gives the answer. Same thing if you search on line.

I'd love to solve the puzzle rather than simply copying in a cheat. Can anyone explain the object of it?

I'm afraid I won't be any help - I haven't played the game and can't find any more information about this puzzle.

I am assuming you are looking at this puzzle. '

I haven't played but from what I can tell, the color in the circle is the background color of the adjacent bottom right square and the roman numerals are the number of sides in the bottom left adjacent square.

Yes, BET, that is the puzzle. For some reason, I could not create a Screen Capture to send with my query. I figured the colors and Roman numerals were related to the colors and sides of the polygons, but could not work out how to apply that. I will try your suggestion this evening.

I studied the photo further and figured it all out.

There are 4 symbols in each diamond shape. Each one has to be connected to a matching side per this criteria:

Upper left symbol: Must have vertical (l), horizontal (-), dots (o) or squares (+) in the adjacent diamond.
Upper right symbol: A square means you need a straight sided shape and a star means you need a pointy shape in the adjacent diamond.
Lower left symbol: How many points the shape has in the adjacent diamond.
Lower right symbol: The color of the adjacent diamond.

Excellent, Ana.

That extra bit of explanation was just what I needed. Delicious little puzzle, and great fun to figure it out. I have since gone on to finish the game, and like all the other in the Amaranthine series, it was characterized by top notch graphics, beautiful environments, pesky puzzles, interesting characters and no cheap shots.

My only complaint about the game's mechanics is that the location on screen where you are supposed to interact with various inventory items often is misleading. One example might help explain this: When you are putting a laurel wreath on a statue's head, there is a clear indication of a wreath-shaped indentation on the head, so you know exactly where the wreath should go. You click it on that spot and it bounces back into Inventory again, like it is the wrong thing to do - or the wrong time to do it. So you busy yourself with other things, meanwhile trying to figure out what is wrong with the wreath. What you learn through trial and error is that you need to click on a different spot, in this case, on the statue's chin, for the wreath to lock into place. There were several instances where this sort of thing threw me off in the game because it made me think I was trying to do the wrong thing. I had to look up a WT at one point, only to find that I was correct but had to try to put the object elsewhere than it appeared to want to go.

Just a heads up on that. Otherwise, it is a terrific game, and one I know I will replay.

I'm so glad you enjoyed the game and that Ana's explanation about the puzzle helped you solve it.

I've played a few casual games where an inventory item I tried on something didn't work, only to find out later after looking at the walkthrough that I was doing the right thing but wasn't clicking in the right place. This can definitely be annoying.

Glad my explanation helped. I love puzzles!