Terminal Threat/Infinite Finality

Infinite Finality was a cooperative Terminal Threat campaign that was a unique collaboration between Q Labs and a film studio known as Mirage Studios that was at the time producing a high-budget culmination to one of its big thriller franchises - Final Terminus. In partnership, Q Labs and Mirage developed a cohesive experience based on Terminal Threat to allow players to play through the series of events leading up to the culmination and the movie itself in a series of scenarios and puzzles. The levels themselves, released a few weeks before the film and designed to be experienced as part of the film, were an assortment of 3D puzzles with "finality" as a theme, which played out in a large, open area with the main area where the film would take place off in the distance while ominous music played in the background. These puzzles scaled in difficulty, right up until the penultimate levels, which were extremely hard.

Encounters

Infinite Finality has a total of five encounters. In total, there are 57 puzzles. The average time spent to complete the campaign is three days. The encounter order is Activation (Entrance) / Lakes of Entropy / Glyph Repository / Eminence / Altar (Boss). There are 20 puzzles in Lakes of Entropy, 10 in Glyph Repository, 20 in Eminence, and 7 in The Altar.

Activation

Activation (Entrance) is the first encounter in the campaign, and is themed around powering up the systems of the campaign area. It is essentially a skill-check for the team that gates access to the challenging encounters. The encounter operates on a hexagonal grid of rooms split into different segments surrounding a central area. Each room is either an obelisk room, a wellspring room, or a wisdom room. Two random sides of each room are open, all other sides are walls.

There are several buffs in the encounter: Font of Sight, which is required to see the colour sequence on the outside of the room and also the colour sequence on the obelisks; Font of Strength, which is required to rotate the room and enter the colour sequence on the obelisks, and Font of Wisdom, which is required to connect the obelisks together once they are set correctly. No player can hold multiple different buffs at once. Each buff lasts for 120 seconds.

Font of Sight: Obtained from a green Wellspring Room in the hex grid.
Font of Strength: Obtained from a red Wellspring Room in the hex grid.
Font of Wisdom: Obtained by entering the exclusive OR of the correct colour sequences of three adjacent obelisk rooms into a special obelisk in the centre of Wisdom Rooms.

There are twenty-four obelisks rooms in the encounter area. Each obelisk must be set to the colour sequence that matches its room, but the only way of knowing what the room's colour sequence is by rotating the room so the sequence is visible on the outside of that room from players in a different room; however, rotating the room also blocks the exit, trapping the player inside the room. Because one player cannot hold Font of Sight and Font of Strength at the same time, one coordinates the correct colours to the other who then blindly interacts with the obelisk to rotate the colour wheels. Players trapped within a room will accumulate stacks of the Dark Entropy debuff and die if not freed in enough time. Players must cleanse Dark Entropy at white Cleansing Wellspring rooms.

When all obelisks are correctly set, the rooms must be rotated correctly in order to connect the channels in the floor together (which are visible only by players with Font of Sight). The player(s) with Font of Wisdom must then weave these channels together, culminating at the large obelisk in the central encounter room. If done correctly, the message "The obelisks lock into place" will be displayed, and the players have 60 seconds to return to the large obelisk in the central room. The encounter rooms are then shuffled and the obelisk colour wheels are reset. The process must then be repeated two more times until the encounter is complete.

Failure modes: The encounter has a "five strike system" indicated by red bars on the large obelisk in the central room. If the obelisks are connected but the colour wheels are wrong, or time runs out, the colour wheels will shuffle themselves, an alarm sounds, and the central obelisk gains a strike. Five strikes results in a team wipe and failure of the campaign.

Lakes of Entropy

Lakes of Entropy is the second encounter in the campaign. It consists of a system of large interconnected water pools that act as individual puzzles, and can be solved in a mostly nonlinear fashion according to the team's discretion, although some of the puzzles are gated behind others. The water levels in the pools directly affect what areas of the puzzles are accessible by players, and are controlled via the puzzle. When the water levels are high, players can swim to navigate; when they are low, they must move using puzzle platforms. Some puzzles are connected with adjacent puzzles via water channels, further complicating the matter. While underwater, players accumulate stacks of the Dark Entropy debuff, which must be cleansed at a Cleansing Wellspring located at the pool edge, and kill the player if accumulated too high.

Buffs:
Font of Sight: Obtainable from a green Wellspring pad located throughout puzzles. Used to see in colour.
Font of Strength: Obtainable from a red Wellspring pad located throughout puzzles. Used to move platforms that allow players to navigate throughout the puzzle when the water level is low.
Font of Wisdom: Only available in some advanced puzzles. Obtainable at pool-side platforms that require a player to look down at the objects in the pool and solve a panel with information gained from their perspective. Allows players to change some of the connections between puzzle elements, effectively rewiring parts of the puzzle.

The colour motif continues from the first encounter. Coloured buttons are located around each puzzle, which are linked to devices, such as tractor beams and forcefields. Using the buttons changes the colour of linked devices to the colour of the button, which in turn allows objects of the corresponding colour to be manipulated by the tractor beams and pass through fields. More advanced puzzles incorporate dual-colour and tri-colour devices, which permit objects of either colour.

Each puzzle solved illuminates a square on a grid on a set of large gates guarding the exit to the next encounter. Once all puzzles are solved, the encounter ends and the gates open.

Failure modes: The encounter has one fixed time limit. When it runs out, it results in a team wipe.

Glyph Repository

Glyph Repository is the third encounter in the campaign. Like Lakes of Entropy, it is a series of 3D puzzles navigated via platforming mechanics; however, there are no water levels to manage. The navigation mechanics become more difficult in the encounter, requiring figuring out ways to disable forcefields and operate moving platforms to move between levels. Some platforming elements are intertwined, forcing players to block others in order to proceed, making communication in this element key.

The puzzles are centred around completing six randomly generated glyph sequences that display on the wall of each puzzle room. Each sequence is assigned a colour, which is readable by players with the Font of Sight buff.

Located within the three-dimensional platforming structure are a number of double-sided glyph panels. These panels allow players to build glyphs by using glyph parts. The parts required to create the glyphs for the wall sequences are randomly scattered across the panels, so they must be moved from panel to panel using the Font of Strength buff in order to have enough complete glyphs to complete the wall sequences. When all panels contain complete glyphs, the panels flip, and the opposite sides are then solved. This creates a number of diglyphs that appear on a grid on the puzzle room wall as they are completed.

After both sides of the panels are completed, the puzzle moves to the final stage. Purple wellsprings appear, and a few select players pick up Font of Wisdom buffs. They must then move between each panel, with players with Font of Strength flipping the panels to check the symbol on the other side and players with Font of Sight checking the colour. The players with Font of Wisdom then weave a path through the panels in order to complete each sequence. Crucially, each weaved path must satisfy two sequences, which makes figuring out the correct order difficult. This also means some panels in each puzzle will always go unused.

Buffs:
Font of Sight: Obtainable from a green Wellspring pad located throughout puzzles. Used to see in colour.
Font of Strength: Obtainable from a red Wellspring pad located throughout puzzles. Used to move platforms that allow players to navigate throughout the puzzles; also used to add and remove glyphs from glyph panels, and to flip panels during the final phase.
Font of Wisdom: Obtainable from purple Wellspring pad located throughout puzzles during the final phase.
Glyph Part: Different buffs for the individual line parts that make up each glyph symbol. Also possesses a specific colour. Added and removed from glyph panels by players with the Font of Strength buff. While a player removes a glyph part from a panel, their Font of Strength buff is removed and they cannot regain it until they dispose of the part by giving it to another player, forcing coordination in glyph-building. Additionally, while players are holding Glyph Parts, they accumulate stacks of the Dark Entropy debuff. Holding a part for too long results in the player dying, with the glyph returning to its origin panel; the player must then be resurrected. Dark Entropy stacks must be cleared at a Cleansing Wellspring located throughout the puzzle.

Failure modes: Each puzzle phase has a time limit. Running out of time on any phase or weaving an incorrect sequence in the final phase resets the whole puzzle. If five of these resets happen in a row, the team wipes. The encounter also has an overarching wipe timer that prevents teams from stalling between puzzles.

Eminence

Eminence is the fourth and penultimate encounter in the campaign. It is a series of puzzle areas, each with a central obelisk. The puzzles are themed around building logic networks which function in certain ways based on different colour-based inputs. Like the previous encounters, the buff system continues to be used.

The puzzle areas contain a central obelisk surrounded by randomly generated circuit rings. Parts of these rings are physically shiftable by players with the Font of Strength buff. Connected to the areas by doors at descending passages are chambers containing Logic Glyph buffs corresponding to specific logic gate types and colour filters, which are taken and placed on logic plates on the circuit board. They can then be reconfigured by a player with the Font of Wisdom buff. Font of Wisdom can be obtained in rooms accessible via ascending passages; again, the door must be opened by a player carrying Font of Strength.

A critical mechanic during the puzzle-solving process is the requirement to dynamically alter the circuit as the areas change. The circuit affects the architecture, so players must quickly alter the circuit or end up unable to access their buffs. Totems with colours are present in four locations in the room; the colours will change slowly throughout the puzzle-solving duration. The misalignment of too many colours will begin to overload the totem; a complete totem overload results in all players within the puzzle room being killed and the circuit resetting itself and re-randomising, undoing any progress made.

While the individual puzzles focus on transforming a set of input colours to a set of output colours displayed on the obelisk, the puzzle can be solved in multiple different ways that allow the obelisk to be solved. This comes into play, as the most critical part of the encounter is linking all the networks of the puzzles together. The logic networks must function both on an individual puzzle level and together as a whole, requiring players to act iteratively, re-solving the puzzles in different ways for the big network.

Failure modes: Similar to previous encounters, there is a five-strike system for the failure of individual puzzles, which results in a team wipe. There is also an overarching wipe timer to prevent stalling.

Buffs:
Font of Sight: Obtainable from green Wellspring pads. Used to allow colour to be seen.
Font of Strength: Obtainable from red Wellspring pads. Used to open doors to adjoining areas containing Logic Glyphs and to rotate and move fixed components of the circuit.
Font of Wisdom: Obtainable from purple Wellspring pads via rooms accessible via ascending passages. Used to reconfigure logic gates and the circuit, and to link obelisks into the wider network.
Logic Glyph: Represents either a type of logic gate or a colour filter with a specific colour. Obtainable from Logic Rooms and must be placed on Logic Plates on the circuit rings. Players holding Logic Glyphs lose their Font of Strength and begin to accumulate stacks of Dark Entropy for as long as they hold them.

Altar

Altar is the fifth and final encounter in the campaign. It involves combat with a boss in a central arena, while on the outer rings were puzzle areas that incorporated and blended together all previous puzzle elements from earlier in the campaign. Half of the team would need to solve puzzles to obtain buffs while the other half of the team would fight the boss; the half solving the puzzles would then swap with the half doing damage and the process would repeat. The boss had several different stages, which changed how the puzzles would behave in unexpected ways, forcing the team to adapt on the fly. One such stage involves the boss randomly inflicting Colourblind on players.

Outline

Difficulty Level: Moderate-High
Required Skillset: Pattern Recognition, Spatial Awareness, Advanced Mathematics
Total Runtime: 2-3 Days