I'm kinda stuck on a puzzle. Usually I'd now tell you what the puzzle was and ask for a walkthrough, but my problem is that the puzzle doesn't even exist yet. Been googling around a bit for helpful info, but I mainly end up on Ron Gilbert's site and he isn't helping much either on this specific point and I'm wasting valuable writing time looking for a solution.

Problem is that I don't wanna do another "get item here/use item there" puzzle. I've got enough of that and there will be more. To add some variation I wanna try and do a different style of puzzle, a lever puzzle, or a mechanical puzzle, but that leads me to a way of thinking I can't seem to do. Here's the specific situation:

I need a bunch of ostriches out of my way. They're on an ostrich farm and they get fed every day at five pm exactly. So I'll need to head into the church tower and make the bell ring five times. I'm thinking this needs to be done with a mechanism I could manipulate in a puzzly manner. Getting a hammer and banging the bell is too easy. The game doesn't work with actual time, so going all Medjay and meditate till five o' clock isn't an option. That bell's gonna need to ring five times, wether it's three or not.

I already have access to the church tower, so that can't be puzzlefied and I can bullshit my way through most incosistencies, so adding a space age computer to a medieval belltower is actually an option if need be.

I'm looking for someone who can point me to either a useful resource or someone who imagines stuff like this better than I do. 

Oh, and pretending there will actually some day be a point that credits will roll: You will be credited if you please.

3 hours ago, LorenzoGatti said:

Alternatively, there are silly and complicated unorthodox ways to ring bells:

• throwing objects at them, possibly with a catapult or other device, without causing damage
• tricking someone into ringing them
• if the bells are automated rather than played by hand, hacking into the control computer

I'm already three layers deep into this specific questline, so throwing in more comlications isn't something I'm looking at, but these are options to be considered.

The sister (nun?) who runs the church is pretty much why I'm now facing off ostriches, so getting to the church tower is just a matter of "can I?" and "Yeah, see if I care". At least, in the greater picture that makes sense.

8 hours ago, Old Soul said:

-Something could be thrown/fired to hit the bell.

This one had actually crossed my mind already too. Kind of like a Monkey Island reference. These other options are... out there. ;o)

Context would have been: It's not a serious game, but I'm not just gagging around to reach a conclusion. Everyone just kind of takes the crazy in stride. Like: "Hey, can I get some ostrich feathers so I can help a friend to fly?"  "Sure, help yourself." The only real comment the ostrich farmer has on that is that ostriches are flightless birds. While that's a helpful tip, I'm guessing nobody here's thinking that'll end well.

Anyway, doesn't really matter at this point. I've decided to go with a binary clock puzzle kind of thing. I don't know how hard of a puzzle that'll actually be, as to me those things are like magic, but I just needed to break it up from the item puzzles.

Thanks for the input though.