Post by Oliver With An O in A humble request for help

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Hello again,

To update, I confirmed that I did find the air phrase and also found the Shadow phrase. Your hints about it being about positioning and the line “There is no shadow without light” got me trying to cast shadows to reveal a message which ended up in me accidentally finding the message just there on the wall lol.

The light one I’m still stuck on, I’ve looked everywhere I can in the over-ground section of the region. There is a locked door in one house that I’ve been unable to open, if that’s the room with the phrase in, would I be able to request a hint on how to get the key? On my search I did find a terminal with the text “fallback. init” as well as a stool and vase, would they have anything to do with it?

Very sorry for overloading you with a bunch of questions.

Thank you!

Aleks Samoylov47 days ago

No worries. I don't mind answering these, and while I do have regrets about how obtuse the puzzle ended up being (a case of massive overcompensation, due to initial fears of it being "too easy," I think), it only occasionally keeps me up at night :).

The Light hint is tangentially inspired by the Dougie story line, and the line he repeats, but it's a more ... oblique connection, I guess. In the US, the emergency services phone number is 911, and there's a secondary (tertiary really) character in the show who is sort of in the background of the Dougie story and repeats those numbers but not quite in the correct way. Hence the "it came out wrong." That should get you pretty close to it.

I am not sure, to be honest, if there's a locked door there ... I'll have to double check.

Aleks Samoylov47 days ago

Okay, so this kind of weird me out a little bit.

I can't tell if it's a glitch in the game, or perhaps the last released build of it, or another instance of me being extra obtuse (this is currently my top bet, past me got me again), or some sort of creepypasta style anomaly / "Mandela Effect."

The houses in the residential area are supposed to be numbered. I thought they were numbered. At least I thought the important one was. B ut ... they don't seem to be? I feel like I can distinctly recall placing the numbers in Unity, and playtesting the game with them there, and there being numbers, but, well, I suppose I am misremembering?

Technically, the phrase is in "unit 119," but how one figures out that it's 119 without house numbers is ... well, my currently theory is that you're supposed to refer to one of the notes found in one of the two larger houses across the street and conclude, based on the note, that said house is the one currently being "actively investigated" and then work out the other house numbers based on that one. I haven't yet confirmed whether that actually checks out or not. Maybe I figured that it was a bit of secondary clue, and that the player would be able to figure it out without that knowledge.

In other words, it's not the house with the locked door. It can be accessed without any keys or anything like that. The "in the dark, your light grew strong" hint is ultimately much more useful, relevant, and helpful than the house number, as is the stuff about water churning and electricity. I think the "call for help" may very well have been a secondary hint that really was there for the rhyme. It's amazing how much one can forget in five or six years or so.

Oliver With An O46 days ago

Hello,

I found the phrase! Thank you for your help. I guess I was sort of on the right lines with the “help” referring to emergency services with my interpretation of the underground section being a sort of hospital. The Twin Peaks reference was quite specific, had to look it up before I remembered lol.

I revisited the ending with the context of having found all the phrases and I think I appreciated it a lot more. I love the combination of the Library and Diner, I like the aesthetics of philosophy and academia very visibly being in a sort of grounded setting, it makes the philosophy exist in less of a “bubble of intellectualism”.

Over-all, I really appreciate this game for having a very clear direction in terms of the themes and vibes it wants to capture, it lets the player feel confused and possibly frustrated whilst making sense of the world. Whilst I felt maybe the player is a bit too uncatered for here, it’s a bold design that is refreshing to see. I read in a different discussion that playtesting during development was lacking, if you one day develop a game similar to this, I’d be willing to volunteer as a play tester. I respect the design of this game and would love to see it refined more! If you have any games that inspired you I would be interested in checking them out.

Thanks for the hints and for the game!

Aleks Samoylov46 days ago

No problem! I'm glad I was able to help. Thank you so much for playing, and for the kind words.

itch.io

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