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I have finally finished Act 3 and I want to share some of my thoughts on the game:

I HAVEN’T HAD THAT MUCH FUN PLAYING AN ADVENTURE GAME IN A LONG TIME!!!

Yes, it is not an easy game. And the time estimates needed for completing it were a bit wrong in my case. But the days of headscratching and being stuck on different puzzles made me have an experience that I hadn’t had since back in the pre-internet days when I was trying to complete Lucasarts/Sierra adventure games for the first time. Intellikat has been really kind and answered lots of my and other player’s questions here in the comments and he has also set up an entry for Pine on the playdate wiki. There he also started a walkthrough for us players to finish (and I’m pretty sure it will be finished soon). I was not able to use this walkthrough and sometimes got really desperate. But now in hindsight I want to encourage all of you to use the walkthrough only as a last resort when you are really, really desperate.

When I discovered Pine here on Itch I immediately liked the art style and premise of the story. What I didn’t expect was that I was in for such an intense retro gaming experience. At one point I even started drawing a map to find the solution to a puzzle and I enjoyed every bit of it - getting stuck at the puzzle, trying lots of different things to solve it, realizing that maybe I would need to draw a map to make it through, actually drawing it, thinking about the solution while looking at my hand drawn map, the feeling of satisfaction when I finally solved the puzzle.

Although some of the puzzles left me stuck for quite some time the solutions were never unfair and made perfect sense in the end.

Pine is obviously a labor of love by intellikat and you can see that in lots of little things throughout the three acts.

I don’t want to spoil any story details here, but I want to tell you that the game takes quite a lot of unexpected turns and has some very creative ideas in it. Is the ending any good? I LOVED IT! But you will have to finish the game first to find out for yourselves. 😃

Thank you for your little epic game intellikat! You showed again how many things you can do with pulp on this little yellow thing that we all fell in love with. I really got a lot for my 3$ (!!!). I have spent more money on AAA games that I stopped playing after a few hours because they didn’t catch me as much as Pine did. 

Now I’m really looking forward to play Quest for the X II. Take your time intellikat and keep up the good work!

I’m sorry to ask for another hint or just to clarify if I’m on the right track or if it is a bug that prevents me from proceeding.

I am back on Pine Island in Act 3 but this time it is the glitchy version as seen in the trailer. I have got a flashlight, the crowbar and the rifle and I can retake these items again (when I dropped them). I found the hidden words DIG and PERSIST. I found the two alien letters behind the wall. I can move up the infinite ladder (I moved up until the playdate went into screensaver mode) but the other section with the second ladder (as seen in the trailer) isn’t there and I can’t open it with the crowbar or rifle. On the left side of the tent two other alien letters appeared quite randomly when I went down the ladder. But apart from that I don’t know what to do. I can’t shoot the people in the boat, there is no obvious interaction with the hibernation chambers or the glitchy thing next to the tent.

Is everything supposed to be like that?

In my savegame everything is as I described it. But I’m not sure if I want to and if it is worth it to start Act 3 from the beginning to replay the whole thing and save before I started messing  with the cave.

Help!

Thanks for the hint. Now I’m back on Pine Island and can’t wait to find out what all this is about.

I got pretty far now. Found the surpressor and the cardboard box and now I’m having problems with the armoured guard in front of switch for the northern door. He always kills me.

But I think I found the easter egg. I have sent you a picture on discord

I love the game so far. But I‘m stuck in Act 1 during the second night. I keep getting shot and I don‘t know what to do with the knife or the small box.

Is there a walkthrough online somewhere?