itch.io

I was referring to the first person areas. The flute is what I believe they were missing.
You, however, sound like you've got 2 or 3 puzzles available to you that you can solve. There's a subarea in the coral zone you haven't mentioned going to, and some things there you may not have figured out using one of your newest items. 

Thanks for playing anyways!
If you do want to keep trying, it sounds like there might be something unique-looking you didn't inspect in another subarea there...

Good question! But nope, no puzzle in the game requires audio.
In general tho, if you find yourself trying to brute force a puzzle in Forlorn Shores you're missing a clue elsewhere.

The window that opened when you investigated the ground there is a first person view, which you can navigate with the arrow keys. The game expects you to explore what they can do in a context rather than outright telling you.

PICO-8 has a strict 128x128 size limit, but the game is designed to be fully playable with it.

There's somewhere in the vicinity that the info it gives is useful for.

Aww, thanks so much for playing and for all the kind words!

Great to hear! (also heckkk it really has been 5 years, hasn't it...)

Thank you so much! Yeah with a concept that felt this loose and "out there" it def felt important to me to include examples for how I envisioned a story set in the Nonscape could look, glad they work well!

This is really nicely structured! Building the explanations of the capabilities of Powers into a coherent introduction to the setting works very well, and give a good headstart for anyone looking to adapt this to their system of choice. The setting described also has ample evocative hooks to engage with, even with the slim page count.

Aww nice, glad you enjoyed it so much! :D

I actually stuck with this one to the end and definitely don't regret it.

Congrats and great to hear haha

It's a fundamentally different type of game but you might be interested in trying NULL, which serves as a companion game to Messages: https://jusiv.itch.io/null

Belated but there are 2 types of endings, with one of them having a few text variations. But if you've seen 2 different types then you've seen what's important!

v1.1 was my final submission for the jam, but v2.0 has been updated with further refinements from IRL playtesting!

That Voice table is inspired but also oh no

Aww thank you for the kind words! Great to hear you enjoyed it that much!

Ah yep, I just went through and caught similar issues on A Very Warm Fire, NULL, and A Dream's Command. They should all be fixed now!

Thanks for the ideas, but I think I've got a fix in now!

Ah dang, I'll have to update it. Was an attempt to make it harder to put it on other sites but clearly something broke at some point. Thanks for the heads-up!

You know you're progressing in the forest if things keep changing as you proceed. 

Hey, thanks so much for the video and I'm glad you enjoyed it! Honestly that was a very clean run haha normally people get a lot more hasty :P

Oh dang, that's so nice to hear! Love that y'all appreciate it, I'm def still quite happy with it too <3

Haha hell yeah, glad you got so much out of it! :D

Hey! It's worth noting that there's 2 versions of the game with different control schemes. On the Mobile-Friendly version it's Z to jump and on the other it's the Up arrow.

That chart you'd posted is not included on the itch.io page or directly in the game because puzzling out the code from environmental clues is one of the big puzzles in the game.

In the interest of not spoiling it for other players, I've removed the comment.

Haha dang, nice! I don't know if I've even tried doing that

There aren't really secret areas per se, there's a certain type of object hidden in every area (always the same thing) and a certain NPC encounter in every area.
Also in The Open, there's something you can miss if you lose sight of the area you arrive.

Everything you need is in that room. There's something that responds to you, and something it relates to.

You are correct! There's a certain item you'll need to find before beating the boss.

Hey, thanks for the kind words!
Unfortunately FUZ is basically at the absolute size and content limit for a PICO-8 cartridge so it's not really possible to expand as-is.

Hey, thanks for playing and for the video! Glad you enjoyed it :)

Hey, thanks so much for playing and for the kind words! I'm glad you enjoyed it so much :D

Looks like you've hit the fabled Puzzle Wall - That cube bit isn't reachable by just jumping, there's a puzzle you have to solve in that room. It does give you everything you need to reach it though.

Haha thanks for playing & the video! Glad you enjoyed it!

Such are the perils of having to support 2 control schemes as separate executables across several platforms + a bonus soundtrack download :P

Hey, thanks for playing and for the video! Glad you enjoyed it!
If you're looking for other games like it from me, I will say I consider Spirit Solstice kind of the middle point between Winterwood and NULL.

Why thank you!
Glad you enjoyed it! :D

Yeah there's some design elements of NULL that I'd definitely consider handling differently now :P
Glad you enjoyed it!

Well that works I guess :P
But yes it is by number of resets, not time taken. I feel like that's a more accurate measure of how much someone is actually struggling with the puzzle.