itch.io

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!

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!

Hello,

My apologies for bringing up a puzzle that you designed many years ago which you may have some regrets over, nevertheless thank you for replying.

If the air phrase starts with “A Jar”, then I think I may have already found it. I guess I didn’t really associate it with the hint because I felt the “glitchy” city suited better since I often had to fall into that, but I also had to fall into this area too. I think the phrase being on a screen threw me off too as when I saw screens before they didn’t have any “phrases” on them, and the other ones were sort of inscribed on walls. The hint was really good, I may have just put in place some mental blockers which didn’t allow me to think of it as a phrase.

I now think the light phrase has something to do with the girl looking out the window and will further inspect that. I thought it could’ve been the underground area because it matched with the “water churning” and “electricity humming” as well as it being very dark, but on further reflection, the whole region has that. As for the Twin Peaks reference I actually watched all of the franchise earlier this year (I did get a bit excited when I noticed the recreation of the red room), admittedly the “Call for help” part didn’t read as a Return reference initially, but I assume it’s referencing what “Dougie” kept repeating… would I have to delve deeper into my Twin Peaks knowledge and is that the extent US centrism in the clue (I’m from the UK so this one may just go over my head)? Another reason why I went so far down looking the “looking in the underground” route was because I interpreted that as being possibly a hospital, which would fit with the “Call for help” part.

I’ll search the cave more, the shadow hint was the one I hadn’t done all too much investigating in to.

Thanks for the “Gematria” search term, I’ll look in to that! I did briefly find a converter with different languages, I’ll assume I want to convert it using the English converter since all the phrases are in English.

Again, thank you for replying. If Itch allowed for gifs to be sent, I’d post a Dale Cooper thumbs up here.

Hello,

I’ve had this game in my library for a while now, probably acquired from a bundle it was a part of. I’ve been really enjoying the games feel so far however I must say I worry that the puzzle may be a bit too esoteric for me… Which is why I turn to this discussion board for help.

I believe I’ve found the phrases for Fire, Water and Earth, however I’m struggling with the rest. For air I think I know the phrase is somewhere in the city that’s lit blue, where I don’t know… is there a way of finding it once you know how, or do the lines about hiding mean I have to search the whole area for it? For the shadow, is it in the same area as the Earth one or is it in the cave which you enter the desert from? For the light I’m guessing that’s in the basement area of the residential street but past that I’m clueless.

I’m also not sure how to work out the “Geometria”, I’ve found the handbook in the basement mentioning it, but past that I have nothing, where would information on them be found?

I must confess, I have been searching through past discussions to find these answers and did stumble upon one with the answer and curiosity got the better of me, however it did not fulfil me. I’m enamoured by how this game presents its story and major puzzle in a very subtle way and rather lets the player feel confused yet engrossed in the surreal world. It almost feels like I’m doing the game a disservice by asking for help with the answers rather than letting my confusion be.

Thank you!

Hello,

Thank you so much for playing. My apologies for any bugs you experienced, looks like we still need to tidy the game up a bit.

You played it for a very long time and saw pretty much everything, I’m glad you had a great time with it!

Oliver

Thank you so much for playing our game! Yes, this is super unfinished as it was made as an early prototype for a uni submission. We are going to expand on this during the academic year, so if you want to keep updated please follow the devs. We much appreciate your interest, thank you again

Hello,

Thank you for your interest, i’m glad you enjoyed the story.

I completely agree with your critiques, unfortunetly I don’t think I’ll be able to fix the trigger box size, but for the platforming sections, I have made a build (yet to be uploaded) which helps increase the leiniency the puzzles. The puzzles were meant to focus on solving of them and less on the execution, so this was certainly a stumble with the game design. I apreciate your feedback

Thank you

This isn’t just a shitpost, no, this goes beyond just photoshoping saul in a kart. This took planning, coordination… I mean how many weeks, or was it months? It couldn’t have been easy, so tell me, why?