itch.io

Also seeing this. Lost 900 buckets of yellow paint I was saving to make stupid in-game pixel art. Doesn’t matter since the penalty for hitting mines makes creating a canvas impossible.

On the other hand, this is a great refresher that the grind is too grindy without more random encounters and sights along the way, upgrade prices are too high, and many upgrades don’t feel significant.

Dirt mining efficiency is the only thing that really feels like it matters. That means the only pickaxe upgrades that feel like they do anything are whatever gets you to mine dirt in two swings. The next, I dunno, 4 upgrades after that to amethyst and dirt in one don’t matter until endgame.

Swing speed would feel like it is doing something early game, but that’s off limits until after the absurdly expensive mine-by-numbers shovel tool. I think swing speed should be unlocked by one or two pickaxe upgrades. Shovel can branch off of swing speed.

Bag size doesn’t feel too urgent until I get the mine by numbers shovel. I might get one or two upgrades.

So after getting the mine dirt in two pickaxe and I go straight for the shovel tool because that feels good to use. But it’s like a 2-3 hour grind maybe? That’s a lot of patience for probably seeing only the water biome and no flavor encounters other than a couple gems and a treasure chest or three.

I’ve played the maker’s other games now and I think they are a bit stingy in general with overt use instructions because they don’t want to be patronizing/want you to explore/try first. While that works for the mystery part, navigating a terminal or timeline or lookup or document menu is a form of artificial difficulty; driving a car can be hard, but setting the climate to max defrost shouldn’t be.

You might think to include a guide something like this. Players have mush for brains when so many new things pile in at the beginning.

The atmosphere is lovely, the music and characters and setting intriguing, but the interface and lack of tutorialization already feels like it going to kill the game dead before it flies.

So I copy pasted into the archive “The Duel”, “Duel”, “Cipher Manual”, “The Cipher Manual”, “3 7 ZRD NEE JOK HZR OEZ DIX”, “Poems”, and finally “Arthur Birdwhistle” which visibly got something.

Right away, there is a major bug that took me half an hour and a restart to work out: users who copy and paste in search terms because they don’t want to misspell things or are pasting from notes don’t get the necessary progression document. It pops on “cipher” not “cipher manual”. Assume some users copy paste, not type.

It’s hard to notice the phone is ringing if sound is muted. The icon should pulse.

It struck me that the font on the example cipher is kind of hard to read for certain characters, because it’s compressed.

I couldn’t figure out how to decrypt the message after clicking around looking for some sort of decrypt tab to put both documents and the words in. Eventually I pinned both documents in multiple view, but it still took me a solid 10 minutes to find grid view and figure out the game wants you to decrypt the cipher manually and get “johnzd oezeri kzredx” which works out to “john doe erik red”. (BTW, I can’t highlight multiple boxes to delete things in grid view. It feels like it would be easier to have MS Excel open than use the in-game interface which has you delete one by one)

I don’t think most players are going to have patience for this, especially if they get stuck and aren’t sure which documents might be keys and need to test multiple docs. There really should be a separate decrypt tab that will let you input a possible key, input the encrypted message, and it will do all the ordering for you. You can decide if the readout makes sense or not.

So then I searched in the database for a “John Doe” and then an “Erik Red” because you’d logically search individual names in a database, right? Wrong! You had to search “John Doe Erik Red” as one big blob.

I’ve kind of exhausted my patience for now, so I’ll come back and see where it is in six months or a year.

Game Review for What Happened to the Crew?

Got the True ending, but no ‘all records found’ note. I will not recommend this game to my friends; there was one big issue and a whole bunch of little things that should have been ironed out in playtesting that flattened the whole experience.

This review will mention spoilers.

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What worked

The graphical elements and atmosphere are excellent. On desktop, it was a pleasure reading and navigating, even when more complex interfaces were brought out later. Thinks were clickable when it helped. The basic commands like help, dir, find, etc. worked well …with caveats I’ll get to.

The hints remaining per file felt accurate and useful.

The “find” command wins the crown. I wish the prompt for it showed up a little earlier.

The ‘label’ and ‘note’ commands deserve praise for ease of use. I would have labels display the in the file’s header so I could copy the existing text if I wanted to append something and wouldn’t accidentally overwrite it later not knowing I had already labeled the file for something else. (I kept track of artifacts and deaths in labels but also some file discovery order so I would check stale files first when I was stuck as a refresher.)

The starting files and position in the narrative were well chosen.

What I didn’t like

One room per one timepoint isolates the crew from each other too much

The core structural gameplay flaw is that the syntax of the terminal entry system is at cross odds with writing strategies that work for non-linear mysteries. Most entries in this game are the initials of everyone who is in a particular room at a certain time (Example “01-BR-R-S” for timepoint 1 at the Station BRidge with persons ‘R’ and ‘S’ ). The unofficial goal is to assign everyone alive to a room at each time point and establish their personal continuities. (That ‘unlocks’ certain key meetings where groups intersect that you probably couldn’t deduce otherwise.)

But to make that work, the characters go directly to their next story room and mostly do not travel through intermediate locations, pass by others on their way, see aftermath, and offer hearsay and eyewitness accounts of ‘what I saw while moving around’. The result is that a lot of the characters are disjointedly doing their own individual things leading to disconnected character arcs that don’t organically play off one another except in a few moments. The crew don’t really feel like a ‘crew’ and the love and paranoia and accusations they make come across somewhat stilted. The chaos of the murders and especially Michael’s story as he sneaks around feels stunted by this system.

Zero was introduced too quickly - the 99 camera and the core directory needed some time to marinate before the red text came out.

The story tripped over itself and missed an opportunity to build suspense by revealing Zero at the same time as the 99 camera. “Experience a chilling sci-fi horror story through vivid text descriptions where the scariest things are what you don’t see.” That’s one of the selling points of the game that just didn’t deliver because it’s too easy to fill the second manifest and see him. The narrative works way better when the 99 camera has the solo for a bit, which is how I played the first run through. Every time I ‘found’ Zero by camera failure increased the intrigue.

It would be way more interesting for me as a player to not to start with any red text outside of one corrupted email after the initial Alpha-Demon unlock, but to gradually realize by messing around with the 99 camera that there is a 13th crew member only seen by camera failure. The way my play session went is that I chased him around without working his manifest and then slowly boxed him in like a hunter. Only then did I solve the manifest and allow myself to see him. It would have been amazing to do that, but have red encrypted text spread and infect more and more files every time I tagged the room zero is in with the 99 camera until I got him 4 or 5 out of the 17 times and everything becomes plaintext from him and his manifest unlocks.

The second time I played, I started with his manifest, and it didn’t feel nearly as satisfying.

See it once or fail forever clues.

One of the other major design flaws is that certain story highlights are bottlenecked behind a single ‘see it or fail’ clue that really can’t be attacked from multiple angles once you have scavenged enough paths.

• The big one that seemed to catch a lot of people if the comments are an indicator: Alex’s motive, gatekept behind single example of an individual crew cabin (which might have been duplex or dormitory unit before you understood naming conventions), and how to deduce the rest of the room names from that. (This one got me. Issue could be solved with a command to validate room codes by ID and giving them a full name like DU = Dupont’s Unit.)

• Barry’s last name needed to complete the manifest is also locked behind Alex’s motive as pain on punishment for missing one unexplained syntax quirk. Many players will probably scum to complete the manifest.

• Playing anywhere between 10 to 20 single games of word.exe is necessary to unlock the second mode. It is an absolute buttpain that you have to play four annoying fluff rounds before you get one shot at the real thing which is a fake word for no good reason at all. It’s supremely obnoxious, so I could see people putting it off.

And to a lesser degree things that didn’t stump me but I could see being problematic…

• Spotting the hydroponics unit on the map, not mentioned in text by characters in the main game before then. (Didn’t get hung up on that, but saw other people did.)

• Finding a hidden room not listed on the map whose name is tucked in 10K words of lore docs dropped all at once you get the computer unlocked. The white text helps. (holden)

• Knowing that the final entry is a room also not on the map and has a code also dropped in the middle of 10K words of lore docs. (jd-journal-10 and /documents/scans/signal-analysis) The white text helps, but I got it by goofing around with the 99 cam. It is outside on the surface and not on the map, so people might not think to check for it at all, thinking that surface will cover it or there isn’t a camera there.

• Knowing how to route all three powers to the remote relay in the present (and not just 1), which somewhat illogically makes the camera work in the past rather than merely in the present. I stumbled into the right answer just messing around, not because I thought it made sense and would yield results.

Terminal syntax ruins the experience for new players

The most ass-pain aspect of the game was the terminal syntax. This is what had me in the comments looking for answers: I couldn’t use the tools I was given because it wasn’t spelled out how exactly to type them in and there were no error messages to debug my errors.

The number one problem I encountered multiple times in my run was that people names had to be entered in alphabetical order in feeds for no in-game explained reason AND there was no special error message kicked back “USE ALPHABETICAL ORDER” if you botched it. I got hung up on this in early game when I didn’t know it was a rule - I had gotten lucky so far, and later when I had long 5 or 6 person entries, I thought I was simply wrong and missing somebody rather that suspecting I fat fingered someone out of order.

Trying room codes likewise also sent me to the comments. There needs to be a unique error message for “room not found.” The combination of misnaming a room while having characters out of alphabetical order because I didn’t know that was a thing yet nearly had me rage quit in the first 15 minutes. It set a negative tone for rest of the game. I cannot overstate the frustration of this. It would have been helpful to have a standalone room name validator at the very beginning before the 99 camera to test and validate room names. Example: typing “Hab CA” for habitability would get a report that the cargo bay is currently unsafe due to a breach in walls from explosion and generalized failure of life support. These early claims allow the player to categorize the damage to the station early in the story and try to work out how it happened from there.

The syntax for entering names into the manifest (“name N Lieutenant Neil Armstrong” for BOTH manifests) is not explained well enough. When you first get the name hint, the format looks like “[n] [Lieutenant] [Neil] [Armstrong]” because there are no quotes around the name to indicate it is a command unless you go back to the help screen). The syntax should have been written as a hint in both manifests.

It was not super obvious the player uses the 99 Camera like it is a person: e.g 01-MA-99. The 99 camera tried to indicate it could be used as a ‘person’ by appearing as ‘&99’, harkening back to the letter codes as they appeared before the player started using the name function, but that’s stale and unreferenceable knowledge by the time you get the &99 camera because you’ll have overwritten all the names with the name function. It’s really bad if you don’t play through in one sitting and your recollection dulls.

Zero is not clearly introduced as someone you can follow in feeds. ‘0’ is a number rather than a letter. And ‘&0’ would have kept with prior convention and the 99 camera. It’s also egregious that ‘0’ is introduced last on the new manifest list, but they go first in alphabetical order with no nudge. But, hey, at least you can use the name command to rename your new target to “BFG9000 Fodder” and have that show up in the credits.

Not making flashing a “WRONG PASSWORD - RETYPE ‘dir /admin’ to try again” to make it clear you only get one shot at the second mode unlock password per command. Putting in the right password the second time and getting a null because you skipped the dash the first time without retyping dir /admin will leave you very confused.

Save file

Why is the save file a whole 252 Kilobytes? To compare, I’ve got a text file that is 24,000 words long and it is only 148 Kilobytes. Does it contain an easter egg picture or all the text in the game or something? It’s odd and makes me think something about the save isn’t working right.

The characters and experiment: they weren’t special and were confusing at times

The dialogue with the men slobbing over the women didn’t lead to any major new deductions about which two might be in a room together for an important clue. It also felt very tacked on - I’d would have rather heard some experiment or work gossip about artifact and rocks or Jackie and Michael having arguments and what Dana was doing with Michael to make Alex jealous. Jackie and Barry’s 09 romance scene in Jackie’s room as they are trying to search for an alien containment device after Dana has been murdered and Bobby has been blown up and they were knocked unconscious is really bizarre. Same with Elizabeth and Sebastian. And then the random weed smoking before the double kill. There’s self destructive behavior, and then there’s whatever nonsense that was.

The tension between Jackie and Michael over the experiment was tragically undercooked. Why did Michael think the mystery energy needed to be embedded in someone (why not a plant?) so his attack on Lenny made more sense vs. Jackie’s corrupted ‘containment device’ whatever the heck that was supposed to be. Frankly, even after playing back twice I am still confused why Mike was trying to hide the specimens from Jackie outside anyway. They needed some emails firing back and forth to more clearly explain their different views of the project leading up to Michael’s secretive behavior before they summoned the thing which might explain why it behaved the way it does. More emails would have really helped.

The story missing the emphasis on the B■■■■st samples and experiments really threw me for a loop. The major ‘artifacts’ needed more attention and grounding, because they just sort of happened in a way that wasn’t too important to many logical deductions. By the time I got to the end, I was like oh yeah, I guess that man had absconded with a sample, tried to drag some case around, the imported rocks changed shape and became eggs, an orb moved on its own, and that killed that other guy? Sure. I guess. It just didn’t feel like it mattered. I know the clinging energy was a thing, but the rock plot still felt unmoored from the main convos. Bad rocks are bad, I guess.

Carl and Isaac were just kind of present as cannon fodders to pad the death count. Robbie at least kind of existed briefly.

So, I just kind of wound up shrugging when Zero’s “they were your crew in the end” line landed and my empathetic connection to them was closer to ‘the familiar neighborhood feral cats I rounded up to get neutered.’

Speaking of Zero, the big bad was skillfully written in the technical creepy and gloating sense, but stepping back for a broader view I’m still kind of confused about how or why Zero was so personal with this station’s crew in the notes when he also claimed to be a recent arrival, twisted people with substance use disorders, yet was also impersonal about the way he mangled everything like Zero was dispatched from the hells as a special ops agent to silence everyone involved in B■■■■st. I was waiting to find out that someone in the station suicided in the B■■■■st to explain the personalization. Zero was also crowing about how maybe he might have struggled if not for various characters being dulled by their drug or love escapades, but the baddie could turn into mist, fly, cause explosions at will, drain life, and control deadly creatures like a Challenge Rating 13 Dungeons and Dragons vampire against a party of sub-levels 1s. I’m shocked Zero perceived any of the crew as the least bit threatening; ‘demonhunter’ was far too much of a compliment to Jackie. Eldritch characters don’t have to be cohesive, but Zero didn’t stick the landing. I renamed him to “D.A.R.E. Demon” because ‘don’t do drugs or you’ll be eaten by slugs.’

Suggested redesign to better deliver the mystery

If I were to redesign this game, I would have made it easier to follow the crew through rooms with a ‘partial credit indicator’ that unlocks the next feed with question marks for the people if you get one character present correct …BUT all the text is encrypted, sometimes with only a few key lines unencrypted. That extra forgiveness makes it easier for characters to make more complex movements through multiple rooms and have more interactions, yet only one ‘counts.’

After filling the first manifest of names and roles (make it a bit easier, e.g. Barry’s name not locked behind figuring out crew rooms), release the non-core terminal and the map to the player along with the 99 camera and make the second mission be filling out a second manifest of when and what room each major disaster occurred in (So the player is forced to spot the research lab situation using the 99 camera), and a third manifest of everyone’s vital 999-persons wristband check-in at particular times: the location of the wristband at the check-in time and if they are 1: alive, 2: injured/unconscious/dying, 3: dead, or 4: wristband not attached to a human body because it got removed, dissolved or… etc. Only after filling most of those two manifests out can the Zero endgame be unlocked. And in the process of filling out those two new manifests, it’s extremely likely the player is going to catch on that there’s a secret thirteenth crew member sneaking around sabotaging things… only it’s way worse then the player could have imagined.

Switching to a system like that would have also fixed two of the weakest points of the story: the weird artifact disaster side of the story which seemed to be second fiddle to the people and the slugs, and the lameness of timepoint 17 vs timepoint 16 which should have felt like a big moment because you had to do an whole unlock sequence to get there. The postgame wristband check-in would be a lot more interesting because you would pinpoint that certain characters had gone all the way to Va■■■■■m.

FEEDS, LOGS, PASSWORDS, ROOMS in ROT13

Note I did NOT get any ‘all entries found’ reward, so I’d be curious to know if and what I missed. The length of the list it itself a spoiler, so only refer to this answer key if you are truly stumped.

Solutions are encoded in ROT13.

The answers are split into halves to make it easier to avoid some spoilers. If you don’t know what the ‘second half’ is, you are still playing in the first half of the game. The appearance of red entries marks the switch.

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00. Index

1. Room Codes (First Half)

2. Transmissions

3. Video Feeds (First Half)

4. Logs

5. Documents

6. 1st manifest

7. Passwords (Spoilers to enter second half)

8. Room Codes (Second Half)

9. Video Feeds (Second Half)

10. 2nd manifest

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01. Room Codes (First Half)

OE - Oevqtr

PN - Pnetb Onl

RA - Ratvar Ebbz

TN - Tnyyrl

XV - Xvgpura

ZN - Znvagranapr onl

ZR - Zrqvpny onl

ER - Erfrnepu

FR - Frphevgl Bssvpr

FH - Fhesnpr

Qh - Wnpxvr’f ebbz

Eb - Ebtnaf’ Ebbz

Te - Zvpunry’f ebbz

Pe - Fronfgvna’f ebbz

Xb - Vfnnp’f ebbz

In - Oneel’f ebbz

Ub - Pney’f ebbz

Qn - Yvool’f ebbz

Zp - Yraal’f ebbz

El - Oboovr’f ebbz

Wn - Mnpx’f ebbz

---

02. Transmissions

1009-GE-MW

---

03. Video Feeds (First Half)

—

01-OE-E-F

01-PN-V-Z

01-TN-O-P-M (HCTENQR: ynory svyr)

01-XV-Y

01-ZR-R-W

01-EB-N-Q

—

02-OE-E

02-PN-V-W (HCTENQR: anzr pbzznaq)

02-TN-Y-M

02-ZR-R-F

02-ER-Q-Z

02-EB-N

02-FR-O-P

—

03-PN-O-P-V-W

03-ZR-R-E-F

03-ER-Z

03-EB-N-Q

03-FR-M

—

04-OE-Q-Y

04-PN-O-P-R-V-W-E-F (HCTENQR: abgr pbzznaq)

04-ER-M

04-FR-N

04-FH-Z

—

05-OE-Q

05-PN-Z-E

05-RA-Y

05-ZR-N-O-P-R-V-W-F-M (Abgr ba ubj gb hfr uvagf yrsg va svyr)

—

06-OE-Q-F-M (ERNY HCTENQR: Perj Znavsrfg 1 va Vaobk)

06-QH-Z

06-XV-N-Y

06-ZR-O-P-R-V-W

—

07-OE-F

07-RA-M

07-XV-Y-Z

07-ZN-N

07-ZR-O-P-R-V-W

—

08-ZN-N-M (HCTENQR: Svaq Pbzznaq)

08-ZR-P-R-V-F

08-FR-O-W

08-FH-Y-Z

—

09-OE-N

09-QH-O-W

09-RA-P-V

09-ZN-M

09-ZR-R-F

—

10-OE-O-P-W

10-PN-F

10-ZR-N-R

—

11-OE-O-P-W

11-XV-R

—

12-TN-R-W

—

13-ZN-R-W

—

14-FH-R-W

—

15-PN-W (ERNY HCTENQR: Pbapyhfvba va vaobk)

---

04. Logs (Not documents)

1009-YBT-NE

1010-YBT-NE

1009-YBT-OI

1010-YBT-OI

1009-YBT-PU

1010-YBT-PU

1009-YBT-QE

1010-YBT-QE

1009-YBT-RQ

1010-YBT-RQ

1009-YBT-VX

1010-YBT-VX

1009-YBT-WQ

1010-YBT-WQ

1009-YBT-YZ

1010-YBT-YZ

1009-YBT-ZT

1010-YBT-ZT

1009-YBT-EE

1010-YBT-EE

1009-YBT-FP

1010-YBT-FP

1009-YBT-MW

1010-YBT-MW

GEHR-RAQVAT

---

05. Documents

1007-YBT-WQ

1008-YBT-WQ

ONPGREVN-NANYLFVF

OELBCULGN-NANYLFVF

PNZREN-SRRQF

PURZVPNY-ZNXRHC

PUBERF-EBGN

QHGL-EBFGRE

REEBE-YBT-YNGRFG

TNYYRL-ZRAH

TNFGEBCBQ-FRPERGVBA-NANYLFVF

VAPVQRAG-ERCBEG-101

ZNVAGRANAPR-YBT

CBXRE-AVTUG

ERPERNGVBA-FPURQHYR

EBIRE-ZNAHNY

FNSRGL-THVQRYVARF

FVTANY-NANYLFVF

FGNGVBA-ZNAHNY

FHVG-CEBGBPBYF

FHCCYL-ERDHRFG

FLFGRZ-OBBG-YBT

JRNGURE-CNGGREAF

nagvteni-lbtn.wct

nebtna

pebff

qnepl

qebtna

qhcbag

tevzz

ubyqra

wnpxfba

wq-wbhean1-10

xbmbi

ebire-bhgvat.wct

elna

fbhgu-pnir.wct

inapr

---

06. 1st manifest

How to enter a name with a fake example: name R Captain Robert Witterel

Answers:

Anzr N CVYBG NYRK EBTNA

Anzr O FRPHEVGL ONEEL INAPR

Anzr P RAFVTA PNEY UBYQRA

Anzr Q FPVRAGVFG QNAN EBTNA

Anzr R QBPGBE RYVMNORGU QNEPL

Anzr V GRPUAVPVNA VFNNP XBMBI

Anzr W NFGEBCULFVPVFG WNPDHRYVAR QHCBAG

Anzr Y PURS YRBANEQ ZPPBL

Anzr Z OVBYBTVFG ZVPUNRY TEVZZ

Anzr E RATVARRE EBOREG ELNA

Anzr F PBZZNAQRE FRONFGVNA PEBFF

Anzr M PBZZF MNPXNEL WNPXFBA

—

Trg cebgbpby-ynmnehf va vaobk sbe pbzcyrgvat.

---

07. Passwords (Reminder: Answers in ROT13)

word.exe lvl 5: KMLDZ (Lrf, guvf vf abg n erny jbeq! Vg fgnegf jvgu K)

Decryption Key to activate second half of game after getting access to command “dir /admin”: NYCUN-QRZBA

All possible word.exe answers: NOLFF, NTBAL, NYNEZ, NYVRA, NATRE, NATFG, NJSHY, ORNFG, OYNPX, OYNQR, OYRRQ, OYVAQ, OBARF, OBZOF, OERNX, OHEAG, PNTRF, PUNBF, PUBXR, PYNJF, PERRC, PEHRY, PHEFR, QRPNL, QRZBA, QRIVY, QVEGL, QERNQ, QLVAT, RARZL, REEBE, RIVYF, SRNEF, SRIRE, SVRAQ, SVTUG, SVYGU, SYNZR, SYRFU, SBEPR, TUBFG, TUBHY, TVNAG, TYBBZ, TENIR, TEVRS, TEVZL, TEBFF, THVYG, UNGRF, UNHAG, UNIBP, URYYF, UHZNA, UHEGF, XAVSR, YRNIR, YVZOB, YHEXF, ZNQYL, ZNTVP, ZNAVP, ZRGNY, ZVTUG, ANFGL, AREIR, ABVFR, BZRAF, BHGRE, CNVAF, CNAVP, CREVY, CBJRE, CENL, CEBJY, CHYFR, DHNXR, DHVRG, ENOVQ, OYBBQ, ENTRF, ENCVQ, ENMBE, ERNPG, EBOBG, EBHTU, EHVAF, FPNER, FPNEF, FPNEL, FUNQR, FUNXR, FUNZR, FUNEC, FUBPX, FUBBG, FUBHG, FVPXF, FVERA, FYNVA, FYNIR, FYRRC, FYVZR, FZNFU, FZBXR, FANXR, FANEY, FBHAQ, FCNPR, FCRYY, FCVXR, FCVAR, FCBVY, FGNYX, FGNER, FGRNY, FGVAT, FGBEZ, FGEVC, FGHPX, FJNEZ, GNVAG, GRRGU, GUVRS, GUBEA, GBZOF, GBKVP, GENPX, GENCF, GEVNY, GEVPX, GEBYY, HTYL, HAQRE, HCFRG, INCBE, IRABZ, IVYRF, IVENY, IVEHF, IBVQF, JNFGR, JNGPU, JRVEQ, JUVAR, JVGPU, JBEEL, JBEFR, JBEFG, JBHAQ, JENGU, JERPX, JEBAT

---

08. Room Codes (Second Half)

UL - Ulqebcbavpf yno

FU - Fubegphg

OV - Ovsebfg

---

09. Video Feeds (Second Half)

—

01-OV-99

01-TE-99

—

02-OV-99

02-TE-0

—

03-ZN-99

03-FU-99

03-FH-0

—

04-OV-99

04-FU-99

04-ZN-0

—

05-FU-99

05-QH-0

—

06-ER-0

—

07-ER-99

07-FH-0

—

08-ER-99

08-PN-0

—

09-FH-0-Y

—

10-UL-99

10-ER-99

10-EB-0

—

11-ER-99

11-ZR-0-N

—

12-OE-99

12-ZR-99

12-ER-99

12-UL-0-N

—

13-UL-99

13-ZR-99

13-ER-99

13-FH-0-N

—

14-UL-99

14-ZR-99

14-PN-0-N-Y

—

15-UL-99

15-ZR-99

15-FU-0-N-Y

—

16-UL-99

16-ZR-99

16-PN-0-N-W-Y (ERNY HCTENQR: Gehr Raqvat)

—

17-UL-99

17-ZR-99

17-OV-0-N-Y

—

00-PE-R-F

00-TN-O-P-V-W-Z-E-M

00-XV-Y

00-ER-Q

00-EB-N

---

10. 2nd manifest

How to enter a name with a fake example: name M Dungeonmaster Matthew Mercer

Answer:

anzr Y OHGPURE YRBANEQ ZPPBL

anzr N PUNBFRATVAR NYRK EBTNA

anzr W QRZBAUHAGRE WNPDHRYVAR QHCBAG

anzr O ONEONEVNA ONEEL INAPR

anzr Z JNEYBPX ZVPUNRY TEVZZ

anzr R JVGPU RYVMNORGU QNEPL

anzr Q FNPEVSVPR QNAN EBTNA

anzr M CNYNQVA MNPXNEL WNPXFBA

anzr F XAVTUG FRONFGVNA PEBFF

anzr P SBBY PNEY UBYQRA

anzr E FDHVER EBOREG ELNA

anzr V OYNPXFZVGU VFNNP XBMBI

New Players, read these spoiler free gameplay tips before you play to avoid useless frustration and enjoy the game more.

Feeds. Most progress in the game is made by finding feeds (and logs too, but mostly feeds). To find a feed, you type something like “03-ME-E-R-S” into the terminal. The feed starts with two numbers representing a slice of time, so 04 occurs after 03. The pair of letters (03-ME-E-R-S) refers to a location on site, which is the first two letters of a room name most of the time. Although you might be able to guess room names from context and examples, official names of rooms are written in bold white text. The letters afterwards in a feed (03-ME-E-R-S) represent the living people who appear in the feed. They are the same crew code letters that appear in the text as %R or %S. CREW CODE LETTERS MUST BE ENTERED IN ALPHABETICAL ORDER TO FIND A NEW FEED!!! This is important and there is no error message to warn you if you messed it up. Feeds will NOT be revealed if you enter more or fewer crew other than exactly who appears in the feed. You might not be able to tell at the beginning if you guessed a room name wrong or if you guessed the people present wrong. For now, take that as a hint to pursue other angles in other files rather than scumming with guesses. This game is fairly scum safe in that things you can easily scum are less likely to be late game material, but don’t scum unless you have some pretty strong clues to limit your focus to a few options to test. I’ll warn you about obnoxious clue bottlenecks below.

Logs. Logs written daily by the crew take the form of ‘MMDD-Log-NN’ where MMDD is month and day (The main events take place October 9th and 10th) and NN is a convention you have to figure out but should be obvious once you have found a dozen feeds. If you need the answer, it’s Rot13(Erny Svefg Anzr Vavgvny Erny Ynfg Anzr Vavgvny) If you feel like scumming the logs, know that they don’t drop much mid or late game material. (I scummed a few of them, but you don’t have to!)

Transmissions. As far as I can tell there is only one of them in the game. It’s still important later.

Code letters, room codes, names, job descriptions Each crew member has a different code letter. You should have a sheet of paper or a textpad open to record room names and their two letter codes, and all crew names and nicknames and job titles you encounter. Eventually the game will make you prove you know each character’s full name, job title, and crew code letter, so start working on that list now and save yourself a bunch of flipping back later.

Completionism. Each member of the crew is somewhere in the station at all times. Crew members very conveniently stay in their room for the whole time slice and only move between slices. Thus each crew member must be in one feed at each time point, unless they are dead. Following deductions will eventually lead you further forward in time until you reach a certain late game feed that will get you the incomplete ending.

Start the game with the ability to make notes in game. Don’t wait for the upgrades. The game gives you new thought-organizing commands to use in the terminal as a reward for reaching certain files, but there’s nothing to stop you from using them right away. Two of them appear “close” to the start of the game assuming you follow the right breadcrumbs. One of them lets you append comments to a file - ROT13 (ynory) - and the other lets you write memos to yourself - ROT13 (abgr). A third one that is introduced in the midgame lets you filter all the feeds and logs by time, location, or person - ROT13 (svaq).

I strongly recommend you start the game already knowing the ‘append comment’ and ‘memo’ functions because, if you are going to take notes in the game instead of on a separate sheet of paper, you should start right away rather than trying to juggle your thoughts until you hit some arbitrary later file.

‘Append a Comment’ [real terminal command = ROT13 (ynory)]: If someone dies in a feed, you should append a comment to that feed with their death e.g. ‘Q dies, eaten by a grue’. Eventually the game will give you the power to filter feeds you have found by a timepoint, location, or a person. When you are trying to see if you have discovered the complete chronology for a crewmember, it is very helpful to make it obvious if/when they died and they aren’t going to appear again. (I’m not going to give an example of a death because spoilers, but the Append a Comment syntax is “ynory 03-ME-E-R-S heard explosion in cargo bay” (But rot13 ‘ynory’ first!)

‘Memo’ [real terminal command = ROT13 (abgr)]: It is very common in the early game for you to get a clue that crew members are going to a certain room in the next time point, but the feed doesn’t drop. Either they didn’t make it to the room, or someone else was there already so the feed entry was incomplete, or two groups met up, etc. When you get a clear clue that doesn’t lead to a feed, you should use the memo function to list what you tried: “abgr Tried 04-CB-E-R-S from 03-ME-E-R-S. Is CB the right room code for the cargo bay? More people in 04-CB?” Then you can check memos later and see if you have two memos pointing to the same time and location that can be combined to unlock the feed.

Filter’s upgrade drops in the midgame, but you should start using it earlier whenever you start struggling with the organization of a lot of files. The syntax is ROT13 (‘svaq’ nf va ‘svaq PN’ be ‘Svaq 01’ be ‘Svaq F’)

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Spoilers for early/mid game below, stop reading here unless you know what the manifest is.

I’m spoiling myself slightly, how do I get the manifest?

Find the feed with S at timepoint 06. You’ll get a mail.

I got a manifest! How do I put a name in the manifest?

Completing the manifest will let you unlock ‘protocol-lazarus’ and the second half of the game.

The syntax for manifests is ‘name’ + Crew code letter + Job title that is in the manifest + First name + Last name. For example: “name R Captain Robert Witterel” or “name M Dungeonmaster Matthew Mercer”

You don’t have to put in all the right information either. Once you get the name function, you can input guesses like “name M Researcher? Michael Idunnoyet” or customize for your own amusement, like “name C Officer Carl Not_getting_laid”. I recommend it to help remember who is who at first.

I’s name isn’t taking?

Rot13 (Unir lbh purpxrq uvf ybtf?)

J’s real name doesn’t fit the encrypted name in the manifest?

The scrambled name is missing a character for some reason. The working spelling is Rot13(WNPDHRYVAR).

I can’t find B’s last name!

It’s locked behind one of the worst ‘see it or fail’ bottlenecks in the name. You need to get A and D’s feeds in timepoints 01 to 03, or scum for it by trying to get B’s logs if you don’t want to cheat for A and D. Hint for A and D below.

A and D’s time 01-03 entries: I know they’re somewhere, but where the heck are they?

The worst bottleneck in the game that lots of people miss. Rot13(Ng gur irel ortvaavat bs gur tnzr, n srrq pnyyrq “09-QH-O-W” qebccrq. Lbh fubhyq xabj gur anzvat pbairagvba sbe ebbzf ol abj naq “Qh” qbrf abg fgnaq sbe ‘qhcyrk’ be ‘qbezvgbel havg’. Lrf, nyy bs gubfr ner n guvat, vaqvivqhnyyl.)

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Protocol-Lazarus

This is the second half of the game. Stop reading if you haven’t filled the manifest.

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Word.exe

Wordle. Green is correct letter placement, yellow is right letter wrong spot.

Yes, you have to do this. Yes, it is tedious and it sucks, Yes, it’s probably the worst part of the game. If you do it the proper way, you will play 10 to 20(!) wordle games, genuinely not joking. Please play only 4 rounds and then decode my ROT13 and cheat when you get to game 5/5. Apparently, two of the words in the bank are four character invalid options which might screw your run anyway. As a hint, all the words are depressing, edgy, or space related. I would start with the words ‘Whine’ or ‘Scars’ because plurals are common.

Word.exe lvl 5 answer ROT13(“KMLDZ” - Lrf, guvf vf abg n erny jbeq! Vg fgnegf jvgu K.)

Where’s the other half of the you-know-what?

Purpx lbhe vaobk.

There’s a creepy red dude in my DMs.

Yes and he has a task for you. Check it out because you’ll need to start making some new notes, but ignore him. Go back in the directory and find the 99 camera instead.

The game’s story is better when you play with the 99 Camera before you mess with the red guy too much.

Core Directory

There’s a bunch of stuff hidden in the locked directory files that is ‘see it or fail’. Keep an eye out for fancy screens and bold text.

The fancy map is missing the security office for some reason. It’s irrelevant, apparently.

99 Camera

You’ve probably forgotten by now since you filled out the first manifest but &99 means to use it like a person. The syntax is “04-ME-99”. This camera tells you about rooms only when there aren’t any people detected in them. If it fails, there is someone in the room, which is helpful to find where everyone is if you haven’t gotten everyone’s full timeline. While the camera often doesn’t show you an interesting description when it feels like it should, you should come to a certain realization after checking out some suspicious spots. That’s when you should start red’s quest for real.

Manifest 2

Fill it like manifest 1. You will be awarded with a new crew code ‘letter’. THEY GO FIRST IN ALPHABETICAL ORDER. You can also give your new crewmate a nickname if you wish which will show up in the credits.

True-Ending

Like the first half, reaching a certain file will get you a mail for the true ending.

In the replies to this top level comment I am posting…

Very helpful spoiler free gameplay tips to read before you play to avoid useless frustration and enjoy the game more.

All Feeds, Logs, Passwords, Rooms, and terminal syntax encrypted in ROT13

A detailed review of the game for the creator bushmonkey

The new hold to set makes tracks a lot more convenient. Also other silliness.

(And I did run into a few more locked crypts, I was just unlucky.)

I figured out how to move where I want by cutting leaves but not how to zoom where I want. I don’t like fighting cameras in games, so maybe I’ll try for the other two endings another time!

The company ought to make me worker of the month and give me a 10 pockets raise. I mined up all those mines!

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Ignoring content, some of the major quality of life fixes that should be made are:

• Remembering number color and other setting preferences so restarting a game doesn’t mean inputting all your preferences again. And selection from a color wheel or being able to type a hex code for color would be better than clicking 15 times. The colors aren’t even in any kind of gradient order which makes things a bit obnoxious.

• Being able to drop deploy rails where you walk by holding a key. Having to place rails in front of you like minecraft, click click click while hoping you don’t step on them, is still too tedious.

• Braking with the direction opposite your rail momentum, or even a dedicated brake key. If you have rails, you should be able to stop without sliding 40 blocks. There’s no good gameplay reason for that sort of no friction physics, especially when it reduces the utility of rails.

• Likewise, being able to use rail intersections without having to completely stop or hop on and off again to build rail networks.

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Also I noticed I haven’t seen any locked crypts since a few updates. Did they accidentally get reverted, or are they just rare and I’m not running into them? Also I wonder if the aquamarine generation rate is bugged. Meteorite is rare and valuable, but aquamarine has about the same drop frequency and is worth less than topaz and ruby.

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Based on personal stats, if you are trying to price out a ‘save from permadeath’ charm, about 1000 pockets would be the sweet spot between just profitable and enough to really sting.

To highlight cells in corners you can’t reach. Like so.

░░░1
░░░2
░▓▓1
░▓3
░2

Also useful when you failed a perception check looking for places to flag and dig.

I found every large cavern 360 around the start before I call it quits. I think this is enough gameplay to start having educated opinions.

The core gameplay loop is solid, but the game is trying to be two things at once and it is creating a gameplay focus problem: On one hand the maker seems to want you to invest in building tracks and exploring the world.

On the other hand, the gameplay is optimized for short forays where you only spend maybe 30 minutes per level: the permadeath, expensive upgrades, items kept between death, there is only one biome per world gen within three gameplay hours of the starting position, the general lack of points of interest to keep you invested in exploring, etc.

The way I see the future gameplay working out while keeping the risk of failure as a gameplay mechanic is a mission system where a new floor is generated for each mission that takes 30-45 minutes at most:

• Break through walls and repair X length of track damaged by a cave in / run wire to mining beacons to light up the caves to see numbers

• Find 5 digging drill tanks that have been buried by a cave in and mark all the mines touching them

• Find X lost miners who have to be moved by minecart to the elevator

• Train robbers have laid mines near the tracks. Flag ’em all so the train can pass safely!

• Look for an elevator within x blocks of start

• Rob Mine 30 gold from the smurf village houses

• A meteor crashed. Used environmental clues to find the impact site.

• An archeologist studying the ancient, explosive-worshiping Trinitron culture wants you to uncover several buried buildings. Don’t disturb their artifacts too much!

• The company has broken into a haunted cavern and the local ghosts are turning all the numbers into question marks near their haunted gravestones. Using blessed candles that reveal numbers in a small radius, smash the cursed graves to free the anguished spirits.

Most of these involve trying to mine in particular direction towards some goal marked on the map. That would make the one biome system and permadeath work: you fail, you get kicked back to menu and pick a new mission, keeping certain resources and losing others for rescue and hospital costs or something.

Maybe there is a hub floor to build a base in with lots of points of interest and you can recruit villagers like terraria, mine ores in case you failed a bunch of missions and are short on cash, where dying has minimal meaning and creativity is encouraged.

I set the 1 to be white so it looks the most neutral and made 4 cyan and 5 yellow. I switched to the skinnier font and dropped the transparency to level 4 of 5. That stopped all the hard to read number problems.

But agreed, that dark blue 4 is no good. The darker colors in general don’t work that well.

There is definitely a glitch where if you are digging a rock in front of a wall with a mine, you somehow dig through the rock and hit the mine a tile away. It seems to happen when there is procedural loading. I have died twice in early game to this.

This has the foundation to be a great game, and I am commenting because I feel like it is worth giving feedback because I want this to succeed, but with the first 90 minutes under my belt, it started to already feel tedious.

Things I appreciated: not dying if I misclicked the dig instead of the flag. I did that a lot.

The numbers were not quite visible enough on certain tiles, especially the grass, when they are the same color. (The menu options help, but I would def change the default 4 color to be unalike 1) It’s mostly the fat font rather than the colors.

The upgrades don’t really feel like they do anything except for the dig out completed numbers one and inventory expansion.

I found maybe 2 jars with the first archeologist upgrade and the contents are worth 10 bucks when you paid hundreds. I then upgraded it to max, and I’ve found maybe 7 jars with max 80 dollars of value between them. There should be a complete rebalance there. (Finding exactly one rail in a jar is just silly. It’s worth 1 gold.)

I never got to the point of where I felt like building tracks because if I die none of it carries over. I did eventually buy them to try them, and having them drop in your path where you walk would be an easier way of deploying them.

I would appreciate a single use defusing kit to remove one mine, so I could clear paths.

It is not immediately obvious how to unlock chests and I assume if I fail I die, so I didn’t bother because I would rather keep my progress. I’m not sure if pickaxe hardness lets you break them because a later chest simply opened. If it was, the upgrade was again not worth the gold to get it.

There’s not enough visible environmental goals, environmental variation, and “random encounters”. I found the tiny house biome, I found the exit, I found some mining gates, I found water, but you maybe only find one per 45 minutes of play and that’s too infrequent. Examples would be:

Differently-colored blocks you can’t dig through unless you have an upgrade,

Dungeons of impassible blocks with an open side so you have to approach from the right direction,

Funny mine clumps and shapes. Meaningful mine shapes like arrows pointing to hidden goodies or an X marks the spot.

Other miners’ railroad segments that are usable.

high density of mine areas indicated by different colored soil with high rewards vs low density of mines area which are mostly good for establishing tunnel networks.

Cursed areas where mine numbers are question marks with a core that must be destroyed to reveal the numbers - maybe requiring a purchasable candle to reveal the numbers in a small radius to search for it.

Other miners maybe and more silly notes.

Treasure maps that mark an x on the overworld where loot is.

Incentive to visit biomes so upgrades are unlocked with the right materials as opposed to everything is money.

A save from death upgrade would change the dynamic so I would be a lot more invested in building out a world. You just have to make it expensive enough to hurt. Drop the price of the upgrades, and sock it to the player if they want mine safety.

Edit: adding that my two high scores were 13770 and 9700ish, so I did quite a bit of exploring.

Glad you posted this because I thought I messed up the jump!

Edit: I replayed the purple zone and went all the way back to the bottom on that last tower just before I reached the very top so I could fall upward from the other side and made it through the door that ‘killed’ me last time. Not sure what to make of that.

I did it with (whfg guerr ebpxf va gur pragre nern. Gur gjb ol gur checyr beo, naq gur bar ba gur yrsg. V hfrq gjb abgrf gb uryc cbfvgvba gurz. Sbe sha, V qvq n grfg gb frr gur zbfg ebpxf V pbhyq zbir vagb gur pragre va T sver syvc. 24!)

Yep it’s a softlock there if you don’t have double wall jumps.

Fix is to hold r for 6 seconds to reset you to the main room.

#2 Puppeteer and #3 Puppet.

But also because Puppet and Puppeteer are a two card pair in a four villager line (#9, #1, #2, #3), if you have >5 health, you are guaranteed to get one of them and have health remaining by stabbing the middle two villagers, #1 and #2! Then you get the other one!

Why use brain when you have knife?

Do you remember what Chance was? The board is solvable if chance was a knight or bomb.

NVM. Board is solvable even if I don’t know.

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This is a great example of a board where ‘playing safe’ will ruin you.

Right away, Alchemist is MVP, and the board has two overall states, determined by 4. No corrupted characters is real, and plague is fake, and poisoner is sandwiched with a drunk and minion and demon. But the issue with that is the Knitter who would be telling the truth in right in the middle of where the sandwich would have to be. Assuming she is lying, I could work out the evil configuration. Or option 2, 4 is lying. and #1 pointing at 4 with so many potential lies on the board makes 4 a really good candidate for a stab.

If you can pivot from a wrongful kill into a victory then it is worth it to save plague to validate on a known corrupted.

Stab Knight 3 because protected by Alchemist and by a visible outcast and hope is not a drunk. Safe.

Flying stab 4 without the plague check because there could be five lies on the board, and up to 2 corruptions out of range of alchemist, making 8, 9, and 1 suspect. Also 6 could be minion in disguise and if there are no corruptions plague dies and I get to know a free good. Baa revealed.

7, 8, 9, and 1 are ALL tagged for lying.

The way start order works is that poisoner poisons a victim before plague doctor selects a good villager to corrupt. Unless poisoner is sandwiched on both sides or alchemist cures, a game with poisoner and plague will have two corruptions because plague will find someone. Alchemist, MVP that he is, has eliminated most of the board where corruptions could be. Which means between those four we have 2 corruptions, 1 poisoner, and 1 chancellor or drunk and fake outcast. No matter how you slice it, 4 lies.

#7 gets stabbed because they would have been cured if corrupt, and #7 can’t be drunk if you work through the logic (see next paragraph). revealing Chance.

(#7 can’t be drunk because if you work through the logic, #6 or #2 outcasts must be fake. If #6 PD is fake, then it isn’t poisoner because #5 would be corrupt. #6 chance would remove 1 corruption but both #8 and #1 are lying and they are split so poisoner couldn’t get both. That confirms #6 is real. If #2 is fake and #7 is drunk then #8 must be chance to be by an outcast and #2 poisoner poisoning #1. But that would mean #9, that plague must have corrupted, is telling the truth. so #7 cannot be drunk.)

#1 is flagged as good but corrupt because #9 is lying.

The following three scenarios are left:

[8E,9G,1G,2G] is valid with 8Poison

[8G,9E,1G,2G] is valid with 9Poison

[8D,9D,1G,2E] is valid with Bomb-Poison, and 8 or 9 drunk. 1 can’t be drunk in this scenario because 3 would have been poisoned.

Drunk is going to screw me over if I don’t eliminate the possibility. I have 10 health.

Stab at random #8 and #9 and take the five health penalty. Use plague on the other and stab if not corrupt. If both corrupt kill Bomb.

Edit: Fixed Logic error. It’s hard when I don’t have the board to manipulate!

Here’s how it works for adjacent pairs! (Side highlight: crazy round with Pooka, Poisoner, and Plague and zero corruptions.) (BTW Knitters in current version cannot lie about 3 or 4 pairs. If you see a knitter claim 3 or 4 they are telling the truth!)

Solved it! Yes, the above is a softlock. The victory exit is in the lower right!

I just wanna verify that this is a softlock.

I’d also like to be spoiled about if the two lefthand bent pipes never touch at any point in the solution.

I think I’ve identified a bug in post-game after the victory screen where corrupted baked villagers are correctly lying but aren’t displaying as corrupt when you flip the facedown cards. I only think this is a postgame error.

#8 Lover is the Pooka. Pooka is a demon and can’t share a role with a villager like minions can. #5 Baker is known good, so #9 must be minion or villager.

#2 Alchemist cured #9 Baker/Jester (Corrupted by Pooka) and either #1 Knight or #4 Medium who was corrupted by #7 Plague Doctor.

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The way I would have played this round is flip #1 through #9 in order. I’d flag #8 for lying, because Pooka can’t be an outcast or baker for the reason given above. Pooka is not #4, #5, #6, #7, #9

Next priority is figuring out if the lovers are doppelganger and villager and one of the visible outcasts is a minion. Assuming so, if #8 is lying, then #3 must be doppel and telling the truth. If so, then Pooka must be #2, #1 is corrupt, #4 is not corrupt, and #7 is minion and didn’t corrupt anyone… but then why is 8 lying with no source? Scratch that. Okay #7 corrupted #4, bomb is the minion, #2 is pooka, but wait why is #8 still lying with no source? That means no doppelganger in game. #6 and #7 are real outcasts.

So now that I know #7 is real, I use plague doc on #8, who is deffo lying. Comes back as not corrupted. I’d then stab Pooka and minion for double-claiming lovers with Pooka.

I don’t see this listed in the tags or description, so I am going to put it in a comment, but levels become timed challenges after the tutorial section.

The time was quite generous at first and I never really struggled, but I prefer casual, no pressure puzzles, so I put this one down before I progressed much because I could tell it wasn’t going to be my cup of tea. I didn’t touch endless mode in Raide, for instance. If timed challenges are a dealbreaker for you like they are for me, this might not be your game.

Some more statistics!

The rarest type of Evil combination is Pooka with 2 non-minion minions. I have only recorded one of those, and I secretly wonder if it was a mistype and that game doesn’t exist?

I also haven’t played a Lilis game which has both a minion and a puppeteer. I wonder if that combination is impossible?

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Once you get into regular ascensions, on average there are 2.52 evils per round yielding 885 points.

Beginners average about 970 points per 7 round 0 loss ascension, which works out to 12 extra points per round (85 in 7 rounds) which means on average each evil is killed with 0.5 cards still face down. In short, beginners are flipping all the cards before trying to kill their first evil.

An expert playing with the intention of 0 loss (no random strikes!) but doesn’t mind taking chances averages roughly 1300 points per 7 round 0 loss ascension. They score 59 extra points per round ascension (416 in 7 rounds), which means on average each evil is killed while 2.3 cards are still face down. An expert is often taking their first evil out with only half or a few more of the cards flipped. (The standard deviation for a 7 round ascension is about 197 points, so the evil composition matters a lot!)

I confirmed the minimum score per ascension is 350 points: 7 perfect solo Pooka games.

And by restart scumming for only 4 Evil Puppet games and losing 3 on purpose after killing 3 evils, I was able to score 3090 points in one ascension. I only tried once, so with some luck, I think a score of 3250+ is possible.

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My revised Evil ratios after tripling the amount of games is

Minion_____ 27% 86

Twin Minion 14% 45

Witch______ 24% 75

Shaman_____ 16% 52

Poisoner___ 17% 55

Chancellor_ 22% 69

Puppeteer__ 17% 53

Puppet_____ 16% 49

Baa________ 36% 115

Pooka______ 31% 97

Lilis______ 33% 105

If only itch’s search was a bit better at finding similar games!

Hard, great progression, great tutorialization.

I had to replay the first few levels over a period of a few days to really nail down the mechanics to avoid frustration, but it was worth it.

This is the first game since Gate’s Give Up the Ghost that I was fairly, yet severely challenged to figure out all the new mechanics.

Noa, the user who made this puzzle set also made a one-room brain teaser for the confounding calendar called “>” that is also worth checking out.

I played 100 games in standard Ascension 100+ and recorded how many of each demon and minion appears.

Minion: 24%

Twin Minion: 13%

Witch: 21%

Shaman: 12%

Poisoner: 18%

Chancellor: 35%

Puppeteer: 17%

Puppet: 16%

Baa: 33%

Pooka: 33%

Lilis: 34%

Chancellor and Witch are over-represented while Shaman is under represented.

I also broke down how often each minion appears with a particular demon

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Minion with Baa: 4/33 12%

Twin Minion with Baa: 4/33 12%

Witch with Baa: 10/33 30%

Shaman with Baa: 4/33 12%

Poisoner with Baa: 4/33 12%

Chancellor with Baa: 12/33 36%

Puppeteer with Baa: 5/33 15%

Puppet with Baa: 5/33 15%

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Minion with Pooka: 16/33 48%

Twin Minion with Pooka: 4/33 12%

Witch with Pooka: 5/33 15%

Shaman with Pooka: 4/33 12%

Poisoner with Pooka: 2/33 6%

Chancellor with Pooka: 8/33 24%

Puppeteer with Pooka: 1/33 3%

Puppet with Pooka: 1/33 3%

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Minion with Lilis: 4/34 12%

Twin Minion with Lilis: 5/34 15%

Witch with Lilis: 6/34 18%

Shaman with Lilis: 4/34 12%

Poisoner with Lilis: 12/34 35%

Chancellor with Lilis: 15/34 44%

Puppeteer with Lilis: 11/34 32%

Puppet with Lilis: 10/34 29%

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Pooka, Lilis, and Baa were evenly balanced at 1/3rd each.

Chancellor, Minion, and to a lesser degree Witch were more likely to be a “+1”: appear in games which already had another minion in them, contributing to their frequency. Shaman and Puppeteer/Puppet were more likely than other minions to be the only minion it their round.

Lilis overall had the most minions at 67 in 34 games, followed by Baa at 48 in 33 games, and Pooka had the fewest minions at 41 in 33 games.

If you are looking for a challenge, try to get a no loss, 7 game Ascension where [Final Score – (350 ∗ Ascension level)] is greater than 1600 or less than 750. Or get a 3 loss game with greater than 1800. (For Ascension > 4)

My bests are 1700 for 0 loss, 1820 on a 2 loss, and 690 and 700 for lowest ascension score. (Without scumming, surprisingly! If you are willing to scum you can definitely beat these!)

Another way to play is to reset ascension level and try to maximize or minimize the first three Ascensions.

With no random stabbing,

Ascension 1 1310 (0 loss max), 910 (0 loss min), and 1530 (3 loss)

Ascension 2 1960 (0 loss max), 1400 (0 loss min), and 2520 (3 loss)

Ascension 3 2750 (0 loss max), 1900 (0 loss min), haven’t done a 3 loss run here

Dreamers are the weakest villager role with the lowest usability in the game, second to knight, maybe.

A truthful Dreamer will tell you an evil’s true identity. If you targeted a villager, the Dreamer will tell you a random evil which is pretty much a waste of them.

If lying, the dreamer will always lie about an evil’s true identity, and tell you a random evil if you picked a villager.

I am on Ascension 130 and have a 100 village saved streak on my main account, which means I’ve played a thousand rounds or more of demon bluff. From that perspective, I will say that dreamers are very rarely useful.

A lot of the time, you mostly want them to identify as truthful or liars, and you can’t do that for sure until you have killed an evil or there is a wretch in play. That makes them a worse sort of confessor.

Sometimes with a certain board configuration, they have a percent chance of validating another character by naming someone as a demon that’s already dead when you know the dreamer is not corrupt.

They are most useful in Lilis games where their ability recharges at night, so you might be able to validate them and then get a use out of them.

If the dreamer is good in a one pooka game, they will always call themselves the pooka no matter if they are lying or corrupt. If a pooka, the dreamer will name an evil that does not exist.

I made a small collection of other “one room” games I liked. https://itch.io/c/6231571/one-room

Late Nine also has “Key Lime Slime” which is technically two rooms but basically a one room game.

So G-Fire-Flip, not G-Flower-Flip. https://rumkin.com/tools/cipher/rot13/

First, get all three stars you can normally get with plain Fire Flip which leaves you with the upper right star. Try not to accidentally fire stuff in the process.

By this point in the game, you have probably figured out there is no way to get to that upper right sector without Rot13(Trggvat ba n jnyy) There is no way to do that with fire or flip. Which leaves you with your other two powers. Rot13(Gung zrnaf lbh arrq gb qb fbzrguvat gubebhtuyl hapbairagvbany gung bayl tbng znxrf cbffvoyr. Nf tbng, lbh pna chfu abgrf, ebpxf, fgnef, naq cbjre beof. Gurer vf n jnl gb znxr guvf jbex, whfg fgneg ehyvat bhg guvatf gung qba’g jbex hagvy jung erznvaf zhfg or gur fbyhgvba, nf penml nf vg znl or.)

The solution takes a quite a few maneuvers to set up, so you might start to feel silly, but it takes less time to set up than G flower flip IMO. Also, you have a lot of options, so long as you don’t shove things into corners or fire by mistake.

The drunk and an evil can both share a disguise as a villager not in play. And hunter #2 is clearly lying because, if they were truthful, all four evils must be in spots #5, #6, and #7, and #8… but drunk is occupying one of those spots, so hunter can’t be telling the truth. Hunter #2 needs to go. Chances are, Hunter #2 is Lilis, which means you can flip the rest of the cards and still win because the health subtraction penalty stops working once Lilis is dead.

Here’s an example of a drunk and demon “double claim”:

https://img.itch.zone/aW1nLzI0NzYyMzE0LnBuZw==/original/8Dk%2Fzt.png

Mine was Rot13 (onobbakkkcnqqvaterzbirgurk)

Interesting enough another (cevzngr) related word solved too: (obabobkkkcnqqvaterzbirgurk)

Ascension 100!

My average Ascension Score - (Ascension lvl × 350) was 1032, with a high water mark of 1820 thanks to about 5 Puppet or Lilis rounds in one ascension with meant blind kills were super viable. (Edit: my average score the last 20 rounds was 1163, median 1155, so definitely improved over the course of things!)

Most dangerous card: Dreamer. The number one cause of lost games. Dreamers can’t be used effectively before an evil kill and using them before a kill makes them very tough to validate later. A dreamer on the board is like you don’t have a card at all. Doppel dreamer and Shaman dreamer games are over-represented in my lost game notes. Now that I am this far out perspective-wise, Dreamer is still one the card needs to be fixed to do more so it has pre-first-kill utility, or simply ditched completely. Secondary nod to the plague doctor for being a round wrecker at times.

Most dangerous evil: Chancellor, replacing a villager for an outcast weakens the board more than the puppeteer or corruptors. A nod to Witch and Baa as well.

‘Pooka party’ hands with just Pooka and 4/5 villagers were a delight when they came up - the frequency was about right too. BTW. The knitter should say “There is only 1 Evil” like scout instead of “Evils are not adjacent to each other” in single evil games (taking into account the Wretch).

I confirmed some edge mechanics I had been wondering about: Lilis kills a random evil, not preferentially the wretch, if only evils are facedown on nightfall. (I have screenshot proof). Stabbing a facedown real knight while a witch is blocking does not flip it. Witnesses can point to evils when lying.

I was a little sad game 6/7 of Ascension 66 and game 7/7 of Ascension 77 weren’t something silly (although I did get a seven card seventh game on ascension 77)

A66 6/7 could be a hand with 5 evils and one wretch in play.

A77 7/7 could be a chancellor, shaman, minion game where they all disguise as bombardiers with a real bombardier outcast and shaman dupes a jester and the final char is a judge. #1 Bombardier, #2 Bombardier, #3 Jester, #4 Jester, #5 Bombardier, #6 Bombardier, #7 Judge (Guaranteed winnable!)

The puppet didn’t lie. The puppet was a scout. The Scout’s testimony gives the distance between the specified Evil and the closest other Evil to it. The Scout’s mechanic is different from the hunter who is distance from self to nearest evil.

The scout gave testimony about the witch, who truly was one card away from #9, a demon.

(Caveat that the wretch can mess this calculus up, but not in this round)

Can you post a full screenshot? You seem to have one more evil to kill because…

#1: You do not have “the village is safe” popup yet which means there must be one more evil left to kill.

#2 Your villager count is 5, minus one for the puppet. So you have 4 real villagers. You have 6 apparent villagers on the board that I see, one of which is a doppelganger. That’s one too many unless you have a second outcast.

#9 medium appears to be evil, pointing at #2 who is a doppelganger. In that configuration 7, 8, 3, and 2 would all be telling the truth.