itch.io

Thanks for the encouragement. In general I prefer to figure all these things out on my own, but I'm sure I already partly spoiled what you're talking about by scrolling too far down in the comments anyway. Guess I just ran out of patience, but like I said I'm not mad.

In terms of how long it'll take me to get around to trying again, if ever, you can blame pathological demand avoidance for me simply not wanting to do things on anyone's time frame including my own. This game will probably be preserved for most of the rest of my life, so there's a decent chance I'll revisit it eventually, but my main obsessions right now are quite unrelated.

Welp, after getting up the right side, realizing I didn't know how to get to the lever, doing one of the left side ones, and struggling with key+flip for a while, I reset my save data to check if the cracked blocks from the "ending" were a hint to something in the intro. They weren't, and save data reset is irreversible (as advertised). Not really mad, I kinda did it to myself, but I think I'm done for now. Maybe I'll try again in a few years lol

"Well, if you like everything, of course you like this game. That doesn't mean it's any good."

(I just thought it was funny that you said it that way)

Did you try changing your cookie settings? I think blocking cookies sometimes breaks the game's save system. If not you might have to use a different browser

Seems like the game miscalculated the number displayed on the "extended eye" clue in the leftmost column, it should be 15 instead of 14.
I think this is the first time I've run into any glitches in this game, I've come back to it time and time again, thanks for making such a great game.

Also I just realized you'd asked for help in the exact same spot and I'd replied two months earlier lol

How could I resist helping out a fellow chicken? Sorry it's so late, but for the tree riddle, [spoilers below]

I think he wants to know what time it is, and then you might be able to get somewhere.

Well, I did the whole quest (without finding the quest log because the game is too big for my browser window), then had one goblin left and clicked "menu" to see what it would do and was forced to start over. However, I think I've now broken the quest progression...

[SPOILERS FOR THE QUEST]

I moved the windmill blades before talking to the miller. His daughter showed up and she sang her song but wouldn't say anything about feeling calmer. I went through the quest progression again afterward, but after talking to the miller the daughter's dialogue didn't change, and I don't think I can do anything else. That means I'm locked out of the tree goblin as far as I can tell.

Yeah the same thing happened to me lol, luckily I realized after like 10 min or so

Oh my god.

I have a double jump.

Disregard my blathering I suppose.

OK, after restarting I was able to make a little progress and better determine some of the mechanics. Seems like I got stuck because of a level design error or inconsistency in the movement code rather than a bug with a mechanic.

However, I'm now stuck in -1:B and frustrated because I can't tell what happens when I try to make the last jump in the middle, whether it's actually impossible due to movement issues or whether I just need to adjust something.

I'm playing in Firefox Linux (snap) on a laptop which runs Kubuntu 22.04.1 with a Core i5 CPU and integrated graphics. Just in case that's helpful for any reason regarding my possible inability to jump high enough.

On the second screen, I tried to use an ad-infested free QR scanner I already had on my Android, and I had so much trouble getting it to work that I blinked and then the QR wasn't on screen anymore. Idk if that's intentional but it happened twice.

Then I teleported or fell into the water in screen 2D and now I can't get out by blinking or platforming, blinking didn't do anything and I apparently can't jump high/far enough.

Maybe I'll try again, the blinking is a cool mechanic, but it seems like there are bugs and the QR gimmick makes things very difficult. I guess you were trying to make the mechanical difficulty and time delay of using my phone part of the difficulty/frustration of the blinking, and I'm not sure I vibe with that in practice.

Huh, I might have expected the swf file to still be in the page source code here, but I guess not. It's pretty easy to get it from Flashpoint anyway. But I do appreciate that you went to the effort to find it.

(By the way, "Shockwave Flash" is actually completely different from the Shockwave player/platform. Flash and Shockwave are two different plugins, both made by Macromedia which was later bought out by Adobe; Shockwave was much less frequently used, and used .dcr files rather than .swf. Why Flash was branded as "Shockwave Flash" for so long, I have no idea. One of the most confusing naming mixups in programming. Anyway, Flashpoint runs both, along with every other web plugin anyone knows of.)

Well, someone else commenting on this mentioned that if you jump while this is happening, you can sometimes get them to reverse, so the purple guy is pushing the red guy upward. So I don't think it has anything to do with weight. I'm honestly leaning toward b (some slight weirdness in how the game physics were implemented).

I think I first played this on Armor Games or somewhere way back when it came out, but I've come back to replay it a couple times. Just got a casual 38:27, not too shabby!

(I speedran Firefly Forest, but I don't tend to enjoy pushing myself to perform well in skill challenges like this one. I'm just happy with whatever I get.)

Did you read what was on the other tree in that area? That hint applies right there in the same area (and nearby). You'll know you've done it right because you'll get one new note from that puzzle.

I don't remember what happened, but I think I couldn't actually get back into the boxes? Either way, this was intended as more of a sort of "bug report" just in case they felt like fixing it, or just a silly little thing that didn't bother me too much. I appreciate your effort to help though lol

Yeah it's been hosted on a bunch of other sites, but this is the page of the guy who actually made it (Richard Lems)

Yeah I just noticed that, I wasn't sure if it was physics engine weirdness or momentum/altitude weirdness. My guess is it's the former.

On level 21 I'm noticing that when the red guy and the purple guy land on each other, the red guy drags the purple guy slowly down toward the ground. Is that a) intentional, b) physics weirdness, or c) level-specific positioning weirdness?

Oh god the yellow guys are like when my arrow keys get stuck while trying to play platformers lmao

This is undoubtedly the best PuzzleScript game I've ever played. I tend to lose focus on them pretty quickly, but this one had me engaged from start to finish, logs and all. When I got stuck it always felt like if I looked and thought a little harder I would figure it out, and I always did. (Even that little trick with the current in that one room in the bottom row.) Really fantastic work.

I mean, for a PuzzleScript game, just having any kind of saving is pretty neat lol

Many times I've run into puzzles that just didn't make sense to me because the developer's intuition or logic flow didn't line up with mine. Sometimes it can help to play other puzzle games by the same developer to try to get a sense for their logic.

!reveN ?eM ?ecrof-eturB

I just figured out where to start but not how to proceed.

...pilf ot evah uoy sngis eht htiw aera eht fo edis thgir eht no ffuts driew emos s'erehT

Quite fun puzzles, as usual, although the ending did feel a bit disappointing after all that build-up. No clue where the secret area would be, I'll have a look around I suppose.

Edit: found where the entrance probably is, now how to get in...

(!duol tuo hgual em edam taht ,knar rieht togrof lareneg eht woh etaicerppa I)

I got it using the order given, I think it's correct. I don't want to describe the actual locations, but it seemed to work the way I expected it to. The text clue on the small screen was a bit confusing, so I basically just ignored it and followed my intuition as to how to interpret the big screen, and it worked.

(MILD PUZZLE SPOILERS)

.serutcip eht redro ot srebmun eht desu neht dna .cte nwohs rebmun tsrif eht htiw nwohs erutcip tsrif eht detaicossa I

(MORE SERIOUS PUZZLE SPOILERS)

elddim reppu ,swodniw dezis yltnereffid eht neewteB :1

thgir rewol ,swodniw llams fo nmuloc eht ni tsewol dnoceS :2

tfel reppu ,stracenim owt eht neewteB :3

thgir reppu ,galf gnicaf-thgir eht ot txeN :4

tfel reppu ,steparap eht fo elddiM :5

Of course! There's never any shame in admitting you're stuck, and I'm glad to have helped you out. A long time ago I decided that using a walkthrough to finish a puzzle game doesn't necessarily make the experience less valuable, because for me it often doesn't make it less fun or interesting, and I can appreciate puzzles I couldn't solve and ones I never even would have seen. Plus, often if your intuition about a puzzle doesn't match the developer's intuition and how they expect you to approach it (e.g. assuming "this looks weird I probably need a key" rather than trying to interact with it first), it can make it completely impossible. I often recommend trying to get a sense for different developers' puzzle logic if you can't parse it, by playing through some of their games with walkthroughs, before attempting to beat maybe a harder one on your own.

I think it's OK to do that as long as you're given instructions or clues you can write down to avoid having to do trial and error. In that respect it's not actually what I would call a "maze" since the intention isn't to get you lost but to block you from progressing until you have the clue you need.

If you ended up back at the beginning, you didn't follow one or more of the dot patterns correctly. You will end up partially retracing your steps, but your path should soon diverge again.

Oh OK nice, thanks for letting me know! Now I can continue to die repeatedly on the laser part without concern.

I'm alarmed to discover from the comments that the bonus challenge rewards a different ending, because I would have wanted to achieve the normal ending first, and started the bonus challenge on the understanding that there really was no reward (as was stated at the start). Now I'm partway through the bonus room and I really don't want to lose that progress, so (I assume) I'll never see the normal ending unless I lose the progress or replay the whole game.

Other than that, phenomenal as always. Does feel a bit too linear to be called a "metroidvania," the same way Amidst the Sky did; even though you're technically backtracking for collectibles, you generally know exactly where to go and it's very driven toward progressing in those few directions. (I realize now it wasn't you who called it that, actually it was Bart Bonte. But the point stands.)

It will probably be in the next update of Flashpoint. I could curate it and then upload the curation to Drive with instructions on how to add it to your own copy of Flashpoint, but other than that I don't know if there's any way to play it while fully offline.

Amidst the Sky is the one you're thinking of. Casper has several of these fantastic platformers, with various degrees of skill vs puzzle content. These two are on the "completely skill-based" end of the spectrum, along with Soul Mirror. If you want a more even balance of puzzle vs skill, try Temple of the Four Serpents and Tower of the Scorched Sea. If you want puzzle platforming with a much lower skill barrier, try the two Cursed Travels games. And if you want no platforming but plenty of puzzling, go for Lost in Firefly Forest.

If they abuse it that's their choice to not get the full experience of the end of the game. I think it's more important to give Casper as many details as possible in case he happens to want to try to fix it.

The way I define "bug" is that it has to actually negatively impact gameplay. I'd prefer to call it a "glitch" because we talk about benign glitches all the time, but the term "bug" seems inherently bad to me, like it bugs you. I realize that people define these terms in different ways, but I don't see why it should be dev-specific.

That said, there was an actual bug in the game, and I'll admit I behaved horribly in this comment section and made only feeble attempts to rectify it. I'm not deleting anything because I need to take responsibility for it, but I apologize that you have to read those comments.

Three tiles up, specifically. Don't end up in a wall!

Came back to this and decided to mess with the endings a bit because I remembered someone mention talking about exploring during an ending sequence. I did the quest for ending B, threw the wood on the big fire, and talked to it to make the dog show up, and then discovered that most NPCs were still around! I could even go talk to the tree to get more wood, then throw it on the same fire again and replay that sequence in slightly buggy fashion. (Having the power of friendship locked me off from A though.) I tried throwing wood on the small fire and then talking to it, to see if I could confuse the game by doing two endings at once, but that locked me into ending E and most of the NPCs disappeared (including the other fire and the dog) so I couldn't try activating B anymore. For some reason, the shadow guy disappeared when nobody else did, and the throw powerup (edit: also the sapling) stuck around when nobody else did.

BIG EDIT: So if you do what I did, which was activate ending B but then go to ending E at the last minute, you get the normal E sequence, but it turns out that the ending screen displays the B ending message, and the credits play the acoustic or Odin and display the fire picture instead of the special E credits. Since I already had all the endings, I don't know which would unlock, but it's likely that it would unlock the B ending and not the E ending. I think that might be worth fixing! I didn't even have to stone-skip-jump to get to this state, because the rock was still in the river as the doggy song was playing.

Oh yeah, the other thing I noticed was that if you have the cloud raining on screen, and you pause for a while, when you unpause the game a whole lot of accumulated raindrops get dumped at once. That one was pretty funny.

Yeah that was a good thought, but it still ends up starting the exact moment you hit pause... It hardly ruins the game though! I'm just a harsh critic.