[blog] Illusera's Chronicles of Madness

The gaming blog: a place for your videogame journey. You'll encounter achievements, wonder, and the joy of discovery as you go on your adventure.

This is not that blog.

Many times we'll play a game and wonder how something flopped so bad, or how you just missed something that easy when it seems metaphorical neon signs were pointing you in that direction and yet you still managed to wander off. So welcome to a record of my gaming fails as I reflect on what happened and recollect how things went south. Because while videogames can do a lot of things right, if you're reading this, maybe you want to know where it all went wrong.

Let's first establish that despite my complaints, I don't bash games. I actually try to avoid it. I'm playing something that a group (or sometimes even one person) put thought and effort into in order to bring it to life and it just seems wrong to bring it down just because I'm feeling particularly salty about it. Such things are designed with a specific target audience in mind, and there are times in which I have to accept that I was not part of that audience or I just misunderstood the intention as other players breezed right through. No matter how annoyed it makes me.

Feel free to share your own fail moments, as I'm sure all of us have had least one or two. This is a judgement free space.*** Maybe I'll feel less silly if I wasn't the only one in my errs. So let's begin!

*** Unless we're talking about the Portopia Serial Murder Tech Preview that I failed at recently. Then I'm totally judging.

Scribble-NOTsScribblenauts is a puzzle platformer for Nintendo DS for younger audiences. There are two types of levels: you can play the "action" level in which it's a platformer from point A to B, or it's a puzzle scenario where you have to generate an object in order to solve the dilemma you or an NPC is presented with.

First of all, I hate how you move in this game. When I lift the stylus I expect Maxwell to stop. Instead, he keeps running for some steps and it's way too loose for me. Just a personal preference on my part though. The Fail was in the first world after the tutorial world. I don't remember what numbered level it was, but there was a girl who wanted flowers, a picnic basket, a greenhouse that served no apparent purpose, a bee, a beehive, a pond with a stupid piranha, and an elevated platform. Here's the layout with approximate spacing:

Girl---Basket-------Greenhouse-------------Bee--Pond--------Platform

If you've played this you probably remember that the game gives you a "hint" at the start of the level that tells you what your objective is. Man wants apple. Fireman wants tool. Farmer wants anim--

WAIT! We need to address the farm animals!

The farmer wanted 3 farm animals. I made a pig and put it in the barn. I made a cow and put it in the barn. I made a horse and for whatever reason, it did not want to go into the barn. I figured that's ok, maybe it's not the kind of farm animal they intended, so I made a sheep. The sheep also did not want to go into the barn, which I thought was unreasonable. I was probably tapping it wrong but for some reason I just couldn't get it to work and it just stayed in front of the barn. I ended up riding the horse unintentionally and I was still trying to get the sheep into the barn. While on top of the horse I tapped "use" on the sheep and Maxwell, while still ahorse (which is actually a word to my surprise), rides over and the horse starts doing something to the sheep. What I didn't realize was that I was actually witnessing a fight. This was revealed to me when the horse killed the sheep.


Fig A: Equus caballus Ovis aries kerfuffle

Now back to the basket.

So the hint says to return the flowers to the girl's basket. I see 2 flowers: one between the greenhouse and the bee and another on the elevated platform. I go to the flower, which pisses off the bee, and it chases me before finally stinging me to death. I was of the mind that the game would prefer that I resolve peacefully due to previous post-level recognitions, so I make a net. This did not work well due to the animation or something as I'm trying to use the net while it's gleefully stinging me. Taking inspiration from a previous level I make a trashcan and throw the bee in there when I finally catch it so I can pick the flower without being harassed. Into the basket it goes. Now to deal with the second flower on the platform. The piranha was not friendly, so I try a raft, which didn't work well as it wasn't long enough. O-kaaaay... how about a bridge? Sank right down. Tried again and it landed on top of the piranha, which sort of worked since it trapped it and propped it above water level at the same time. I made some other boxes to prop more bridge segments on top of. The platform was still too high but that was ok, I could just make a ladder. This is where I fumbled quite a bit; because I already didn't mesh well with how you move and how the physics worked, and all of the objects I just mentioned "scattered" a bit, which made things difficult but I made it up there and got the flower. I get both flowers into the basket and--nothing happens. I'm trying to think of why and end up restarting. At some point I realize that there's a lotus flower in the pond as well, so I think that I'm just missing a third flower. I was already a bit annoyed by this point so I figured screw it, I'll just make my own dang flowers. I put flower after flower after flower in that basket and the level STILL didn't end, so I restarted, figuring the flowers were specific.

After this, there's an entire montage of more fumbling as I'm trying to get all three flowers in the basket. Bee harassment and death by pirhanna munching (and bee stinging). And for some reason, because the girl NPC in here is just thinking "FlowerFlowerFlowerFlowerFlower?FLOWER!" she will follow me when I'm holding one nearby and just crash into the picnic basket, spilling all of the flowers I just put in there. I lost one to the ether twice due to this.


Fig B: A scattering of flora

*inhales deeply*

Much like what happened on Eventide Island in Breath of the Wild (and that's a story for another day), I finally said to the hells with pacifism and started shooting the bee with a bow and arrow. Even the hive, which wasn't necessary, but I was mad. I couldn't shoot the fish because it was right up against the wall and I couldn't quite aim for it, but you get the idea. But I finally did it. I got all three freaking flowers into the basket. And the level still didn't end? WHY? What was I doing wrong?? What did they want from me!?

Oh.

I had... to give... the basket to the girl. Which I slightly misinterpreted from that hint. So I possibly could have just finished this level way up there earlier in this vent when I just generated my own flowers. You'd think this is where I would have quit, but no. I am a stubborn little gamer, so I just filed this under personal development and ended up quitting in the level where I had to fix a car. This was much shorter. Putting aside the fact that I had to drive the car when I could have just walked to the house, I wondered what I had to do to fix the car. Gas? No, that just spilled. Battery? Maxwell just threw it at the car. There's a telephone pole here for some reason... power line? Okay, how to power line with car. Cable? Cable!

I should mention that I never fully mastered the glue mechanic.

Fumbled a bit trying to get the cable to attach to the power thing at the top of the pole but heeey, I got it! Wait, no. It's too short. Ok, another cable? *tries to attach cable to cable and then falls off the pole* You ever had that moment when you're asking yourself how did you get here and why are you still here? I'd been ignoring it for a while but the thought occurred to me that you need to use the post-level currency you earn, which is awarded based on how creative you were, in order to unlock more levels. The direction that this was heading into was me doing levels over again to get more in-game money to literally pay for more nonsense. Ultimately, this is where I retired it. Due to, as my sister said when I was complaining to her, "Money: The Root of All Evil".

I can manage strict button sequences in A Dance of Fire and Ice, figure out logic in Ace Attorney, deal with a good deal of Layton puzzles, do increasingly expert difficulty puzzles in the Puzzledom mobile app, and yet Scribblenauts ends me.

Post-mortem: I was probably really just tapping something wrong. For the basket, I probably skipped over a word when I read the prompt. "Return the flowers to her in her basket."

Hmm, I don't remember Scribblenauts being this bad to me. Then again, I don't remember much about the game. Though now that I'm thinking about it, the subsequent games were possibly better than the first one?

In the future, just remember that "ANGRY GIANT BLUEBERRY MUFFIN" will solve a lot of problems.🤣

Hmm, I don't remember Scribblenauts being this bad to me. Then again, I don't remember much about the game. Though now that I'm thinking about it, the subsequent games were possibly better than the first one?

In the future, just remember that "ANGRY GIANT BLUEBERRY MUFFIN" will solve a lot of problems.🤣

😅 It would not surprise me in the slightest that my experience isn’t the norm. I did think of trying again, but even with putting this aside I wasn’t getting the “must play” vibes so I’d be playing it just to play it and not because I was really feeling it. Who knows? I’m not chucking it so this may change, if only to see how one would use an angry giant blueberry muffin. 🤔

Scribble-NOTsScribblenauts is a puzzle platformer for Nintendo DS for younger audiences. There are two types of levels: you can play the "action" level in which it's a platformer from point A to B, or it's a puzzle scenario where you have to generate an object in order to solve the dilemma you or an NPC is presented with.

First of all, I hate how you move in this game. When I lift the stylus I expect Maxwell to stop. Instead, he keeps running for some steps and it's way too loose for me. Just a personal preference on my part though. The Fail was in the first world after the tutorial world. I don't remember what numbered level it was, but there was a girl who wanted flowers, a picnic basket, a greenhouse that served no apparent purpose, a bee, a beehive, a pond with a stupid piranha, and an elevated platform. Here's the layout with approximate spacing:

Girl---Basket-------Greenhouse-------------Bee--Pond--------Platform

If you've played this you probably remember that the game gives you a "hint" at the start of the level that tells you what your objective is. Man wants apple. Fireman wants tool. Farmer wants anim--

WAIT! We need to address the farm animals!

The farmer wanted 3 farm animals. I made a pig and put it in the barn. I made a cow and put it in the barn. I made a horse and for whatever reason, it did not want to go into the barn. I figured that's ok, maybe it's not the kind of farm animal they intended, so I made a sheep. The sheep also did not want to go into the barn, which I thought was unreasonable. I was probably tapping it wrong but for some reason I just couldn't get it to work and it just stayed in front of the barn. I ended up riding the horse unintentionally and I was still trying to get the sheep into the barn. While on top of the horse I tapped "use" on the sheep and Maxwell, while still ahorse (which is actually a word to my surprise), rides over and the horse starts doing something to the sheep. What I didn't realize was that I was actually witnessing a fight. This was revealed to me when the horse killed the sheep.


Fig A: Equus caballus Ovis aries kerfuffle

Now back to the basket.

So the hint says to return the flowers to the girl's basket. I see 2 flowers: one between the greenhouse and the bee and another on the elevated platform. I go to the flower, which pisses off the bee, and it chases me before finally stinging me to death. I was of the mind that the game would prefer that I resolve peacefully due to previous post-level recognitions, so I make a net. This did not work well due to the animation or something as I'm trying to use the net while it's gleefully stinging me. Taking inspiration from a previous level I make a trashcan and throw the bee in there when I finally catch it so I can pick the flower without being harassed. Into the basket it goes. Now to deal with the second flower on the platform. The piranha was not friendly, so I try a raft, which didn't work well as it wasn't long enough. O-kaaaay... how about a bridge? Sank right down. Tried again and it landed on top of the piranha, which sort of worked since it trapped it and propped it above water level at the same time. I made some other boxes to prop more bridge segments on top of. The platform was still too high but that was ok, I could just make a ladder. This is where I fumbled quite a bit; because I already didn't mesh well with how you move and how the physics worked, and all of the objects I just mentioned "scattered" a bit, which made things difficult but I made it up there and got the flower. I get both flowers into the basket and--nothing happens. I'm trying to think of why and end up restarting. At some point I realize that there's a lotus flower in the pond as well, so I think that I'm just missing a third flower. I was already a bit annoyed by this point so I figured screw it, I'll just make my own dang flowers. I put flower after flower after flower in that basket and the level STILL didn't end, so I restarted, figuring the flowers were specific.

After this, there's an entire montage of more fumbling as I'm trying to get all three flowers in the basket. Bee harassment and death by pirhanna munching (and bee stinging). And for some reason, because the girl NPC in here is just thinking "FlowerFlowerFlowerFlowerFlower?FLOWER!" she will follow me when I'm holding one nearby and just crash into the picnic basket, spilling all of the flowers I just put in there. I lost one to the ether twice due to this.


Fig B: A scattering of flora

*inhales deeply*

Much like what happened on Eventide Island in Breath of the Wild (and that's a story for another day), I finally said to the hells with pacifism and started shooting the bee with a bow and arrow. Even the hive, which wasn't necessary, but I was mad. I couldn't shoot the fish because it was right up against the wall and I couldn't quite aim for it, but you get the idea. But I finally did it. I got all three freaking flowers into the basket. And the level still didn't end? WHY? What was I doing wrong?? What did they want from me!?

Oh.

I had... to give... the basket to the girl. Which I slightly misinterpreted from that hint. So I possibly could have just finished this level way up there earlier in this vent when I just generated my own flowers. You'd think this is where I would have quit, but no. I am a stubborn little gamer, so I just filed this under personal development and ended up quitting in the level where I had to fix a car. This was much shorter. Putting aside the fact that I had to drive the car when I could have just walked to the house, I wondered what I had to do to fix the car. Gas? No, that just spilled. Battery? Maxwell just threw it at the car. There's a telephone pole here for some reason... power line? Okay, how to power line with car. Cable? Cable!

I should mention that I never fully mastered the glue mechanic.

Fumbled a bit trying to get the cable to attach to the power thing at the top of the pole but heeey, I got it! Wait, no. It's too short. Ok, another cable? *tries to attach cable to cable and then falls off the pole* You ever had that moment when you're asking yourself how did you get here and why are you still here? I'd been ignoring it for a while but the thought occurred to me that you need to use the post-level currency you earn, which is awarded based on how creative you were, in order to unlock more levels. The direction that this was heading into was me doing levels over again to get more in-game money to literally pay for more nonsense. Ultimately, this is where I retired it. Due to, as my sister said when I was complaining to her, "Money: The Root of All Evil".

I can manage strict button sequences in A Dance of Fire and Ice, figure out logic in Ace Attorney, deal with a good deal of Layton puzzles, do increasingly expert difficulty puzzles in the Puzzledom mobile app, and yet Scribblenauts ends me.

Post-mortem: I was probably really just tapping something wrong. For the basket, I probably skipped over a word when I read the prompt. "Return the flowers to her in her basket."

The poor sheep was assaulted by a horse! lol That was so funny. But I have to ask: what animal ended up going inside the barn after the fight?

The poor sheep was assaulted by a horse! lol That was so funny. But I have to ask: what animal ended up going inside the barn after the fight?

It was another sheep. I was right, it was being unreasonable!

Well, that was quite an adventure. From horse on sheep violence to stubborn flowers of confusion. I may have been doing some angry scribbling in your place. I think we've probably all had those miss one detail and everything falls apart moments.

Well, that was quite an adventure. From horse on sheep violence to stubborn flowers of confusion. I may have been doing some angry scribbling in your place. I think we've probably all had those miss one detail and everything falls apart moments.

Sometimes I imagine a parallel universe where I didn't read so fast. Alas, what could have been.

Earlier this month I finished The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. It was a good game. I hadn't played such a long game in quite a while, let alone an RPG. It was also my first real open-world experience. There was a big learning curve for me since there was so much to do, little guidance on how to do it, and a lot of ways to mess up. Needless to say, I messed up quite a few times. These are just the highlights.

Eventide Island
I alluded to this in the GOTM thread but I went through more trials than that blasted Hinox. Looking back on it, that may have been the least of my troubles. If I had to rank this in order of most deaths to least, this is the ranking:

1 - Electric Chuchus
2 - Moblins
3 - Hinox

Those horrible jellies have to be the worst thing on that island. Not only due they really hurt since your armor is crap (given that you have none), they stun you and make you drop your stuff. Which means you have to go back for it, get stunned again, and it all just continues in one cycle unless you just count what you dropped as a loss since these things attack with friends. They're not all that bad to damage though, so other than the Moblin posed the most trouble for me. Now, we all know that there is a certain game in which the game wants you to play it. Or maybe we'll call it recommended guidelines. I tried it. I tried stealth, I tried patience, I tried sticking to the items that I scavenged. This did not work for me. What did work was whipping out ye olde Sheikah Slate and start throwing bombs everywhere. If you did a zoom out of Hyrule during my time there, you would have seen something like this as explosions appeared one after the other in various parts of the island. If my Sheikah Slate had been confiscated, legends would still say that I am still on that island, hopelessly trying to get one spirit orb all for principle.



The bomb method worked fairly well for me until I blasted myself right into the atmosphere as I ended myself with one of my own bombs. Sorriest game over screen I've ever seen in my life.

The Master Sword
I'm a resource hoarder when it comes to games, so I try to hold off on using it for fear that something will come up later that really needs it. This happened with the heart containers from doing the shrines. Once I found out I would need a bunch of them to get the sword, I decided to hold off on using them and stocking up. This meant that I would have to rely harder on food items. I think I got the sword some time after the first boss? This is supposed to be THE sword in the game, along with other weapons that you get from defeating the bosses. Would you believe I didn't use either of those weapons once? Not once? (other than the final boss where it's required) For the boss weapons I didn't want them to break, but for the Master Sword I really have no excuse. I literally kept forgetting that I had it. It was suggested to me that maybe this means I have a lot of bragging points for my troubles. I think I would have been better off without the bragging points.

The Final Final Battle
In the last section where you've already hit all of Ganon's weak spots with the arrows, you have one final shot to make. I was already afraid for my horse since I didn't want it to get hurt. I'd gone through the whole game without losing one, I wasn't going to start now! I'm riding all over the place trying to get that final shot but it just kept closing up no matter what I did. I thought I was just a bad shot but it started to feel like it was rigged. Finally Zelda clued me in with some dialogue: "Ride the updraft Link [you ninny!!]!"

Well damn, in all of the excitement, I'd forgotten that this was a thing. So as I went to do just that, in a spot of horrible timing Ganon landed a good shot on my horse. I was very much in a panic but I let the last arrow fly and finally got to see the ending that I'd spent 100+ hours of game time on. It would have been nice if I could have enjoyed it more since I just really wanted the cutscenes and credits to end so I could go check on my horse. Hyrule may have been saved but I didn't want it to be at the expense of my horse! He was my first horse, I was very attached! Thankfully he survived because he's a tough boy. I should know, he gave me a few good kicks before I finally caught him.

Post-mortem: You have a paraglider for a reason, the bragging points aren't worth it, and may Eventide Island sink into the ever loving ocean.

Well, at least I got one good lesson out of Eventide Island.

Hey, I didn't even attempt Eventide. I got there by accident using ice pillars--a silly way to get there in itself--and noped out of doing that and then never returned.

I'm puzzled why you were hoarding the spirit orbs? It's four per heart container no matter what. Or did you just not want to go back to places to use them until you had a lot?

Horses are important! I did have a horse die and I felt horrible even with revival that just felt like more guilt tripping. I'm glad you kept your horse safe.

Haha that's an excellent write up of your experience with Breath of the Wild! I really enjoyed reading that. I'm a bit of a hoarder myself and I don't think I touched the Master Sword for fear it would break even during the final battle. I didn't get attached to a horse for fear I would lose it during the game. I also didn't learn many of the mechanics because the game hardly reaches you anything. It took me after watching the ending to figure out you can parry and dodge attacks....

Hey, I didn't even attempt Eventide. I got there by accident using ice pillars--a silly way to get there in itself--and noped out of doing that and then never returned.

I'm puzzled why you were hoarding the spirit orbs? It's four per heart container no matter what. Or did you just not want to go back to places to use them until you had a lot?

Horses are important! I did have a horse die and I felt horrible even with revival that just felt like more guilt tripping. I'm glad you kept your horse safe.

Why did I hoard spirit orbs? For the same reason I'll finish an rpg with a surplus of X-potions, I keep thinking I would need them for something else. If only future me could have chimed in and informed me my climbing pants and 1 1/2 stamina wheel would be all I'd ever need. Ah well, those hearts indeed came in handy when I was getting the stuffing whacked out of me as I figured out the final boss gimmicks!

I acknowledge your sanity in walking away from Eventide Island. I too stumbled there by accident. Along with Typhlos Ruins. This is pretty much how I was running around Hyrule, and was usually how I got myself into trouble.



I too am glad that my horse survived my shenanigans.

Haha that's an excellent write up of your experience with Breath of the Wild! I really enjoyed reading that. I'm a bit of a hoarder myself and I don't think I touched the Master Sword for fear it would break even during the final battle. I didn't get attached to a horse for fear I would lose it during the game. I also didn't learn many of the mechanics because the game hardly reaches you anything. It took me after watching the ending to figure out you can parry and dodge attacks....

I'm glad you enjoyed it, and thanks for reading! It was maybe 2 or 3 quarters of the way in before I went to the the part where it told me how to target something. Whoops.

Earlier this month I finished The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. It was a good game. I hadn't played such a long game in quite a while, let alone an RPG. It was also my first real open-world experience. There was a big learning curve for me since there was so much to do, little guidance on how to do it, and a lot of ways to mess up. Needless to say, I messed up quite a few times. These are just the highlights.

Eventide Island
I alluded to this in the GOTM thread but I went through more trials than that blasted Hinox. Looking back on it, that may have been the least of my troubles. If I had to rank this in order of most deaths to least, this is the ranking:

1 - Electric Chuchus
2 - Moblins
3 - Hinox

Those horrible jellies have to be the worst thing on that island. Not only due they really hurt since your armor is crap (given that you have none), they stun you and make you drop your stuff. Which means you have to go back for it, get stunned again, and it all just continues in one cycle unless you just count what you dropped as a loss since these things attack with friends. They're not all that bad to damage though, so other than the Moblin posed the most trouble for me. Now, we all know that there is a certain game in which the game wants you to play it. Or maybe we'll call it recommended guidelines. I tried it. I tried stealth, I tried patience, I tried sticking to the items that I scavenged. This did not work for me. What did work was whipping out ye olde Sheikah Slate and start throwing bombs everywhere. If you did a zoom out of Hyrule during my time there, you would have seen something like this as explosions appeared one after the other in various parts of the island. If my Sheikah Slate had been confiscated, legends would still say that I am still on that island, hopelessly trying to get one spirit orb all for principle.



The bomb method worked fairly well for me until I blasted myself right into the atmosphere as I ended myself with one of my own bombs. Sorriest game over screen I've ever seen in my life.

The Master Sword
I'm a resource hoarder when it comes to games, so I try to hold off on using it for fear that something will come up later that really needs it. This happened with the heart containers from doing the shrines. Once I found out I would need a bunch of them to get the sword, I decided to hold off on using them and stocking up. This meant that I would have to rely harder on food items. I think I got the sword some time after the first boss? This is supposed to be THE sword in the game, along with other weapons that you get from defeating the bosses. Would you believe I didn't use either of those weapons once? Not once? (other than the final boss where it's required) For the boss weapons I didn't want them to break, but for the Master Sword I really have no excuse. I literally kept forgetting that I had it. It was suggested to me that maybe this means I have a lot of bragging points for my troubles. I think I would have been better off without the bragging points.

The Final Final Battle
In the last section where you've already hit all of Ganon's weak spots with the arrows, you have one final shot to make. I was already afraid for my horse since I didn't want it to get hurt. I'd gone through the whole game without losing one, I wasn't going to start now! I'm riding all over the place trying to get that final shot but it just kept closing up no matter what I did. I thought I was just a bad shot but it started to feel like it was rigged. Finally Zelda clued me in with some dialogue: "Ride the updraft Link [you ninny!!]!"

Well damn, in all of the excitement, I'd forgotten that this was a thing. So as I went to do just that, in a spot of horrible timing Ganon landed a good shot on my horse. I was very much in a panic but I let the last arrow fly and finally got to see the ending that I'd spent 100+ hours of game time on. It would have been nice if I could have enjoyed it more since I just really wanted the cutscenes and credits to end so I could go check on my horse. Hyrule may have been saved but I didn't want it to be at the expense of my horse! He was my first horse, I was very attached! Thankfully he survived because he's a tough boy. I should know, he gave me a few good kicks before I finally caught him.

Post-mortem: You have a paraglider for a reason, the bragging points aren't worth it, and may Eventide Island sink into the ever loving ocean.

Well, at least I got one good lesson out of Eventide Island.

I'm happy to hear that your horse survived! 🎊 Hurray! Great job!
You gave him a name? I always end up with Epona for horses as I’m not that creative.

I don’t remember much from Breath of the Wild, but I had a hard time trying to collect dragon parts to upgrade my armor. I also remember I had an even harder time trying to get rupees for said upgrades.

I'm happy to hear that your horse survived! 🎊 Hurray! Great job!
You gave him a name? I always end up with Epona for horses as I’m not that creative.

I don’t remember much from Breath of the Wild, but I had a hard time trying to collect dragon parts to upgrade my armor. I also remember I had an even harder time trying to get rupees for said upgrades.

Thanks! He’s an all black horse so I named him Onyx. I named the royal white horse Cloud after this horse documentary I saw once and I got the real Epona from a Twilight Princess amiibo I managed to snag. That reminds me, I never did get around to looking for Ganon’s horse… I found the Lord of the Mountain spirit horse though. Ironically I didn’t ride them all that much. Link was very much in shape from all that running around.

As for armor… my climbing pants went a long way. 😆

What Lies in the Multiverse is a puzzle platformer with dimension shifting mechanics that follows a plot. I'm close to the end and it's been fun; it's pretty unique (at least from my gaming experience). I'd first heard about this from the podcast and when I saw it was on sale decided to chance it. I'd definitely recommend playing it!

But oh, I said it's a puzzle platformer. This obviously means puzzles. In which you will find opportunities to get stuck. Which I did, unjustifiably so.

There is a certain phenomena when it comes to puzzle games. The solutions needed become increasingly complex as the game progresses, which is only logical because as you move farther along, you have to expect a difficulty increase so things can stay interesting. The thing is, you will always be expecting some kind of complicated complex solution, looking into the future as you are planning steps, and making formulaic equations as you ignore the embarrassingly simple step that was sitting right in front of you with anime arrows pointing at it.

The Setup
In this puzzle room, it was required to get two crates onto two switches that would lower two doors so you could pass. These crates would break if you dropped them, left them between platforms, jumped even an iota too high... I'm pretty sure they would break if you sneezed on them. I got the Steam achievement early on for breaking 15 boxes. Really harsh for calling me out like that... I tried harder after this to not break any boxes, if only to avoid backtracking, even though they respawned.

Remember this. This is important.

It's a little hard to describe, but there were 3 levels to this room (top, middle, and bottom). There were 3 kinds of switches:
Red Circle - raises and lowers a platform for as long as it's pressed
Green Square - slides a floor platform from left to right to allow you to pass through
Purple Triangle - opens the door (one on the top level, one on the bottom level)

It's difficult to describe the room itself so here's a visual (outsourced from YouTube longplays, credit to CarrotHelper).



Puzzling Through
Very quickly I learned that getting the box to the bottom was easy (or the second level if you were so inclined). The second box was a problem. Up until then I was doing pretty well on my own without needing a guide, but I could not see how I could get the box up to the switch on the middle platform since I needed it up top on the Red Circle in order to move anything. I tried various combinations with pressing the switches but I always had a problem with the second box. I was sure that a third box was necessary so I ended up backtracking through another triangle door that the switch activated. That must have been there for a reason right? Was it time based? In which I had to be really quick? Or how about-



Nope.

The Punchline
After looking up a walkthrough... remember I said boxes respawn?



That was it. Break the box being used on the Red Circle switch, which I was trying very hard not to do as a matter of dang principle, so it would respawn and I would simply have to walk across to the switch. That was on the same platform. In plain view. Right there. (video here if you need a better look)

Post Mortem: Think outside of the box, and then smash it.

What Lies in the Multiverse is a puzzle platformer with dimension shifting mechanics that follows a plot. I'm close to the end and it's been fun; it's pretty unique (at least from my gaming experience). I'd first heard about this from the podcast and when I saw it was on sale decided to chance it. I'd definitely recommend playing it!

But oh, I said it's a puzzle platformer. This obviously means puzzles. In which you will find opportunities to get stuck. Which I did, unjustifiably so.

There is a certain phenomena when it comes to puzzle games. The solutions needed become increasingly complex as the game progresses, which is only logical because as you move farther along, you have to expect a difficulty increase so things can stay interesting. The thing is, you will always be expecting some kind of complicated complex solution, looking into the future as you are planning steps, and making formulaic equations as you ignore the embarrassingly simple step that was sitting right in front of you with anime arrows pointing at it.

The Setup
In this puzzle room, it was required to get two crates onto two switches that would lower two doors so you could pass. These crates would break if you dropped them, left them between platforms, jumped even an iota too high... I'm pretty sure they would break if you sneezed on them. I got the Steam achievement early on for breaking 15 boxes. Really harsh for calling me out like that... I tried harder after this to not break any boxes, if only to avoid backtracking, even though they respawned.

Remember this. This is important.

It's a little hard to describe, but there were 3 levels to this room (top, middle, and bottom). There were 3 kinds of switches:
Red Circle - raises and lowers a platform for as long as it's pressed
Green Square - slides a floor platform from left to right to allow you to pass through
Purple Triangle - opens the door (one on the top level, one on the bottom level)

It's difficult to describe the room itself so here's a visual (outsourced from YouTube longplays, credit to CarrotHelper).



Puzzling Through
Very quickly I learned that getting the box to the bottom was easy (or the second level if you were so inclined). The second box was a problem. Up until then I was doing pretty well on my own without needing a guide, but I could not see how I could get the box up to the switch on the middle platform since I needed it up top on the Red Circle in order to move anything. I tried various combinations with pressing the switches but I always had a problem with the second box. I was sure that a third box was necessary so I ended up backtracking through another triangle door that the switch activated. That must have been there for a reason right? Was it time based? In which I had to be really quick? Or how about-



Nope.

The Punchline
After looking up a walkthrough... remember I said boxes respawn?



That was it. Break the box being used on the Red Circle switch, which I was trying very hard not to do as a matter of dang principle, so it would respawn and I would simply have to walk across to the switch. That was on the same platform. In plain view. Right there. (video here if you need a better look)

Post Mortem: Think outside of the box, and then smash it.

So often in any kind of puzzle game or game with puzzles it's something so simple... And it can be equal parts frustrating and laughable depending on how much frustration happened first haha. I'm pretty sure in this case though I'd be burying my face in my hands at the realization that the box just needed to broken. But hey these moments happen to us all

So often in any kind of puzzle game or game with puzzles it's something so simple... And it can be equal parts frustrating and laughable depending on how much frustration happened first haha. I'm pretty sure in this case though I'd be burying my face in my hands at the realization that the box just needed to broken. But hey these moments happen to us all

Usually I'm used to Layton games trying to trick me and forgot that other games will do this to me as well. And just when you get wise to that new trick it throws something else at you! I think I got more philosophical than angry... I sat there for a moment thinking, "Well damn."

Point click games are like a big game of trade. I'm not saying that's a bad thing, but at their core that's what they are: I have this item I randomly picked up, how about I give it to you so I can take that thing I really need off your hands? The real challenge in playing these is figuring out who wants what, and sometimes why you even have a thing in the first place.

As part of a personal goal to play a certain amount of "spooky" games, I completed both Darkside Detective games for October. Depending on your experience level you may find these games very easy or just about right. As I I don't like being stuck in one place for too long, for me it was just right. There was also some "Now how was I supposed to know that?" but even then there were some obvious misses. These are all from A Fumble in the Dark, as they decided to up their game a little with the sequel.

"In case of emergency, break-"
There's a reason why I have this stone hammer. What are they expecting me to cobble together?


A Good Old Christmas Seance
There was a ritual fire, and I had thrown in 4 of the 5 necessary seasonal representations of the holiday spirit in order to summon a... holiday spirit. Where oh where was that 5th one? I had gone everywhere, clicked everything, what exactly had I missed? All I had were some homemade battery materials, a spirit containment unit, and some building material that I was saving to fix something I hadn't found yet.

I need to stop taking these things so literally.


Tools of the Trade
I really have no excuse for this. As I was already on good terms with the priest on Christian dance dj duty from the first game, you'd think I would have made the connection so he could give me his holy water gun. I think I had wanted to save it for the adjacent evil bear. Ah! Look at the look Dooley is giving me, even he can't believe it!


Place Your Bids
So there was an auction hall that I needed to get into. I had a manual for old Soviet technology, some poorly painted parrots, and a cookie of questionable origins. There had to be someone who had the munchies somewhere, as I certainly wasn't going to eat it. What I did not realize at the time, was that small group of discreet pixels was actually a gavel.


While I really wanted to get annoyed with this, I would have lost that case considering what it says when you hover over him. Look at him giving my character the stare; he's probably wondering why I haven't given him that cookie yet.



Post-mortem: The hover caption may be trying to clue you in, and sometimes you need to resist your impulses to build things.

Nice blog and see you are a zelda fan. Do you prefer the original or the newer zelda games?

Nice blog and see you are a zelda fan. Do you prefer the original or the newer zelda games?

Both are ok to me and I don’t have a strong preference of one over the other. I may tend to get more stuck in 2D Zelda though.

I think I may have seen something of Klonoa back in the day but not enough to really remember much. The Phantasy Reverie Series kept going on sale so I decided to try it out on a whim. It's a nice little platformer; I'm surprised to find that this series has so many entries since it was virtually unknown to me so I'll probably look at the others at some point.

For the most part Klonoa is pretty easy. Other than some careful jumps here and there, it's nothing too crazy and you can just breeze by. There's even an infinite lives feature on easy mode if you don't want to deal with game overs. I'm pretty much at end game by now, and the only thing that really threw me for a loop was a door. See, most people have a problem with a door that they're trying to open. My problem was the opposite in which I had a doorless key.

In terms of structure the levels are linear and fairly short. You can easily come back to areas you haven't explored yet and it often branches back to places that you already have. So I get to the top of the area in stage 3-2 where Joka was guarding the key and after you have that, for all intents and purposes you're at a dead end since there's nothing else you have to do there. Up to now the doors had always been very visually there and I could not remember seeing another door that was locked. Adding to this was that it was pretty late by the time I was at this part and I should have called it quits a while ago, but I really wanted to finish the stage so I could save my progress. Time pressure.

I didn't see it here.


Nor there.


How many times have I passed past this brid- wait.


The funny thing about this is while I was getting the screenshots for this the second time around, I paid a little more attention to a very short cutscene when you enter the area where Joka is locking the door. It was pretty close up so you couldn't quite see the context, but I can't help but wonder if it was included for the very same reason why I was going back and forth for 20 minutes.
Well, they tried.

Post Mortem: Yeah I'm going to go with lack of sleep.

Hello. Itsa me with another one.



While I loved Donkey Kong 94 while growing up, I didn't pay much attention to the remake of its sequel when it was announced. Probably because I don't play many Mario games to begin with, but somewhere along the way I decided to try it on a whim. The original GBA version that is. I'd say it lives up to the original with a few new changes. While I have a few technical nitpicks it's indeed a solid puzzle platformer. There are 6 main worlds to go through with some other post levels to play. They're still very short though, and I found myself going through them rather quickly.

Until 5-3.

Compared to other stages, 5-3 isn't very big. There are 4 switches to manage but except for a few steps they, the key, and the door can practically be seen on the same screen. Getting the key up to where the door was wasn't a problem, however, once you take the key from it's starting position and drop it somewhere, it'll go back to where you took it from in 12 seconds. Alongside with this, you have to use the conveyer belts to get around (toggling 2 of the switches as necessary to reverse the direction) and two color switches to remove the roadblocks so you and the key can actually get through. As it's a puzzle platformer, you'll have to get the order right in order to clear the level.

I was seriously wondering how one was supposed to have enough time to do everything that was needed without the key timing out, but I never seemed to have enough time. Getting back to the lower conveyor belt was also annoying as I kept falling on it by accident and reversed the conveyor belt direction, causing the key to fall down from where I left it. As I finally achieved this extremely tight speedrun, I realized something. While I'll look up a guide for point clicks when I get stuck, I get extremely stubborn when it comes to platformers.

Here's how a normal person would clear this stage.



And here's how I chose to do it, with the key being on exactly the last second. It's quite difficult to run against a conveyer belt that's running in the opposite direction. It's also difficult to fall to the lower left level while avoiding pressing a floor switch when you're in a rush.



I'm still shocked that I made it.

Post-mortem: Hard mode in this game comes after the main levels, not before them.

What do you get when you combine the following:

1. A game that was review bombed
2. Said game being not optimized/is unsupported for Steam deck
3. Someone who has never played anything like Call of Duty, except for maybe that one section in L.A. Noir



The What: Demons have invaded the Earth in hordes and a gun wielding witch fights back. A simple plot, even though a couple of things didn't make sense or were not explained but we're just going to go with it.

Firstly, I do like the concept. I like the idea of using guns and magic in combat. The main character and weapon have a cool design, and while the look of the weapon doesn't vary much when you rotate among the different forms, it has a nifty spin animation when you switch. That's about where my pros end... there are some long expanses of area to travel and while you don't run particularly slow, it can feel like slow going as it can be quite a distance from point A to point B. From what I've read, it was so much that a developer debug ability was added in that allows you to fast dash over long distances, which made it into the Steam port I played. Despite being unsupported for Steam deck, it's actually quite playable. The only trouble I ran into was most cinematics not loading and were automatically skipped as a result, and just once in mission 5 everything went black and only the reticule was visible. I still heard things happening in the game but I couldn't see anything; it wasn't anything a reboot of the game didn't fix. As I was able to watch the cinematics I missed on YouTube, that wasn't a huge problem either.

Some of the gameplay mechanics could have used some work. If a sniper got you in his laser sight and shot you, it was instakill no matter how much health you had, the same as if one of the brain-looking-floating "Walnut Heads" threw something from the environment at you. The support AI was... odd. If my soldier backup guys weren't getting right in my line of fire when I was emptying a clip of bullets, other times they penned themselves in a 6-inch-ish depression in the floor that they could not escape as they have no jump functions and lacked the ability to step out of it. To be fair, they were probably safer in there.



One of the AI in particular, that blond Captain guy on the left, was not given any consideration for continuity. In mission 3, he kindly decided to provide some backup only to get transformed into a monster. It was disturbing to see him literally spazzing out all over the place as he tried to attack me, so unfortunately I had to put him out of commission. I look down at him to see if there was anything I could do, but you can only use the healing spell if the subject is not dead, and as he was 100% D-E-D dead, there indeed wasn't anything else I could do other then move on. I needn't have worried, as in the cinematic immediately after that mission he turned out to be alive and well, and apparently none the wiser. All that was missing was for the game to break the fourth wall by saying, "WELL ANYWAY..." Mr. Captain also followed me along in mission 5 with some other soldiers, but I lost track of him a some point. I looked around and wondered where everyone went before thinking that they probably went missing some time around when I called down that huge tornado that wiped out the opposing forces. Not to worry, Captain probably started with nine lives as he again showed up in a later cinematic.


Screenshot taken from a YouTube video later, as I was laughing too much at the time and missed my chance.

If you're read my previous blog entries, you might be wondering where I'm going with this. From what I've covered, the issues are largely out of the player's control. With a game with questionable mechanics and sometimes bugs, how did it get a spot here?

The Moment: It's the final boss, and it has some strong shields that I can't get through. My soldier friends are there to help me, but I have to stand around and wait for them to shoot it enough for the shields to break. They eventually regenerate, so I have to wait for them to break every time they go back up for me to do any damage. They eventually just stay gone, which invites more of an ongoing problem of where to shoot it, and am I even doing any damage when I'm shooting it. I'm shooting at it for so long that I actually Google it to see if I ran into a bug but it turns out that if you didn't get the gatling gun, it really does take that long to take him down. So it's a lot of him walking back and forth, feeding him bullets, trying not to hit my friends and healing them when needed, dodging snakes and green ectoplasm and hiding from fireballs. I hadn't died yet and finally all three snakes were cut off and boss guy is limping away from me. The disembodied voice in my head tells me to finish him so I get close and cut loose with the recently unlocked most powerful spell that the game has to offer, Meteor. It rains down on him and... he's still limping away. Ok fine, my magic has been used up but maybe a few more shots will do it? As he turns around, I run over to him, take out my gun, and drop dead.

As I stared at the Continue screen in disbelief, I theorized on what had happened. As with the previously mentioned Walnut Head enemies, one hit from thrown debris kills you instantly. Considering the debris that was around, it is my belief that I was ended at the end of the boss fight by a random flying rock.

Post-mortem: If you're playing on easy mode, a disembodied voice in your head says to finish him, and you feel like you're going to finish a Mortal Kombat fight with a Final Fantasy Meteor spell, you expect to finish him. You do not expect to experience death by random flying rock.