Date played: August 18th
Platform: PS4
Shay is still stuck, trying to find an electronics genius and an anti-gravity thrust unit. I scoured every inch of the map once more, trying items with people, or with other objects, but to no avail. The only meaningful conversation I had was with F'ther, who described a knot to me, trying a few techniques to see if he could untie it. Brother Lightbeard was still stuck up in his cloud.
Unsuccessful, I continued speaking with people until I reached Carol, who is working on some fishing hooks. She apparently knows about knots, and offers give me instructions to untie the knot, but she needs a writing utensil first! I remembered that Alex, back in the ship, always had a good old pencil on his ear, so I went straight to him and borrowed it.
Armed with her new pencil, Carol then asks me to describe the knot... This being a hilariously written adventure game, I wasn't surprised to see a series of subjective, vague descriptions made available to me, such as "A bucket of fingers". I picked the one that seemed to fit the knot I saw back in cloud village, had Carol draw instructions, then returned to F'ther.
I really shouldn't have been surprised, but when I brought Carol's instructions back to F'ther, I had to give another set of funny, but convoluted and vague instructions to untie the knot. My options ranged from "Steal the banana" to "Tug on the piggy's tail" or even "Make the boat go under the bridge". It was a fun sequence.
When I was successful, Brother Lightbeard's big sham was revealed! Of course, his special cloud was floating thanks to the anti-gravity thrust unit that he stole from Alex's ship. But more surprising was his hidden hoard of useless junk. For a guy who preached "lightness" and a detachment from materialism, this was quite a hidden vice... Out of his hoard, an electronic talking fish fell, all the way to the branches of the speaking tree down in the forest.
The next puzzle required me to make the tree laugh with a good joke, so that he would shake his branches from laughter and make the electronic singing fish fall out. I struggled with this as the conversation tree (Ha, get it?) was weird. I had a few "set up" lines, like "What did the axe say to the stump?". I also had a series of punchlines, most of which were terrible. For example, "Because the coffee tastes terrible!". Eventually, I found a combination that worked for the tree, something about his bank's "branch" closing down (urgh). It was actually lots of fun to try out all the combinations and see the tree's reactions.
I got the fish, showed it to Carol and told her I caught it with my crochet hook. Satisfied with my hook, she gave me her old wire! I brought the anti-gravity thrust unit to Alex, who installed it on the ship. Then I attempted to repair the little robot I have with my new wire. Unfortunately, there is a big number of possible configurations with these wires, and I can't make sense of it. I did figure out that the places I put wire will create a different pictogram when the robot is placed in a special spot. I have no idea what the pictures mean though, and was honestly completely stuck.
Desperate, I decided to start playing Vella's act 2, hoping it would reveal something about the pictograms at some point. Vella is kind of stranded at the bottom of the ship. There's only a few things nearby, including Shay's good friend, the knife. The homicidal maniac and Vella seem to get along quite well too.
I solved a simple puzzle where I had to use the knife to cut apart some tubing and repair the nearby broken airlock. This also turned off the gravity generator, so the next puzzle was spent in zero g! This next one required that I use a mechanical arm, fitted with a nice knitted sweater, to grab some magnetic boots in zero g. These were protected by a giant mechanical arm, probably from Mog Chothra's broken tentacles. I was then able to swing myself into the opened airlock nearby. I stopped playing there, but I can't wait to see what Vella finds aboard the ship!
Platform: PS4
Shay is still stuck, trying to find an electronics genius and an anti-gravity thrust unit. I scoured every inch of the map once more, trying items with people, or with other objects, but to no avail. The only meaningful conversation I had was with F'ther, who described a knot to me, trying a few techniques to see if he could untie it. Brother Lightbeard was still stuck up in his cloud.
Unsuccessful, I continued speaking with people until I reached Carol, who is working on some fishing hooks. She apparently knows about knots, and offers give me instructions to untie the knot, but she needs a writing utensil first! I remembered that Alex, back in the ship, always had a good old pencil on his ear, so I went straight to him and borrowed it.
Armed with her new pencil, Carol then asks me to describe the knot... This being a hilariously written adventure game, I wasn't surprised to see a series of subjective, vague descriptions made available to me, such as "A bucket of fingers". I picked the one that seemed to fit the knot I saw back in cloud village, had Carol draw instructions, then returned to F'ther.
I really shouldn't have been surprised, but when I brought Carol's instructions back to F'ther, I had to give another set of funny, but convoluted and vague instructions to untie the knot. My options ranged from "Steal the banana" to "Tug on the piggy's tail" or even "Make the boat go under the bridge". It was a fun sequence.
 |
| Brother Lightbeard was a fraud!!! |
The next puzzle required me to make the tree laugh with a good joke, so that he would shake his branches from laughter and make the electronic singing fish fall out. I struggled with this as the conversation tree (Ha, get it?) was weird. I had a few "set up" lines, like "What did the axe say to the stump?". I also had a series of punchlines, most of which were terrible. For example, "Because the coffee tastes terrible!". Eventually, I found a combination that worked for the tree, something about his bank's "branch" closing down (urgh). It was actually lots of fun to try out all the combinations and see the tree's reactions.
I got the fish, showed it to Carol and told her I caught it with my crochet hook. Satisfied with my hook, she gave me her old wire! I brought the anti-gravity thrust unit to Alex, who installed it on the ship. Then I attempted to repair the little robot I have with my new wire. Unfortunately, there is a big number of possible configurations with these wires, and I can't make sense of it. I did figure out that the places I put wire will create a different pictogram when the robot is placed in a special spot. I have no idea what the pictures mean though, and was honestly completely stuck.
Desperate, I decided to start playing Vella's act 2, hoping it would reveal something about the pictograms at some point. Vella is kind of stranded at the bottom of the ship. There's only a few things nearby, including Shay's good friend, the knife. The homicidal maniac and Vella seem to get along quite well too.
I solved a simple puzzle where I had to use the knife to cut apart some tubing and repair the nearby broken airlock. This also turned off the gravity generator, so the next puzzle was spent in zero g! This next one required that I use a mechanical arm, fitted with a nice knitted sweater, to grab some magnetic boots in zero g. These were protected by a giant mechanical arm, probably from Mog Chothra's broken tentacles. I was then able to swing myself into the opened airlock nearby. I stopped playing there, but I can't wait to see what Vella finds aboard the ship!
