Feel free, of course, to discuss the matters from the first chapter further. But let's also move on to...
Chapter 2: The Innocent Abandoned
Where the first chapter were knee-deep in Poe-like gothic macabre, now we suddenly and inexplicably pay a visit to a little town that could have been imagined by Stephen King. What happened to its inhabitants who disappeared... and what happened to those who didn't?
We'll give ourselves a full working week again, but this level is five or six times longer than the previous one, so it should be okay. Stop playing as soon as Chapter 3, "The Courtyard and Chapel", starts. We'll be beginning the next chunk on
Saturday, September 11th.
Three remarks to new players before we start.
For one, do install the patch if you haven't already. You'll have only a very short segment to replay, and you'll reduce the risk of frustration at later stages. I myself had no problems until halfway through chapter two, and then - see my previous post.
For two, there is one pixel hunt in this chapter that got many players (me included) stuck, where one, and only one, of several objects of the same type is pickable. Knowing what it is might spoil part of a puzzle, so I'll leave it to you to decide whether to learn specifics:
Spoiler:You can take one of the stones from in front of the church.
Finally, due to non-linearity of this level, you might actually confront the villain of this part too early, which doesn't cause a dead-end or anything, but is (IMHO) quite anticlimactic to the whole mystery of the town. Stumbling upon this path requires both certain luck with the puzzles and exploring things in non-obvious order - it is in fact only now, in the third playthrough of the game that I discovered this possibility. But still, it
is possible, however unlikely, so I am mentioning it. If you are really paranoid about such things, and don't mind my stifling your freedom of exploration just to avoid it, feel free to read my somewhat-spoiling advice:
Spoiler:Don't enter the Pumpkin Patch until you think you did everything you could everywhere else.
Have fun, and post your thoughts and impressions along the way.
