Adventure Gamers - Forums

Hello!
I’m finally able to jump into this. The game is up and running, and I will be doing both - prologue and first part tomorrow. Looking forward to it, it’s been awhile since I played wholesome magical adventure.

DCast - 04 October 2023 01:15 AM

Hello!
I’m finally able to jump into this. The game is up and running, and I will be doing both - prologue and first part tomorrow. Looking forward to it, it’s been awhile since I played wholesome magical adventure.

Now the full voters club is complete. Welcome. 

Thanks for the welcome!
I’m at a stopping point.  I like what I’m seeing here so far. For some reasons it felt right to sum up my first impressions in cliff notes version, so here it goes:

- VAST world to explore. Beautiful color scheme, tons of details and just amazing art all around.

- Because the locations are so sprawling it took me a second to figure out that some are side-scrolling (which made me wish for a faster walking speed in addition to “double-click to exit” feature) and made me appreciative of what seems like a very unique fast-travel option (didn’t have a chance to test it yet) we eventually got. I did wish for it during this first chapter, but I’ll take what I can get.

- I realized that I’m so used to more prevalent in current times method of dropping player right into the game/not having long intros, that I felt the opening sequence was a bit too cryptic to be this long, but I’m invested in helping young Hazelnut now, although I feel like the stakes aren’t really high enough to be totally engrossed… yet. I think 10-years-ago me wouldn’t even notice this intro though, those were a lot more popular back than.

- Highlight function is LIFE in this game, as it does have its pixel hunting moments. And it’s creatively implemented too.

- Puzzles so far feel very grocery list-ish. I didn’t mind doing that in this part because it let me familiarize myself with the world of the game and get to know its inhabitants, but I sure hope we won’t be running everyone’s chores for the entirety of the game.

- I got semi-stuck twice. Once was when I didn’t think that pressing both bells in the cafe (with the same person answering too!) would lead to entirely different dialogues and will move story forward. That’s on me, and the second time when I tried grappling hook on the cheese wheel out of sheer desperation, and it worked. I suppose I can sorta, kinda see logic in it - trying something sharp to carve a piece of something hard, but again I’m talking about GRAPPLING HOOK on a CHEESE WHEEL, so yeah, it didn’t immediately jump to me as a solution. I have had a few of those directionless moments so far already, and I have a feeling that these won’t go anywhere, so I’m fully prepared to immediately try stuff out no matter how far fetched it seems - it will be one of those games.

- I think the journal works in a sort of a strange manner, or maybe someone can explain it to me better, because I can see what the lines in white and the lines that are no longer highlighted mean, but the logic behind the ones in yellow doesn’t really click, although I THINK I can see where the game is going with it.

- I have tried the “hint” function exactly once to see how it works, and it didn’t seem any helpful to me. It gave generic info about current quest, and I don’t want to press it further - but is that how it works? Just as a quest reminder?

- I really missed an opportunity to talk to everyone about my current tasks, but it seems that dialogues are fixed in this game and you can’t really have new questions pop-up in them - they only progress when scripted, which, on the other hand, frees me up from running around and seeing if some obscure new line of dialogue appeared to move story forward (looking at you, Black Mirror), so that’s not a bad thing at all, just an observation.

- I really like the cinematic soundtrack and voice-over. I even dig a bit of a nasal way our main hero speaks - somehow it makes him sound even more like a real kid a few days away from going back to school. Main menu theme is rad too.

Overall, this was enjoyable, and I’m looking forward to continue. If the puzzle element will open up a bit to more than catering to everyone’s needs in a fetch quest manner, this will be all around wholesome experience indeed.

P.S. Thanks for mentioning collectibles, Sefir. I’m not all that into stuff like this, but I usually like to at least give it a go without being too hard-core about it, and I would have never guessed I can do those without you mentioning it. This game is sneaky like that despite a VERY detailed tutorial. 

DCast, while the vast majority of the riddles will continue to be inventory-based and you WILL have more “chore-like” quests in the future, most of them are behind us, so no big worries.

So how has everyone been faring thus far? Have you finished making helping friends around Mousewood? Are you ready to move to the next chapter?

I seem to have finished the initial round of tasks and made it to the Hall of Apprentices.  Curious to see where things go from here.

Overall, I quite appreciate the high production values of this title and the variety in the voice acting.  There’s another film I am reminded of, The Mouse and His Child from the late 1970’s, somewhat darker in tone and all but forgotten today.

My favorite character so far is the mole radio DJ, hopefully he has a bit more to do from here on out.

Most frustrating puzzle was definitely the second attempt to pass by Humber from the boat. I knew that the flyer advertising violin lessons was the key to distracting him, but such a roundabout way to get it to him.

And I grow weary of skipping through the long dialogs, particularly when you have to wait out the pauses as in Churchmouse and Son as Doom also mentioned.

Good on all the world-building, let’s see the story really take off now…

Seeing that there are many people who still havent finished this chapter, I will give a few more days until the 13th of October to do so and then we will move forward.

Doom - 10 October 2023 06:39 PM

But I think I messed something up, because at this point I’m sure I need to shoot the big fish from a cannon, and in order to do that I need to put the guard to sleep. But I can’t do that, because I filled my mug with the blue juice for no particular reason and now I can’t get more coffee (I first got some, gave it to the sleeping mouse for a bonus card and thought that was it, I wouldn’t be needing any more).

Have you ever thought about just putting the fish to sleep? 

Doom - 10 October 2023 06:39 PM

I also don’t know how to seal the letter, but I might need to do some traveling first — seems like the game is not as non-linear as Monkey Island or Discworld games.

This will come later. You dont need to do it until the end of our chapter and you dont have the nececcary items to do so yet (as you said, you will need some more traveling).

Keybordz - 10 October 2023 10:18 PM

My favorite character so far is the mole radio DJ, hopefully he has a bit more to do from here on out.

Mine is the leprechaun.

Doom - 11 October 2023 10:36 AM

DCast - 06 October 2023 05:12 PM

and the second time when I tried grappling hook on the cheese wheel out of sheer desperation, and it worked. I suppose I can sorta, kinda see logic in it - trying something sharp to carve a piece of something hard, but again I’m talking about GRAPPLING HOOK on a CHEESE WHEEL, so yeah, it didn’t immediately jump to me as a solution.

Instead you could use the nail on the cheese, it works just as fine. Hope there will be more of those.

I’m not sure if combining these two would have made it to the logic hall of fame, or maybe, my brain is wired differently, but, yes -  alternative solutions are always a plus!

Also, just like keyboarz, I found Humbert - the 2nd time ESPECIALLY - the most frustrating puzzle (character?), but, unlike everyone else, I found Churchmouse part quite amusing, bit too dialogue-heavy, sure, but it gave me a smile.