Softlocked in whiskey cave

[fýrine]

I think I've managed to softlock myself in the Whiskey Cave (unintentionally, obviously) by cutting down the Rope. I can exit the Whiskey Cave through the bottom two "exits" but both of them just lead to the shore on Togsaid where the Whiskey crate is, and I can't get onto any other part of the map from there. Am I missing something or am I genuinely softlocked and need to restart my save?

[fýrine]

I've been able to pretty concretely confirm that my position was a real softlock. spent an hour trying to get out of it in total. I reverted my save to the oldest backup and got softlocked yet again. In the end I chose to just restart the game /:

[PVBuk]

So sorry to hear you’re having an issue. :-(
IIRC, there should be at least one other exit from below where you climb down that rope.
One is where the bottom of the rope is, up that slope to the right. Look for the ‘spark’ on the far right.
You should also be able to find the rope itself two levels down, allowing you to climb down another bit.
Once you’re on the shore out of the bottom of the cave, you should be able to go Left to get away from the area.
If you get the same issue again, please use the Feedback option in the Settings menu to report it (or any other bug).

[inkle]

Hi there! There are a couple of ways out - the path @PVBuk deecribes; a way across the water to the left of the whiskey crate... but we've seen a few people getting stuck here so we're adding another in the next update (from the cave after the narrow crawl.)

Hope your next run fares better!

[PVBuk]

One similar issue I just spotted on a YouTube video:
To the far left of that bit of shore (near where you might’ve arrived from the previous peak) there’s a slidey slope going up and left that the person tried to go up, but kept sliding down.
They didn’t spot the rocks just ‘behind’ bits of the slope that can be climbed/jumped up to get up that bit.

[Dingazoid]

I'm around this spot and I'm hopelessly lost. I climbed out of the cave and found a razorblade, which I assume can cut the rope? I figured if I cut the rope then I can collect it and use it to climb down another spot (there's a little bridge in a cave somewhere that I can't jump down)? However, I can't get back to the rope from the razorblade location. I've run all around, did a deer sequence then backtracked. Finally tried climbing way into a cave and fell and died (?). But instead of being booted to a screen or reloaded the game just froze in pitch black, with I assume my body a mangled corpse that I couldn't see? So I quit out of the game. (All on Switch).

I dunno, I really like this game but would've liked a little more handholding or a clearer progression path. I liked exploring and having to leave things unseen and having to weigh the cost of taking one path over the other. But having to run back and forth for like 20 minutes until my stamina runs out then the game bugs is not great. I wanna keep playing but now I'm getting warnings I'm taking too long and won't get to the sea anyway. Not sure what happens if I miss the deadline but I don't want to redo all this stuff.

[inkle]

Originally posted by Dingazoid:

I'm around this spot and I'm hopelessly lost. I climbed out of the cave and found a razorblade, which I assume can cut the rope? I figured if I cut the rope then I can collect it and use it to climb down another spot (there's a little bridge in a cave somewhere that I can't jump down)? However, I can't get back to the rope from the razorblade location. I've run all around, did a deer sequence then backtracked. Finally tried climbing way into a cave and fell and died (?). But instead of being booted to a screen or reloaded the game just froze in pitch black, with I assume my body a mangled corpse that I couldn't see? So I quit out of the game. (All on Switch).

I dunno, I really like this game but would've liked a little more handholding or a clearer progression path. I liked exploring and having to leave things unseen and having to weigh the cost of taking one path over the other. But having to run back and forth for like 20 minutes until my stamina runs out then the game bugs is not great. I wanna keep playing but now I'm getting warnings I'm taking too long and won't get to the sea anyway. Not sure what happens if I miss the deadline but I don't want to redo all this stuff.

Sorry to hear you had a bad experience. The black screen is hard to debug - when you die, the screen goes black and then it plays some audio, but that doesn't take very long to happen! But freezing ain't good. We'll have a look and see if we can reproduce it.

In terms of progression the rule here is there *is no path*. If you don't want to go back over ground you've seen - go somewhere else! There's always another route, another path, another tunnel.

Leaving things unseen... is pretty much the trade-off for that freedom (a bit like in our earlier game, 80 Days, where you might see 3% of the content on one run. Try to see it all, play once, play twice... it's up to the player.)

Also like in 80 Days - it doesn't matter if you miss the deadline. You won't get the special ending, but you'll get a lovely ending all the same. And then if you do choose to do another run, all your shortcuts carry over so you can go faster next time - or, go a completely different route.

tl;dr if you don't want to redo something, then don't! Hope that all makes sense.

[Dingazoid]

Originally posted by inkle:

Originally posted by Dingazoid:

I'm around this spot and I'm hopelessly lost. I climbed out of the cave and found a razorblade, which I assume can cut the rope? I figured if I cut the rope then I can collect it and use it to climb down another spot (there's a little bridge in a cave somewhere that I can't jump down)? However, I can't get back to the rope from the razorblade location. I've run all around, did a deer sequence then backtracked. Finally tried climbing way into a cave and fell and died (?). But instead of being booted to a screen or reloaded the game just froze in pitch black, with I assume my body a mangled corpse that I couldn't see? So I quit out of the game. (All on Switch).

I dunno, I really like this game but would've liked a little more handholding or a clearer progression path. I liked exploring and having to leave things unseen and having to weigh the cost of taking one path over the other. But having to run back and forth for like 20 minutes until my stamina runs out then the game bugs is not great. I wanna keep playing but now I'm getting warnings I'm taking too long and won't get to the sea anyway. Not sure what happens if I miss the deadline but I don't want to redo all this stuff.

Sorry to hear you had a bad experience. The black screen is hard to debug - when you die, the screen goes black and then it plays some audio, but that doesn't take very long to happen! But freezing ain't good. We'll have a look and see if we can reproduce it.

In terms of progression the rule here is there *is no path*. If you don't want to go back over ground you've seen - go somewhere else! There's always another route, another path, another tunnel.

Leaving things unseen... is pretty much the trade-off for that freedom (a bit like in our earlier game, 80 Days, where you might see 3% of the content on one run. Try to see it all, play once, play twice... it's up to the player.)

Also like in 80 Days - it doesn't matter if you miss the deadline. You won't get the special ending, but you'll get a lovely ending all the same. And then if you do choose to do another run, all your shortcuts carry over so you can go faster next time - or, go a completely different route.

tl;dr if you don't want to redo something, then don't! Hope that all makes sense.

Thank you! As I hope my first post made clear, I find the game beautiful and I do like the freeform exploration. I like getting lost in games, but in this instance I really didn't know where to go. When I reloaded I wandered a bit more and like... fell off a cliff? Somehow I survived and made it to the dam. I know there is no "correct" path, but sometimes I've felt like I must be going backwards from what was originally designed or something. Like getting the razor after locking myself off from the rope. Ah well, I usually complain games are over-tutorialized and too similar, so a game where I genuinely don't understand any of the mechanics or goals and struggle to traverse is probably a good one :)

[PVBuk]

Regarding your feeling that after finding the blade there was no way into the cave from there, it is difficult to assist without knowing where you found it, but there are several ways into/out of that cave. e.g. One route has a slidey down slope you think you can’t get up, but as per my post above, there are rocks that allow you to get ‘alongside’ it to pass it.
As inkle say, if you can’t go one way, try another. Most peaks allow left, right, up and down routes, eithet to adjacent peaks or further toward the goal.