'water changed her path'

[Drinkcup]

this part is lame af.... idek know how to do it, and the longer i'm there, the more frustrating it gets and the more i just mash the direction i want to go....

I thought this was a typing game? not a lame, 'we changed your directional buttons lol figure it out' game


:/ bah

[markoh00]

There is only a very brief section afair where they changed the controls. I don't know what you are talking about here. Are you talking about the ice section?

[Drinkcup]

the underground tidal wave area

[Isa7:9b]

Played through the game several times, switching back and forth between QWERTY and Dvorak. I've never noticed my controls changing. I interpreted the "Water changed her path" message in the Drowning Halls to mean what happens when you slide all the way to the end of the first step you take on the ice. It takes a bit to figure out how to hit the right walls (you can go diagonally if you press two keys at once on the first step) but the controls are the same.

[Galo Oslolo ☯]

Originally posted by Sheelawolf VIMS:

Played through the game several times, switching back and forth between QWERTY and Dvorak. I've never noticed my controls changing. I interpreted the "Water changed her path" message in the Drowning Halls to mean what happens when you slide all the way to the end of the first step you take on the ice. It takes a bit to figure out how to hit the right walls (you can go diagonally if you press two keys at once on the first step) but the controls are the same.

Yeah is just a little thinking looking the direction, don't be a cry baby

[Sarzie]

I find this part incredibly frustrating as well, and I'm disappointed in all of you attacking the OP. Certain parts of the game are going to be difficult for others. Be nice, all. Shame on you.

[markoh00]

Originally posted by Queen Perlman:

I find this part incredibly frustrating as well, and I'm disappointed in all of you attacking the OP. Certain parts of the game are going to be difficult for others. Be nice, all. Shame on you.

Maybe it is just the tone of the OP? I mean lame as f*ck and such ... yeah ... maybe WE should be ashamed... or not.

[Hapcher]

Use WASD for controls and press them one at a time to understand how it works. Now try combinations of 2 and see how that changes movement. All that's left is to pick the right routes for the puzzles.

Maybe you're doing the puzzles wrong and you expect to manuever something not intended for movement? Some puzzles you need to activate a part in the other side of the room and return to the beginning without resetting it. Took me a few tries to figure that out.

[viviennewolf]

I just want to type!!! I am spending most of my time sliding across a stupid pond concentrating more on the controls than on my typing skills. Is there a way around the ice puzzles?

[Estragon]

Originally posted by viviennewolf:

I just want to type!!! I am spending most of my time sliding across a stupid pond concentrating more on the controls than on my typing skills. Is there a way around the ice puzzles?

Not really, no. Having played the story all the way through to the end, I'd say this is more of an adventure puzzle game with typing as a main mechanic, not a typing game first. The Drowning Halls section is an area that introduces a lot of the puzzle elements that will recur through the story, and there are parts that will be far less focused on typing in favor of exploration and puzzle solving.

Ice is pretty straightforward to deal with; when you step onto ice, you keep moving in the direction you were going until you slide off the ice or bump into a solid/impassable object. With a little bit of planning, it becomes much easier navigate.

That said, if all you want is typing, you might want to set the main story aside for a bit and try out the arena mode, which is pretty much nothing but typing. The only downside is that it might potentially spoil some parts of the main story.

[Galo Oslolo ☯]

Originally posted by Estragon:

Originally posted by viviennewolf:

I just want to type!!! I am spending most of my time sliding across a stupid pond concentrating more on the controls than on my typing skills. Is there a way around the ice puzzles?

Not really, no. Having played the story all the way through to the end, I'd say this is more of an adventure puzzle game with typing as a main mechanic, not a typing game first. The Drowning Halls section is an area that introduces a lot of the puzzle elements that will recur through the story, and there are parts that will be far less focused on typing in favor of exploration and puzzle solving.

Ice is pretty straightforward to deal with; when you step onto ice, you keep moving in the direction you were going until you slide off the ice or bump into a solid/impassable object. With a little bit of planning, it becomes much easier navigate.

That said, if all you want is typing, you might want to set the main story aside for a bit and try out the arena mode, which is pretty much nothing but typing. The only downside is that it might potentially spoil some parts of the main story.

Yes finally a objective opinion, and good thoughts i literally beat too fast that section and miss, later, the ice sliding jajaj

[EnduroDoug]

I was absolutely loving the game until I got to the ice sliding portion of Drowning Halls and after 10 minutes of coming oh-so-close to lighting all the blue panels without hitting a pink one, I finally exited the game and came here, expecting to find a discussion about this very thing.

It's not that I don't mind puzzles, but trying to shuffleboard my character across a frozen pond using WASD is just plain bad game design. Who thought this would be fun? This reminds me of FPS jumping-puzzles of Daikatana days gone by. I'll come back to it, for sure. The game is too damn good otherwise to write it off (pun intended) for just this, but talk about a buzz kill.

[Ryika]

I don't really understand how people can have that much trouble with the sliding; it felt very easy to me. Only thing you sort of have to do is take a step back whenever you want to start sliding so your character has a moment to turn around in the direction you want to go; if you start right at the border, she sometimes slides in a different direction from where you expected her to go.

The rest is just some minor planning of your route.

In some cases, those puzzles can be made even easier by intentionally sliding into a pink panel at the beginning to use it as an easier starting point.

[Bringoutyerded]

The explanation that this is an adventure game first and typing game second doesn't hold for me.

I bought it for the typing challenge, and because the artwork looks nice. The game is great on those two points. The story is secondary for me. I don't even pay attention to it, it seems pretty shallow in the first place, honestly. That said, it's a minor disagreement on this point.

Far more problematic is something that should really not be an issue at all, for anyone. In-game movement. This is silliness.

I'm one of those people who didn't buy the game to concentrate on moving a character over an off-angle grid via the keyboard (WASD or similar scheme). It's not something that I considered as a selling point upon purchase, but neither did I think it would be the impediment it has been for me when I started to play.

I'm not fortunate enough to be skilled at at WASD movment on an off-angle grid as some here clearly are. Nor do I wish to learn for this game.

I haven't played for a while as the ice section became truly too frustrating to continue past.

I keep hoping that when I see that a game update is available that it will be to add controller support. I wouldn't mind switching to use my controller to navigate and back to the keyboard to type as necessary. This wouldn't be onerus to do.

[Galo Oslolo ☯]

Gosh! the ice section is niether a skill level niether a difficult one... the ONLY thing you have to do is stop a little (maybe to take a breath), think and see where you'll slide and figure out, just a little, how you can take advantage of the walls and obstacle that stop you sliding... with that and a little puzzle experience you can complete that section without major setbacks.

If you dont like puzzle games, or you are a impatience person, or simply find this part to difficult then you are useless for this game...
Sorry the harsh words to those affected but i got bored, because you criticize the game itself not just comment about the difficulty.

I don't frequent puzzles games and in others ones a lot different from this one, there are a hundred times more complicated sections, so please stop whining and just enjoy this very public-friendly (plus educated) game.

[Bringoutyerded]

Originally posted by Galo Oslolo ☯:

Gosh! the ice section is niether a skill level niether a difficult one... the ONLY thing you have to do is stop a little (maybe to take a breath), think and see where you'll slide and figure out, just a little, how you can take advantage of the walls and obstacle that stop you sliding... with that and a little puzzle experience you can complete that section without major setbacks.

If you dont like puzzle games, or you are a impatience person, or simply find this part to difficult then you are useless for this game...
Sorry the harsh words to those affected but i got bored, because you criticize the game itself not just comment about the difficulty.

I don't frequent puzzles games and in others ones a lot different from this one, there are a hundred times more complicated sections, so please stop whining and just enjoy this very public-friendly (plus educated) game.

Galo Oslolo: I think that you've missed my point entirely. First, I'm highly critical of the navigation system, yes. The game itself is another story. Art and typing-wise, it's both attractive and fun. Story-wise, for me it's meh. I honestly don't pay attention to it, although I do like the narrator's voice.

Second, the navigation issue for me doesn't fully center on the ice section, as small as it may be. Getting there, moving through the off-axis grid without the challenge of ice, while doable for me, is just not at all enjoyable. I can do it, yes, but it's just not natural for me.

It's wonderful that you feel that the game's navigation is easy to adapt to and understand. I'm glad for you. Seriously. I wish it were for me too. But it isn't. So, yes, I comment on that fact.

What attracted me to this game, which is otherwise well designed, is the art and (moreso, the) typing. Full stop. Before purchase, I looked at the off-axis grid design and said to myself, "hey, that looks nice and fun". Look forward to the typing.

Then I started to play and realized that just getting to the typing part, the core reason for my purchase, was a chore. For me.

I didn't purchase it thinking, "hey, navigating an off-axis grid using WASD looks cool. Can't wait to try it."

In other words, a game mechanic that should be invisible, unnoticed, became, for me the focus.The typing is not difficult. The navigation, on the other hand, is far more difficult than it needs to be.

Am I impatient, or unwilling to learn? No, certainly not. You'll just have to take my word for it that that's the farthest thing from describing me in the games I play or in real-life. Somehow, given your need to label me, I don't think you will, perhaps even can at this point in your life, based on your response.

Insult others because, as you wrote, you "... got bored, because you criticize the game itself not just comment about the difficulty." Yikes.

You need to understand that criticism of a game you enjoy isn't a personal attack on you, as much as you might feel that it is. You completely dismissed my criticism of the game's navigation without any deep consideration. Without consideration at all. That's pretty shallow in my books. Try to think about that before feeling offended by my comment.

If you think of me as someone just here to whine, you do yourself a disservice. In doing so, you appear to me to be on the side of somehow connecting your identity to this game, meaning that negative words for one equates to both. I don't know you, nor you me. How on earth would pointing out a problem that affects my enjoyment of a game I purchased lead you to feel the need to dismiss it with a wave of your "stop whining" hand. That's bizarre.

In doing so you also appear selfish, as in, hey, this game is easy for me, why is it not for you? Something wrong? Everyone must be as good as I am or they are simply worth of dismissal wthout further thought.

Thinking that my comment is simply whining is also indicative of shallow thinking in another way. It assumes that that was the goal, that no effort was expended on my part to get past the ice section. That I somehow got frustrated and quickly gave up or rage quit. Well, I did quit, certainly, unable to get past it and continue to enjoy the games core typing mechanic. But it was only after many attempts over numerous play sessions that I did so.

Do you really figure you are somehow a better person than me for thinking this was child's play? That's a grade-school perspective.

I didn't and don't see Epistory as a puzzle game. It's not Myst, or, I don't know, a thousand other true puzzle games that make you think about unique and clever solutions to progress. That's not my type of game, and I just don't see your categorization of this game in that way, at all. You need to rethink that. Yes, there is observation and planning involved in the ice section. But layered over it is a need for skill in using WASD or similiar to navigate in the first place, across an off-axis grid. That is where my criticism lies. Were that not the case, I have few criticisms of the game.

Clearly, judging by other comments made here and elsewhere on this board, I'm not alone in feeling that the navigation system doesn't work for everyone. Some find it easy, some don't. I'm in the latter camp. Good on you for being in the former.

The entire point is that for me, the navigation ruins what otherwise is a wonderful game.

Can't see that point and somehow feel attacked and the need to defend the game's honour with insults? Well, sorry, can't fix that for you.

Somehow I figure that none of this will sink in for you, if you even take the time to read it carefully. Attention is in short supply these days.

Good luck.