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Thanks, I eventually found the source that gave me the full name. But I think you can see by now how I'm getting tripped up by trying to follow the clues I have. There's a disconnect between different sources, and there's just no way to know that you haven't found the exact right information except that you're stuck. So many relevant queries/attempts just return absolutely nothing and give no indication of why.

At this point, I have finished the game, so I know what you were going for, and the tone by the end is quite effective. But it could be even better with more proofreading and playtesting.

Even with the "walkthrough" I struggled, because sometimes I had no idea what specific thing I was missing or hadn't tried. A walkthrough should include all the specific actions needed to complete the game, not just ask vague questions about what the player has considered. Those are just hints. Hints are good, and there were times when they were helpful, but that's not really a walkthrough.

I confirm, everywhere I would have gotten it from, it says Whitebrook, so that was just my mistake. (There are other typos I've seen, but that's not one of them.) Either way, though, those terms I tried didn't work.

The second item in the walkthrough did help a little, and I managed to get one more thing, but that didn't really lead to anything else that I can see.

Minor spoiler on what I tried next:

I did notice that the courthouse was mentioned in the town search result, and there's even an explicit hint that I can call it, but no variation of "courthouse" or "Whitebrook Courthouse" that I tried works to make a call, so I am again puzzled by what the game seems to want me to do vs what it will actually let me do.

Sorry! My mistake, it probably is Whitebrook everywhere and I typed it wrong when I was compiling my comment. I will double check later when I'm not on mobile. I did try the terms without the town name too. (Game loads just fine on mobile and I can view documents, but the typing doesn't send letters to the entry field, so I can't actually play. I was warned it wasn't meant for this kind of device though.)

I want to like this, but so far it's just too opaque. The first thing that threw me was the fact that there is no actual phone book, despite the explicit description that there is. That is misleading at best and it took me far too long to just try entering a name to call, especially when there were hints by the computer about copying and pasting information, and that doesn't work either.

The gathering information by searching is sort of Roottrees-like, but also much more opaque. No words are highlighted, so it's difficult to know what's important and what isn't. Out of dozens of queries I tried, only a handful yielded any response at all, most of which were just general information, like the definition of "Jane Doe" or the location of the occipital bone, which I already know. Tell me something I don't know! That's why I'm searching.

And the reports give very little information to even work with, so they're not very realistic. Who was the coroner who did the autopsy? When was it done? What newspaper published the article about the incident? Who was the mother? We're not told, and so there's nothing to dig into as far as searching for information. I have searched for every content term I can find, and I have searched for and tried to call every proper name I've seen (all four of them), and I've only come up with a blank wall of opaqueness after talking to only two people.

Clearly I've missed something along the way, but it's hard to see where since I've read through the reports so many times. I did glance at the walkthrough, but the very first item mentions something I've not even seen and have no idea how to get, so in the interest of avoiding spoilers, I didn't read much farther. I think it needs a little more detail to be helpful, especially for someone stuck early on. What comes before that first item? How do you get it?

Spoilers on the two calls I was able to make:

-Silverleaf Cemetery (received the report on funeral photos)

-Loretta Hester (but she wouldn't tell me anything further about the autopsy or the death or the funeral)

Spoilers on some additional names I tried to call that got me nowhere:

-Police Station

-Willowbrook Police (Station)

-Willowbrook Coroner

-Examiner

-Boss

Happy to help. I've done some beta-testing in the past, so while I'm not a dev myself, I've learned to think a bit about what makes good game design. I should also note, so that I'm not just pointing out things that need improvement, that I did enjoy reading the text, and I appreciated that it all seemed well-written and proofread. (In English, specifically; I have no comment on the other languages except that I noticed kanji characters on a couple of activity icons. I wasn't sure if that was an intentional design decision or something that wasn't translated.) Thanks for the quick fixes for the bugs and the response to feedback!

You're welcome. You're right, I did find the intended rhythm eventually, but to be fair, I still don't think the rate of idle insight collection ever became a significant factor beyond that point. The real factor that matters is the fact that investing in the idle activities boosts the strength of the manual activity by extending the time scale. And that's the part that's opaque. I could tell over the course of the first three phases that the time scale was being extended, but I didn't specifically connect that with investing in activities.

The issue, I think, is that the game was never intended to reward idle gameplay in the long run because the original goal is to run out the time, which means the only way to make any significant progress is to use the manual activity. Which means the goal of boosting idle production is at odds with the goal of collecting the advancement items if you don't know that boosting idle production also extends the time scale and therefore also boosts manual production. I thought for a while that the only way to significantly improve manual production was to buy the Awakening boosts. It all makes sense in hindsight, but during phases III and early IV, all I knew was that my manual production was starting to really slow down relative to what I needed, and idle production had fallen completely off. This only improved when I stopped using proportional investing on the idle activities and spent more on the early activities even though it wouldn't give me much of a return on the idle rate increase.

Anyway, I think you're likely to have some percentage of players bounce off the game around that point, just like the person I was originally replying to. Honestly, I had read that comment already and was debating how much longer past that point I would try to go, but fortunately I get stubborn when I'm curious, so I spent rather longer than I care to admit grinding insights to try to get the next Awakening boost to trigger. It never did (in that phase), but it was long enough for me to decide to invest what I'd gathered in the idle activities because it was literally the only other thing available at that point. It's possible that revising the structure of the phases beyond II could shift the balance of currency in order to make it more worthwhile to invest in the idle activities. I don't know exactly how, but something to tilt the balance there just a bit would go a long way I think. But also, at this point, if people read through the comments, they'll find out what I did too, so maybe that's enough.

The concept here is interesting and I thought it was worth playing through once to experience. I have a few points of feedback. For one item, please see my reply to an earlier comment about why phase IV started dragging and what I discovered fixed the issue.

Second, I might have played a second time to see another ending, but I wasn't able to. After I chose my ending and reward, I was given the intro and explanation just like at the beginning; I pressed the blue button again; and then I was put back in phase VII with everything completed, just how it was before I finished, but with no obvious way to trigger the ending again. That seems like a bug. The only difference was that the activities section said "all activities, already imprinted in the body." I chose the third ending, and I think I chose the second reward because it sounded like all the activities would be unlocked from the start?

Third, I played on mobile (Android - Chrome on a moto edge), and while it was playable, the layout was definitely a bit wonky. The narrative text temporarily floated over the log in the lower left corner so that the text was hard to read until the floating copy went away. But some text wasn't retained in the log, so I had to try to read most of it as it floated anyway because otherwise I could miss some bits. Also, the manual action button ("walk" etc) would only respond if I tapped the upper edge that extended beyond the border of the log area. Having the full button area to tap would have made playing more comfortable.

Finally, the journey of introspection and creation was interesting to read, but it wasn't actually very interactive beyond gathering enough insights to systematically collect all the items in each phase. Gathering the items didn't seem to do anything until I had all of them, so once I figured out how to get the higher level activities in phase IV, I boosted insight production and then just zoomed through the items all at once. It would be more interesting if the later phases had their own secondary currencies that get produced by the items in that phase, and maybe the items interlink so that some require insights and some require the secondary currency. You want the player to have to slow down and experience the items individually, not click through them all at once, but if it feels too slow, it's not going to be fun either, so it's a tricky balance.

Good luck, and thanks for sharing your game!

I thought the same thing at the same point, and I wondered why the idle activities were becoming more and more useless. Then I discovered that if I actually went back and finished off the first couple of activities, instead of maintaining proportional spending, then more activities became available, the manual activity shifted from "walk" and became stronger, and the pace of gameplay became reasonable again.

So I don't really think the balance itself needs all that much changing; rather, there needs to be better signposting that completing all 100 levels of the early activities is a thing that should be done when possible.

I really liked this. Mostly it was pretty straightforward, but the filing rules progressively get more complicated.

One thing I didn't understand was how to distinguish between the two music boxes in the registry. I got a mid-game case wrong when I quarantined a music box because I thought it was the one that had the symbol of a circle with a line through it, which was supposed to be quarantined regardless of status, but apparently it was the other one?

This is really well-done! I enjoyed the process of unlocking documents and working out the relationships. I would love to read more about the history of Trevosa.

One minor issue I had was that I couldn't get the game to exit full-screen when I was finished. I pressed ESC and flailed a bit and in the process hit the X below the notes. And just like that, poof! All my notes were gone. A confirmation on clearing the notes would be appreciated. Fortunately I was already done with the game. I had to refresh the page in order to close the game and read the comments, though.

You got barrels from excavation? I never got any barrels and never built any hazmat suits nor used the option to process barrels. The excavations all finished nearly instantly and nothing else happened. I wonder if there was a bug?

I don't understand how research happens. I'm getting knowledge points but there's nowhere to use them? Just started phase 4. Other than that, this has been fun so far, although I've been very wary of hiring workers because I nearly ran out of money once.

Edit: Now in phase 5, still no idea about research. Also I built an Excavation Rig but immediately it said all buried contamination cleared. That seemed like a waste of 80 scrap then. Where should I be building them? Not all zones even offer the option.

Edit: Nearly finished. Finally found the research! Lovely progression from cleanup to restoration.

I'm just wondering if there's a bug with energy generation. I built a solar panel and then a solar field, but my power generation is still 0. Also the wetland boardwalk unlocked before I researched Sanctuary Ecology.

The bug is that the screen went black after the credits and didn't return to the game, but was completely unresponsive. Surely that's not what you intended, because it's confusing, and it takes the player completely out of the game to restart it before being able to continue the post-game content. Also I saw no indication that the goal is to "complete" the mind's eye; I thought the mind's eye was just a visualization tool to aid in solving, which I didn't find necessary, so I didn't look at it much. I was attempting to complete each location's events, but I couldn't, because there were people I couldn't find. Again, it's confusing. I'm just reporting these behaviors so you can consider whether you can make it less confusing in the future. I really love the game and hope this feedback helps make it better for everyone.

This is an amazing game! I enjoyed the fantastic writing and historical depth as well as the process of uncovering what happened when and where.

Bug report: After I clicked "Complete Investigation" on the final report and watched the ending credits, the screen stayed black and never returned to the game for the extra content. I was able to refresh the page and re-enter the game, and the report was still available, so I hadn't lost any progress. Yet the extra content doesn't seem to be accessible. I don't think I've seen the epilogue, and there are several locations with scenes I cannot retrieve because there are people I cannot see yet.

Confirmed! Changing zoom level allowed the edge buttons to work properly. I encountered the same thing again later with unlocking the house; the turn key button wouldn't work when too zoomed out, but as soon as I zoomed in further, then it worked.

I just tried replaying after finishing the prototype, and I think there must be a bug or glitch somewhere on PC (I played on mobile first). Even knowing how the interface works and what the answers are, I am unable to get the records keeper to generate the yearbook. I have the two pieces connected and lit up, and yet the records keeper edge doesn't do anything. So I just went back to mobile and tried again, and there it works just fine.

Update: I managed to get the yearbook by turning the arrows around the other way, and I identified the victim, but I can't then use the name to get any more information from the records keeper. I tried lining up the arrows the same way as for the yearbook, by pointing out of the Lookup Person edge (and many other combinations as well), but the hexes never light up and I can't get any response. Why is looking up a person different than getting information from an institution? Edit: I managed to get cause of death, but only by following the screenshot, which was completely counter-intuitive to me. 

Edit2: Managed to finish the prototype. It would certainly help to have some sort of feedback when items are connected in the right order but aren't the right answers, or when the wrong kind of item is connected. I spent so long on two things: trying to connect the key to the locker (was that locker just a red herring?) and trying to connect names to the records keeper (wrong item) and the next of kin (wrong name). I think now that I've finished the prototype, I kind of understand the interface better, but it took a lot of trial and error. It'd be helpful to show specific examples before throwing the user into an actual puzzle. The screenshots were helpful but showed outright solutions to a few pieces of the one puzzle that's available. Hope you can generate more puzzles soon.

I can't figure out how to use the yellow link hexes. The process is quite opaque. I have information to look up using the records keeper, but no combination seems to do anything. I also know which wound happened in what order, but no idea what to actually do with them to represent this information.

It was not obvious at first that I could rotate the hexes, but I had to figure out how to do it to open the combination lock. I then tried rotating the yellow links to make their gray lines point into their targets, but even that doesn't seem to do anything. This mechanic seems like a "read the author's mind" puzzle, unfortunately. What am I missing?

Seconding this step being completely opaque. I've tried putting the school and year adjacent to the records keeper in many different ways, but I cannot get the edges to respond at all. I'm completely stuck here and can't find any more information about how I'm supposed to do this. Help, please? I like this puzzle method in general and would like to see more.

The game looks neat, but unfortunately it doesn't work properly on mobile. I understand it's not really designed for it, but it's so close. I was able to look at the skill tree and generate a world. Tapping on buttons works fine, as does long-pressing on skill nodes to see costs. But then the worlds don't let me harvest anything. Too bad the main game action doesn't work at all.

Oh, I didn't start over from the beginning! I left the game window open and continued from where I was. But I did take screenshots of my map, just in case, although I'm not sure I would have finished if I'd actually had to start over.

Just a followup that I did manage to finish the game. The getaway was very tense, but I managed it! I still didn't find the other two gems, but overall I think the game was very nearly the perfect length for its content. I would have started to get tired of drawing the map if there was very much more of it, at least without a few QoL improvements like being able to draw straight lines or annotate with letters/symbols. The skull was an amusing companion (the humor reminded me a bit of Arthur from Buried in Time (Journeyman Project 2)) and I liked the variety of puzzles. I'd love to see more in this vein.

Great job on the puzzles and also the voice acting. But I really wish there was a save function so I could return to the game later. I've made a lot of progress but can't find two of the four gems. I hope one isn't in the fire room. There's also a corner with a torch I can't get to, so I must have missed a connecting corridor somewhere, but I can't find that either. If I could find all the gems, I suspect I might be able to get the skull out, but alas...

Instantly wishlisted! Type Help is amazing and so is the Roottrees dev, and the combo just couldn't be more exciting. Great news!

What stage are you at? There is a 5x speed up available in a later realm. And yes, it's slow, but it's a semi-idle game. I read a book during some of the resets.

It's pretty straightforward to just try each combination once. The game remembers which ones you've done and what they are, so you don't have to remember. When you put two ingredients in, it will tell you what you're going to make if you've already identified that combination.

Keep playing then. :) Extra speed is a privilege that must be earned.

I have reached end of content after 1743 years lived. I was genuinely looking forward to the next realm still, so good job on an engaging game. I would also like to know what the ???? skill was in the skill list that never unlocked.

This was the cultivation progression game I never knew I needed until I found it. I enjoyed optimizing progression over multiple resets in order to get farther each time. I was also reading Taran Matharu's Dragon Rider at the same time, which I didn't even realize was a cultivation-inspired novel until I was partway through, so that was a neat convergence.

Honestly I was shocked at the twist after the first section of the game: I thought that was going to be the end of the game, and then I discovered it was only a sort of prologue to the real game. That was good because alchemy was kind of broken, in the sense that I almost completely maxed out my lifespan in a single reset and then maxed out the stats in the same reset.

The game really does need a native English proofreader to go through the text before releasing a final version, though. I'd be happy to help with that. A few of the typos I saw:

"increses" should be "increases" in the "Gaining insights" description

"traing" should be "training" in the "Training mastery" description

"powerfull" should be "powerful" in the Meditation help screen

Hope you continue to develop this game! There's a lot of potential here.

Oh good. I was on the right track but didn't think to assert it that way. Thanks.

I was enjoying this a lot until I got to the third stage - I've got all the clues, but now I'm in a different mode with a very different sort of voice that just spews profanity at me after gloating about its crimes. I feel like I've failed Cheree and this is quite unpleasant. What power do I have to make things better? Any possibility of retaining the general nature of the character (trying to avoid spoilers here) while toning down the profanity?

That did it! She had previously told me about Martha's many stab wounds, but I somehow didn't manage to follow up on that. I asked her again about Martha's body and managed to get on the right track from there. Thanks.

Almost to level 10 now. Amusingly, I said "that's fun" to a comment she made in Bassey Study about the books, and she said, "What scrapbook? Or what about a scrapbook? I think you're getting ahead of things." I know from the other comments that there will be a scrapbook later, but I hadn't mentioned it! I don't know where that reply came from.

I'm at 8/9 clues with only George Yard and Bassey Study left uncleared. I'm maybe three notches away from R level 10. But I'm stuck with no idea what else to ask about.

Evocative and so polished. Play and play again. Choice-based storytelling at its best.