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Cool playbook! I have a question. The playbook says you automatically have Inkbound, but then the builds all have other specials along with the action dots. Does this mean you have Inkbound + one other special, in general? I ask because....

There is another playbook (Demonbound) that specifies your starting special and says you do not choose a second ability (even though it also gives specials with the builds), and it says anybody taking its special as Veteran advances must take the base Demonbound special first. Would taking Drowner specials as Veteran Advances similarly require taking Inkbound first?

I did another playthrough and discovered that some of the "cosmetic" items do indeed change gameplay. Unfortunately I got fired that time around because I accidentally marked everybody for death one day. :-D

(Gee it's too bad the forums don't have a spoiler tag! Most spoilers are general or vague, but you have been warned.)

I suppose I should have expected a bad ending after following orders on the first playthrough, but it was interesting to see how things unfolded. Well, as much as the unfolding was actually visible! I was not expecting that kind of story (I had never played a game of this genre before). It really wasn't apparent to me how bad things were getting in the world from the phone news messages until just a few days from the end. It was all isolated incidents, and then suddenly there was hardly any grass and hardly any people left alive??? I killed two blades of grass out of bajillions, and that somehow killed all the others? By the time it was even apparent that things were getting bad, folks were telling me it was too late to turn anything around.

I really hate that cat.

I did a second playthrough and did much better, even taking over the boss's job! Not through outright defiance, but paying more attention to the profiles and making decisions on wider impacts people might have on the world if they lived or died (which wasn't always clear, and sometimes directly opposite to what the profile might imply!). That playthrough also featured more people who clearly would have such impacts, so maybe there was a bit of a luck of the draw in my first playthrough where that wasn't as clear.  I also made a point of being a bit cagey in dialogue with the boss more often than directly confrontational. That was fun.

My two playthroughs seemed to hit opposite ends of the spectrum, so it'll be interesting to see what else I can uncover on another. I noticed that the ending things I unlocked were all pretty common %-wise, so there have got to be some amusing edge cases hidden in there!

Items & Decision-Making

I bought the lamp early on, and had some fun seeing what it revealed after I made my choices. I might have preferred a lamp that gives partial info beforehand, to info on just your decision afterward. But, I noticed on my second playthrough that it "remembered" my choices from the earlier playthrough, so that info will accumulate if I do more playthroughs.

I also bought the eraser. I was annoyed by it being good for a single use. A couple uses (3–4) would have been more interesting to me.  It did reappear for sale after I'd used it, but that wasn't satisfying to me.

I bought the mirror and talked to it. Nothing it said seemed helpful, just vague admonitions and warnings, nothing actionable,  so I stopped talking to it at some point. The talking bit didn't add anything to the game for me.

Although the phone wasn't purchased, I found it odd that I couldn't do "extracurricular" research on any of the subjects, it was just a twitter-like newsfeed instead of an actual smartphone. I really wanted a bit more to do than just read the profiles to decide who lives & dies. Even talking to somebody at a neighboring desk would have added some fun: "Hey Mort, what do you think of this retired gardener who poses for an erotic artist?"

The rest of the stuff for sale just looked cosmetic. I bought a few of the outfit things, and the coin and the piggy bank,  but lost interest in them pretty quickly. Maybe some items have more to them than I know. I might bother to buy them on subsequent playthroughs since there doesn't seem to be much else to do with money, and you do keep what you already bought when you start a new playthrough.

The Bar
The bar seemed a waste of my time & money. I talked to everybody, and again got nothing actionable, they were just quirky characters setting the tone. I bought a few drinks, that didn't seem to do anything either, so I stopped buying drinks too. Maybe subsequent playthroughs would reveal more options/info based on my decisions during the week? The archivist hinted at some possibilities....

Bugs

I didn't encounter any actual bugs, but there was one annoyance: mini profiles don't move to the top when clicked on. So I had to keep shuffling papers aside to see the ones underneath.

I tried to change keybindings...but when I entered the submenu to do that, pressing the arrow keys to navigate the list actually assigned them as keybinds to things other than up/down! This meant I could no longer navigate the list, not even to get to the back menu. I also saw the message here about reporting bugs in game but I did not see an option for that.

Version 1.1.1 for macos.

I just finished the moth boss and am enjoying the game a lot! I have a question though: What is the difference between the timecard save things, and the ones with the glowing orbs when you run by them?

Yeah this is SUPER annoying. The Delete key will get you back. I have no idea why they didn't program the Escape key for that, too.

I managed to master all the level 1 puzzles and most on level 2, but on I am pretty stumped with theywatch, furblegog, and stonetrap. I'll keep plugging away. Some I am 1 move over, some 3. :-/

Maybe I will go on just solving and come back later to master.

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You've got some fun games! I tossed you some bucks in return for the puzzling times.

I'm just opening it by double-clicking the PDF, and then clicking the Print icon. Thanks for looking into this. I've finished reading it—lots of cool ideas there, including the new crew!

I am reading this PDF on macos High Sierra using Preview.app, and there are several blank pages and missing page titles. Google docs displays these items correctly (the blank pages are full-page images), but if I try to print the PDF from Google docs, the same things are blank in the preview render. Maybe you can tweak the PDF so it displays/prints correctly in these situations?

There's a file gameguide.png listed, but no link or button to download it.... I've managed to get all the CGs except #11. That one looks to be on the "steal the diamond" path but I've done all of those.

Ok this time the phone rang and I was able to go out the door, thank you.

Tell me about it. I used to work for Apple (a long time ago), and I'm on the verge of abandoning them altogether for all the files and apps I can't open any more....

No the phone did not ring. Thanks for the tip, I will see if I can click on it after I redo the scene.

Okay that worked. I don't know why I had to do that though.

Can't get out of my apartment, after talking to the turtle girl. I think I've clicked on everything, including the weird movie screen that comes down. I quit the game and relaunched it, and now I am back on the couch with the door knocking.....

When I open Guppy on my macbook pro (High Sierra), it just opens a litle window that says "Unable to find game!!:" and it has an OK button and that's all.

I would like to know this too.

Couldn't actually interact with most things. Couldn't see many things to read them. Linear game on a timed script that pestered me to hurry or didn't respond to my clicks until the script allowed it. Quit after a few minutes.

I haven't had much luck getting a real boost on the two big thermals. Claire sails right through them before they can lift her very high. Is there some trick I'm missing?

I just got the update with the boating and wow, I didn't think this game could get any more fun. I love that you keep adding little "expansions" to keep us coming back to the island. I think I have found all the new things, but I still haven't talked with the boatman about all the books he's reading.

You can come back any time and do the tasks. They are worth doing! Very fun little challenges.

There are places even high up where the fog isn't too thick, but even so, distant objects will always be hazy and indistinct.

(And  case you were wondering, you press space to zoom the binoculars. I'd forgotten and was so surprised when I accidentally rediscovered it, I figured I would point that out.)

Totally! I cut my teeth on World of Warcraft, where I really spent most of my time just wandering around. As soon as I got my felsteed I toured the entire world even though I was only level 40, just to see what was out there. I've tried a number of games since but nothing brought back that feeling of open exploration. ASH does it so much better by not having dragons and demons chasing after me. :-D

I agree. This game is a wonderful little world to just hang out and chill in. Very relaxing.

You can finish the "main quest" pretty quickly, but there's so much to explore and do that you have hours and hours of fun and farting around. Once you can fly, it's so cool to just cruise around the skies with no aim in mind but to take in the sights....

FYI, I had previously gotten all of the golden feathers, and when I finished the boat ride, I got another! So now I have 21 feathers. Maybe that's a bug? In any case, I have 21 feathers now. :-)

I just came here to report the problem myself, and here we are! I already found the other chest that had closed, so I guess everything's square. :-D

You can find the tiny island! Go to the boat, and swim northeast, it's just around there.

Wow, I can't imagine missing the lighthouse, but it's definitely possible to reach the peak without doing all the other stuff. Having no way to point the camera is also a factor in missing things.

Did you find the tiny island with the gal selling sun hats? (I'm guessing you found the not-quite-tiny island with the smaller peak.)

> A Short Hike is incredible because the player's intrinsic  motivations line up so perfectly with the Claire's 

This right here. I hated Firewatch because my motivations didn't line up AT ALL with Henry's, and I stopped playing Night In The Woods because I couldn't relate at all to being Mae. Especially, in both cases, because backstory I had no say in, no interest in, and no sympathy with, kept getting revealed. Here in A Short Hike, there was none of that crap, so I could just do my thing.

Yes if you select the gold medal in your inventory you can inspect it, and you get the option to take it apart. You wind up with a coin for your efforts, and possibly make Avery sad.

I will keep mum about the baseball cap!

Yeah, he says the game "took players on one hell of a ride",  and that's how I felt as a player—taken for a ride, as in the colloquial expression. I definitely didn't feel any emotional connection with Henry; in fact I resented being told who I was and basically having all the "choices" be slight alternatives on the railroaded path to that ending. The ending was the least of my problems with the game, although watching this video reminds me how, visually, they knocked it out of the park...which made the story and ending  all the more frustrating.

I similarly quit playing Night In The Woods because I was dropped into the shoes of an unlikable person with a past everybody but me knew.

Still, it seems there are people who like such games; more power to 'em.

It's working for me just fine. I'm on High Sierra though. (The last decent macos update.)

You have to wait for the fish to bite hard. Not the "tick tick tick" but the "bloooOOORP!" Then you have to press the action key repeatedly and very fast, in my experience. I have never lost a fish doing that.

I loved the soundtrack so much I bought it. There's about a dozen tracks in that from the game itself (plus extras). Check the game's main info page for a link to buy the soundtrack.

Agreed. It's the first game I played from the Racial Justice Bundle and now all of the others look shabby by comparison. :-D <3

I never got a photo, no. But I did get a baseball cap! And a gold medal, which I destroyed (so sad). And if you get all the fish, yes, you get a golden fishing pole. Not that you need one once you've got all the fish, but it's still sparkly!