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Kotaku: The Two-Year Mystery Is Over: Glittermitten Grove is Frog Fractions 2

mrqs

mrqs

Member
Alec2DaBreen said:
http://imgur.com/a/RFzvV

Did you get this? Go in with the sword and then use it Scrooge McDuck-style to get enough height to grab it in the top-right.

Also, if you haven't gotten this mind-stone yet, you must go in without being in possession of the Green Key and you must be full on gems. That way, you can jump on the Green Locks without opening them and then you can jump on the gems without collecting them.

Man I wish you were recording your gameplay or something. I've been scouring streams to find someone else who has grabbed the purple Up Arrow and I haven't seen a single other person who has it.

EDIT: Lol, just found it. Gotta push this dude down and he'll "find" it for you. http://imgur.com/a/viMyD
Click to expand...

Hahahha great! I might have done that, you should really make an walktrought or something. I tried searching but it's non-existent :(

Now i have all those "letters" but one, and still can't talk to the frog. I will try again tomorrow, but this is my life now: http://i.imgur.com/RTlJ60A.jpg
 
D

Deleted member 10571

Unconfirmed Member
I loved following this stuff :) Played FF1 knowing very little of its twist, but a bit too much for it to be a complete surprise, I'll probably get this one eventually as well.

How's Glittermitten Grove though? Is it fun or more of a vehicle? It looks like it might be a legit nice game from what I saw.
 
Alec

Alec

Member
MarquesZero said:
Hahahha great! I might have done that, you should really make an walktrought or something. I tried searching but it's non-existent :(

Now i have all those "letters" but one, and still can't talk to the frog. I will try again tomorrow, but this is my life now: http://i.imgur.com/RTlJ60A.jpg
Click to expand...

Yeah, once you finish the convo with the frog you'll have all of the purple ASCII characters.

I just re-finished the game with them all and nothing changes though. :(

I used to make walkthroughs for ZZT games back in the day...making one for FF2 would really bring my life full-circle. =P

Bufbaf said:
How's Glittermitten Grove though? Is it fun or more of a vehicle? It looks like it might be a legit nice game from what I saw.
Click to expand...

I actually like it quite a bit.
 
mrqs

mrqs

Member
Just finished it. Was way harder than i thought! And the end was a bit weird.

Loved it, though. 11 hours of challenges and laughs! :)
 
K

Khoryos

Member
Alec2DaBreen said:
http://imgur.com/a/RFzvV

Did you get this? Go in with the sword and then use it Scrooge McDuck-style to get enough height to grab it in the top-right.

Also, if you haven't gotten this mind-stone yet, you must go in without being in possession of the Green Key and you must be full on gems. That way, you can jump on the Green Locks without opening them and then you can jump on the gems without collecting them.

Man I wish you were recording your gameplay or something. I've been scouring streams to find someone else who has grabbed the purple Up Arrow and I haven't seen a single other person who has it.

EDIT: Lol, just found it. Gotta push this dude down and he'll "find" it for you. http://imgur.com/a/viMyD
Click to expand...

I can get in with no green key, but then how do I not pick up the green key that's in there?
 
R

Radnom

Member
Khoryos said:
I can get in with no green key, but then how do I not pick up the green key that's in there?
Click to expand...

You can collect the key, then knock over the paint bucket in the Shop (enter it between 6-9pm in-game time I believe? bring the bridge!) and go paint the key orange by walking in the paint. Once it's orange you can jump on the platform and the key won't respawn!
 
C

Chev

Member
Radnom said:
You can collect the key, then knock over the paint bucket in the Shop (enter it between 6-9pm in-game time I believe? bring the bridge!) and go paint the key orange by walking in the paint. Once it's orange you can jump on the platform and the key won't respawn!
Click to expand...

Alternatively,
once you unlock the other entrance, you can just reload and use that.

Reached full purple, now wondering
whether to be disappointed there's no second ending or to be wondering where the second ending starts.
 
A

axisofweevils

Holy crap! Today's real megaton is that more than two people can have the same first name.
So I'm at the shop.
It says it opens at 6-9pm. I've changed my computer clock, but nothing...
What am I missing?
 
C

Chev

Member
axisofweevils said:
So I'm at the shop.
It says it opens at 6-9pm. I've changed my computer clock, but nothing...
What am I missing?
Click to expand...

It's not running on the computer clock, it's running on the in-game clock on the lower right of the screen, that goes at a one minute per second rate.
 
F

Feep

Banned
Happy to have been a part of Frog Fractions 2.

Randomly, on an indie game charity stream, I was wearing the T-shirt I got from the FF2 Kickstarter. One of the streamers asked me if knew James. I said no, and then she was like. "Uh, he's in the kitchen...do you want me to get him?"

Fast forward slightly, we became dev bros. He asked me if I was willing to put in a secret sigil into my indie game, There Came an Echo. My game primarily uses voice controls. In one level, a very faint texture can be seen: 2.71 ln(-1) / pi 2.71 ln(-1) / pi 0. This isn't an equation, per se, but it does "simplify" to e i e i 0. Standing near that texture and giving the voice command "old mcdonald had a farm" would trigger a one frame flash of a map piece that would eventually help lead to FF2.

It was placed in the game in November 2014. It went completely uncovered until July or so this year, when some ARG folks found it.

Excited to get home and play the game myself. Congratulations to James, Rachel, and everyone else!
 
L

LucidMomentum

Member
Feep said:
Happy to have been a part of Frog Fractions 2.

Randomly, on an indie game charity stream, I was wearing the T-shirt I got from the FF2 Kickstarter. One of the streamers asked me if knew James. I said no, and then she was like. "Uh, he's in the kitchen...do you want me to get him?"

Fast forward slightly, we became dev bros. He asked me if I was willing to put in a secret sigil into my indie game, There Came an Echo. My game primarily uses voice controls. In one level, a very faint texture can be seen: 2.71 ln(-1) / pi 2.71 ln(-1) / pi 0. This isn't an equation, per se, but it does "simplify" to e i e i 0. Standing near that texture and giving the voice command "old mcdonald had a farm" would trigger a one frame flash of a map piece that would eventually help lead to FF2.

It was placed in the game in November 2014. It went completely uncovered until July or so this year, when some ARG folks found it.

Excited to get home and play the game myself. Congratulations to James, Rachel, and everyone else!
Click to expand...

Holy shit. That's amazing.
 
M

More_Badass

Member
Feep said:
Happy to have been a part of Frog Fractions 2.

Randomly, on an indie game charity stream, I was wearing the T-shirt I got from the FF2 Kickstarter. One of the streamers asked me if knew James. I said no, and then she was like. "Uh, he's in the kitchen...do you want me to get him?"

Fast forward slightly, we became dev bros. He asked me if I was willing to put in a secret sigil into my indie game, There Came an Echo. My game primarily uses voice controls. In one level, a very faint texture can be seen: 2.71 ln(-1) / pi 2.71 ln(-1) / pi 0. This isn't an equation, per se, but it does "simplify" to e i e i 0. Standing near that texture and giving the voice command "old mcdonald had a farm" would trigger a one frame flash of a map piece that would eventually help lead to FF2.

It was placed in the game in November 2014. It went completely uncovered until July or so this year, when some ARG folks found it.

Excited to get home and play the game myself. Congratulations to James, Rachel, and everyone else!
Click to expand...
Wow. Is there a Steam or Reddit thread of people figuring this out? I'd love to see the thought process that uncovered that
 
C

cilonen

Member
Feep said:
Happy to have been a part of Frog Fractions 2.

Randomly, on an indie game charity stream, I was wearing the T-shirt I got from the FF2 Kickstarter. One of the streamers asked me if knew James. I said no, and then she was like. "Uh, he's in the kitchen...do you want me to get him?"

Fast forward slightly, we became dev bros. He asked me if I was willing to put in a secret sigil into my indie game, There Came an Echo. My game primarily uses voice controls. In one level, a very faint texture can be seen: 2.71 ln(-1) / pi 2.71 ln(-1) / pi 0. This isn't an equation, per se, but it does "simplify" to e i e i 0. Standing near that texture and giving the voice command "old mcdonald had a farm" would trigger a one frame flash of a map piece that would eventually help lead to FF2.

It was placed in the game in November 2014. It went completely uncovered until July or so this year, when some ARG folks found it.

Excited to get home and play the game myself. Congratulations to James, Rachel, and everyone else!
Click to expand...

That is freaking cool.

Part of me wonders if it would crack Twinbeard up if public opinion was largely of the "yeah, FF2 is cool, but man, Glittermitten Grove is hot fire!" variety.

Were I in a position at a gaming site to run a review of GG I'd be tempted to be super positive about it on its own merits as a humble nod and attempt at giving back a little humour to the dev team after what they've put in to this.
 
M

More_Badass

Member
Hey, feep, do you know if any other devs on GAF took part? If so, I'm thinking of making a thread so the devs can share their crazy hidden secrets and taking part in the ARG, since your story and secret was so cool
 
F

Feep

Banned
More_Badass said:
Hey, feep, do you know if any other devs on GAF took part? If so, I'm thinking of making a thread so the devs can share their crazy hidden secrets and taking part in the ARG, since your story and secret was so cool
Click to expand...
Possible, but I don't know any of them specifically. The Eye Sigil Wiki goes into a lot of depth.

I did end up seeing the stream where the guy figured it out. He was European and was having some trouble with the voice commands as a result of his accent. He was "singing" it, even looking up an American video of someone singing the song, before he decided to just say it normally. He was very excited when he got it. ^^
 
R

riotous

Banned
So how long did the developers/producers of the game expect the ARG to take?

I'm more interesting in reading about this game than I am playing it; fascinating stuff!
 
L

LordHuffnPuff

Neo Member
More_Badass said:
Hey, feep, do you know if any other devs on GAF took part? If so, I'm thinking of making a thread so the devs can share their crazy hidden secrets and taking part in the ARG, since your story and secret was so cool
Click to expand...

Well there's me, but I'm not one of the devs that put a sigil in the game so much as the guy running the big picture :)

riotous said:
So how long did the developers/producers of the game expect the ARG to take?
Click to expand...

Good question! Because of the way the ARG was developed over the ~2 years I ran and designed it, there wasn't a "how long" thing for the entire thing - it had to run for as long as it took until the actual game was done, and then it had to launch the game. The ARG was broken down into chunks that varied in terms of contents - some were primarily puzzles, some were primarily story delivery. Puzzles always got solved way faster than expected - if I had written something to take about a week, it was done in two or three days or sometimes even less. Of course, story content is designed to be read and experienced and digested, so there wasn't a "length" concern there those were all small parts of a large narrative tapestry that would be woven together over time. Jim requested a sort of Dark Souls approach here where at the end players who really paid attention to all the lore would have maybe 2/3 of the picture and have to piece it all together and fill in the gaps with their imagination. As a result there's a lot of worldbuilding and story content that I had to generate which doesn't appear in FF2 or in the ARG either!
 
M

More_Badass

Member
Kansoku said:
http://wiki.gamedetectives.net/index.php?title=Eye_Sigil_ARG

You can also check out the /r/GameDetectives subreddit, most of the stuff happened there or on their Discord server.
Click to expand...
Crypt of the Necrodancer
Mini Metro
The Magic Circle
Neon Struct
Moon Hunters
Sokobond
Quadrilateral Cowboy
There Came an Echo
Duskers
Clockwork Empires
QWOP
Firewatch
Read Only Memories
and more

Wow, so many devs (and some of my favorite indie games) were in on this.
 
Z

Zek

Contempt For Challenge
Most of the way through and got stuck, and didn't care enough to finish it. Late-ish game spoiler impressions:

Glittermitten Grove itself I thought was pretty fun. TXT World in contrast is not fun to play at all. It was a fun little gag I wouldn't have minded playing for half an hour, not as the cornerstone of the entire game from that point. Plus I don't like how disconnected everything is - TXT World has nothing to do with Glittermitten and the minigames have nothing to do with TXT World. The whole FF2 portion of the game is just a random assortment of non-sequiturs from beginning to end, moreso than FF1 was. And the endgame collectible hunt just became tedious - the aimless wandering is what made me drop off.

I actually wish I were still playing Glittermitten at this point. It would have been really cool if a bunch of bizarre meta elements started to be incorporated into that game. What we got though is just a slog to play by the end and $20 is simply too much for it.
 
A

axisofweevils

Holy crap! Today's real megaton is that more than two people can have the same first name.
Beaten the game. Wow, really enjoyed it and I'm sure I missed tons of stuff too,
 
R

robotrock

Banned
need some help.
finished the flappy bird thing, got the sword, found themusic note, got the up arrow, what next? I find it hard to get places because I have too many gems
 
L

Lo_Fi

Member
Still pretty early on, hoping for some help. In the fairie management sim part in the beginning, all of my fairies left except for 1 (I was low on food). Is there a way to get them back?
 
Z

Zek

Contempt For Challenge
robotrock said:
need some help.
finished the flappy bird thing, got the sword, found themusic note, got the up arrow, what next? I find it hard to get places because I have too many gems
Click to expand...

Hint:
don't worry about getting past the gems at first, there's an item that makes it trivial which isn't required for a while. That item is
the candle
 
8

8bit

Knows the Score
TXT World is not fun at all, is there any quick way of ending this? I just did something that started a dialog about Cab Calloway & ISIS but I think I've had enough.
 
X

xir

Likely to be eaten by a grue
C08r5frVEAANBlG.jpg:large
Click to expand...

Hmm, got a bump but how many people are going to drop 20$ on it that weren't already backers? Do backers who get keys get represented on steamspy?
 
G

Glass Shark

Banned
8bit said:
TXT World is not fun at all, is there any quick way of ending this? I just did something that started a dialog about Cab Calloway & ISIS but I think I've had enough.
Click to expand...

Yeah, the TXT WORLD stuff is the weakest part and I feel like it should have been streamlined a lot in favor of more minigames and humor. There's too much time actually solving game-ish puzzles in between the good stuff.
 
P

PurpleMoustache

Member
I've been sick all week, and didn't want to taint my view of this until I got better. Steam says I've played 2 hours, I recently got the
bridge
, and that's fun, breaking the levels and finding secret areas to go to.

I actually really like TXT World. I feel like there could be more done, like music, it's definitely sparse during play, which I understand is intentional (It's trying to be ZZT after all), and the lack of audio makes the
weird mini games
and the
Keygen Palace with it's fucking SIIIIICK fake Keygen music
, that much weirder.

I was initially disappointing when I realized that TXT world is the rest of the game, but so many weird and subversive things are happening inside it that I'm super digging it. Also, I wasn't expecting a mechanic like DROD in this, where you have to manage the position of your Sword at all times. DROD is more forgiving, allowing you to plunge it into walls, while TXT World doesn't, but there are puzzles that feel straight out of Bizzaro World DROD.

Also the
Bridge
ability I got earlier makes me hope there's more weird world breaking stuff, like F J O R D S, because F J O R D S is fucking awesome
 
S

sinxtanx

Member
okay, finished the game

if anyone wants the solution to the thing I got stuck on, it's
"cat like fish"

"review"
Glittermitten Grove was very pleasant.
I actually really liked TXT WORLD! It's a very good, quirky puzzle game.
The "Frog Fractions 2" part of it wasn't as good for me. FF1 had a strong sense of continuity to it that FF2 clearly lacks. Not so much a rabbit hole as a carrot patch this time. The player is just thrown into and out of a bunch of game jam demos, none of which tie into or build on either GMG or TXT. It was funny, but lacked direction.
Score: Sun will eat everything/10
 
T

Tevren

Member
Have a friend playing this atm, and they are at the
usb microphone part.

Is there a work around if they do not have one of any type?
 
C

chrominance

Member
Lo_Fi said:
Still pretty early on, hoping for some help. In the fairie management sim part in the beginning, all of my fairies left except for 1 (I was low on food). Is there a way to get them back?
Click to expand...

You've probably already gotten past this point by now, but for anyone else wondering: I think every winter you get a food drop from the fairy godmother (whose name escapes me at the moment), which should allow you to attract more fairies the next year. Basically, I don't think you can lose, you'll always be able to get more fairies.

Unrelated: hit a point yesterday where I realized
the game actually wants me to decipher symbols to talk to a frog
and I was like "screw this, I'll come back tomorrow."
 
D

Dan-o

Member
I played this off and on all day then a long stretch from 11pm until 4:30am. I'm pretty far, I think? Only about four more purple letters to get. Haven't had to use any spoilers from this thread until now. The post above about the "scrooge McDuck style" just made me realize the obvious thing I needed to do (stock up on gems!)

Alien roommate simulator was amazing.

This fucking game.
 
G

Glitchesarecool

Member
Does anyone just have an answer to the frog section of this game? Just step by step, with accurate drawings or really good description of the symbols to put in. It's absurdly frustrating and I want it to be over.
 
W

Wibblewozzer

Member
Glitchesarecool said:
Does anyone just have an answer to the frog section of this game? Just step by step, with accurate drawings or really good description of the symbols to put in. It's absurdly frustrating and I want it to be over.
Click to expand...

Alright, just did this but let me see if I can remember what it was without having the game up:

Throw a pear at the frog.

"up arrow, phi (circle with horizontal line above and below), bracket"

"up arrow, phi, ankh (same symbol as the other keys)"

"up arrow, S with a circle in it, bracket"

"infinity, pear, club"

"up arrow, S with a circle, bracket"

"infinity, diamond, mu (u with a tail on the right side)"

"up arrow, S with a circle, bracket"

I think that could be all correct. Also, I did a lot of fiddling around so there's a chance one or two steps that I repeated weren't necessary but from memory this seems correct.

Edit: I now have all the symbols and have five or six that aren't purple yet but I've really lost steam playing this and I'm not even sure I know what the end goal is now.
 
D

Dan-o

Member
^ Yup, that one's needed to start the
final sequence, running through the map as it glitches all around you.
Good stuff!

I really enjoyed the end, for what it is. The game was a blast to play over the last couple days.

I do have a few things I still need to figure out, though:

1. Symbols
I can't figure out where these three purple symbols are:
KICny1q.png
Click to expand...

2. Contraption
I can't figure out how to open this damn thing. I assume this is tied to one of the symbols?
erWhv3i.png
Click to expand...

3. Shop
Although I've entered the shop between 6pm and 9pm, the clerk is always asleep, never awake. Doesn't affect the ability to get to the paint can, but I feel like he needs to be awake in order to get one of the symbols above...

If anyone can help, please feel free. :)
 
W

Wibblewozzer

Member
Dan-o said:
^ Yup, that one's needed to start the
final sequence, running through the map as it glitches all around you.
Good stuff!

I really enjoyed the end, for what it is. The game was a blast to play over the last couple days.

I do have a few things I still need to figure out, though:

1. Symbols
Diamond is on the Gem Factory area. There's a triangle made of gems towards the lower left and I believe it's the bottom left of the triangle. The bracket is in the "church" window on the left. Use the bridge to go directly to the bracket. I don't have the game open so I don't recall if I have the yen or not or where I would have gotten it. Looking online the purple yen might be inside the helipad. And I double-checked and the first of one shape will always be yellow and the second purple so maybe you got the ones I described. The other diamond is in the maze a few screens up from the staring screen. I don't recall which diamond, maybe lower-right, but it's in there mixed in. The other bracket, I thought, was visible in the open and comes more naturally but I honestly don't remember for sure. One yen is where I noted while the other yen comes from completing SPAXRIS New Game+ but I think that's mandatory? I don't remember what triggered playing that. Perhaps that's related to the contraption you asked about below?

2. Contraption
This might be time based. I screwed around a ton around it and multiple times and eventually it just seemed to work (might be how you get the yen?). I honestly wasn't sure why it worked when it finally did.

3. Shop
I found nothing else to do here but I'm missing two symbols so maybe one is related to it? But I think the two I'm missing aren't any of your three (one is the pear and the other might be the S with the o in it? Just guessing).

If anyone can help, please feel free. :)
Click to expand...

I answered within your spoilers.
 
D

Dan-o

Member
Wibblewozzer said:
I answered within your spoilers.
Click to expand...

Thanks!! I got the first two thanks to your info.

As for the yen...
I went back to the contraption, messed around a bit, then switched screens to Chrome then back to the game and suddenly the contraption was gone and I could enter the minigame (a followup to SPRAXIS, the Alien Roommate simulator). After finishing that, I got the purple yen. So now I have all the purple symbols.:)

I think you're right about nothing more being at the shop, now that I have everything. Just weird that the clerk is asleep... figured there was more to it than that.

edit: so after getting all the
purple symbols
...
I can't see any difference in the final sequence of the game or the end credits or the after-credits portion. I guess I shouldn't have expected anything different... but part of me thought it'd be slightly changed in some way. Oh well. I even ran the credits at only 8x speed to make sure that didn't affect anything. Didn't make a difference. After the credits, it cuts to the Glittermitten screen. I finally went into hyperspeed and the ending was exactly the same as before.

I guess that's it. Or is it?!
 
C

chrominance

Member
Done. Sort of. I definitely saw credits and, um, a thing after that, and then a music test screen, which feels final-esque. I know there's more to do (gotta get them
purple symbols
), just not sure I want to do it.

It's mostly everything I wanted, as well as a whole bunch of stuff I didn't know I wanted, plus some stuff that actually makes the game a pain in the ass to play and kills the momentum. All of the minigames were super neat and last just long enough for you to get the idea and giggle at it (except
Obama shaving
, honestly I think I could've played a few more rounds of that). The overworld is occasionally troublesome, but it's also the place where you discover how to tear the game apart in ways that are impossible in the minigames.

All in all, I love this game just because of how bizarre and unique and otherworldly it is. I was a Kickstarter backer, and even though I didn't follow the ARG at all, I definitely feel like I got my money's worth.

(Though I also kind of wish there was more Glittermitten Grove, that game's also legit.)
 
B

Breads

Banned
Purple Yen symbol is eating my soul. Coming after all the time I spent the frog room figuring out I can use the mouse for the inputs was a god send. Up until that point I was mostly using a controller. I think I have to put this game down for a while though. Good stuff. Some of the mini-games are incredible... but I think I went far beyond the point where most people would have ended the game - hah! I did break the game twice with a certain item. I didn't intend to, but I now understand why some features are in the game. I thought they were red herrings or major annoyances... turns out they are necessary to prevent soft locking your game!
 
D

Deleted member 30609

Unconfirmed Member
Minor spoilers:
do you need a mic, or is that optional? I'm in a mini game and can't do anything :(
 
A

andrerobot

Member
Dan-o said:
Thanks!! I got the first two thanks to your info.

As for the yen...
I went back to the contraption, messed around a bit, then switched screens to Chrome then back to the game and suddenly the contraption was gone and I could enter the minigame (a followup to SPRAXIS, the Alien Roommate simulator). After finishing that, I got the purple yen. So now I have all the purple symbols.:)

I think you're right about nothing more being at the shop, now that I have everything. Just weird that the clerk is asleep... figured there was more to it than that.

edit: so after getting all the
purple symbols
...
I can't see any difference in the final sequence of the game or the end credits or the after-credits portion. I guess I shouldn't have expected anything different... but part of me thought it'd be slightly changed in some way. Oh well. I even ran the credits at only 8x speed to make sure that didn't affect anything. Didn't make a difference. After the credits, it cuts to the Glittermitten screen. I finally went into hyperspeed and the ending was exactly the same as before.

I guess that's it. Or is it?!
Click to expand...
End game spoilers ahead.

Did you
go through all the map again using the time machine?
 
D

Deleted member 30609

Unconfirmed Member
purple spoilers
any tips on finding the purple "i" and the purple "d"?

I figure one is behind the Rockband minigame I can't play

Just finished it. I really liked the TXTWorld stuff.
 
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