Mapped by our ancestors

what's the update?

You are kind of a goat at making games. Haven't played on itch.io in a while but pls keep making games because they are good and I play them when I get the chance. Sincerely, a casual fan

I used the password room to enter Heaven directly, then I started backtracking, and it seems impossible to pass through woodlands 3 from this direction since I am on the opposite side of the available space I'm supposed to go to... is there some way to go to the beginning?

Having completed the game with all the upgrades and having discovered all the endings, I have some questions regarding some game mechanics I'm still not entirely clear on. Spoilers for anyone who hasn't finished the game, of course.

1) How does the "light" upgrade work exactly. The way I believed it was supposed to work at first was that it would reveal hazards as soon as you step on a tile bordering them. This, of course, would trivialize the game and its core mechanic. Still, it does reveal hazards... sometimes. I know stepping on a tile bordering a hazard is a requirement for the light upgrade to reveal it... I just don't know what the other requirements are.

2) How exactly does treasure discovery work? If I'm not mistaken, the "night vision goggles" upgrade reveals treasure if you walk on a tile it was hidden on. However, I accidentally discovered treasures can automatically get revealed on some maps before getting the upgrade. I'm not sure how exactly this happens, it mostly happened during backtracking on the way back to the village to restock on troops and then back to the region I'm currently exploring. I've noticed it happened more often once I got the "crops" upgrade and began mapping out all walkable routes of areas I've already explored for personal satisfaction, so it might have something to do with exploring everything on a specific screen. Even so, exploring everything didn't consistently unlock treasure prematurely, and many screens had completely inaccessible tiles due to hazards.

3) What's the point of the "night vision goggles upgrade"? From what I gathered, it reveals treasure and slopes. Unfortunately, it is only accessible by collecting 1+2+3+4+5+6=21 treasures, in other words, it is only accessible after having gathered literally every treasure outside of heaven, assuming you want it to have any utility before entering heaven. By that point you've definitely passed the mountains and probably located the slopes using the "crops" and the "building" upgrades, so the slope feature is useless. And you've clearly discovered all the treasure, so you don't need it for treasure hunting either. The upgrade is only useful either for a clean-up run after having reached heaven or as a "new game +" feature if you use the password room to access heaven immediately in order to collect the treasures faster. Still, it FEELS like an upgrade that would have been far more useful earlier down the line.

4) I still have absolutely no idea how the woodlands predator mechanic was supposed to work. The impression I got was that there is one dangerous tile that is not a hazard but rather a predator that... maybe moves? Hazards on the other side of the screen do get revealed automatically according to some pattern the first time you enter a woodlands area, but there's only ever been 1 predator tile on each woodlands screen I've ever died to. After a while this predator tile just... disappears and what I assume is the relevant predator just pops up on some hazard on the other side of the screen? Does this mean the predator walked into the hazard? I have no idea. I also don't know what triggers predator movement progress and eventual predator death. I suspect it has something to do with exploration progress on the screen, but it's inconsistent and potentially bugged. Even after competing the game and having all screens fully explored, there's still 1 or 2 woodlands where the predator simply hasn't died yet. Fortunately, the treasures the predators seems to insistently share a tile with are still accessible even if you have to tank a death to get to them.

EDIT: Having replayed the entire game again, I have some more mechanics-related questions. These are mostly end-game related, so even more spoilers ahead:

5) I just realized the "night vision goggles upgrade" is actually crucial for the hell section, as without them you wouldn't be able to see which way the "slopes" are going. Considering this, I'd like to ask the criteria for revealing slopes is. Clearly when you "fall off" of a slope, you reveal it, but sometimes slopes get revealed without you having to fall down off of them. Is it a similar mechanic to the "light" upgrade?

6) Thinking more about the "wildlife" upgrade, I'm starting to suspect the predators in the woodlands behave similarly to the domesticated dog from this upgrade. Both the predator and the dog mirror your movements on the other end of the screen. This also explains why the predator's only "kill square" seems to be in the middle of the screen: it's the only point where the player and the predator would intersect. Following this logic, I recognized that the way you "kill" a predator is by stepping onto a tile whose mirrored tile on the other end of the screen is a hazard, so that you get to survive and the predator gets to die. There are such special "kill tiles" in most woodland screens, woodland 1 being the only exception, where in order to kill the predator you have to exploit the fact that the woodland 1 screen and the bridge screen immediately prior to it aren't the same size. This allows you to do some corner shenanigans (which I suspect are intentional, as that's how you made the connection between "Memories of the end 10" and the password room a 1-way connection) in order to spawn into an otherwise deadly corner unharmed and kill the predator. Is this correct? Also, the dog (and the predator, presumably) feels like a much better scout than the player character is. Besides being immortal and phasing through hazards, does it always automatically reveal all hazards and slopes that border the tile its on?

7) I'm curious about the "ending" trigger condition. Since the endless void is the very last thing a player can discover (usually), I assume ending 3/3 is always available when you enter the void. As for ending 1/3, it's obviously available if you enter hell through the password room unprepared. It also isn't available if you enter hell properly, through the depths. I'm curious as to what the exact trigger condition is for ending 1/3? How does the game judge whether you are hopelessly unprepared or not if you end up in hell, say, in the middle of the game.

8) Most of all, I'm curious about ending 2/3. If it was meant to be a choice between going through the depths or staying in heaven forever, shouldn't ending 2/3 be available as soon as you enter heaven, regardless of anything else. I only discovered ending 2/3 after opening a portal to heaven in the password room to fast travel there. What are the trigger conditions for ending 2/3? What is the "organic", "intended" way for the player to discover the endings?

I'm left scratching my head over why this exists, why was this created?

Hey, quick question, I reached Heaven and grabbed every upgrade, but it says I'm still missing one artifact. Where is it?

finished the game, got ending 3/3 before 2/3. 

great game.

Managed to reach endless void 1000, got about 80 rooms deep the normal way before finding out you can skip rooms by moving left, down, then right while in the upper-left tile of a room, which is how I did the rest of the rooms. Honestly fully expected it to do the thing where going backwards takes you to room 1, which is why I didn't find that sooner, not until I accidentally when down instead of right leaving a room, which trapped me between some walls and forced me to go backwards. (Also got all 3 endings and all upgrades, of course! Forgot to mention that.)

Anyway, interesting game. I do think the ability to map slopes should've come sooner, I personally expected/wanted it when you instead get the ability that maps an area around you when you enter a room...and what's up with that upgrade, anyway? Pretty sure that's the one described as raising children to be scouts, but I have no idea how that connects to the behaviour of it.

That aside, I did enjoy it, although the lack of saves was kinda rough, and some areas felt a little too stretched out with too many repetitive inputs required, definitely felt this one in my joints. It did give me a similar feeling to playing Void Stranger though, I like the sense of exploration, pushing the boundaries of the rules, it's good stuff. I imagine Void Stranger might've been an inspiration here actually, but if it wasn't, you should probably check it out, you might like it based on what you went for here! (I personally stopped playing Void Stranger when I reached hard mode, got a bit too tedious to progress at that point, but still!)

Good work though, especially for something made in 5 days. I'd give it...like, a 7/10, which is pretty good, mostly dragged down by the gripes I mentioned and the length, but that's just looking at the end result objectively, the length is actually really good for how much time was spent making it. Since this site only allows rating out of 5 though, I'll give it 4/5, it leans closer to a 4/5 than a 3/5. I'll always prefer something interesting that I have gripes with to something bland and boring, that's for sure. That's the whole reason I follow Adrien here after all, ever since Idle Nightmare 2, that game fascinated me.

So yeah, that's it. Nice stuff, looking forward to more, I'll probably be catching up on some of the other games I've skipped over here in the coming days, I enjoyed this experience.

his greed sickens me, why does he knee to keep searching when he already reached heaven? disgustind

Adrien, Please, I do not want to go to be here, I just put a bunch of rocks together into a funny formation and now I am here. I have learnt how to walk diagonally, be immovable object in face of unstoppable force, erase objects out of existance, downloaded external overlay software to memorize the path. Please, I have passed all circles of hell twice but I just want to collect those 2/4 treasures I was trying to find at the Mountains 1.

Ending guide for the lazy folk (like me):

BIG SPOILERS, DO NOT REVEAL UNLESS YOU@RE OKAY WITH THAT!!!!

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All three endings are acquired by going to the [Password room] above the Village and moving the stones into a particular pattern around the portal. The hints for each ending can be found around where the portal ends up. In all of these, have a tile's space away from the portal.

These can also be used to fast-travel your way to later areas, though you miss out on the loot you could have gotten.

Ending 1 - Hell

Move the rocks in a plus formation around the portal. This can be easily done by just moving the top rock to the left. You've doomed your people :)

Ending 2 - Heaven

Move the rocks to the corners around the portal. You've done the thing :)

Ending 3 - Void

Move the rocks in a particular formation, like this:

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You are now trapped forever in a place between torment and hope!

Hope this helps :)

I've gotten fully stuck in the endless void. Did you know it's possible to diagonal move, but not between solid blocks? Got myself surrounded on all sides by blocks.

To be clear, I think this is a fitting end. Loved it.

I like how you make a nice story and world with such simple mechanic. :)

Found the three endings, became ONE and stopped at endless void 113 (there is an exploit to go fast there) as I hoped I found every secret

I refuse my fate!