If You've Caught the Purple Star in WA3, Read This! *SOLVED*

[yot yot5]

BTW MNIK, you still haven't added my purple star text to your list.

And also, out of interest, how did you save 2 magic chargers on "Escape!"? I manged to save the grow charger on the island, but I couldn't see any way to save two...

[Qloof234]

- I later found out you didn't even need the Brr shooters to get Gold on "Boo!"
- Until very recently, I had no idea that my solution to "Suspicious Silence" was a completely unintended one. Moreover, I found a way to solve it without using Flash (although it might just have been another red herring?).
- I had two magic chargers to spare on "Escape!"
- Some others I could list but won't because people don't feel like reading that.

Must admit I'm curious about this, now. What alternative solutions have you found?

however all the other testers are very hard-working in solving all adventures, especially Q and Muzo.

If you think the beta testing was just about solving the adventures, maybe you should reconsider.

I think Tyteen's point was in that we were making sure all adventures were possible and that there weren't any ways to get stuck in an unwinnable scenario.

Let me state this for the record: The only cheating I did was using CE to accommodate for 3 missing coins, which I tracked down later

Ah, I understand. I apologize for making assumptions. For those beta testers who put in adequate effort, thank you for your hard work and I apologize if I came off as rude.

As far as I'm concerned, it's fine, don't worry.

and using the wall-blinking trick to bypass Escape!/Escape Plan before the solution was discovered.

Trying to find alternate solutions is a big part of testing though. If you already have the solution then you likely aren't going to find alternate solutions.

Okay, I don't know what you're getting at here. If I wasn't clear enough, my point was that no-one knew how to solve it at the time - Muzo was the first one to figure it out, and that was a while after the level was first posted. I did a lot of messing about trying to find a solution or an alternate solution which was a pretty fruitless endeavour (hence why I'm curious as to the solution you've found)

inb4 flamewar-- wait im late

People just can't accept anyone having differing opinions, eh?

"Differing opinions"? People getting offended after you making a vague comment that can easily be read as rude and insulting to Patrick and the testers is hardly a difference of opinion.

A different opinion would be that I don't think it's a problem if levels have multiple solutions so long as they aren't trivialized as a result. I think it rewards creative thinking more to have multiple solutions.

[yot yot5]

Okay, I don't know what you're getting at here. If I wasn't clear enough, my point was that no-one knew how to solve it at the time - Muzo was the first one to figure it out, and that was a while after the level was first posted. I did a lot of messing about trying to find a solution or an alternate solution which was a pretty fruitless endeavour (hence why I'm curious as to the solution you've found)

Personally, I think it's a bit lazy of you to skip an adventure when you should be testing it. I think MNIK's being rude, but he's bringing up some valid points.

[MyNameIsKooky]

About the Blue Flower, it has always been sort of an enigma in every Wonderland Adventures game. I'm somewhat doubtful that it's related to this purple star puzzle at all but I suppose we'll find out.

BTW MNIK, you still haven't added my purple star text to your list.

Done.

And also, out of interest, how did you save 2 magic chargers on "Escape!"? I manged to save the grow charger on the island, but I couldn't see any way to save two...

The two magic chargers I saved were at the southwest corner, across the metal bridge on the island (they were the Grow and Pop chargers). Here's the steps that I took...

1. As soon as you enter the wlv, get through all the dialogue as fast as you can. Use Brr to create a bridge across the water and take the Blink with you. Hesitate for nothing!
2. Kill the Chomper using the eastmost transporter.
3. Use Blink to get the eastmost transporter facing upwards.
4. Head to the southeast room and use Pow on the Cuboids to open the blue gates.
5. Get the Brr in the southeast room. If you've been fast enough, you'll be able to make it out before the UFO spawns and prevents you from leaving the path to get the Brr. I'm certain this isn't intended! Don't stop working quickly, though.
6. Use the Brr to create an ice slab on the northeast room.
7. Quickly head back into the western area before the Zapbot in the southeastern room is spawned. You'll be able to kill that Zapbot from the western area using the eastmost UFO's fireballs.
8. Go back and get the Blink to solve the ice grid. You can take your time now.
9. Once all keycards in the eastern half of the level are collected, return to the western half.
10. Use Grow to divert the Zipbot into a loop to press the rotator button.
11. Walk into the suction tubes, but time it well. If you time it correctly, you'll get the keycard just as the tubes change direction and launch you onto the transporter.
12. Get the keycard in the Chomper area. Should be very easy now that the Chomper's dead. You'll also be able to return to the northwest area since you left the transporter pointing upwards.
13. Use Pop to turn off the suction tubes.
14. Use Floing to block the northwest Zapbot's laser. Open the gates and leave. You should have one Pop and one Grow charger to spare.

I still don't know the intended solution.

[yot yot5]

About the Blue Flower, it has always been sort of an enigma in every Wonderland Adventures game. I'm somewhat doubtful that it's related to this purple star puzzle at all but I suppose we'll find out.

BTW MNIK, you still haven't added my purple star text to your list.

Done.

And also, out of interest, how did you save 2 magic chargers on "Escape!"? I manged to save the grow charger on the island, but I couldn't see any way to save two...

The two magic chargers I saved were at the southwest corner, across the metal bridge on the island (they were the Grow and Pop chargers). Here's the steps that I took...

1. As soon as you enter the wlv, get through all the dialogue as fast as you can. Use Brr to create a bridge across the water and take the Blink with you. Hesitate for nothing!
2. Kill the Chomper using the eastmost transporter.
3. Use Blink to get the rightmost transporter facing upwards.
4. Head to the southeast room and use Pow on the Cuboids to open the blue gates.
5. Get the Brr in the southeast room. If you've been fast enough, you'll be able to make it out before the UFO spawns and prevents you from leaving the path to get the Brr. I'm certain this isn't intended! Don't stop working quickly, though.
6. Use the Brr to create an ice slab on the northeast room.
7. Quickly head back into the western area before the Zapbot in the southeastern room is spawned. You'll be able to kill that Zapbot from the western area using the eastmost UFO's fireballs.
8. Go back and get the Blink to solve the ice grid. You can take your time now.
9. Once all keycards in the eastern half of the level are collected, return to the western half.
10. Use Grow to divert the Zipbot into a loop to press the rotator button.
11. Walk into the suction tubes, but time it well. If you time it correctly, you'll get the keycard just as the tubes change direction and launch you onto the transporter.
12. Get the keycard in the Chomper area. Should be very easy now that the Chomper's dead. You'll also be able to return to the northwest area since you left the transporter pointing upwards.
13. Use Pop to turn off the suction tubes.
14. Use Floing to block the northwest Zapbot's laser. Open the gates and leave. You should have one Pop and one Grow charger to spare.

I still don't know the intended solution.

Nice solution! I did it a bit different.

Instead of using blink to get the transporter facing upwards, I blinked to the pop charger on the island and used pop instead.

Instead of beating the UFO to the brr charger, I used the UFO to shoot a cuboid and used the remaining pow charge to kill the UFO.

[Qloof234]

I think it's a bit lazy of you to skip an adventure when you should be testing it.

My point is that I'd been testing it for hours and nothing was falling into place - The first instance of this adventure was almost impossible, in fact, due to programming differences between Beta 1 (the version the testers were on) and Beta 2 (the version Patrick designed the level on).

When it got time for Beta 2, once again, the problem I had was connecting everything together - I could do certain parts of the level, but finding a way to do everything and still have a Floing or Grow charge to avoid getting killed by the ZapBot at the end was the hard part.

So no, I disagree about it being laziness. That is all I really have to say on the matter.

[Muzozavr]

To others: MNIK found some incredible shortcuts in the first playthrough that he finished within a few days. "Turtle Corral" without blinking back through the green gate? "Suspicious Silence" with a solution that is actually SIMPLE? Streamlining the logic in "Zap Timers"? Sure, why not! A complex, but elegantly "non-fiddly" solution to "Star Crossing"? Pfffffft, no problem at all. Seriously, I'm quite amazed. Since he stated that, I know now he didn't really mean to insult our beta team, but after "Turtle Corral" I (personally) wouldn't be offended even if he did. Some of his solutions are simply that good.

To MNIK: When it comes to actual beta testing, finding shortcuts and alternate solutions is basically what I did the best and the most, you don't want to know how broken some of the early versions of the adventures were. For example, "Closing Doors" initially had an extra space to the left of the pop charger. That allowed the player to pop the white button from that point, let the chompers out, then step left before the slow door opens. All the chompers would step back on their transporters and get stuck. So much for "closing doors". "Floingpowpop" did not originally require floing or pow, leaving only "pop". Fun times...

Together, we've found a lot of stuff that you don't even have the slightest idea about. The loopholes were much more blatant back then.

I'm pretty good at finding shortcuts and offering game balance suggestions, but I'm really bad at anything else. I didn't find a single glitch. I think everyone found some glitch except for me. I worked as hard as I could on finding alternate solutions and shortcuts to make up for that. "Quick as a Flash" was originally impossible to abort, you were thrown right back in the same spot. (janetgalle's find) CMD 7 used to fail if you managed to save during the command's effect and then loaded the game. (don't rememeber who found this) There was an annoying Flo/inventory-lockup bug that requires you to press ESC to get out of the inventory (I'm not sure if this was fixed or not, found by Lukas). The computer in "Master Class" used to crash the whole game. (found by Q) You know, things like that. Q even uncovered a bug that was there from the very start, all the way back in WA!

- I later found out you didn't even need the Brr shooters to get Gold on "Boo!"
Originally they were required to exit at all. This was considered unfair by some, so there was a very hasty last-minute change to this one. There was very little time to figure out anything.
- Until very recently, I had no idea that my solution to "Suspicious Silence" was a completely unintended one. Moreover, I found a way to solve it without using Flash (although it might just have been another red herring?).
There were no red herrings in the original solution, also, I TOLD MS REMOVING ONE FLO WOULD MAKE IT A BETTER PUZZLE!!! *insert comical exaggerated grumbling mixed with an inflatable clown head beaten against a wall*
- I had two magic chargers to spare on "Escape!"
Considering your skill and the genuine trouble we had on this particular level, I'm not surprised.
- Some others I could list but won't because people don't feel like reading that.
Well, I did put a list of some WA loopholes in a spoiler box with a "wall of text" warning. Why not?

You posted while I was making this long post:

Kill the Chomper using the eastmost transporter.

Wow, you really like using long-standing engine bugs that were never fixed for the sake of not breaking something else, don't you? Come on. Man up and solve the puzzle "correctly", without glitching your way through. Though I have to admit you used this glitch in an impressive way with some serious thinking outside the box.

[jdl]

Okay, I don't know what you're getting at here. If I wasn't clear enough, my point was that no-one knew how to solve it at the time - Muzo was the first one to figure it out, and that was a while after the level was first posted. I did a lot of messing about trying to find a solution or an alternate solution which was a pretty fruitless endeavour (hence why I'm curious as to the solution you've found)

Personally, I think it's a bit lazy of you to skip an adventure when you should be testing it. I think MNIK's being rude, but he's bringing up some valid points.

I was one of the ones who skipped Escape! as well, because at the time nobody at all could find a solution, and not being able to complete it was delaying the testing process. Later I came back to it and completed it with no problems once a solution was available.

The only time I ever really cheated was during the second run of the game whenever I was playing like 2-4 hard/annoying levels that had no changes in the updated beta. I later came back to those as well. Other than that, I've collected every coin and gem, and completed every adventure in the game thoroughly (and reporting stuff in the hub as well).

[Muzozavr]

To be honest, I think I also skipped "Escape!" the first time just to see the ending cinematic and test the after-credits part... I came back to solve the level properly almost immediately after, though.

[StinkerSquad01]

Wow, you really like using long-standing engine bugs that were never fixed for the sake of not breaking something else, don't you? Come on. Man up and solve the puzzle "correctly", without glitching your way through.

Is that where if you move a transporter while a chomper is trying to go onto it, it will find itself in water and explode? If so, I wouldn't really consider it a bug. I've done that to get rid of pesky monsters, as well as closing gates right on their FACES.
if it's not then i have no idea what you're talking about

[yot yot5]

"Turtle Corral" without blinking back through the green gate?

Actually, that was MY solution. I told MNIK about it on PCPuzzle chat, and he put it in his video (I don't mind, of course, but I just thought I'd let you know).

So no, I disagree about it being laziness. That is all I really have to say on the matter.

After your explanation, it certainly makes a lot more sense. I understand that some people have trouble on different levels, and you obviously had a lot of trouble on "Escape!". I just find it hard to believe that none of the nine beta testers alerted MS that you could save at least ONE magic charger over those three months.

So yes, it doesn't sound like you were being lazy. I think I'm just acting a bit bitter because POTZ wasn't quite as loophole-free as MOFI.



EDIT: I just watched MS's walkthrough video of "Out of Sequence", and that's another adventure with alternate solutions. I've found two, so far.

[Qloof234]

It wasn't entirely over three months, though - Patrick would create new adventures as time went on and ask us to test them. Particularly, Escape! (or Escape Plan, as it used to be called) showed up only a month and a half before the game's release.

That doesn't account for when Beta 2 was released, either - Beta 2 was released at the end of September, giving us just under 4 weeks to check all the changes and new adventures and such.

The last minor thing is that Escape Plan got an update two weeks before release. Overall, it was probably the most hectic adventure to test.


Also, I'm still not sure I get what the problem with loopholes is? Unless you mean solutions that trivialize puzzles. What's wrong with multiple solutions? Isn't it better to have multiple ways to approach a level rather than railroading the player into doing things exactly as intended?

[Muzozavr]

Wow, you really like using long-standing engine bugs that were never fixed for the sake of not breaking something else, don't you? Come on. Man up and solve the puzzle "correctly", without glitching your way through.

Is that where if you move a transporter while a chomper is trying to go onto it, it will find itself in water and explode? If so, I wouldn't really consider it a bug. I've done that to get rid of pesky monsters, as well as closing gates right on their FACES.
if it's not then i have no idea what you're talking about

Closing gates was always a part of the game proper, as well as making them SLIDE into water.

The transporter-kill I consider a bug (or, at least, a quirk) because once the chomper starts going on the transporter, the transporter really shouldn't be able to move until the chomper has finished its move, it just doesn't make in-game sense. Then again, I could be wrong.

I just find it hard to believe that none of the nine beta testers alerted MS that you could save at least ONE magic charger over those three months.

Please. Beta1 had less adventures and that wasn't even in there. The level was first released on September 12, but was borderline unplayable because of programming differences between Beta1 and Beta2 and we mostly forgot about it. Beta2 was only released on October 1. (edit: actually it was September 30, I was mistaken) We had to play through the entire game again to test for any changes, find out about new adventures like "Boo!" (which didn't exist in Beta1), check for more typos, etc.... by the time we got to test "Escape!" for realz, there wasn't much time left.

Actually, that was MY solution.

Oh WOW. Credit is where credit is due, that was awesome. Especially because I was testing this level for way too long and just couldn't see that second blink-around...

[MyNameIsKooky]

RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

Bah! I'm sorry, okay?

Nice solution!

Thanks!

Instead of beating the UFO to the brr charger, I used the UFO to shoot a cuboid and used the remaining pow charge to kill the UFO.

Nice! I never thought of that!

That means if we use the UFO instead of the second Pow charger in my solution, we could get not 2, but 3 unused chargers.

Wow, you really like using long-standing engine bugs that were never fixed for the sake of not breaking something else, don't you? Come on. Man up and solve the puzzle "correctly", without glitching your way through.

I purposefully tried to avoid using glitches like this and the iceslab-wall thing, but in an adventure as challenging as "Escape!" I got desperate.

Come to think of it, though, you could use my solution and avoid the second Pow charger and save it to kill the Chomper to avoid using that gross glitch.

"Turtle Corral" without blinking back through the green gate?

Yot yot came up with that solution, actually.

I did have another unintended solution for Turtle Corral involving some nearly frame-perfect Blinking, but it was a huge pain to pull off and I was relieved when yot yot found a better way to beat that adventure.

The rest of the solutions were all me though.

To MNIK: When it comes to actual beta testing, finding shortcuts and alternate solutions is basically what I did the best and the most, you don't want to know how broken some of the early versions of the adventures were. For example, "Closing Doors" initially had an extra space to the left of the pop charger. That allowed the player to pop the white button from that point, let the chompers out, then step left before the slow door opens. All the chompers would step back on their transporters and get stuck. So much for "closing doors". "Floingpowpop" did not originally require floing or pow, leaving only "pop". Fun times...

That sounds fun yet horrifying!

CMD 7 used to fail if you managed to save during the command's effect and then loaded the game. (don't rememeber who found this)

That's a fairly well-known bug that's been around since WA1. In fact, many of the WA1-era bugs are pretty well-known due to how much people have used the WA1E.

Together, we've found a lot of stuff that you don't even have the slightest idea about. The loopholes were much more blatant back then.

Thank you testers for your efforts.

[tyteen4a03]

So many of the beta testers were cheaters from the sound of things. I guess that explains why so many levels in WA3 had blatant loopholes.

Please explain the "blatant loopholes".

- I later found out you didn't even need the Brr shooters to get Gold on "Boo!"
- Until very recently, I had no idea that my solution to "Suspicious Silence" was a completely unintended one. Moreover, I found a way to solve it without using Flash (although it might just have been another red herring?).
- I had two magic chargers to spare on "Escape!"
- Some others I could list but won't because people don't feel like reading that.

Trivial solutions has always been a part of Wonderland. As long as you can't skip the whole adventure with a trick, it's fine.

Also, is the strong wording necessary?

What strong wording?

Blatant (n.) very obvious and offensive
2 completely obvious, conspicuous, or obtrusive especially in a crass or offensive manner
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/blatant

You are directly insulting ... the other testers and our 3 months of hard work.

I never said "all of the testers," did I? I just said "many." I'll admit I exaggerated a bit there, as the cheating wasn't nearly as widespread as I thought.

I also did not say "all of the testers".

I will admit I cheated through some of the harder adventures in Beta 1 and only finished 40% of Beta 2 due to lack of time (there were 2 beta versions)

Sounds like you weren't doing your job.

however all the other testers are very hard-working in solving all adventures, especially Q and Muzo.

If you think the beta testing was just about solving the adventures, maybe you should reconsider.

I will admit I wasn't doing a part of my job, which is ensuring all adventures are possible, well, however beta testing has many aspects, including minor hub oddities, technical issues (there was one that breaks Windowed mode) and so on - as a developer yourself I don't think I need to explain further.

inb4 flamewar-- wait im late

People just can't accept anyone having differing opinions, eh?

(Q explained better than I did)

[Qloof234]

For the record, @Kooky; I'm not actually that angry, 'twas pretty much a knee-jerk response (saying that, though, for the record, I do think PoTZ is the best of the WA trilogy, personally). Sorry about that.

[MyNameIsKooky]

For the record, @Kooky; I'm not actually that angry, 'twas pretty much a knee-jerk response (saying that, though, for the record, I do think PoTZ is the best of the WA trilogy, personally). Sorry about that.

Thanks.

Blatant (n.) very obvious and offensive
2 completely obvious, conspicuous, or obtrusive especially in a crass or offensive manner
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/blatant

oh man, these sure are some offensive loopholes

also "blatant" isn't a noun

[tyteen4a03]

(also ditto Q - my responses were a knee-jerk one as well)

Blatant (n.) very obvious and offensive
2 completely obvious, conspicuous, or obtrusive especially in a crass or offensive manner
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/blatant

oh man, these sure are some offensive loopholes

also "blatant" isn't a noun

Whoops I was playing Cities in Motion 2 and working on other stuff when I typed it in.

[yot yot5]

To sum up: I liked POTZ. I had great fun while playing it, and it was definitely a worthy end to the Wonderland Adventures trilogy. I understand that testing is a long and tedious process, and near the end of the testing period it must've got a bit annoying. I wish that some of the loopholes and alternate solutions me and MNIK found had been spotted by the testers, but it sounds like they all did a great job, overall.

[Muzozavr]

It wasn't annoying or tedious. If anything, it was the opposite, it was a really fun and enjoyable experience. At least for me it was. The Beta1 portion of the game (which is most of it, really) went really smoothly, actually. Most of it was quite thoroughly tested.

(Oh, and about "Turtle Collar", I forgot to tell you about one huge mistake in the first version of the level: the green gate was open at the start for testing purposes and MS forgot to change that in Beta1. )

However, Beta2 came out very late and we didn't have much time to test it. The Beta2 parts of the game we had to test very quickly and things got more hectic than I would've preferred. I'd like to have done my part more thoroughly, but that just wasn't possible due to time constraints.

[StinkerSquad01]

1 5 ILEFIW

[MyNameIsKooky]

Ah yes, we're making progress.

Some thoughts on the message pieces so far and what they could possibly be a part of...

OONAND: "SOON AND"?
ACENEW: Not sure.
HTIFYO: No idea at all. Maybe mako made a typo in this one???
RRENSF: "RREN" is a part of "BARREN"... Maybe this piece is part of something like "BARREN'S FORTRESS", referring to the Jeeboos' home?
LIFEWI: "LIFE WITH"?

EDIT: I've added translated versions of the message pieces to the first post.

[StinkerSquad01]

I had a theory involving the numbers being part of a coordinate grid.

Note (2,4) and (3,4). They almost form a readable phrase, "Barren's face new". Perhaps this is what we're looking for?

Origin is the bottom left.

(2,3) "HTIFYO" could possibly be something like "—HT IF YO—". Hmm.

[Qloof234]

Even if I can't contribute to the theorizing, I figure it'd be nice if I dropped my own combo here anyways.

1 3 IMNDGI

(alternatively, MIDNIG, which I think is self-explanatory)

[StinkerSquad01]

..THAT FITS!
KEEP THEM COMING

[janetgalle]

Quote: "Ah, I understand. I apologize for making assumptions. For those beta testers who put in adequate effort, thank you for your hard work and I apologize if I came off as rude." MNIK

If you consider THAT an apology, you are sadly mistaken.

You apologize for making assumptions, then go on to thank those who put in adequate effort? Really?

Are you a full time student? Do you work 40 or more hours a week to support your family? Do you care full time for a disabled family member?
Do you do volunteer work? Are you away from home in a foreign country participating in an exchange program?

These are what many of the testers are, and what they do.
Yet they still found the time to "adequately" test this game.....because they wanted to. Because they enjoy the game. Because they admire Patrick for his genius, humor and fun.

Don't belittle their (our) efforts because you managed to find different solutions to some of the puzzles. Bravo for you.

Janet

Sorry Patrick, I had to vent.

[Nobody]

Okay, so I haven't caught him yet, but I'm 14 coins away, and I have no idea...

where...

they...

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

you guys

can't this forum ever not have an argument

like, seriously

MNIK, have you upset the general community again? General community, are you yelling at MNIK again?

...it just keeps happening.

I'm gonna sit over here in a corner... I'm gonna sit here and look for coins and pretend that another forum miniwar isn't what is taking place right now.

[StinkerSquad01]

Check your Floing menu, and you should have 134 stars. Coins also tend to be hidden in alcoves and isolated areas; check Qwertyx and the Grynkler fort area. If you're missing stars, check isolated spots (I missed Mad Dash and the coin in a wlv of Light Barren) or the POTZ portal.

[Nobody]

Three down, eleven to go.

I can't.

[tyteen4a03]

All I can confirm is that

Barren's Dark Side (Entrance area) has no coins.