EDIT: alright! i requested all the liveblogging posts be moved to fan town, thanks chiomi! now i can liveblog here without clogging my vent or the main hiveswap thread Spoiler
this is hard to liveblog because i can't use snipping tool i have to screenshot and then crop it in paint which is kind of annoying but i will prevail
also, not talking about EVERYTHING, but i am clicking on everything i can click on because i fucking LOVE point and click games with a lot of flavor text
Spoiler: is this really a spoiler i know we've all seen this exact screenshot of joey and jude's backyard before but the art for this game is SO pretty also, Spoiler joey calls jude's tree house a rickety little nerd hut. i love them so much
Spoiler: flavor text i absolutely LOVE the flavor text in this game and how we can see joey's personality shining through it even though it's a narrator
Spoiler: lore bits -the calendar says it's the 11th of november. i wonder what the meaning behind that is? -the cherub key is apparently a keepsake of joey's mom -joey mentions in her diary she came home to a drunk babysitter one time -she also complains about her dad not being home very often -jude's walkie-talkie text is in all caps and joey's is in all lowercase
the music is noticeably different in the hall Spoiler .....a signless troll doll? why would they have that.
Spoiler joey is very insistent that she doesn't use guns, even a water gun. is it a strife specibus thing, or..........
okay okay i promise i'll try to stop making one-line posts Spoiler: minor details -jude's bedroom door is covered in "area restricted" and various cryptid stickers including mothman i love him -joey used her tap dancing skills to shake the floor enough to shake the box with her flashlight in it off the shelf. amazing -her techniche (..ability? thing? kinda like specibus i think?) has tap shoes, ballet shoes, and her flashlight in it now -there's a pair of crutches in with the pile of stuff at the bottom of the staircase on the way up to the attic
okay i was on my way to the trophy room and .....i swear i wasn't try to make it like this but it turned into "joey's relationship with her father" with a side bit of "she's girls?" Spoiler -"you deplore cruelty to animals. one of the many ways you and your father never saw eye to eye." oh... is that why she doesn't use guns, then -joey really doesn't have a good relationship with jake. it looks like in this universe he was pretty solitary, off adventuring (possibly moreso after joey and jude's mom died?) and didn't make times for his kids at all -hell, jude refers to him as "absent", so it doesn't look like there's a lot of goodwill there either -the power just went out. i wonder if it wouldn't have gone out if i hadn't lingered for so long while typing this, or if i was bound to have to navigate the trophy room with no light anyway [looking at the photographs and lamp of jake's blue ladies] there's no way this isn't a sexy lamp joke, but also. she. she's girls -"You love animals, your Pa loves killing animals and turning them into ghoulish trophies celebrating his "victory over nature" or whatever. Yeah, big man, as long as he has a big, stupid gun." yep that's definitely why she's so insistent about not using guns. oh, joey.... -"This lamp makes you blush brighter than the lamp itself." SHE'S GIRLS
trophy room was dark and there was something inside but i (joey) am preoccupied getting the power back on. more things as i go Spoiler -"This awful radio static is like nothing you've ever heard, and you would like to go back to not hearing it as fast as possible." [thinking emoji] -[referring to a bottle of alcohol] "Your babysitter has, just. Really atrocious taste. You're only 14, and even you can tell this is just... really crummy." so that's how old she is! Spoiler: large image -i'm guessing this is the kitchen? dear lord, joey and jude don't live healthily. the only adult they have around is rose's mom, who... is very irresponsible. the flavor text for the fridge if you try to snack is "It's empty. Food shopping has become sporadic as of late. Turns out tipsy babysitters are FAIRLY bad at responsibilities?" -joey has made a couple of references to jude's pet, once when looking at his room's door and once when looking at "The TUBE HIGHWAY that Jude's pet uses to get around the house." what does jude have as a pet? a tarantula? a rat? joey likes animals, so it has to be something really weird. -consumed with curiosity, i went back and looked. jude's door was locked, and in addition to this, the flavor text said "Plus, you'd have to deal with his PET." -i'm looking for batteries for my flashlight right now, and when looking at electronics the options for "look for batteries" changed every time, from "scavenge" to "salvage" to "scrounge." SCROUNGE. i've never been happier in my life -if you pick the option "lite" on the lite brite she cycles through four designs: her shirt symbol, her dog, the cherub spiral, and she and jude -FINALLY the radio had the flashlight batteries. the E-cells i found will probably come in handy though
alright i am in the basement. hoo boy time to strife probably? Spoiler Spoiler: image -oh joey... joey honey -remarks on the large pile of betty crocker junk: "Really now, you can tell what a whisk is for, but some of this stuff looks downright unethical!" -that's the SECOND time joey has used her tap dancing shoes to get something to fall down. this sounds like Homestuck Mechanics to me. also, her face right afterward was SO CUTE, you guys, i love the style of this game -okay i flipped the breaker NOW it's time to strife.
strifing...completed? time to go into the trophy room to get the attic key Spoiler -it wasn't REALLY strifing i just used my tap shoes to get a power up and the ballet slippers to abscond -fed the weird monster until it ran out of the room and i could close the door. leveled up to level rung four -pulled on the antler and a laser lit up. apparently i need marbles to solve this, which are in the treehouse, so.... -YOU ARE NOW JUDE HARLEY. Spoiler: image -red and green, huh. that..... makes total sense, and also damn you designers, for continuing the red and green motif. i am once again awestruck by the tiny perfect details in homestuck-related media -the LONE GUNBIRDS, omg. i love jude and his pigeons Spoiler: large image -whoa whoa whoa wait hold up. jude has schematics for the cherub portal? no fucking wonder he's all conspiracy theory. -"THIS thing. Talk about an enigma. One day, you'll figure out what it does, and why certain shady characters want to get their hands on it so badly. You have some theories, of course." -the presence of the portal, the betty crocker stuff in jake's basement, the "cultist sighting" notes visible in that screenshot.....jude's a weird-ass conspiracy theorist and a lot of the stuff he has pinned up there is just weird tabloids and bs cryptid sightings, but i wonder if the cultist sighting bit means anything. and this, obviously, is pretty damning evidence that there's SOMETHING up. -huh, thanks to looking at stuff i knew i had to put a red and a green marble in. neat! i love being kind of competent -DEAR PRECIOUS SWEET FROHIKE THE PIGEON, CONSUMED BY A MONSTER, MAY HE REST IN PEACE -okay the second pigeon deserted but finally the third and last pigeon made it -the music in this strife encounter really gives me undertale vibes and i love it -sighhhh this strife is DIFFICULT nothing seems to work!! i mean, tap dance, flashlight, but then ??? -hiveswap thread directed me to grab the spices, to the right of the screen on the counter, during the fight and use those. thanks!!
hookay finally got that figured out w the help of some people in the hiveswap thread. now, onto retrieving pigeon. Spoiler -i couldn't climb on to the counter with that cupboard before.. -THAT'S WHAT THE CRACKER THING WAS REFERRING TO. -oh. oh my god joey just grabbed the whole pigeon and pocketed him. understandable have a nice day -jude cares about his pigeons SO MUCH. i love him and i love byers the dumb pigeon -joey put the marbles in the lion head's eye sockets and discarded the pouch but....kept the pigeon. Spoiler: image -HMMMMMM I WONDER.. I WONDER WHAT THE CONTINENTS ARE Spoiler: image -the x mark SURELY COULDN'T INDICATE THE OTHER END OF THE PORTAL. hoooooooooo -okay i spun the globe and achieved attic key Spoiler: image -"serpents massing", huh? alright. this is going to be interesting. -did they somehow detect me getting the key? who sent them? what's up with the serpents anyway? IT IS A MYSTERY.
