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1st Journey: In Search of Gary's Whereabouts

PostPosted: Wed Oct 23, 2013 8:30 pm
by Annabelle
Shorah Explorers! :D


Introducing my first journey: In Search of Gary's Whereabouts...

Fan-made ages visited: Somewhere & Iceworld
Cyan ages visited: none

Journey Materials: a pdf file & 5 quests

You’ll have a complete walkthrough/journey log of 69 pages in PDF format fully illustrated to help you progress normally in Somewhere & Iceworld
This is my direct download link. You just have to download my PDF file & you’re set for some enjoyment!

http://www.mediafire.com/?bmceew1o3vp5wmc


You’ll also have 5 quests (3 in Somewhere & 2 in Iceworld) for those willing to push a little bit more their exploration of those 2 ages.

http://www.mediafire.com/?6iu3ikefjhc2bcw
See the download instructions in the last section of this post & make sure to read what each quest is all about in the appropriate section of the PDF file (use the bookmark option in Adobe, it will help you greatly)


Cheating is not allowed

All my markers are placed in a way that you don’t have to resolve on cheating (jump command or flymode) in order to complete my quests. Furthermore, Iceworld is a locked age if you play it online.
If you drown to your waist inside Somewhere because of the heavy lag, I suggest you to type /jump 6 to free yourself, this is the only exception (I don’t consider it cheating)


Author’s Note

My PDF file contains a complete walkthrough/journey log. It cannot be taken as an official walkthrough. I didn’t ask Denost prior to its making. I take a stand in my story (journey log), I suggest that something has gone wrong with one of the characters created by Denost for his storyline. I’m in no point telling you that’s the only acceptable truth. This is my own personal view of what might happened to Gary during his stays in Somewhere & Iceworld with the info I have in hands. The walkthrough section is more factual and even there you may find some questionable parts. This walkthrough is faithful to my way of solving these 2 ages. You could have come with a complete different solution. I decided to blend the 2 parts together: the walkthrough & my journey log making it more interesting & complete.


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A little background of Somewhere & Iceworld

Somewhere & Iceworld are 2 ages made by a French explorer: “Denost”.

He started working on his ages a long time ago. I remember back in early 2010, he presented to the French community the first draft of Iceworld & Somewhere. At that time, those 2 ages had everything written in French. We were introduced to “Le Gardien” and we could journey until we reached “La fin du monde”.

I always felt until maybe a year ago (at the public release of Iceworld) negative vibes coming from Denost toward me because I declared a war real soon since I wasn’t playing the game as intended, I was cheating my way through his ages. I soon also told him about the heavy lag we were experiencing.

I was really shocked when he decided to publish his ages in English when Somewhere became public in fall 2011. This just poisoned our discussions a little bit more.

As of today, I think all this anger has vanished from both sides. Denost surely realized that all my rants were not intended to harm him or diminish his work but because I really liked his work. And with Somewhere & Iceworld being honored in this 1st journey released, it’s the proof.

Somewhere & Iceworld are tied together story-wise. As you will progress in Somewhere, you’ll learn about the existence of another age, Iceworld. Denost put a lot of emphasis on story. There are a lot of texts to go through to really enjoy the gameplay.

It’s quite hard to stay focus and not get lost. Somewhere & Iceworld are among the hugest fan-made ages. You are in for hours of exploration. You have a lot of freedom which can cause some negative outcomes like in my case for instance. Playing Iceworld for the first time, I just went directly to the last part without solving the whole age because of my complete freedom. I know that my freedom is always a little bit bigger than the average explorer’s freedom but I wasn’t too much happy skipping everything in the first place.

Iceworld is laggy but not to a point where the gameplay is hindered by it. Somewhere in its first released version was very laggy to a point where I was on the verge of being sick on some occasions. The latest version of Somewhere is less laggy but it’s still the laggiest age of all fan-made age (at least from my point of view).

I played both ages on countless occasions. I spent a lot of hours, even days, to study all the pieces of this big puzzle (the 2 ages together) proposed by Denost. There are so many areas, so many clues, so many switches, so many puzzles, so many paths, it took me numerous hours to sort everything and put them in order.

Those 2 ages are really impressive. Denost put a lot of time making them and it shows; they are really an explorer treat. And yet...the ending has not yet been written. Denost is working on a 3rd installment called Elsewhere.

We can be really grateful because as you will see in some later journeys, often the age writer just stop the creation, we would like more. They might even, in some cases, had promised more, but there’s nothing in the pipeline afterward...


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Skydiving (glitching) techniques to master for the quests included in this journey:

1- Breaking on landing
To brake efficiently, you need to touch the backward arrow (just a small short touch). If you don’t do that, you’ll slide forward, sometimes it can be a bad idea…

2- Countering the sliding effect on turning
When you turn in URU, your avatar will tend to go a little forward in the same direction (clockwise or counter-clockwise). You need to use the strafe key opposite to the overall direction of your turning, do it in a gentle manner

3- Keeping running steadily
You’ll have to climb some heights where you cannot stop the movement. If you let down the forward key, you’ll go down very fast. You’ll learn very fast where this will happen…

4- Doing a fast 2nd movement before sliding off
Mostly in Iceworld following my quest: “The Great Frozen Cheat”, you’ll have to be real fast to execute the 2nd movement when you are stick at your waist on a railing. Waiting a split second more, you’ll just go back to the ground, it might take you some time to master that

5- Climbing on totally invisible planes to reach your goal
In my quest “Journey in Iceworld”, you’ll have to climb at least one time on a totally invisible plane to grab 2 markers…if you see a marker with no apparent way to climb on the object where I left it, there might be invisible plane somewhere around to help you in your progression

6- Jumping/sticking/turning & run-jumping to gain height
You’ll experience this mostly in “The Great Frozen Cheat”. You need to be real quick & precise. You first need to run-jump against a railing to stick at waist height. Once stick, you cannot release the forward key, you need to turn & do a quick run-jump toward the intended goal. Mostly, it’s a blind jump as you cannot wait to get accustomed with the new scenery, you need to do run-jump right when you stop your turning before falling off to the ground.


*** Specific to the 3 quests of Somewhere ***

If you play offline, I’m offering 2 complete sets for my 3 quests in Somewhere

Somewhere has been modified from its original version released in fall 2011. Offline, you can choose to play the fall 2011 version or the latest winter 2012 version. The lag is very intense in the fall 2011 version. It can cause dizziness. The newest version has a big issue, we lose a lot of visual sceneries. In the normal gameplay, that’s not that problematic. For one of my quests: “Somewhere Underneath”, the difference is huge. Playing it under the fall 2011 version, you’ll see everything: where you are coming from, where you are standing right now, & where you are heading to… Playing it under the winter 2012 version, you’ll be plunged in complete darkness and for some explorers it will hinder their gaming experience. Other explorers will love this “mysterious” flair.

The 2 versions don’t have the same exact naming game-wise so I had to create 2 complete sets of quests as for the fall 2011 version, you’ll journey inside Somewhere (unknown age) & for the winter 2012 version, you’ll journey inside Somewhere2 (unknown age) instead.


*** As I'm posting this post***

For now, I’m still waiting for them to be uploaded on the server by Diafero so don’t ask me for the online version yet…


How can I upload your game inside my offline URU install & why you named them (AnnaQ01, AnnaQ02, etc.) instead of their real names?

1) Go in the folder where you keep your offline install of URU, under the main folder where you see all the other folders (e.g. agearchives, dat, sav, SDL, etc.) create a brand new folder. You will call it: “import”.
2) Put all my .mfold & .mlist files that you downloaded in it.
3) Enter the game and preferably go inside Somewhere or Iceworld
4) Once there, type in: “/import AnnaQ03.mfold”. It will give you this message: “Marker folder Somewhere Very Far created from AnnaQ03.mfold. Be sure to import the markers too!”
5) Open your KI, go in the age folder, locate my quest named “Somewhere Very Far”, open it & go in Edit mode
6) Type in “/import AnnaQ03.mlist”. It will give you this message “37 markers imported from AnnaQ03.mlist”

You have now access to play my game on your offline URU install.

I give those generic names because they are the first 5 quests released. You can already figure out what will be the names of the next quests to come… Giving them a generic name ease the pain when you are doing the previous importing steps. Whatever name I gave to my files, the proper name of the game will be reflected in-game (that’s important, not the rest…)


Instructions to download my quests from Mediafire:

You'll have a zip file. You can unzip it using 7z or winrar. I highly recommend 7z. You will have a folder named: "Anna1stJourney". It will contains all the files described below.

For my quests in Somewhere (URU offline using the newest version of Somewhere (winter 2012)), please use these 6 files:
AnnaQ01.mfold
AnnaQ01.mlist
AnnaQ02.mfold
AnnaQ02.mlist
AnnaQ03.mfold
AnnaQ03.mlist

For my quests in Somewhere (URU offline using the oldest version of Somewhere (fall 2011)), please use these 6 files:
AnnaQ01oldvers.mfold
AnnaQ01oldvers.mlist
AnnaQ02oldvers.mfold
AnnaQ02oldvers.mlist
AnnaQ03oldvers.mfold
AnnaQ03oldvers.mlist

For my quests in Iceworld (URU offline), please use these 4 files:
AnnaQ04.mfold
AnnaQ04.mlist
AnnaQ05.mfold
AnnaQ05.mlist

Re: 1st Journey: In Search of Gary's Whereabouts

PostPosted: Thu Oct 24, 2013 12:51 am
by Acorn
Annabelle, this looks great! I haven't time right now to get into this but it's wonderful to know it's there, for when I do have time and am looking for something new. I have done some exploring in Iceworld but this will give me so much more to do and explore - an extra purpose to my wanderings! Congratulations and thanks. :D

Re: 1st Journey: In Search of Gary's Whereabouts

PostPosted: Thu Oct 24, 2013 9:45 am
by janaba
Annabelle, Annabelle!!! Wow! This is almost unbelievable and really impressive ... :P

What an awesome job and what a most beautiful and formidable compliment and tribute to a special age creator, our denost, and the extraordinary worlds he gifted to us, and it is thus a nice compensation and reward for the immense diligence, perseverance and dedication that went into their creation ... 8-)

I've downloaded the marker quests, just in case I'll be ready and dare one day to look into them lol, and I've downloaded this absolutely awesome walkthrough, one could also call it a travel book or account of an astounding journey ... What a treasure and delightful guidance to have at hand for those huge ages and beautifully illustrated and everything is thoroughly and precisely described and superscribed in a typical Annabelle manner, absolutely amazing ... I'm definitely inspired to explore those ages again using your wonderful guide ... Thank you very much, Annabelle, for sharing your extraordinary passion and its abundant outflow with us ... :)

Re: 1st Journey: In Search of Gary's Whereabouts

PostPosted: Thu Oct 24, 2013 4:55 pm
by Annabelle
Thank you very much for your kind words Acorn & Janaba !!! :D :D

This release has been a journey in itself! So much to think of, to get organized, to fiddle here & there, and you know me... I'm already working on other journeys :lol: I can't stop...

What can you expect for the next releases? I'll deliver top notch materials to help you discover URU ... my way of playing thoroughly explained, nice stories, amazing quests, some bonus, background info. All the major ages will be honored! 8-)

The only thing you'll need is patience. I would really love to share all my knowledge, my discoveries tonight...except I cannot do it

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BTW, I modified some stuff between the release yesterday and right now:

1) instead of having 16 small files to download (for my quests), you can now find everything under a zip archive. You only need to download the archive "Anna1stJourney.7z" and you are done! A real improvement,
2) instead of keeping weird numbers in front of the name, I deleted them. I tested it and it works real fine. So instead of let's say "22161 - AnnaQ01.mfold", you have now "AnnaQ01.mfold".

My changes are reflected in my initial post already :)

Re: 1st Journey: In Search of Gary's Whereabouts

PostPosted: Thu Oct 24, 2013 8:51 pm
by Clatch
WOW. First off, thank you!

How long have you been working on this?

Re: 1st Journey: In Search of Gary's Whereabouts

PostPosted: Thu Oct 24, 2013 11:51 pm
by Annabelle
Thank you Clatch!

From my first visit in Somewhere, I would say few hundred hours. I spent at least 300 hours just to get this journey in order. The text (30-40 hours), the pictures (15 hours), understanding & playing through Somewhere a few times (100 hours), understanding & playing through Iceworld a few times (100 hours), making my quests & testing them (40 hours), etc. You would be surprised how much time it can take when you keep a log. You must consider I began working on my journeys (including this one) a long time ago, about 2 years ago. I'm doing this on & off on my spare time. Needless to say I like creative hobbies... ;)