Introduction
Let me tell you a bit about Faxanadu.
Wikipedia calls it an action role-playing platform-adventure, I call it a bunch of bullshit.
In this game you get to go from town to town in order to rescue the Elfs from some meteorite that struck the World Tree or whatever, use up a never ending stream of keys in order to be able to get anywhere, all while killing a bunch of "Dwarfs" that look more like something Giger would come up with. You also get to talk to a bunch of people who don't make a lot of sense more often than not. It's NES bullshit at it's finest, and the pinnacle of "We play this game so you don't have to."
Though in the end, it's still a lot of fun to me for some reason. So I'm going to play this while
Table of Contents
DysLogs
DysLog #001
Dark.
Had I even opened my eyes? What time was it?
I grabbed the box of matches on my nightstand and struck one alight as I sat up on my bare mattress. It was late. Early? Pausing with perked ears, I heard nothing—what had woken me up? Before I could finish asking myself, I already knew. My heart sank down to my heels, settled on the cabin’s dusty floorboards, and my hand snapped as the match’s small flame threatened to burn my thumb.
Pizza was telling them our story.
I struck another match, walking laps around the small cabin and lighting the candles that had melted themselves to the contours of tables and shelves throughout my home. The candles’ collective flicker illuminated disorganized stacks of texts and loose papers, pencils, wrappers, and debris.
The guide. They needed our guide.
When we first entered Fax—Pizza, Dith, Sigh, and I—we were ignorant to the challenges that would soon face us. During our first encounters with those hideous creatures, the others seemed undaunted and violent, however, I felt the naturalist in me scream. I began documenting our journey. Everything we knew ended up in that guide and now, thanks to Pizza, the guide had found its first use. I could die happy knowing that our guide would save them the anguish and pain we suffered.
I knew my role instantly. I would scour my cabin tirelessly, unearthing the torn and scattered pages from the guide. Whenever I had found pages, I would make the 5 hour walk to post the letters. I still don’t know who picks up the mail, but my letters are always gone by my next visit.
I started with some of the first guide pages, which I had always kept on my nightstand. I had often spent hours staring at the worn cover, searching the elegant illustration for some sort of validation for our pains. Without another thought, I grabbed the small stack of pages and left immediately for the mailbox.
-Dys
PS- NOTE TO SELF: Remember, we made these mistakes so that no one else would have to.
DysLog #002
I ran back home.
The promise of purpose had rekindled some deep flame within me previously snuffed out by the thick dust that hung in the cabin. By the time I had reached my front door, I could’ve sworn I was even smiling. I had half a mind to run right back to the mailbox. Was it empty yet?
Turning my focus back to the door, I faced the long day (night?) ahead of me.
Upon entering, the cabin looked different--had there always been this much stuff? My smile melted as I envisioned the cabin accumulating a thick layer of dirty papers, tomes, and candle wax somewhere above the lost pages of the guide and just below the dust. I couldn’t let this stop me, not while they waited. I would never know what Pizza was doing, so I had decided to assume the worst.
All day, I stacked, pushed over, and restacked endless piles of dusty books. Hours later, I had circled the small interior of the cabin back to where I first began searching. All that faced me, however, was an untidy pile of books I had yet to see. Without question and without pause, I continued sorting out this new mess. Were these my books? I don’t remember reading them.
Two more cycles of the room later.
I peered up through the dirty glass of my only window. The sun was setting. Rising? I slid down to the floor, my eyes sinking as the last rays of light fled between two stacks of paper, tracing the bottoms of two sheets reading “5” and “6”.
I considered eating before leaving, but instead opted to free the two pages and barge back out through the door. I didn’t need food, I rarely took damage.
DysLog #003
The sun had gone somewhere (down?) at least 6 times before I found more entries. I had been weaning myself off of any significant amount of sleep and, unsurprisingly, my nerves were shot. My eye winced as I felt a drop of water fall from above and splash on my cheek. When I wiped my face off, however, my hand was dry. I wonder if they missed me.
On the third sunset (I assume the sun was setting, but I couldn’t tell you where it was setting to), I left the cabin for fresh air. Inhaling the thick, musty air of the surrounding forest, I started asking questions. I could turn over every book in that cabin, but there’d always be more, topped with a fresh layer of untouched dust. How? Why didn’t I care? Why didn’t I just stop?
Coming out of this momentary lapse, I realized that I had re-entered the cabin and was, again, sorting through the infinite mess. I felt disconnected: my mind fluttering above my head, my hands busily disassembling towers of books below, and nothing in between. When did I come back in? How did I get back in? I seemed to have plenty of questions but had lost my interest for answers.
So there I sat for three sunsets, cross-legged and surrounded by a growing wall of books full of words that I can’t keep in my head, two smudged, grainy pages in my hands. Do I ever eat? Oh well.
Instead of bursting out of the room, I read the entries through slowly. Unlike the countless volumes flooding the cabin, I thoroughly absorbed the words of the guide, which painted my mind with fond memories of our journey. As I continued reading, my joy was snuffed out quickly by a pang of fear. Worry clutched at my heart. Was our message too cryptic? What if they didn’t understand?
I got tired of the questions, slowly rose to my feet, and shuffled out the door.
DysLog #004
When I was younger, my neighbour told me a story about a boy who, one day, fell asleep. After sleeping for a whole day, the boy’s family became worried and called a doctor to visit the house. The doctor discovered the boy slumbered with no heartbeat, enabling him to sleep for such a long period of time completely uninterrupted. The doctor became famous in his field for the discovery. News teams descended on the house in droves and the boy’s family became famous as well. In celebration, the family erected a giant timer on the front lawn, which counted how long the boy’s slumber had lasted. It wasn’t until the timer had reached 364 days that the family realized their son was dead.
I think my neighbour was senile.
I had been churning through the mess in the cabin slowly, a general sense of apathy coating my movements. My thoughts wandered back to the tale of the boy. I paused my searching for a moment to hold a hand to my chest. One heartbeat. I waited for one… two… my chest tightened. Two heartbeats. I sighed and returned to the mess.
Lifting a particularly cumbersome volume, I noticed two pages poking out from the middle of the book. I lifted open the pages to find the worn guidebook entries juxtaposed with the meaningless script of the tome. I choked on the thought that I might have hidden more pages inside of other texts.
How many would I have missed? I glanced up at the recently overturned stacks of books and grimaced. Reluctantly, I pushed through the front door and toward the mailbox.
Fanart
Heavy Sigh draws some wonderful fanart:
Some of the more elaborate update pictures:
Some more Fax info:
There's two cool romhacks for it I've found. Don't get all too excited though, these are not your actual full-on romhacks. They're a fix for the Pendant bug and restoring western censoring respectively, which is pretty neat I think. There's also this third one, but I don't know if I like it.
Alright, then there's this project. It's where I've pulled the knowledge and pictures regarding the version differences from first, and it's also got these picture of unused items in the game and all kinds of weird info.
Then we have this shrine which is a great compilation on all numbers and assets you could ever want about the game.
And there's also this incredibly comprehensive guide. It's a step-by-step walkthrough with all the information you could possibly get about actually playing the game.