Part 3: Days 5-7: Behind The Waterfall

Last time on Misplaced In Azure, we pushed a rock over. Woo. Maybe this time we'll actually get to see what was behind the rock!

Music: Beach


Wake up, drag Skye to drink. Spear some fish. The morning routine begins to set in.



Black Bass continue to be the absolute best source of food available in the entire game because I got this off only four of them. There are other fish but apparently the best ones live right outside your doorstep, go figure!



Not wanting to hold the LP up by actually doing some proper preparation for this, I immediately head all the way up the waterfall back to where we pushed the rock over last time.

Music: Cave #2






Seems like this is the highest place. Just ocean and more ocean...
Hmm... I hear a dripping sound from behind the waterfall.





I hear wind back there. Maybe it leads somewhere?

There is no sound in the cave other than a faint wooshing. It's kind of ominous, quite like it.



I include this purely to highlight an obvious instance of the game's slightly buggered translation, just know that if you see dodgy English in my transcript I'm probably transcribing it verbatim.

The water's clear, it should be OK to drink.

Oh yeah, that and you can drink from it to again restore Thirst to 100%. Handy.

Then we head up the ledge to the left of the pool.



The cave exits outside here.

Music: Jungle



It's like a jungle. I don't think I'll find anyone out here but I have to keep moving forward until I find something.

Welcome to the jungle. We've got fun and games.



It's got everything I want. Honey, we got the vines.

It's a strong tree vine. If I use this as a string, I can make a fishing rod!

Fishing Rod has been added to Tool Making

I need bait to catch fish. I should search the ground for worms or something.

Worms can be found by A button searching (not touch screen searching) any place you would logically find them. Basically anywhere but stone and beach. Plentiful and nothing to worry about running out of.



Further on, we discover the evolved form of the humble stick.

It's a heavy and sturdy log. With this, I should be able to make more furniture.

Keith gives a lovely interface spoiler here because I haven't actually built any furniture yet, but you can build furniture. Just haven't unlocked the ability to do so yet.



Hmm, this place is full of different fruits.



Because it's a new food in a much deeper part of the island you'd figure Bread Fruit might be a decent eat. Nope, only restores 5% of hunger. This continues to exist in stark contrast to a single black bass fish restoring 51%.



Is this the only pathway?

Anyone who has played Metal Gear Solid 3 probably has alarm bells going off in their head at this point but in spite of common sense, the swamp is totally safe to walk through.



It seems pretty deep. It's so hard to walk in.

All this build-up and the net effect is just that you can't run in the water. There's only a short pond of the stuff and you just walk in a straight line through it. Ultimately it just bogs down the pace further for no reason.



On the other end of the swamp, we discover another new food. This one restoring 8%, or as much as a potato. I mean, I guess the game is consistent about random crap off the ground not being terribly nutritious but it hardly feels much like progress.

Taro incidentally, are fucking poisonous when eaten raw in real life but have no ill effects in this game, this game is hard and now doesn't even have the saving grace of being realistic in that difficulty.

Heading to the north end of the jungle, we scale a few cliffs and run up out of the jungle.

Music: Jungle Beach




I'm finally out of the jungle.

Continuing on down reveals a little beach area but is otherwise a dead end.



Check this out!



It's a lake! It looks so far across...

I intuit from this that Keith can see another shore from here, the player is not granted this privilege, we just get vast expanses of repeating sea texture.

This shape...
Was it originally a volcanic vent?

Music: Discovery
I don't think I can swim across this.
I came so far and now it's a dead end.
What should I do? Is there any place I haven't checked?

In service to absolutely nothing besides frustrating me, I've unknowingly triggered this before seeing an event the game wants me to have seen beforehand, so Keith stubbornly refuses to have anything to do with the lake for the time being.



This is the only other thing of note in the Jungle. Papaya and pineapples. Both also about equally as crap as everything else that can be picked up off the floor. They're off in a fairly obtuse location that you have to loop back around the entire jungle to reach, it's not even slightly worth the effort.

Having now fully explored the jungle, my stamina is rock bottom so I make haste and climb all the way back down the waterfall to the cave.

Music: Progress



What's that? Is that a tree vine? I thought of something, is it ok if I use that?

Unlike with bamboo, Skye forcibly nabbing your first vine isn't horribly annoying because vine isn't much use on its own but what Skye can craft it into is used constantly.

Yes, go ahead.



I still think this looks ridiculous.

Look! I made a rope out of it, if you find more tree vines I can make more rope. If you want more rope you can ask me anytime.

Rope has been added to Job Request

Put more vines here and I can make more ropes.
I put the ropes I finished making here too, so take them whenever you need them.

I put the commentary I finished writing here too, so learn how tense works when writing.

Can you think of any good use for it?
Hm, maybe I can build larger scaled things with this.
Larger scaled things?
Yes, like a bed for an example.
Oh, we should be able to get better rest at night if we had beds.



Okay then, I will start building that kind of furniture here.

The game then immediately and jarringly snaps into another cutscene because it cannot handle all the progress I am making at once.

Music: Cave #2



I have to go fetch some twigs.
It seems like a hassle to gather twigs everyday.



If you stock up on twigs and put them here, I will keep the fire going.
That would be very helpful!

This is incredibly useful because it saves carrying a bunch of twigs around all the time but I find it truly emblematic of this game's pacing that it took five days to unlock the innovation of piling all your wood in a corner.

Now, let's check out the Build menu!



This is presently the only thing I have access to build. All furniture in this game builds in tiers, beds having three tiers. Not even going to question why the Tier 1 Bed takes 3 stones and nothing else.

A combination of lacking anything better to do and Keith's stamina being absolutely zero means I call it a day here and go to sleep.





Oh you're awake, I couldn't sleep either.

Music: Melancholy
I've been thinking a lot since coming here.
?
Before, I felt that I could handle anything by myself. I thought I was very independent.
But that was just when society was there to protect me. It's nothing like that out here...
When I got here, I was totally lost.



Don't worry, I'll keep you safe.
Yes...

I really didn't want to pick the painfully cliche and slightly patronising option but I need all the relationship points I can get.

When I think about it, I think this is the first time I've ever had a conversation like this with anyone.
Really?
Yes, I don't really get to talk to people the same age as myself much.
You don't have to speak so politely to me.
Hm?
You can talk normal.

This really doesn't convey well in the translation at all because Skye has never rubbed me as being excessively formal. She's rubbed me as awkward to be sure, but she's not talked any weirder than Keith.

Talk...normal?
Yup.
Okay, I will. Um... Got it. Gotcha?
Hahaha, something like that.

The two share a laugh as the screen fades to black.

Music: Today's Results


Keith's energy restores a pretty good amount by sleeping but I don't think that will cut it for another trip back up the waterfall.

For once, I'll take a short break from making plot progress at every opportunity and work on some home comforts.

Music: Good Morning


Music: Cave
How are you doing?
I've heard that the moon and the tides affect fishing, I wonder if it's true.

Repeatedly asking Skye how she's doing has actually started bearing fruit. This increased my relationship value a little, but nothing else of note.

Music: Beach



The beaches randomly see interesting and useful junk wash up on its shores for us to take advatange of. In this case, a simple bottle.

It's an empty bottle. I can use this to carry water! I'll fill it up whenever I drink water from now on.

Super handy but not for me presently, expeditions to the jungle and beyond are taken care of by the pool in the waterfall cave. This is actually best left with Skye where she can quench her Thirst with it if she can remember she has the damn thing because she'll just sometimes not drink it while slowly dying of dehydration.



Excellent, I am no longer one stone shy of a bed crafting recipe. Let's get cracking.


Music: Crafting





The crafting mini-game is pretty easy, commands to draw different shapes or occasionally blow into the mic fly past you and you do them. It's pretty easy with a stylus, with a mouse not so much but I scrape by.



I made a couple of mistakes but the game doesn't mind. There is no indicator of how many mistakes are too many, you just get a binary pass or fail at the end of the mini-game, I've never failed it once though so it's not particularly harsh.



We can immediately see our miraculous transformation of three stones into two square frames which to be totally honest look much more uncomfortable than before. Maybe the next upgrade will make sense, I can dream.



More logical but I don't have the resources. This is the big thing about Log and Rope, absolutely every piece of furniture needs it to be made, as a result there is no such thing as too much rope and since rope doesn't occupy conventional inventory space anyway, I'm gonna be ordering Skye to make me a lot of rope over the coming days.



Fishing rods are generally not worth the vine they take to make but it's at least worth trying out.

Yeah! I made a fishing rod. Now I can fish. I wonder what kinds of fish I could catch.



Fishing, despite what you'd expect, is controlled entirely with the d-pad and buttons. No touchscreen controls to speak of here. The mini-game is also a lot easier to do than the spear fishing one.



In short, you wait for the hook to dip below the water, immediately press A and then hold the down button on the D-pad to pull it towards you while occasionally pushing left and right to keep the offending hook-grabber in the centre.



When the fish is close enough to you, push A again to yank it out. One step above Animal Crossing but a few steps below Sega Bass Fishing.

Music: Today's Results


I did absolutely nothing else today other than repeatedly resting to fix Keith's stamina for the next trip up the waterfall. Going further and further out into the island is going to start requiring more of this tedious preptime to do it safely which I'll largely be skimming over so don't be alarmed if days suddenly dissappear into the void of "not shown in LP".

Music: Cave


This place looks good for storing things. I'll use this place as a shelf from now on.

The area in the back of the cave can hold 5 items. It's always been able to do this I just forgot it was there until now.

Heading back up to the waterfall cave...



I can get out from this side too!

Music: Savannah


Where am I? I must be getting deeper into the island. I hope I find something helpful here.

The savannah is home to plenty of carrots, potatoes and raspberries. In other words, exactly the same not that great stuff we've seen before.

There is one thing that makes visiting the Savannah worthwhile though...





It's an animal! This area must be home to some wildlife. If I can catch one it'd be a great source of food.

Now we're talking big leagues, let's kill something other than fish. Charge!



Unsurprisingly, sprinting directly at animals barehanded isn't an effective hunting strategy

I can't get close. I don't think I can catch them unless I attack them from a distance.
Oh, maybe if I make a bow!

Bow has been added to Tool Making

Bows are the only tool effective for hunting larger game because you can't just run up to them and engage them in manly combat with a spear which was honestly the most dissapointing thing about this game for me when I first played it.



Looks like I can go down from here. Oh, it's connected to the beach.
I can jump down but I don't think I can get back up afterwards.

I did not know this little one-way shortcut from the Savannah to the east side beach existed until I started doing this LP, it's ridiculously handy and saves on so much travel time that I'm just kicking myself for not knowing about it before.

Wish the game could just not be painfully awkward and have the thing be a two-way shortcut but it just wouldn't be Lost In Blue without lots of downtime.

Music: Discovery


Keith then proceeds to run halfway across the entire fucking area because apparently this cutscene has a massive trigger radius.





This must have been built by people. Are there people here?





Pant pant...there's....no one....
This building. It looks very old. There might have been people, but it must have been a long time ago.

Fair play to the guy in the thread who guessed this, you were dead on. Ancient ruins! It is however, just set dressing and there's nothing you can really do with it.



Fancying ourselves an archaeologist, we set about excavating priceless ancient artifacts with nothing but our bare hands.



Hmm? Something is drawn here. I wonder if this drawing is related to this building.

That is genuinely all there is to the savannah for now until I develop the tools to murder the native wildlife which I'm definitely going to get around to eventually.

For now though, we've explored the island as much as we can right now so I head back to the jungle beach for Keith to have his little epiphany.



Is there any place I haven't checked? No, I don't think so. I've searched every other place.
This was the only area left. Then there's only one thing to think about...
How to cross this lake! I should go back once and take my time to think.

No, you should hurry up and stop kneecapping your pacing for no reason.



Thankfully, taking one step forward was apparently all the time Keith needed to think.

Rope and log...
With these I could make a raft. I'll be able to cross the lake!

Actually, Skye's lifeboat is still sitting on the eastern beach, why don't you just use that?



Ok I'm going to build the raft here!



The raft is a six-part construction project requiring large amounts of logs and ropes to complete, it is because of this that this is the point where story progress grinds to a halt.

I've already stated that objects in the game world respawn on a three day basis and one of these full respawns will cover a little over one stage of building the raft. Logs and vines (to make rope) can only be found in the Jungle with the exception of Logs randomly washing up on the beach. Consequently, building the Raft takes a couple of in-game weeks to build at minimum.



Also in the jungle beach, this clay pot! This has always been there I just neglected to notice it the first time I came down here.

The description notes it as "the bottom of a broken vase". How Keith is able to know this from merely looking at it is a mystery, boy truly does have the knack for archaeology!

That's everything in either the jungle and savannah looked at so I head back to the cave to start settling in for the long grind to construct the raft.

Music: Progress


Is that a clay pot? Hmm...maybe I can use that.
Yes, go ahead.

Music: Cave
Yeah, I can use this as a pot for cooking!
Now I'll have so much more freedom in cooking, so look forward to future meals!

Music: Progress


Oh! I bet I could use it to cook with! Can I have it?
Sure, go ahead.

Priceless remnants of a past civilisation reduced to mere cooking utensils which Skye doesn't even need given her previously demonstrated powers to manifest frying pans when she needs them.

How are you doing?



I think we could have more things if we had a shelf.

Choice 1: Ok! Let's make a shelf here!
Choice 2: It's ok the way it is

Choice 1 is "Yes, I would like to unlock this upgrade path", Choice 2 is "No, I hate progress and myself". Why this is even a choice they let you make is beyond me.

Ok! Let's make a shelf here!
Really? I can't wait!

I decide to just immediately build the shelf because it only takes one log and rope each.



Thank you, now we can store more things!

Now we can store 10 items rather than the usual 5. Slowly watching the cave fill with more furniture is one of the aspects of this game that I find strangely compelling and pleasing.



Join me next update where I'll be killing time waiting for resources to respawn by killing the local wildlife.