The ending, final boss, etc. [Obviously spoilers]

[apti]

The ending was pretty damn awesome, I went back and beat it again yesterday just so I could see it again. I felt so bad for that kid... loneliness and loss are big themes throughout the game; that really gets me. Losing everyone I love is pretty much my number one fear, so that hit home. Poor kid That first whispered "On that day..." always makes me shed a tear. "I could never remember the chorus, only the verse" and how it found its way into everything he made was a clever touch.
I wonder how he became so twisted like that... The Body is certainly not a welcoming place...

I'm dying to find out what happens next, what with the highly interesting endgame events... but of course the next one (are there definite plans for it?) hasn't even been started yet. I would looooove to know anything Alec or Derek could tell us about that... if anything...

Absolutely beautiful game in every way, the voicework is perfect, wonderful music... anxiously awaiting the release of the soundtrack, I really wanna listen to the Kelp Forest music... Lots of Ecco nostalgia too...
How in hell was this made by just two guys?! In just two years?! You guys have superpowers or something. It's kinda my dream to make an adventure indie game like this myself, but I have absolutely zero programming or music skills... I'm really jealous.  Oh well, we'll see what the future holds...

How much are you guys making off this? You really deserve it... usually it would take an entire studio to make a game of this quality, and for just two guys to do it... crazy awesome. 

Definitely see if you can have this put on the Wii as WiiWare or something. That would be excellent, and I bet the wiimote would fit itself very well to the controls. More people need to play this game.

[Joakim]

you can use spirit form for destroying projectiles ?

and it absorbs the energy and you end up healing yourself

every 5 projectiles = hp healed incrementally

is it a question or is it an answer.?
I tried it and the spiritform will NOT heal if you hit particles... however you will take damage, but only once/particle.
So where do you get those numbers (5=heal)?
heh, im confused.

[loke]

Right Clicking in Spirit form
allows you to absorb enemy projectiles, projectiles disappear in the process (effectively eradicating a source of damage)

Right Click works in a small radius. Area of Effect is around the "spirit" (blue orb you control)

for every 5 projectiles absorbed
HP is healed incrementally
5 projectiles do not have to be onscreen at a time in order to heal - absorbed projectiles are still counted toward the next time you absorb (therefore you can enter and exit spirit form several times in order to 'gather' enough projectiles to heal)

moving into projectiles will damage you, so don't get too close

btw you can collect blue healing particles in spirit form by moving over them

some more information:
if attempts are made to absorb an enemy projectile in which the enemy has been destroyed, projectile will not be absorbed

[Quemaqua]

Well, I loved the ending and thought it was great, but at the same time I'm confused as hell about certain things.

Firstly, what "saved" the kid?  There must have been a reason that he became powerful.  I'm also a bit confused on what exactly he created and what was already there.  Obviously he made some major mistakes in any case, but I'm still a little unclear.  Like... were the Mithalan people that went crazy and started feeding their kin to their god somehow disturbed by the child?  Was that his fault, or is that just something they did?  The way several things were phrased in the ending I'm not not quite clear on.  What exactly did the Creator create?

Secondly, was Li from the flying city?  I wasn't sure if he was just some guy from maybe some other place who happened to be interested in the area, or if he was a survivor of the disaster living off of whatever he could scavenge that had fallen and stayed afloat long enough for him to grab.  The latter doesn't seem likely since you get the impression the kid was the only "survivor", and surely the disaster must have taken place at least some time ago for the events of the story to seem believable, probably long enough that whatever rations Li could gather would be gone.  Also, I personally really liked his addition.  He didn't feel tacked on to me at all, and I enjoyed the emotional relationship there.

Definitely confused about the sleeping girl at the end there, had it not been for that I think the last bit of the ending would have made more sense to me and I would have assumed it was Naija's son going off to find her after reviewing the memory crystal one last time.  That's still sort of what my gut says, but the girl throws me nonetheless.


Anyway, my confusions aside, that was a mind-blowingly great game.  Seriously.  I'm going to put the finishing touches on the 5 page review I've been taking notes on and writing as I played, and it should be up somewhere in readable form shortly.

[silverkitty]

my vote is the girl is their daughter, and the boy is their son, and the next game will involve their two quests, one underwater and one in the sky, which will seem separate at first but become intertwined.

[Alec]

Li was in the scripts from the very beginning, and his reasons for being where he is can be speculated from scenes in the game / thinking about the storyline.

Li isn't a survivor of the flying city from the intro, however. That city was destroyed and the only survivor was the boy: Eric.

Li and Naija also met before, when they were young, probably more than once. I don't think they ever interacted more than simply seeing each other and being intrigued. But I'd like to think that those moments sparked something in their imaginations that wasn't erased. When Naija was young, she wasn't living alone and probably wasn't allowed to talk to strangers...

In terms of the girl in the cutscene, her character is totally unexplained in this game, but we have a detailed backstory for her and it'd be interesting to get a chance to explore that in a separate game - but I don't know if we'll ever get the chance to do that.

Also I'll say that the "thing" that brought the boy back to life would be explored much more fully in a sequel, if we ever made one. Its part of a bigger story, and it would be cool to have the second game be about that and its history as well.

But yeah, who knows if that'll ever happen!

[ag3nt-1987]

I think Li war searching the Veil for 2 reasons:

1. He wanted to find the Sunken City cause he heard about it in a legend or something else. It might be on the same level as we search for the sunken city of atlantis. Nobody knows where it is but maybe it is somewhere. And wasn't there some phrase in the Sunken City like: "Li was interested in the city" and he actually has the key to that city.
2. He wanted to search for this girl he has seen in the water when he was a kid. thats one of the hidden memories.

[Xocrates]

2 seems unlikely because he runs away from her when he finds her.

[Alec]

2 seems unlikely because he runs away from her when he finds her.

Maybe he's running away from his own desires.

[silverkitty]

maybe she assumed he was running away, but in actuality, he was leading her to somewhere he was more comfortable

[Xocrates]

2 seems unlikely because he runs away from her when he finds her.

Maybe he's running away from his own desires.

Now all we need to know is whether or not you're trying to mislead us 

[Alec]

maybe she assumed he was running away, but in actuality, he was leading her to somewhere he was more comfortable

I dig this one.

[baldur]

Ok just beated the game, got the good ending with all the memories and was wondering. Do you get another ending/extra cutscene if you collect all the treasures?

[Quemaqua]

Thanks for contributing to the thread, Alec.  It's nice to have a couple of the gaps filled in.  I feel like everything makes more sense now, barring the exact details of what the Creator built for himself.  I really did like the ending, in any case.  And the song Jenna sang is truly heart-wrenching.  I managed okay in the game, but when I listened to it at work the other day it was all I could do not to cry like a damned baby.

The thing I find myself wondering most heavily now is who actually raised Naija.  If Mia was created and not born, did she slip into Mithalan society with Naija and raise her, or was Naija just given to some people there to be raised?  The figure in the memory in the kitchen may answer that question, and the latter option seems unlikely anyway.  Next play through I'll have to check, though.

Also, it should be noted that my wife totally hates you after that ending.  If I tell her there's any chance at all of there not being a sequel, you may have an angry woman throwing rocks at your houses.  She hates cliffhangers, heh, especially if she's worried about the chances of a sequel getting made (the first thing out of her mouth was something along the lines of "This better not be another Beyond Good & Evil).

[Prio]

You can also use spirit form to "cheat" during the race in the seahorse cave.  Remember: in spirit form, time stops.
Spirit form also makes a nice scout; again, time stops, and you can still use the middle mouse button to look around, allowing you to spot potentially painful surprises further afield than usual.