Firebird is the fourth parser game I’m playing, as I’ve seen it recommended as relatively friendly for a beginner.
I have managed to map out the wilderness and climb the mountain, but at this point I am stuck – I cannot get into any of the buildings. I did skim a walkthrough up to the point I’ve come, and it mentioned a way to solve an earlier puzzle that would have let me retain some items I’ve now lost.
Spoiler on specifics
Specifically, I gave away things to the ferrymen and then stupidly just left them with my stuff. I can go back to the starting forest (my late brother showed me his technique for that in a different life), and I was easily able go back and kill the third ferryman, which was still busy with my things, but I cannot find my way to the land strips between the first two rivers, where three of my items are stuck with the first two ferrymen.
I’m concerned that my inefficient solution left me without a critical item I need to proceed. It doesn’t seem like I can trace my steps back to the specific location of the lost items either, nor get a new one like it.
It could be a good idea to revert to an earlier save, but I might be missing a way to rescue this botched attempt at a play-through. How does one know if a game allows the PC to get stuck? How does one know that the PC is indeed stuck?
This is generally described as the “forgiveness rating” of a game (or “cruelty rating” if you look at it from the other side). But Firebird is from 1998. Really it’s a safe bet that every game from before 1999 or so allows you to get stuck. Exploring that possibility was just part of the game, like exploring the map.
Thanks for the advice! Looks like restoring is the right choice.
Maybe I should rephrase… how can I tell if the lack of progress is due to the PC being stuck, rather than me failing to solve the puzzles in front of me?
I understand the game won’t telegraph this, but perhaps experienced players use some cues?
I was being a bit ironic there. There is no conventional way to tell which of those situations you’re in. You have to keep trying to solve the puzzles in front of you, while also recalling objects that you’ve lost and places that you can’t get back to in case one of them turns out to be the key.
On IFWiki, Firebird’s cruelty scale rating is listed as “Polite.” You can read more about what that means here:
Can die, but cannot get stuck. Beatable as long as the player has at least one save (no matter where it is), but some progress may be lost if the player character dies and the most recent save is far back.
(I guess then the question becomes whether you think that rating is accurate. I don’t know if that rating information came from the game author or not.)
I do! Thank you for the recommendations. Looking forward to plunge into the next one now that I have finished Firebird.
Hm. I would argue it is closer to “tough”, because it does hint that the items given up may be essential to progress, I just wasn’t attentive enough to pick up on the hints.