Hints for Alyas of Starhollow (ParserComp 2026)

Playing Game Hints
1

I got to 170 points (got to a temple) but then I couldn’t figure out how to proceed. A walkthrough then got released, so I’ve now gone back in with that. I was originally stuck in the temple, and with the walkthrough’s help I can now get back out of the temple with an extra item in hand, but… walkthrough seems to indicate that something else should be happening after that but I’m not sure what, so I could use some help!

In the meantime, here’s a few mini-hints for other players trying this that maybe don’t want to go to the walkthrough yet. Exclamation marks are just the parts I took longer to figure out, so other players might have trouble in those spots as well.

hints

1st section (village)

Flour mill

your goal here is to distract dusty so you can steal a sack.

church

what might you do you do in churches? this is a very magical sort of fantasy game.

your yort

a couple things here as i recall, you need to solve another puzzle to get the ashes from here

longhouse (!)

i missed entering this the first time sweeping the map, but as always, thoroughly search all objects. obviously the huge pot in the kitchen is conspicuous. But also, there’s another item in the building which is a bit hidden in text, but would be easily spotted if there were graphics.

2nd section (past village)

chapel

search and pull

yort

the pallets. i wanted to use the thing I picked up from here immediately, couldn’t find the right verb. once i went to the right place to use it though, the game tells you the right verb once you try opening it there.

garden (!)

So weeds are hiding TWO things, and i think lots of ppl are going to miss searching twice here. So make sure you leave with two new items.

3rd section (forest)

trees (!)

originally, I hesitantly moved forward after making a save because I couldn’t get the thing from the hole, the game does seem to allow you to do that here. After I got stuck at the temple, I went back for this. Took a bit of messing around for the sequence of commands, but got that. I also missed the other object in the nest, but I have it now that I looked at the walkthrough

oak tree

Did you get two items from the garden in the section before? You should have some idea what to do from that.

4th timed section (dock)

after the crossing

ran into a guess-the-verb here. COMMANDS will help.

5th section (temple)
temple (!)

got stuck inside. possibly got into an unwinnable state? Couldn’t figure out what to do w/darkness puzzle.

Restored a save, and looking at walkthrough… still not sure what to do next. So originally I finally figured out how to get inside (focus on the door, what do you do with doors?). But couldn’t figure out what to do, did find the figurine. Eventually looked at walkthrough. That tells me how to get back out, but just looking at the walkthrough, it seems like something else is supposed to happen, because it seems to want me to wait a bunch of times after exiting. At a quick glance at the walkthrough, can’t see anything I missed doing though.

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2

I don’t have anything much useful to say; I did follow the walkthrough exactly at that part, so it may just be a small sequence thing where doing things slightly out of order or using the wrong synonym might not work. If you restore and type it exactly, does it change?

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3

No idea if this is helpful, but there is a transcript of a winning playthrough here:
https://github.com/angstsmurf/spatterlight/blob/master/terps/scarier/test/AoS_expected.txt

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4

Oh wow, the game accepts GENUFLECT as a verb?

J/k, it doesn’t and there’s no reason it should.

5

I wasn’t sure exactly where you were stuck here, but-

After following the string to get out of the front doors, you should find yourself in the Temple Courtyard, and if you wait long enough, something will happen. And a few turns of waiting after that, you die.

You can avoid the death and get yourself a bit more freedom of movement.

Just hide from the priests when you hear them returning.

HIDE BEHIND STATUE will serve.

Then go investigate the room they exited. If you’re wearing the alb and headdress you can explore more of the temple safely.

I forget whether the description hints at this but there’s something in one of the braziers.

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6

You definitely need the object from the hole to escape the darkness puzzle. Did you find

spoiler

the nuts earlier on?

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7

Hmm, nothing seems to happen when i follow the string back out, with the figurine in hand, maybe I missed a step earlier needed to trigger the next part.

It seems like my 2nd and 3rd playthoughs didn’t get transcripted, even though I left the adrift runner open, oops.

Here’s my first playthrough but it’s pretty short:
alyas.txt (66.9 KB)

And here’s a transcript of my attempt to go through the temple section where I get stuck, which doesn’t seem to trigger what needs to happen. A quick glance at the walkthrough doesn’t seem to indicate that I missed doing anything.
alyas-temple.txt (21.5 KB)

1 Like
8

…huh.

That might be worth a bug report, I have no idea. I did notice many spots throughout the game where the order of events is exceptionally sensitive, but I don’t know what’s missing here.

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