I am running low on my alloted two hours for playing this under the comp rules and hoping to see a bit more as I have really enjoyed it so far. Unfortunately the hints, while extensive, are not very helpful, as they’re organised by location rather than by goal (so to work out what I ought to do next, it seems I’d have to read through the hints for every location).
I’ve explored the mall, fixed the power, activated the vendbot and passed through the mirror in the restroom. I’ve figured out what the loupe does but can’t find anything I want to use it on (I tried the doll and the nightshirt but they don’t fit in the tray). The hints seem to suggest maybe I should be doing something in “Dark Softness” but I have no idea what that is or where to find it.
Here's my inventory
You are wearing:
a pair of orange high tops
a pair of yellow leggings
a pair of pink shorts
an oversized T-shirt
a denim berzio jacket
a pair of ekato gloves
a pair of gnusto glasses
a memorizing headband
You are carrying:
a doll-sized nightshirt
some fragments of linen
a manuscript
a Pajama Party Barbarian doll
a tiny nub of chalk
a silver notice
a slip of paper
a viridian vial
a crumpled parchment
a brass lantern
a bullwhip
a spell book
Have I just missed interacting with something obvious that I missed in a description somewhere?
-Have you looked at all the goodies Rufus has to sell?
-Have you tried putting one of those things in the Loupe tray?
-Did you read the silver notice that comes with the Loupe? A True Adventurer™ actively ignores warnings such as that.
-Did you try reflecting the Loupe beam?
Full spoiler: Put the make-up mirror on the tray. LOOK IN MIRROR to make sure it’s pointing your way. PRESS YELLOW BUTTON to shoot the beam at yourself. Voila! Dark Softness.
Thanks, that did indeed get me back on track. Although it turns out there was no way I was ever going to finish this game in under two hours…
I think I was misled by the gentle nature of the tutorial puzzles, where one can mostly reason backwards from goal to solution (my roommate won’t let me in because I’m dirty → I should go take a bath). Whereas from the midgame onwards, it hews closer to the traditional Zorkian mode of “find something that looks like a puzzle, solve it, then work out what else that has opened up”.