Walkthrough

Apr

2021

Red Rope: Don’t Fall Behind+ Walkthrough 4 – House of Winter

Diamond in the Rough

I’ve searched for hidden games on the eShop since I bought the Switch, hoping to pull a golden nugget from the trash dump of shovelware now plaguing the system. This process has not been very fruitful at all, pairing me with the likes of Headsnatchers, Concept Destruction, World for Two, and the Town of Light. Admittedly, I made my search more painful by the rigid rules I set for what constituted a “hidden gem.” Because I’ve been an indie afficionado for some time, simply being a lesser-known indie release is not enough to qualify a game as a hidden gem. No, a hidden gem needs less than four reviews on Metacritic and fewer than 100 reviews on Steam.

Am I arbitrary? Absolutely.

Red Rope: Don’t Fall Behind+, however, met these parameters, becoming my one and only hidden game on the Switch. That’s not to say I found something that will appeal to everyone. It’s not even close to being a perfect game, with its quality hovering around the 7.5/8 scores. It has some absurdly frustrating sections, as we’ll see with the fifth video. Player 2 hasn’t played a more difficult game, and the two of us have bickered a fair share in learning how to cooperate. Despite all this, we look forward to recording it each week.

My hope is that these videos will bring more recognition to a game that deserves it. Considering I have only a fraction of the following Red Rope has, it is a bit of a pipe dream to do this, but Player 2 and I will try our darn hardest. We may put together a promotion of sorts in the future, but we have to finish this walkthrough first. We’re four videos in, and we have at least nine to go.

Wish us luck.

Apr

2021

Red Rope: Don’t Fall Behind+ Walkthrough 3 – House of Autumn

The Beasties After Your Blood

Now that we have covered three houses, you have seen almost every single enemy in the initial four houses, of which there are only six. Here, I’ll provide an overview of all of them for easy reference.

**Blue Fire (Ignis Fatuus):** Blue fire follows a set path above water. Like regular fire in the game, you can put it out by quickly running your rope through it. However, if your rope remains on it for too long, the fire will singe through it as well. When taking out blue fire, make sure both you and your partner are on dry land as you run past it. If you walk through the water, you’ll be too slow to survive.

**Ghosts (the Damned) and the Tombstones:** These ghosts come in male and female forms but die all the same. Simply pass your rope over them, and they disappear. However, these ghosts will continue to respawn from tombstones until you destroy them. Ghosts will most often shamble their way toward you, so you can bait them until they are far enough away from the tombstones. Once you do this, weave your way around them and encircle the tombstones to destroy them. From there, you can take out the ghosts permanently. Ghosts can lunge at you, but if you keep your distances, you should be fine. You can also farm ghosts if you want to increase the length of your rope.

**Hands:** These only appear in the House of Summer and are unkillable. They hide in the sand and are only visible when you walk within a square patch of them, at which point they will reach up in the air. You must avoid these, and I have marked them in my video for the house. If one of you falls into their grasp, the other player must run away from the hands in order to pull the trapped player out. The shorter your rope, the less you have to run away. If both of you get stuck, you’re dead.

**Harpy:** In the first four houses, the harpy only appears in one room in the House of Winter. It will fly in a set path above the stage, making you unable to reach it. Once it sees you, it will swing down toward you, a little faster that the other monsters you’ve encountered thus far. If your partner and you dodge to either side of it as it attacks, you will have a brief opportunity to circle around it and kill it. If you don’t, it will fly back up to safety until it attacks you again.

**Shades (Ghosts):** This enemy is confusing because I call them “shades,” but the developers call them “ghosts,” which is the name I use for the “Damned.” Anyway, these monsters (both female and male variants) have two forms. In their starting form, they are translucent and can kill you. You must pass your rope over them like you would the ghosts. This makes the monsters appear darker, and in this temporary form, they cannot hurt you and will actively run from you. If you double back just as you pass over them, it will be easier to wrap around them and kill them.

**Zombies:** As with the ghosts and shades, you have male and female variants of these, the latter of which I call “banshees” in the videos. Zombies will follow a set path until you engage them. They will lunge at you, allowing you to juke to the side and wrap around them. They can change directions if you are not quick enough, but they are generally easy to take out.

See my video journal article for the first house for information on skeletons, keys, and shadows.

Mar

2021

Red Rope: Don’t Fall Behind+ Walkthrough 2 – House of Summer

The Red Circle

Above, you will notice a giant red circle. It appears in the House of Summer and only in my walkthrough of Red Rope. These circles indicate where hands lay in wait to drag you into the sand and to your death. Avoid these spots as best as possible but also take the time to appreciate the circles’ beauty. I worked hard to put them in this video and to make them as aesthetically pleasing as possible. Because I have no design skills, this task was probably much harder for me than it would be for the average editor.

I hope to never include a circle in anything again. Henceforth, I shall only use squares.

Mar

2021

Red Rope: Don’t Fall Behind+ Walkthrough 1 – House of Spring

Characters in the Halls of the Labyrinth

Here is a list of the characters you will find upon starting the game. I have provided the names I have used or will use in the videos along with the names given by their developers.

NPCs:

**Band (Violinist, Bassist, Drummer):** They play music when you create a checkpoint. It is nice music. If you don’t like it, you can kill them.

**Beggar (Medicant):** For two shadows, he will create a checkpoint for you. *Red Rope* automatically saves the game every time you enter a new room. A checkpoint, comparatively, can be reloaded whenever you want. If you really botched a section, you can reload your last checkpoint. Alternatively, if you lose all of your lives, you must start from the beginning of the game or restart at your last checkpoint.

**Bronze Kid (Key):** In the houses, killing this kid gives you a key corresponding to its color. At the beginning of the game, upon you spawning in the halls, it will show you the way to the nearest house you can access.

**Bum (Peripatetic):** This guy will give you hints about how to navigate the labyrinth, mainly by telling you what is the “most important thing” he has learned. If you know how to walk (L) and shorten your rope (pirouette – X), you’re good.

**Fast Traveler (Carriage):** This gentleman will take you to different sides of the labyrinth that you have previously visited. If you visit him in the halls, you cannot fast-travel to the Jewel Fortress.

**Janitor (Caretaker):** This rabbit tells you it is dangerous to go anywhere apart from staying where you are. He’s full of crap. Live life on the edge. Go kill monsters and do drugs.

**Leaderboards:** This is not a person, but you should still respect it. It tells you that three people have completed *Red Rope* at the time of this writing, with the best player being yours truly and Player 2.

**Paperboy:** He presumably tells you how many people have recently cleared the labyrinth. He once said two people. Now he says only one has.

**Rabbit Guard (Rabbit Gatekeeper):** These guards will offer a few quotes, generally asking that you don’t kill anybody. If you choose to kill an NPC or a guard, the doors to the room will be sealed, and the other guards will attack you. You’ll have to kill each of them in order to leave. Due to their long spears, they can be tricky to kill. They will occasionally lunge at you, and you’re usually in the best position to kill them after this attack.

**Rats (Mice):** You can kill these by stepping on them. While this habit is disgusting, killing one will gain you a small length of rope. It’s something but not worth the hassle unless you’re really desperate.

**Rope Man (Juggler):** At the cost of two shadows, he will increase your rope’s length to half of the meter. He will not extend it past that amount. Generally, it is not recommended that you do this unless you are trying to go after a minotaur or are trying to complete a specific level. Once you die, that extra rope is gone.

**Shadow People (Shadows):** You can kill these people in order to gain their shadows which can be engaged for goods. They will also add to your rope length. Be careful, however, because killing them in the halls will trigger the Rabbit Guards. Each one you kill takes one point off of your final score.

**Trader (Skeletons Trader):** You may trade in your shadows for extra lives here, for two shadows per life. Generally, you can dump all of your shadows here. You may want to keep four or six shadows with you in case you wish to create a checkpoint or extend your rope. The lives you gain from him will go to your overall score, but because you are trading two shadows for one life, killing shadows is still detrimental to your overall score.

Enemies:

May

2019

A Quick Walkthrough of Gorogoa

The Raison D’etre

Apart from providing entertainment, video games have single-handedly provided hundreds—if not thousands—of people with their income. These are your streamers, YouTube personalities, and pro gamers. Many of these individuals have needed only one game to guarantee their paycheck, be it Minecraft, Fortnite, the Binding of Isaac, Super Smash Bros., Call of Duty, or XCOM. For the pro gamer, this is understandable; it’s hard enough to git gud on a single game, let alone gud enough to beat every other gamer out there. For the content creators, it becomes baffling how they pull in the money after hundreds of episodes on the same game.

It takes a special game to create such a track record. We know GoNNER and Angels of Death have little chance of attracting attention. Certain games, like Think of the Children or A Gummy’s Life, can barely offer enough content to garner one video. I could theoretically create an entire series around playing Spacecats with Lasers, but it would most likely be a documentary of my descent into depravity and desperation. No one can remain sane playing that game longer than five hours.

This gets to the most important element: you have to actually enjoy the game to make a profit from it eventually. Many of the games I like most have already been gutted and stripped of all appeal by other content creators. I would only be a vulture picking at fetid scraps if I were to start my own series on such games.

Gorogoa falls into the category of not having enough content. I adore the game, perhaps more than most if internet search results have anything to do with it. No matter how many angles I could take, Gorogoa could only sustain interest for another article and maybe another video. It’s a fascinating game which deserves more attention—hence this video—but it does not offer the replayability of such games like Enter the Gungeon or even Skyrim.

So Gorogoa cannot be my money maker, but it has been interesting to play it repeatedly. Due to my efforts to cut out the black lines in the video, I replayed Gorogoa at least five times (making it my tenth or so play-through since I purchased it). I am not one to speed run, but there is a certain sense of exhilaration in beating your previous time. My initial run in this recording process was 35 minutes, and our final point is around 22. It absolutely kills the pacing of the game, but its brevity does make me feel more masculine.

It’s a bummer the end result is marred by the visual issues, but if Gorogoa hates Elgato, I can’t blame it.

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