I'm trying to defeat the first boss, some guy on stilts. He's mad at me for some unknown reason, and I'm locked into battle almost the instant I load my game. I do get a loadout screen, but have no idea: what the colors do. How they relate to each other. How they relate to the hearts. How combat works. What the on screen indicators do or mean. How to damage the enemy. How to tell when I am damaged.

I'm trying very hard to like this game, but poorly documented the game mechanics arnt helping. Its very different from other games. And considering the over 8000 games I have played in the last 30 years, finding something new isnt easy. But figuring out how to play this game is more difficult than playing it. Things are just not explained in a meaningful way. It's one thing if you want to create your own names for things ie lympha, nerva, but when you give instructions in some obscure poetic way, and then there are no clear indicators in game as to what, or how to do something, it just becomes irritating and confusing.

Worse is that some game mechanics either dont work, or arnt explained/detailed in a meaningful way. Example, the donor glyph, I must have drawn this a 1000 times (literally), sometimes it works, sometimes it doesnt. In the FAQ the DEV says the demonstration video is not a good example! Well WTF? I've tried slow, fast, big, small, pausing here, slowing there, and just about everything I could think of, but there seems to be no real formula I could find, except that it must be perfect in some way I have no example of. It's ludicrous and frustrating.

99 out of 100 games I skip the tutorial because the game mechanics are similar to other games, and the rest can be figured out on the way. Here you have a very different kind of game, yet even the manual sheds little insight on how to play. I died like 8 times in the void before I figured out that ity bity tiny meter in the lower right hand corner was running out causing me to die! I had to cheat the colors just so I could figure out how to play. Now I find there are actual cheats for the game by using a console. Thing is I dont usually cheat a game until it really isnt fun to play anymore, and I am really trying to like this game. All my lympha colors that are availible to me are full, and I filled the nerva up in the void, I have about six hearts.

If ever I saw a game that needed a tutorial, this is the one. For the love of god someone please explain the combat mechanics to me!

forgot to mention the game is also packed with a very old version of physx.

It is necessary for the game to work. PhysX support on videocards is rather new thing, compared to the game's development time.

It happens if you fail the trial. The task to open the colour veins in the mines, and collect all the colour from them (Uta gives the glyph that lets you suck the lympha from veins)
Basically, they do three things.
First, colour is your HP. The more you have in the hearts, the more damage you need to suffer in order yo die. But if your opponent can hardly damage you, it is not of much use to.

Second, colour modifies your characteristics. If you have a decent amount of lympha, it is useful to boost up important stats by placing corresponding colour in your hearts. For example, Azure gives you higher movement speed, Red increases the damage you deal, and Green decreases the damage you get when hit by an enemy.

Third, the colour you turned into Nerva, "processed" inside your body, fills yous Palette. It is you "ammo" in battle. You may just draw lines over your enemy, but it is cheaper to use glyphs designed specifically for battle.
Stiltman is invincible unless he is "drinking" the lympha drop.
Rings at the corner of the screen show you the colour that deals double damage right now (look for the highlighted sector on the outer ring)
You get a sound and an a very disturbing view blurring effect when you are damaged, and your lympha flies towards the enemy after this.
Yes, I feel the demonstration is weird. And though some people say that it is precisely what one needs, I insist that the symbol I have drawn for the hint at the bottom of the screen is better. At least, it gives much better representation of one of the possible shapes (the game ended up having two basic shapes, the second one being more a fancy L than "alpha"), and in fact the variant that is the easiest to draw, especially quickly.

Watch this video, please: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNf5TYjgoNI .
In this video I draw primarily "my" variants. I began making alpha's in weird ways only towards the end of the video.
It is, actually, the easiest glyph, drawn by two straight mouse movements connected by a curve. First, straight line to the bottom-left, then after making an arc up, straight to the bottom-right. It is easily drawn within a second, unlike so many other symbols. If you could make a screenshot (F12) of how you do it, it would really help to indentify the source of your problem.

But what you must do is draw ALL glyphs big enough. Game thinks that any small doodle on the screen is not a glyph, but an attempt to hit something (see above about the combat).
Also, it is no use drawing slowly/fastly/in a certain order/with pauses. Game looks only at the picture you get. Draw it from one corner, or from another one, start in the middle, draw a tail, then draw this line backwards and draw the rest of the symbol... It doesn't matter at all. I mean, draw it the way you want it to. The result is what's important, right?

I should also note, that you're warned multiple times, that you're not strong enough to face the brothers and must do what they say.

Thanks for the replies. I did open and collect the color from the mines, there was no confirmation of sucess, but then there wasnt when I had to collect (rip) the heart from the first sister either, so I didnt expect any. I was warned by the brothers, but I couldnt really understand what it was they were warning me to do (or not to do). Everything is so cryptic, and you only get the one death. I played like 5 games before I figured out you could even save since the main menu is.. well.. confusing.

I have no combat glyphs I'm aware of, so I guess I will be starting a new game again because aparrently I cant defeat this brother even though all my lympha and nerva colors are full and I have 6 hearts.

I had to start a new game to get these screen shots I've attached. Three said I failed to draw the donor glyph, one didnt, can you pick the one?

Also, does it make any difference which color goes in which heart? Are the hearts different only in capacity? Or do they relate to the powers they grant you any differently? If I fill up all my hearts with blue does that make me any faster than if only one is full of blue? Does it make any difference what color I use to draw the glyphs with?

I have more question, but I'm tired. Talk tomorrow.

Thanks

I had the same problem with the donor glyph, but after watching the example video from the menu, I realised it's more effective to draw the bottom end more horizontal. See below.

I'm guessing the upper right? As long as the 'tail' of the Donor glyph is big enough the game isn't too strict about how you draw it
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sZGl3S3NIiM

Did you collect color from both mines (6 veins) or only from the nameless sister's mine? I got attacked because I only collected from the nameless sister.

You are going to hear Uta's voice when you are done with 6 veins. Like "Ok, maybe that's what he wanted you to do..."
Certainly, use an earlier autosave.This "quest" pays for itself, because see, you have to open a way trough Ava filling her one heart, but for thus you can just use the colour collected from the first mine. And use the colour from the second to open her second heart, for example...
I don't quite remember it, but yes, you are unlikely to have many glyphs available at the moment. You may of course use just strokes of lympha. Just don't waste it on monsters without much need...
I think it's upper right. Game has also "shield" glyph that looks like circle, so all you "round" alpha's should have quite long tails, so that it couldn't possibly be "Circle". That is, I see the problem now. You probably get too close to "badly drawn circle". Make the tails longer, and it is going to be recognized immediately.

But the size is good. Continue draw them this big . If a large horizontal loop with tails isn't convenient for you, you may always draw it with a small "circle" but very, very long tails, like hanwritten L without the upper loop (http://img69.imageshack.us/img69/8698/cursivegs5.gif). This is one of the numerous variants possible, but I personally don't like it, because it is longer to draw. I mean, when you drop lympha to lure small beastie, surely you want to make a quick glyph costing only a few drops to you.

Again thanks for the replies.

@Marmelada

No, I didnt know there were 2 mines, surely therin lies the problem.

@Halfgild

That helps to know about the 'badly drawn circle' and the long tails with the small circle.

@everyone

Really, thanks for all the replies. This is such a unique game, I'm not giving up yet. Alas I have been busy and sick for the last few days, so I havent ben able to break off any time to play anything at all. Tonight hopefully I will be able to.

The first donor glyph in the upper left was the succesful one. I remember because I was going to make a bunch for this post to show how hard it actually was. Then I went and drew the very first one slowly and it came out perfect So then I had the idea of posting one good one with the bunch. You can see though that they are not terribly different from one another. I can say though as many times as I have drawn that glyph, I seem to get better at it even though I'm not sure why. I'm hoping that Halfgild's suggestion will help me with that.

I do have an earlier autosave, but like I said I tooled around with the memory to cheat the color so I could figure out how to play the game, so I may well just start over becaue I generally dont cheat a game until it becomes no fun to play anymore, and that wasnt my intention here.

Thanks for all the help, I may post back here soon and let you all know how I fared.

Hi Colt,

I've really had no trouble with Donor. Usually I make the circle smaller and the tails longer (kind of like the handwritten L variant). It just comes natural and I was able to pull off some really nasty versions which I was almost certain would not be recognized. So just refrain from making it too "fat". Much like the first Donor here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sZGl3S3N ... re=related

Best of luck!

I eventually figured out the trick to drawing donor 100%, every single time. The problem is the tails. The bottom tail must end BELOW the oval, while the upper tail must end ABOVE the oval.

That's pretty much all there is to it, though of course you need to make the loop large and round enough.

As far as I know, there is no need to make it "round". There are lots of different samples in gesture database, and according to the game's recognition system, if your symbol's overall shape resembles nothing other than "Donor", then it is going to be recognised as "Donor".

The key really is a large symbol with large tails and the roundness is irrelevant

In my long play I think I only missed it once by mistake.