There’s this peculiar thing that happens to me and, I’m sure, many others while playing adventure games that I decided to “call the snowball effect”. It’s when you’re stuck not progressing for a long time, but then you solve one tiny puzzle and suddenly, everything is in motion again.
Often enough, you even know how to solve many future puzzles the game is hinting at, but you can’t figure out, find or isolate that one little thing you need to get things going. This is what happened on my train ride today.
I Made Use of the Spoiler
As I said in my last post, I accidentally saw a spoiler in a YouTube video about the dashing pants at Phoenix Mountain, so I went and got them. The same video also made me figure out what the pump rocks are. I originally thought the pump rocks are those out-of-place looking rocks like the one on the cliff at the watch tower, but it turns out they’re actually those wooden harmonica things with grass on top of them that are scattered around the world of Tomba!
I thought this was one of the Pump Rocks. It’s not, though it still might be important somehow.
In any case, as I said, I went and got the pants. While I was there, I did some more jumping around and found a door with a large keyhole, so it seems the large key I got at the haunted mansion is used on more than one door. I was wondering why I still had it in my inventory. The door didn’t lead anywhere. It just gave me another important item – the Red Evil Pig Bag for the Stormy Evil Pig.
This is where I got the Red Evil Pig Bag for the Evil Stormy Pig.
After that, I’ve been aimlessly collecting pump rocks for a while, but I couldn’t find all of them. I also managed to lose two lives, so now I’m low on those again. After a while, I got an idea, which lead me to the snowball effect. Maybe “the avalanche effect” would be a better name for it?
The Village of Civilization
I remembered there are two more areas of the Village of Civilization that I couldn’t get to before, so I decided to go and check the area out. I still couldn’t get anywhere other than the clock tower, but the guy who made the banana juice for me was still there, so I spoke to him. He asked me to fix the mechanism at the village and unlocked the other two areas for me.
This is what I call the Circus Area of the Village of Civilization. I don’t know what it’s really called.
One of the areas was some sort of zoo or circus, with one of those jellyfish creatures in a cage, while the other was some sort of museum. The mechanism was at the museum, but I needed a bomb to get to it. Luckily, the guys at the circus had the bomb, or at least, they told me they stored it at the tallest tree of the Deep Jungle. I knew exactly where that was, so I went there, got the bomb and used it at the door to the mechanism room.
Tomba’s reaction to the bomb exploding.
I got in and Tomba, being the smart and skilled guy he is, outright fixed the mechanism. The villagers were grateful, told me where to find the 10,000 year old man and gave me the key to the door at the Ol’ Pond. Fixing the mechanism also triggered some strange white thing at the Watch Tower.
As soon as I fixed the mechanism, I got several more important events.
The Mole People
I first went to the Watch Tower and realized the white thing was an elevator. Using it got me to an underground area where the Mole Poeople lived. I’ve already seen one of these guys digging a tunnel at the Phoenix Mountain, but I thought he was just one of the Mouse People of Baccuss Village, meaning I got really confused then the people of Baccuss Village went back to their human selves and this one guy didn’t. I guess I’m Mouse/Mole racist because they all look the same to me.
This white thing is an elevator leading to the Mole People.
In any case, there are Mole People in Tomba! and this underground area was some sort of home for them. I explored it, which netted me a few items and triggered a few more events.
The 10,000 Year Old Man
After that, I went to the Ol’ Pond, which was the place where I was first told I needed to learn how to swim, and used the key. On a side note here, it looks like jumping in the water while having the Jewel of Fire equipped causes Tomba to take damage regardless of his swimming ability, so I need to remember not to do that anymore.
The door at the Ol’ Pond led me to the Trick Village. This was a flooded area, so swimming was a must. I got into one of the flooded houses via the chimney and met the 10,000 Year Old Man. This one wasn’t as welcoming as the first two, but he did say he would cooperate if I help a mermaid with something she lost. He also told me where the mermaid was, but I can’t remember what he said right now.
The 10,000 Year Old Man is not as nice as his younger friends.
I got out of his house and found the mermaid’s necklace behind it. Behind it was also a waterfall from which I dropped and ended up at the Deep Jungle river, close to the Old Tree. I went and spoke to the parrot to see if I had enough Pump Rocks, but no luck.
This is where I stopped playing, but I have a few ideas on what I could do next. I also picked up one or two more Evil Pig Bags, including the one at the haunted mansion, so I might just roam around the world for a bit, to see if I can find any Evil Pig Doors and defeat a few of the Evil Pigs.
Progress Report
The status screen right now is telling me I’m at 69 out of 93 events, but after counting through it, it looks like this just means I’ve solved 69 events out of the 93 I managed to discover, so I have no idea how far in the game I really am, since I can’t tell how many events in total there are.
I’m close to 600 thousand AP, I have one life left (!) and all three of my experience levels are maxed out, whatever that means. The abilities I have listed are Animal Dash, Dwarf Language and Swim. There’s room for one more, but that might just be due to the formatting. I have no ideas if there are any more abilities in the game.
I only recently realized there’s an actual map in the game.
Actually, now that I think about it, the 10,000 Year Old Man did tell me I need to learn how to dive in order to fully explore the Trick Village, so there’s probably a diving ability in the game as well.
In any case, I got far, but I have no idea how far exactly.
