Episode 4: Everything Wants a Piece of Us
So, who’s ready to journey upriver? We’re due for a second trinket this time, so I don’t think this batch of levels will be as easy as the last.

Remember your purpose!
Level 16. FAVORITE
”Favorite Aunt Vera ordered raspberry ice to eat.”

Collect the letters of the word
F-A-V-O-R-I-T-E, in the proper order.

Don’t forget the
O in the word
”favorite”!
So, I may have mentioned before now that you can throw apples through trees.
Guess what: Dart Demons and others can throw things right back!
After some careful planning, we decide to push the lower boulder so that we can snag the bridge.
Then we push the other one so that we don’t get skewered by darts when we go for the O and I later.
We grab the F. We can push the boulder to block the upper Dart Demon so we can get the second bridge.
Instead of going to get the bridge, though, I grab the V and the O first. Then, I decide to do something clever.
What if I were to cross to the island with the ‘R’ on the boulders, then about-face quick enough to return?
I only realize my mistake after I push the first boulder. Pushing the second boulder won’t let me cross to the island!

Let’s try that one again!
Our second attempt starts the same as our first, but I put the bridge somewhere a bit more centralized. I can always walk around the lower Dart Demon if I decide to finish with the lower E.
This time, after getting the A, we do grab the second bridge.
And after getting the V and O, we push the upper right boulders away, do
not step on any of them, and deploy the second bridge.
R acquired.
The I, T, and E aren’t far behind…
…which presents a problem when our bridges disappear and we’re stuck on the wrong side of the river.
Carefully routing around the upper boulder in the group that housed one of the Dart Demons, we push the middle boulder in the group to the right, and use it to cross the river. This is the only boulder you can use to get back in this way.
Upriver awaits.
Our pop quiz this time has another slightly longer word (“election”) in it. The game is slowly turning up the heat.
Level 17. BIRTHDAY
”A little bird remembered my birthday.”

Collect the letters of the word
B-I-R-T-H-D-A-Y, in the proper order.

Remember, in the word
“birthday”, the
I-R sounds like an
R!
This level is set up to teach us a useful advanced technique involving animals and Dart Demons.
At the start of the level, we grab the bridge and, having no other options, run onto the peninsula with the apple and the V.
With still no other options, we feed the zebra and go down to collect the second bridge. Note where the zebra ends up! This’ll be important in a moment.
We walk back across the isthmus - but the Dart Demon doesn’t fire at us! The secret is this: Demons’ line of fire is blocked if an animal is in the way.
We cross to the right side of the level, and quickly grab the second apple and the I.
The R requires pushing a boulder into place to block the Dart Demon…
And for the rhino guarding the T, we can push the Jeep without much timing. Animals won’t ever walk on letter tiles, so the rhino can’t be trapped by the T - the Jeep will always wall it off from the tile.
Getting the H, D, and A is very straightforward.
Then it’s just a long walk back around to pick up the Y.
Once the trick is shown off, the level is honestly pretty straightforward!
Hey, JOURNEY’s from Level 6! It looks like once we beat a puzzle level, we unlock its word to be used in later pop quizzes.
Level 18. QUARTER
”Quite unusual— a red toad eating radishes.”
This level
looks empty, but it actually contains a significant threat.

Collect the letters of the word
Q-U-A-R-T-E-R, in the proper order.

Don’t forget the
U in the word
”quarter”!

An alligator will come out of the water if you tempt him.
OK, look up at the top. See that green guy in the river? That’s the alligator. Alligators are a pain in the caboose.
By default, alligators patrol the edges of the river (or whatever body of water they happen to start in).
However, if you get too close to an alligator, it will abandon its patrol behavior and start following you. They actively move to be as close to you as possible, so it’s not like you can stand still, like tigers.
Note that an alligator will happily follow you on land or water depending on what terrain is nearby. They’re amphibious!
The conditions to get an alligator to
stop following you are a little fiddly. My current theory is as follows:
[1] When an alligator is patrolling, it has no ‘home position’.
[2] When an alligator stops patrolling and starts following you, its home position is set to wherever it was last swimming before it started following you.
[3] If an alligator is far enough from either you or its home position, it will stop following you and return there, or at least start swimming again.
I'm not quite sure if this is accurate, but no matter what, the exact combination of requirements makes alligators hard to shake off.
We already got the Q before the alligator started chasing us. Now we need to get the U, but it looks like we’ll have to take the long way around. We grab the bridge and set out.
We’re ready to get the U! Let’s head down there and… whoops.
We head right to lose the alligator, but I return and grab the U a little too early… or late.

Let’s try that one again!
OK, let’s be smarter about it this time.
After grabbing the Q, we shake off the alligator in the same way as we did before and go get the bridge.
This time, we wait for the alligator to pass the peninsula before trying for the U. The alligator starts tracking us again, but hiding in the bottom left corner is far enough away that it convinces it to mind its own business.
The U has been acquired.
With the alligator still on the other side of the river, we get the A-R-T, and follow it up with the E.
The ‘gator does start tracking us again as we go to get the R, but we hide in the corner again and it goes back to swimming.
And we’re done.

Back to the raft!
This is, sadly, not the last we’ll see of alligators, though.
Hey, “march” showed up in the pop quiz again! Maybe that’s when this LP’ll be done.
I’m actually surprised ‘FLY’ is in the game, too. Three-letter words seem a bit short for a spelling challenge.
Yobi checks in.

A minute to learn to spell the word, a lifetime to display the knowledge!
Level 19. WHITE
”White hippo’s invaded the enemy.” (sic)

Collect the letters of the word
W-H-I-T-E, in the proper order.

Remember, the
W-H sounds like a
W!

The Wind Demon can make progress impossible!
Coming in to make our life annoying, it’s the fellow that blows hot and cold, the Wind Demon!
Wind Demons can blow wind up, down, left, right, or diagonally. They’ll always turn to face us.
As their appearance might suggest, Wind Demons blow wind that pushes us away from them!
The wind blows at the exact speed we move, so by walking against it, we’ll be able to stop our movement - but that’s all.
After taking the long way around, we go back and grab the W.
Getting the H requires a similar detour. Note that the wind demon in the bottom right is blowing us around
through a tree - like with Dart Demons, trees obstruct your movement, but not Demons’ effects.
After getting the H, we let the lowest Wind Demon blow us to the river crossing. Note how we stop briefly when we hit the boulder - boulders count as ‘solid walls’ that only we can move, so we can stop and collect ourselves without risk of falling in the river.
One river crossing later, we step into the gap in the trees and are blown around to the I, T, and E.

Back to the raft!
This level was, arguably, another tutorial - but we’ve been able to find out how Wind Demons work pretty effectively, so it’s served its purpose.
Wind Demons’ gusts have infinite range, by the way.
The level also doubles as a breather (ha) level, because what’s in store for us next can only really be described as ‘some dexterity required’.
Level 20. TONIGHT
”Tonight only nurses in green hats talk.”

Collect the letters of the word
T-O-N-I-G-H-T, in the proper order.

Remember the silent letters
G-H in the word
“tonight”!

Potions are rare and powerful - use them wisely!
Oh boy, oh boy, another trinket level! This one isn’t going to be as easy as the first one. The only way to get at the trinket is to approach from the bottom edge of the screen - which is coincidentally guarded by a hungry tiger. We’d have to tangle with this tiger even if we only wanted the G in “tonight”, but luring him out enough to get the trinket is going to be a job and a half.
By the way, that blue bottle at the bottom of the screen? This is the potion Yobi was talking about. There’s several different types of potions in game, each with their own appearance and effect.
We head to get the bridge first. We’re not going to grab the T here because we’ll be on this side of the river after getting the H, and I have no idea where that tiger is going to end up once the level’s nearly over.
Instead, we set up the bridge and get the T on the left side. This also gives us wiggle room so we don’t accidentally step on this T after collecting the N and I.
We grab the O, N, and I. We won’t need the apple for the rhino - once we get the trinket, we’ll be able to block it with the boulder.
(It’s possible some of you may have figured out what the potion does at this point. Don’t worry - I’ll give all the details when we do get there.)
Seeing a tiger chasing me, I automatically run away from the G. Then I realize my mistake.
When I finally grab the G, well…

Let’s try that one again!
We start over, cross the river, and pick up the letters T-O-N-I.
This time, we grab the G and run like hell. We eventually lose the tiger around a corner.
However, there’s a problem. If we’re to go down to the bottom left corner of the screen, we need to get the tiger farther away so it doesn’t catch up to us.
To try and bait the tiger out, I walk vertically where it can see me…
…and that’s how I get reminded that tigers will chase you when they’re really close, even if you stand still.

Let’s try that one again!
T-O-N-I-G-H-T is the word.
Third time’s the charm?
We gather the letters up to the G, and run from the tiger, putting us about where we messed up before.
This time, though, we go over to the right side of the block of trees. Tigers can see through trees, so this tiger starts following us again - but this time, we’ve got a bunch of space between it and us!
We go up carefully, then walk to the right (even though we’re not going anywhere) to get the tiger to try and sneak up on us. This strands it around the corner, and we can go back down and it won’t follow.
Now we can
finally safely head down the left corridor. The tiger stops chasing us when we go around the corner.
Let’s see what this potion does, shall we?
When we pick up the potion, it appears in the third line of the board over Yobi’s head - the one that was previously unused. In addition, a shimmering sound effect starts playing that overrides most other sounds.
The potion we’ve grabbed is a
Walk on Water potion. We use it to cross the river!
Quick design sidebar: why is this a potion, and not a bridge? It’s possible that if the tiger was chasing you more closely, it could come around the corner (maybe; I don’t know for sure) and keep chasing you here. There wouldn’t be time to lay down a bridge, but running onto the potion and then the water would provide a highly effective set piece on ‘potions can do really cool stuff’.
Trinket get #2!
With our secondary objective complete, we start pushing the boulder up so we can get at the H.
Note that the potion icon in the inventory has turned dim. Potions last for a limited time (the Walk on Water potion lasts 11 seconds), and ours is about to run out.
In case you’re wondering: if you’re still on water when the potion runs out, you’ll go dunk in the lake, followed by Yobi’s standard one-liner.
The rhino is trapped, and we grab the H. Note that the tiger’s following us again.
At this point, though, the level is effectively won. We grab our second T and head for the finish.

Back to the raft!
Phew! Not going to lie, I was sweating during the tiger chase segments. If you don’t know how to manage tiger movement
or haven’t any idea what’s up with the potion, getting the trinket feels like it’d be near impossible.
Once again, pop quizzes (or should I call them R-E-V-I-E-Ws?) have been bumped up, this time to 5 words.
And back on the map, we have another shiny trinket in our possession. But we’re still only 20% of the way upriver! I’m sure the rest of the journey will be even more long and perilous.
But fun.
Next Time on Spelling Jungle: We have to do a lot of fast and/or precise footwork.