Beneath the Waves

I'm really enjoying this one, but I can't find any rhyme or reason why I can wall jump off some walls but not others.

I was really enjoying this until I got to the last idol. The first 7 challenges are easy enough that the poor control while swimming isn't a major inconvenience. But on the last level,

At that point I was really just fighting the controls, and the frustration-to-fun ratio got too high.

I have the first idol, but I can't figure out how to get up to its pedestal. I can't seem to jump far enough or high enough. What am I doing wrong?

Aha, I got it. There was a very small area I needed to jump onto, which wasn't clear to me from the graphics.

I don't have any complaints with the controllers. It's a little repetitive, but then it's such a short game! Overall it was intersting and captivating. Such a simple story with such a simple storytelling.. it's a surprise how well it works.

Yeah. My advice on last idol - some sort of button-mash; just the instant when you get the idol start swimming as fast as possible in general direction where you supposed to, and don't think about finesse...
Also,

So in any case, be quick!

Afther the game, on the menu there is an option to "replay from the last idol". Does it imply there is more then one ending?

For some reason, I just don't feel that this story is all to deep like how Weir generally writes his stories. I guess me lacking someone to love, never mind being broken up, would be cause for that.

In a way, the story kind of makes me think about couples whom have undergone divorce, and they fight over who gets what. Even though they don't really want to fight, they have to fight, for no better reason than they must.

Maybe someone else can help shed some light with their ideas. Perhaps it is myself who is seeing this too shallowly.

@keith
You can't really wall jump. It's more like grabbing on to the ledge. So, it's not necessarily that you can't wall jump off of certain walls, it's that you can't wall jump off of certain parts of the wall.

So it's a metaphor for homosexuality

Are there multiple endings? It feels like the option to replay the final idol means there should be more than ending. Also it was rather abrupt.

Dear gods, "dolphin in rubberbands" is a very fitting description of the controls. I had to give up just trying to get the second idol - the wildly flailing controls that make precision-swims near impossible, the graphics that blend together and make it almost impossible to tell background from foreground...

It is a very strange contradiction to what Weir usually presents us to, sadly.

in the page of the author of the game, he says the game has only one ending.

I think the reason it gives you the option to replay the last idol is simply that that's the last save point after you've finished the game.

The 'replay final idol' button is misleading. If you click the 'notes' option, Gregory Weir specifically references that there aren't any alternate endings. So don't waste time trying to find them :P

My brother who is a fan of Gregory Weir games found out why the first idol is called "Majestic", maybe it's a reference.

I chuckled at the Cthulu reference. But is the game meant to be so speedy, it felt and played like my character was a missile rather then a man.

I'll be honest, I didn't find the controls as bad as some of you are describing them. Sure, I had more than one experience accidentally hurtling off a cliff or a ledge, but other than that, it was mostly maneuverable.

Yes,

Perhaps we moved too quickly underwater, which made turning difficult?

The lack of atmosphere jarred me more so than the controls - the land, entirely made of blocks, seemed harsh and unfinished, and the tasks of retrieving each idol became more and more tedious. The last couple of steps before the final idol were a bit unexpected, and I thought it would escalate into something better, but even this one was extremely easy to overcome.

Considering this is a story about the sun and the ocean, I had hoped there would be more of the sun as a character, and I'm slightly disappointed that there wasn't. I feel like there could have been more, and much better, and am left feeling a little disappointed knowing Weir's previous works.

I had little to no problems controlling the little blur underwater, and I had no problems at all controlling him above ground.

And while I was never fully threatened by the Sharks or the Kraken in the way that Weir's joke title "Oh S*** Sharks" would imply, I found that the controls, imprecise as they were, added to the sense of danger.

I was glad that the open spaces were as expansive as they were, and that the caverns were not as restricting as they could have been.

It's a definite departure from his other games, and interesting to play - not that the mechanics were particularly different from any other existing game, but the dynamics were interesting to explore.

One thing I found with the swimming speed, the precarious feel of the above-water platforms and the sheer size of the world was that I didn't feel compelled to explore every single corner of the world, as long as I was finding my idols and getting them to where they needed to go. For a compulsive explorer, that feeling that I didn't need to go everywhere and see everything was an interesting change.

how in the world is the third idol placed? I'm jumping all over the place!

I just had random spurts of lag, but that might have been just a function of my computer.

Any tips on how to get the 4th Idol? I think I trapped myself.

Never mind. Finally figured out what to do.

Now I'm fighting the double menace of bungee physics and Kraken. Grar.

My experience was exactly the same as Dora's.

With searching for the idols, i found i was less compelled each time. Finally i was just doing it to see the ending, which i found abrupt and disappointing. love weir's other games though.

The game was laggy and would freeze so I kept on veering all over the place, when I jumped to the left I flew across the platforms and off the edge to the point where I spent over an hour climbing one series of platforms, and when I jumped to the right sometimes the right key wouldn't work. I don't know if this is because I'm in Google Chrome, which you should have tested for and warned about unless this game is so old that you forgot it existed by the time Chrome became popular, or because you just did not try at all. This is the most painful and frustrating game I have ever played.