Buck the Past (Spring Thing version, April 3 2017/version 1) walkthrough

This walkthrough presents how to get through the game. It doesn't give all the points, and it tries to provide hints before spoiling everything. Since there are semi-spoilers below, I advise you to scroll down with care, unless you just want to steamroll through the game. Hey, I'm just flattered you want to get to the end.

Comments/questions/tweak suggestions to blurglecruncheon@gmail.com.

































There are a lot of ways to back out, outback.

>FIRE/HAND/LASH/SCRATCH/SHEESH/SPACE/SPIN/STAB/STAGE/STALL/STARE/STAMP/STAY BACK

The check background blocks you to the east. And it seems like you should be able to go west of Cleaner Vacuum, but you can't get past Disaster Court. You get bogged down in thinking too much. So...what if you explore?

>S

The Warning Trigger/Beater Buzzer is in the way, but it doesn't actually do anything, since this isn't the full version of Buck the Past.

>S

So you are in the Anteroom. The rooms are aranged alphabetically from west to east, and you can also go in diagonal directions. In fact, you sort of have to. There are 6 possible ways of the 8! total. The main key is that you run into Sentence Pass. And in these rooms you need to make a sentence. Note each room ends "-room." Also note that in the Anteroom, the uncles are tellling you how to get your life on track, belting out orders after a quick question to start.

And the Sunroom and Boardroom (will) have homophonic clues, and the tiles text provide, well, punctuation clues.

The words are, in order, ball, board, class, court, play, show, sun, and work. There are a few homonyms in here. The question has to come first.

>SW
>NW

"Bored, son?"

There are 30 other combinations to look at (6*5, order matters) and you may find stuff like SHOW CLASS, COURT WORK and PLAY BALL. These can be done in any order.

>W
>N
>E
>SE
>N
>NW

Boom! That lets you into the Tactics Stall.

The other ways, in case you are wondering, are

>W.N.SW.NW.S.SE
>NE.NW.NW.N.E.SE
>N.SE.N.NW.NW.N
>NE.NW.NW.N.E.SE
>NE.NW.S.SE.NE.N

>Z

Hooray! You've made it through, now, and you wind up in the Tactics Stall. Depending on if you have innuendo on/off, you need one of the two commands below.

>GET OFFENSIVE CHARM (on)
>>GET THROUGH SLIP (off)

>N
>N

Again, depending on if you have innuendo on/off, you need one of the two commands below.

>USE CHARM ON BACKGROUND (on)
>>USE SLIP ON BACKGROUND (off)

>E

You can't go any direction in Post Way yet. Well, you aren't up to A Rest House yet. But the posts are interesting.

>TOUCH HASTE POST
>W
>W
>GET LOGIC PRETZEL

Now who could use a dose of logic? Or who might choke on it?

>E
>U
>USE PRETZEL ON SKELETON
>GET AWAY CHIP

>D

Okay,  now you can explore a bit more

>E
>USE CHIP ON GLASS

Boom! You're in!

>S

Hmm. You can go to the east to explore a new area (and maybe get an extra point) or just get on with things. The poem is a sort of clue. "King" is the suffix, here. If you have swears turned off,

>PUSH C
>PUSH A
>PUSH R
>PUSH P

But if they're turned on,

>PUSH C
>PUSH R
>PUSH A
>PUSH P

This brings you to the Torment Mentor and Fun Maid. They give you a Backhanded Compliment. But what do you do with it?

Well, the way east of Post Way is open now.

>N
>N
>E

A Rest House is a strange isolated place. You can explore the Blazing Trail for a while, but you may not get anywhere without getting burnt. How to progress?

You may have an increased feeling of ill as you walk around. This is a sort of clue. As is the Ills Grave. Light Guiding also has some clues. I'm open to giving the players more and better clues.

The ways through are in fact words that end -ill. So you need to make letters from the path you walk. But diagonals are out. Going diagonally may offer a clue, with KILL and the big X.

There are many ways through. B D F G H M N O P S T W are the letters. You can backtrack once but only once. I think I've kept track of all the possibilities, because I wrote a program to check, but this is a place where you may just wish to keep it simple. S and O are the easiest, and you only need two.

>W.S.E.S.W

(Note E.N.W.N.E works too. I think I wrote a program to nail down all the possibilities and backtracks.)

O has a lot of ways to get through, but the simplest is

>N.S.E.W

Something like N is a bit trickier. N.E.S might be a bit too easy, so I went with N.N.E.S.S. M requires a backtrack, with N.E.S.N.E.S or N.W.S.N.W.S. W is N mirrored vertically, so S.E.N.S.E.N, or S.W.N.S.W.N.

And something like J requires you to go a certain way. If you form a T first, the game picks that off. In this version, there's no extra bonus for getting all the points, but you may find it an interesting exercise. There are thirteen total path-letters, and the Ills Grave should update as you get them.

Once you make two, an Ultimate Pen appears. You need to take it to leave A Rest House. It's the second-last thing to get in the game.

>USE ULTIMATE PEN ON FOG

>USE ULTIMATE PEN ON COMPLIMENT

Hmm, you need more confidence. Something's still holding you. But there are a few posts to touch.

>TOUCH RELEASE POST
>USE ULTIMATE PEN ON COMPLIMENT

Poof! It's a compliment handed back. Once you've written it, well, there's only one thing left to do.

>S
>S

>USE COMPLIMENT ON Torment Mentor

This wins Buck the Past! Now, in the full version, there's something beyond this. But that's all you need to do to win this version.