I think I may have found part of it. At least, I found an easter egg in the blue palace. After going through certain rooms there in a certain order, I came to a place with two floor plates, and stood on them in the right order. Then the character said something about having more life; but as far as I could tell nothing else had changed. Does that relate to this "easter egg room", or is it just an unrelated easter egg?

Congrats! You're on the right track!
=]

Recently I've found out that room is really bugged.
The marker you have to notify the game that the three guards are already dead somehow only works for an instance of the scene, which is not a problem once you're inside that cell (since you can't go back once you enter it).
But now that I know it is quite non intuitive that the whole are has two distinct challenges that are meant to be entered from different places leading to the commom goal (which is to get to the central corridor leading to the teleporting pool). People tend to kill the guards from outside the cell after they get past the glass door, causing that condition to be a bug.

I'm coming up with the idea to separate the three portions of that area through the same scene (so I wouldn't have to build everything again, which would lead to other complications) and then have you teleport to the main corridor once you cross the blood or the glass door.
By doing this there wouldn't be a chance to kill the guards from outside the cell and even the perspective of the doors wouldn't be misleading (the way they are now tend to indicate a vector going up, if you take the path below).

We plan to have the international version coming soon and want to have it patched by then.

About the riddles and portals...
The stars riddle has already been solved, and the pool's been moved somewhere else (and you can enter it). Have you went to the blue palace and filled every pool on the corridors of the normal palace? After filling them all you're able to collect four remarks. Just be sure that you've collected "the spell" remark, since it's easy to miss and after you enter the northeastern portion of the palace you can't collect it anymore.

Quick update: I figured out the way to get into that particular room, as well as realise that I did have all 32 journal items, I just didn't realise that the Solomon Scroll also was an item. silly me.

Nice! =]

PS: does the easter egg room have anything to do witht he prisoners in the old palace?

Nope! hahah

If it is something like using the warp pools in a highly specific order, I doubt anyone will get it unless by sheer accident.

It's not like this...

My only other idea for finding it would be hunting for it in the palace after the collecting the three weapons, in case anything would change before the final encounter.

Actually it can be done before reaching the third target.

I can say that gaining access to the easter egg room is an easter egg by itself.

Say Beto, were there any actual flags or secrets put in for pacifist runs?

I know DB and some of these newer players decided to try a no-kills-other-than-the-targets playstyle, but having played through it myself so much, there are basically a few rooms I can think of in the Northwestern end of the palace that are just so obviously begging for a slaughter. I haven't been able to figure out a route through them. Notably, the westernmost Warp Zone you need to carry a key through, the flooded patio, and the one guarded room with a really short timed gate. These specific areas strike me as preventing pacifist playthroughs from continuing - especially that one warp zone. You need at least one kill in there. (I know you have a video of yourself doing the flooded patio, but I swear that is just good luck.)

If only I could still powershuffle my way silently through the palace, ar?

We couldn't make it, since we only managed to implement something to monitor the game on the last days of the project.
What I can say is that for the international version we'll have an achievement system (and try to have only things that are really nice [or at least fun] like killing no one but the targets, or finding the secret easter egg room [that I think no one has reached yet]).

Believe me that it's possible to get through that warp zone unnoticed.
I hint I can give you is to leave the key on the previous room and study the guards' patrol, then go back to pick up the key and sneak past them with their patrols reset.

As for the flooded patio try activating the lever when the leftmost guard is patrolling to the right, then start walking away and after they stop their suspicious time run for the gate and there should be enough time. It's a matter of timing your walking and running.

The room with the lever on the center and four guards on the corners is supposed to be a run-for-your-life to pass with no kills. Also, the only way to do it is to activate the lever from above and be the closest possible to the gate (it's fun to see the gate closing on the guards' noses).

One thing though: I had in fact found the smoke riddle, but died trying to carry it out, thus ignoring it upon respawn. That's where the confusion set in. It doesn't help that you can only add it to your "journal" if the guards have finished their dialogue, leading me to conclude I already had it and there was nothing to activate.

There's an area on which you trigger that conversation, and then you can't trigger another text while a conversation is active. That's why you can't get the popup if the conversation is running, since you need to investigate it.
I've changed a little the size and position of the collision to start that conversation, now it shouldn't get so much in the way of the riddle and it still has a fair size so that if you roam a little to the back and bottom of the room you can trigger it.

Final tally was 31 out of 32 secrets. Not a bad score, and yet I really want the last part. I think I know whére it is, but I can't get to it. I assume it's beyond the door guarded by a "special" guard, in a corridor with 6 censers, one of which lights up red if you kill a guard. I don't understand this puzzle.

Look carefully into every special guard. You might be missing their details...

I'd like to congratulate you on the art style, especially the journal items and the smoke animations. Those were great. I also liked how the identity of the protagonist was only slowly unveiled, and the somewhat different interpretation of Arabian (?) myths. I'm a sucker for intriguing world building mixed with unrevealed mystery, and this scratched that itch. One remark: there were a few locations where the protagonist would have internal dialogue about his nature and/or that of the different characters or factions. I think I missed several of these because the cue isn't clear whether he'll describe the room/something in the room or have these interesting monologues.

Lastly, and this is probably a small thing, but whoever designed the reflexions in the (filled) pools, with the moon and stars and whatnot, those were gorgeous.

Thanks, dude! Our visual artist and our content designer will be very happy to hear it =]
Actually there is no particular rule for it, as it's meant to be "what it's thinking about the situation". What I can tell is that the pool corridors are a place it's more likely to think about itself and wonder about things.

And I still don't know how to get into the 3 bloody tears room!

I think you'll figure it out soon! =]
As for the remaining remark that's still missing, I don't know which one it could be.
Send me a PM with the the names of the remarks you managed to collect and I'll try giving a hint (less revealing as possible) of the one that's left.

I had placed the milk in the blue palace statue you reach if you go through the southern portal in the room with the murals. I was able to remove it again and placed it in the central chamber.

Does placing key items in the central chamber of blue palace change things in the blue palace, or in the normal palace? Or both? (Don't say specifics).

I made my own map to navigate the blue palace, that's why. If portals change destinations or if rooms change in layout I need to go through the whole thing again...

You're really supposed to put the vials on the central chamber, hat statue once held the honey vial. And the changes are perceived on the normal palace, on the blue palace you can only see the vials used up on their right places in the central chamber.

It makes me glad to know that you took your time to do it =]
Did it help you go through that part of the game?
That area navigation was inspired on Giruvegan Great Crystal from Final Fantasy XII where the game provides no relevant map and you warp from various locations that aren't connected on a linear pattern on space (I mean in game, because you can actually draw a linear map of connected nodes).

I have noticed a locked door in the blue palace you reach if you go through the northeastern portal (from central) first, go through the northernmost portal next and on the western wall while navigating traps I see the door.

I didn't figure out well which room you're meaning but I think I might know...
Is it the room with the spike and bolt traps?
If that's the case, pay attention to the walls that fire the bolts, there will be one out of the pattern that might be connected to the opening of that gate.

I've found the fire riddle, star riddle and twin riddles.

Then perhaps you might be missing the smoke riddle to reach 28 before going to the other four I told?

I registered here just to get an answer to this issue:

I'm stuck at 27/32 secrets. I have given water to the northern pool (and the southern pool), killed 2 guardians, and (I think) explored all there is to explore in the blue palace. There is a door with 3 red waterdrops above them that I can't find a way to access. This is the only location that I have any reason to believe will help me to proceed.

I don't know any more items I could use to proceed. I've found the way through the wrapping-around maze, placed the mechanism that unlocks part of the blue palace, melted the glass with acid. I solved the twin puzzles (which is the way I gained access to the blue palace). I found (and used) both a "milk" item and a "water" item, the latter of which filled the northern pool. I've discovered a lot of alchemical formulae that don't seem to be useful (other than to flesh out the world) like invisibility.

Here is a screenshot of my current in-game map.

Could I get a few hints as to how to proceed from here? I honestly have no clue where there are unexplored doors left.

Hahah, I wonder if someone will make a walkthrough of the game someday...
Anyways, welcome! =]

You haven't filled two of the three pools (the southern one was already full before tour coming). This means you haven't explored all of the blue palace. Either way there are five remarks there, acquired through investigation, and by your numbers and map at least four of them you've collected. Have you seen the "spell cutscene" on the northern corridor? This is an easy remark to lose and it can be lost forever if enter the northeastern portion of the map (and there is a quite logic reason for this happening). Have you got every riddle remark? There are four of them.

Don't worry about the room with the blood drops. Just like melting the glass door, it's just another way to get to the center of that warp zone (and there is no remark up there).

Where have you put the milk vial? Seems like you've put it on the wrong place, as you've put the water vial on the right place (thus filling the northern pool as you said).

Also there is the third target's weapon remark and more three on places you haven't explored yet.

... he certainly fits your art style, that's for sure.

This is what originated Qasir! hahaha
The "sequel" was actually our first concepts (and insanely larger in scope) of this game.
But we had to stop and do something within our limitations of knowledge and experience at the time, so Qasir was born out of this (such as its first project codename was Й, that is a "short i" in cyrillic).

I don't know how indepth it is, but if you're still planning, consider what a very small "battle style" version of multiplayer Qasir would be like. I've always wondered how multiplayer stealth would end up working out with one player as the infiltrator and all the others as the guardsmen. In your case, my guess would be there would need to be 1) an objective for the infiltrator on a time limit, and 2) the ability of the other players to reprogram the patrol paths of normal AI guards within single rooms, maybe with a grid-based system or drawing a path with the mouse. Since the infiltrator is actually invisible, it would be interesting to observe how the guards would actually sniff out such a thing if they were human controlled.

But if you do consider it, keep it as just a fun extra, like the the "

" in the SNES version of Super Mario Brothers 3. Qasir is still a game where the single player mode comes at the utmost importance.

This is something that never came up to us (even though someone recently asked on a review post if it's possible to play as the "General Aladdin" hahah). But I'm afraid even as an extra it would be so misfit to the aloneness tone of the game (and definetly would be a hell of work for an extra).
But something we considered having as an extra was a dungeon editor. So that you could build your own Kremlin, set up patrols, behaviors, puzzles, etc.

Oh yeah! Consider new guard types, like guard dogs who will try to hone in on the player's scent until the player hides in a pool of water or goes in an area with a stronger smell. It would be interesting to see how nonhuman characters would sense/react to his presence and how human guards react to the confusion of the animal.

Or rather smart guards that throw smoke bombs or pigment bombs in areas they think is suspicious? That would be a devilish trick.

... or maybe drunk/highly paranoid guards that think they see something and act unpredictably while swinging their swords wildly? (Since Islam won't be a running theme Russia, you can liqueur a few people up without being haraam anymore.)

You're predicting the (past) future, right? hahaha
We have animals planned and the guard dogs would be just like this. They would scent you, so even invisible they'd show a threat. There would be cats, that would treat you tender, caressing you with the head (just like cats do) and sometimes show hidden things if you follow them. We planned on have chickens that could make noise and raise suspicion, swimming ducks that would also be friendly and heavy draft horses that upon scared released might cause some havoc.

The npcs would have eight distinct behaviors that would tell a chance of reacting properly to each situation. And the smart guards could set traps to you. Along with a miriad of npcs there would also be lots of different enemies, a commoner worker (like a butcher, blacksmith), three kinds of melee guards (the regular one, a fast one and a bulky one), two ranged (one with a crossbow and a sniper with a rifle), a special guard (with a pistol and a torch, that's capable of creating environment deformities), a special squad (Golova Team) scattered through the palace on some hotspots, and three elite guards that are Ivan's personal henchmen.

And this is only a brief explanation of everything we'd like to do hahaha

It's true that bundles are often a mixed bag, or downright mediocre, but there have been some very good games in some of them (e.g. Braid, Defcon). For the record, I actually played the game on Linux with Wine, it worked fine.

I'd like to wish you a very good luck, because that game was really out of the ordinary, and a great surprise (I learnt about it in Rock Paper Shotgun).

Sure, there were a lot of nice bundles around! I've bought some three or four myself.
We'll try suggesting our game to Indie Royale when the timing feels right =]
(and Humble Bundle if Unity 4.0 be able to build for Linux)

Thanks, bro! o/

Ingrid is a smart writer. She finishes the current story as neatly and satisfyingly as possible, but the grounds for the next story, or even the previous story, are still fertile as ever. ... granted, if you shit out a sequel with the number "2" on the end, I can't say I'll ever forgive you, ar?

Bruno coverd the lore topics neatly! It's nice to see you around, dude! =]
As for the sequel I won't go much into it, but expect a future sequel (after a couple of other games we'll develop first) to be something unusual again. Perhaps something involving a medieval Moskva Kreml and the misterious death of Ivan Groznyi...
(and we liked the idea of titles being the name of the place and a poser slogan hahah, just like Castlevanias)

It would've been neat to see the guards slicing at test dummies in one early area, so you could get to know their timing/reach without actually having to find out via. (most likely) dying.

But isn't it better to learn by failure? I think failing on games isn't something that should be marked as a bad thing... And this was also something we tried to evoke from old games, in which dying was considered part of the process of learning and (sometimes even) enjoying the game.
=]

Ok, I've now finished the game! The gameplay and atmosphere are really great, sometimes tense and gripping. But the twins riddle I only solved by chance (I tried to interpret the riddle, for instance the starting letters of every sentence, but couldn't find any solution that way).

Yay! I'm glad you liked it! =]

The important thing about the riddle is the information that they should sing the same thing. And by beautiful tune it means a good sounding chord, so if you try something dissonant it won't work. Either way, you should have them singing the same chord. Every tonic, third and fifth will do. There's also a combination of tonic, second and fifth that will do (and have a special effect on the lower room) because it's a arabic ethnic progression that also sounds good (and it's more on the mood of the game).

If you want the game to get known, perhaps you should submit it to the Humble Indie Bundle?

We just haven't tried any bundle yet because it might be harmful for the game image, considering we've just released it (it might seems like the game isn't good and then it's tring to get a ride on other games).
We plan on doing it, but we'll wait some time.

Every time I make it to Fat Frida's room, I always join in the festivities myself.

No need to sneak around anymore. It's a party! I can party too. So I immediately put my arrow keys to the ultimate test. I dance! I dance like the morning will never come!

My dance moves are so great and overpowering, that the other dancers are overcome with awe - even if they still can't see me. The power of my dance is so magnificent, the others simply cower in the corner. My dance moves are simply too much for them! ... and if they can't dance, they are no friends of mine.

Even Fat Frida love my dancing. Right, Fat Frida? Yeah! High five, Fat Frida!

Hahahahahahahahahaha
That's great! =D

Record a video of the awesome dance!
I bet everyone will love it! =D

Hello,
This is a great game, where can I get help for it?

Thank you, dude! o/
You can always ask for help here with me!
I'll try to answer will less spoilers possible, so that you still might have something to figue out =]

I have found one vial (the one which is mentioned above in the thread), but I don't know where to look for the other ones. I have also found the third guardian, but of course not killed him. I think there's a room (somewhere in a magical passage) which I can't seem to enter. It is closed by a gate over which three blood drops are painted. There's also a room full of columns which seems to be infinite (or wrap around), and I don't know what to do inside it. I have opened both gates at the twin riddle, but it doesn't seem to do anything useful except give access to the corridor. I have gathered 27 secrets over 32.

Don't mind about the room with the blood drops, it's just another way to get to the center of that room (and then the puzzle related to the blood drops is meant to be solved if you're inside the room with the guards). You have found the three gateways to the other plane of the fortress. Through each passage you'll find your way to each vial. The forest of pillars (as we call it) is somewhat like Lost Woods from Zelda. A tip though, follow the sound to find your way. Check the twin riddle again, and mind it while you define what chord they will sing, otherwise you'll always get an empty corridor.

Oh, you're right, I forgot I actually thought about the vial that has been already taken and if this has something to do with the empty statue (+ probably the less intelligent creature that has been killed in the blue palace?). The fact that it is displaying the gem when you put something there suggested that it has something to do with the gem, maybe it actually does? :-) I don't know but it's a bug and it's definitely confusing...

Your guessing about the vial and the other goetian demon is right. Try not minding about the statue showing only the gem haha consider it should show what you really put there. The bug is probably related to the statue having lost connection to the prefab, and the prefab was updated with new scripts (like the mini object pulsing highlight). But the

is meant to be used only on the scale.

Oh I see (well I guess I know what is supposed to happen there now)... I have definitely watched the scene but I have probably left too soon :-) It actually does make sense, especially because the guard who unlocks the door is visible from the laboratory...

And then the anxious guard that leaves to the laboratory has a conversation with the dude there. Also the guard that remained in the room leaves and the gate to the corridor (with the pool) is open, indicating that he left through it.

I have cast my vote towards you, and have since sent notice to the other playtesters as well.
It unnerves me to put my candle of hope for the game in the middle of such wild chaos that lime green moonlight inspires, but in times like these what choice do we have...?

Thank you, dude! =]
Well... I'm really anxious about it. Our meter has just reached 1% yesterday, almost two weeks later... (the only thing that makes me a little more comfortable is that we've got a high favorite per view rate [although it can't be seen anymore] and I've heard that they would take it into consideration... anyways, anything about Greenlight seems so uncertain and confusing)
I wish they have put the U$100 fee from the start so it wouldn't be overloaded with crap (like game ideas, flashlike games [not all of them suck but Steam is not Kongregate], requests, fakes, etc).

Just to be clear - I'm talking about the room with a vertical corridor filled with timed spikes arranged in 2x2 tile blocks, there are arrow triggers scattered in this "spike field". I think there is a wine vial in this room. I'm not talking about the room with a hidden safe path. It has nothing to do with brightness. It's about the controls. They are generally ok but I feel they don't work good in situations requiring both precision and timing. It's hard to predict where exactly will the character stop and which position is safe on a sub-tile scale. It's also difficult to delicately adjust the character's position when I see I'm too far. I had to switch to keyboard controls just for this room (I was playing with a controller) and it was still quite a pain. I have figured I must step on the spike tiles only (the arrows are evadable but it's much harder and feels more "random" than timing the spikes) but it's still hard and annoying because there are many places where I needed to run to the end of the 2x2 spike block, turn left/right and navigate through 1-tile wide patch of spikes between arrow triggers. The sequence is very long, only the first half of it is visible on screen before commiting to the run and it's impossible to plan in advance. This room is really hard, it feels unfair due to controls and I think it doesn't fit the rest of the game. Just to give you a better idea about my gaming skills - I'm not some super-hardcore player but I have finished Super Meat Boy some time ago, so I'm not a casual player either :-) I'm not saying you absolutely must remove that part or something, maybe it's just me having so much trouble with it.

That's the room I was thinking about. I asked all those questions as I was trying to clarify the situation and think possible reasons. Unfortunately with the input manager we were using, we had few means to optimize the game for controller (at first it wasn't even on plans, but we've found out it would suck not to have any gamepad support) and we did the best we could. Well... I can say that it's easier to navigate through the spikes with stealth (there's enough time to get from a spike cell to another between their triggers) and it's better to avoid every pressure plate that's not the right one to open the gate (indicated by the marking on the wall instead of the bolt hole), since with little room to maneuver they're deadly. Also that very own pressure plate is a safe spot and as far as I know the spikes are on a checker pattern (different from the room with the giant dead demon that the left wing spikes are arranged on a different pattern) so it would help a little after you grab the wine vial.

No, I didn't figure it out. I thought it had something to do with the gem (ruby?), but when I put the gem there nothing happened. I didn't find a way to take the gem without replacing it for something needed to progress either. I didn't really think about the statue much because it felt glitchy and I have progressed anyway.

Then I won't say much to keep it less spoiled, but that statue is empty handed because the vial it was holding has already been taken.

I see. It just felt random because nothing like that happened before (or I just don't remember it, I have opened this door quite late in the game) and it just didn't make much sense to me to be honest :-)

Have you watched the whole "cutscene" (and waited some seconds for the anxious guard) between the two guards on that room? I think it would make a little more sense...

Oh one more thing - I saw someone in the greenlight discussion stating that alchemy puzzle controls are weird. I agree but I have got used to them fairly quickly. My main gripe with them is that when I wanted to put the pipe down and I have automatically pressed the "cancel button" it has canceled the whole puzzle without any prompt. It has happened several times and I had to be REALLY careful not to press this button again :-)

At first we wanted the puzzle to stay as left, upon exiting, and you would have a reset button from inside the puzzle. But everything related to the alchemic puzzle is a hell to change because the was made by another programmer that was helping us with our lacking of programming manpower. The problem is that he left us even without debugging the puzzle (and there was a terrible bug that some pipes would become unselectable and you had to exit and reenter the puzzle... we have to figure out how to fix it by looking of his alien code and took us very long to fix it).

Qasir al-Wasat: A Night in-Between is on Steam Greenlight.
If you liked the game and have an account give us our vote =]

Qasir al-Wasat: A Night in-Between is on Steam Greenlight.
If you liked the game and have an account give us our vote =]

Congrats, its a gorgeous game!

Thanks buddy! =]

Hey, that's great! Thanks a lot! =]
It's really really gratifying to hear it!
It took some time to find a good balance with the backtrackings and this sensation that you're lost, but without seeming unfair (I hope we get this feeling on most players). This (and the fact that you die in one strike too) was something of old games, that's being somewhat rarer nowdays, that we tried to evoke on our game.
Our content design did a lot of research and carefully wrote the narrative (and we counted with awesome helping from some people like MW from here and a historian from our city) so that the game would feel like a dark arabian night =]

Unfortunately we're quite lost about what to do to get our game more noticed... Event though we're IndieCade finalists and have sent lots of press releases that are netting us very nice reviews, huge sites like Rock Paper Shotgun also made awesome reviews (we still haven't reappeared on indiegames.com yet), our game is still quite obscure.

We're trying to get to Steam and there is a page for our game on Greenlight.

The game crashed few times during my gameplay. It seems it alway crashes after some (large) amount of room transitions. I have some crash dumps which I can provide.

If you could provide me the crash dumps, along with your system specs, it might be good for us to know what might be the cause.

I found the vial room with many spikes and arrows (the one with the gate in the middle of the spike field) annoying. It was very detached from the rest of the game (including other trap rooms). I was dying constantly even after figuring out the best way to progress is to step on spike tiles only. It's very hard to maneuver precisely and "feel" the character's hit box in this scenario.

To be honest this one was one of the very last puzzles added to the game, and this was quite late. Although it has been thought to fit the theme "alive traps" of that whole area, it didn't have the same ammount of time to be polished like the other ones. But do you think it's detached because of the manouver problems, or by simply existing? Why exactly you considered it? How dark is your monitor? Do you think there's a chance the darkness is getting in your way (as I can recall I think this room is a little more darker than the other ones with spikes and arrows)? Have you tried changing the brightness on the options? Lots of questions haha

There is a confusing statue in the blue palace - you can insert any object into it and no matter what it is the statue will appear as it's holding a gem. I have managed to bring an actual gem there and nothing happened. Maybe I have missed something but it looked like a glitch (and I didn't find any use for the statue).

This is a bug and it will be fixed on the upcoming (don't know when, but it will exist) patch. Did you figure out what that satue meant and why it was empty?

After putting the box into it's place in the room with Jackal guards and examining it again the character says something like "the vial I'm holding doesn't fit here" even if he isn't holding anything.

This is also a bug (one I thought that was already solved, even though the symptoms were slightly different) and I've taken note of it for the patch.

I was stuck for a while because it didn't occur to me that I can open the door by killing all guards in the room near the first laboratory (other guard comes into the room after killing them). It was unclear to me because the game communicates that AI "doesn't work" between the rooms except characters leaving the room after conversation.

This was a mixture of an attempt to make it feel like events might occur and involve people from other places (so that the AI wouldn't feel so dull) and to ensure that you would always have means to enter that room (at first it could be a miss forever). One other thing I tried to do with the AI (to feel more liked between scenes) was that an alarm could only be triggered if there were guards alive on the adjacent room (although I haven't ensured 100% on every case).

Thanks again, dude! =]

Can you see something familiar here?
=]