I run through that dungeon again and again, hoping that in this run through something would change. I don’t have much of a choice, it’s either run through the tutorial yet again or sit there. Sometimes I fight the roly-poly, others the fruitfly. Sometimes I even wait for the ant egg to hatch, and followed Albert’s strategy to gain an extra skill. Not that I needed it.

I find out that if I stay in the same room as a bug for around a minute, whatever system I’m caught in interprets that as me skipping my turn, and so the bug attacks without me having attacked first. After my whatever-th attempt (the 15th, judging by my level of Slap!) I’m tempted, after having repeated the same thing so often with no way of escape, to let my health run down to zero, but by then I already had the standard immunity (as well as all the others) and so nothing in the tutorial could damage me.

I keep myself interested by finding the most efficient skills for each of the bugs I fight, although the intro has simple opponents and as such less different options for strategy. And they’re weak, after just a few dozen repetitions of the tutorial I can defeat all the bugs in two turns or less, including the ant hatched from the egg at the end.

Well, except for the fairyfly. I’ve managed to get a skill that increases my chance of hitting, but I still miss two times out of three. I hate the fairyfly.

I used to like the tutorial of Bug Hunting. It was simple, easy to understand, and had a minimal amount of required prior knowledge.

I can’t argue with any of those points. However, I now dislike the simplicity. The constant instructions, while fine for just the beginning of the game annoy me when I have to see them again and again.

But I continue fighting through the bugs. I defeat the ant hatched at the end in two turns, first a skill that does nothing immediately, but triples the damage of the next attack, then my highest damage attack, Slap!. The skill doesn’t level up the fastest, especially at higher levels, but it still levels up, and I gain a level in every run through.

I gain Fast Travel for the effort, which in the game is indispensable. But its use in the dungeon is so limited that I hadn’t even known it was possible to use.

I open up the fast travel mini-map, and there’s only a dot.

Right. I forgot you have to travel somewhere after getting Fast Travel to be able to actually use the skill. I go through the portal and then open up the mini map again, ignoring the [press space to Attack]. The beginning and end room are connected to each other. I teleport to the portal room, and crush the ant egg. The portal doesn’t appear, it’s just a dead-end room. But according to the fast travel map, the beginning room should be on the other side of the room. I hadn’t really paid much attention to how the portal exactly appears before, but now I would.

I fast travel back to the first room, and proceed from there. Once I get to the last room, the portal has already appeared. I go through again, fighting the roly-poly instead of the fruitfly to fill out the entire tutorial for Fast Travel. When I reach the last room, I keep my eyes on the wall. One moment the wall is simply a collection of the different sand grains, I’ve decided it seems more like sand than dirt, the next there’s a glowing portal. But the wall must also somehow disappear, otherwise I wouldn’t be able to go through it. For the next few runs through, I use Fast Travel to change up the order I go through. I figure out all the possible orders I can complete it in. If I start in first room and end in the last, there’s thirty-six different routes. I also sometimes teleport to the last room, crush the egg, then later return there again to go past the portal, but it’s less efficient so I do it less often. At some point I make it a goal to go through all the possible paths to complete this, including ones that don’t “start” at the beginning, all 960 permutations. I figure I need a goal to work towards, this should take a while and will provide me some novelty.

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I get into a sort of mindless rut as I systematically work through all the routes, first all the fruitfly routes, then all the roly-poly, then all the routes with both. I ignore all the notifications, even the skills I gain, not wanting anything to cause me to forget which route I’m on. I punch a bug down, then move onto the next room, over and over and over. It makes me feel like I should take up exercise if I ever get out.

After finishing all the routes, I sit down to take a look at all my skills. At first I read through each skill, look at its level and effects, but after doing that for a hundred or so skills I just skim through, looking for good skills I recognize. Sometime I should try out all the skills, but I’ll save that project for later.

I try to sleep, not feeling the motivation for anything else, and figuring its probably around time– I don’t have my watch or phone on me so I can’t check the time. I lie down on the dirt and try to settle into a comfortable position.

Lying there, with my eyes closed, I don’t feel tired. Even after I find a comfortable enough position, I can’t fall asleep or even get tired. And I try. I even go through a relaxing run through the tutorial again (essentially the only way for me to take a walk) and try to fall back asleep. It doesn’t work.

Once I accept that I won’t be falling asleep anytime soon, I decide I’ll need to find something to do. I scroll through the different system things to see if there’s anything interesting thing I can do.

I figure out I can make combos. Honestly, the combo building feature is one of my favorites in Bug Hunting. I don’t like having to memorize the different patterns for which skills to use together. I much prefer the combo method, do the calculations once, name the combos for when to use them. It makes me feel like I’m making more choices.

Mostly I make one move combos, using some skills that are to be stacked with an attack. Mostly Reckless Attack, one that doubles both damage gained and damaged received for the next turn.

Because I can defeat all but the Fairyfly in one hit, the only multi-move combo I make is [Freeze] followed by [Slap!], getting rid of the chance to hit annoyance. I’d been using those skills on the Fairyfly anyway, this should just remove a step when I’m fighting them.

I go through the portal, ready to test my new combos. I still just slap the ant in the first room. No point to putting any effort into it.

I continue ahead to the fairyfly, and scroll through the list of my skills. The interface is awkward to interact with, I’ve found.

For Slap! I can physically slap the and that activates the skill, but some skills I can't physically do the action and as such I have to scroll through the skill list for it and select it, and then watch as this affect takes place. Watching myself affect the world with just a tap of a button is how I thought I imagined magic, but I also imagined magic to have a sensation that this lacks.

At least my combos list is shorter than my skills, so there's less scrolling on a non-physical screen. I select my "Fairfly Attack!!!" combo and then the fairyfly attacks me. It only attacks if I use a skill that's not an attack, the dodge seems to take its action otherwise. Albert would have known this already, of course. But I'm the one who's stuck repeating the tutorial cut off from the world so I have to learn the mechanics on my own.

[Fairyfly Attacked for 0 Damage]

When my turn comes, a force takes over my body and I slap the bug, which promptly disappears. I ignore all the messages and stare at my hand. I did not expect that. Hopefully me using skills is the limit of this videogame forcing my body into action. I think I can handle my body moving without my conscious thought if I am the one who chooses it. I continue on to the roly-poly, and use the combo of one skill I made for it, to move the skill from the ridiculously long skill list over to the sensible combo list.

My hand shoots forward and into the roly-poly.

[Your Pierce dealt 20 Damage]

[You Vanquished the Roly-Poly]

I don't think I could have done that with just my hands, just reach into the bug like that. Roly-polys have some armor.

I guess that is an upside, even if there's nothing else. I can now force my body into doing things that I don't have the skills for and may be physically impossible.