Polymute
A downloadable game for Windows
Polymute is a game about changing yourself into other things to solve puzzles, explore the world, or just to express yourself. Explore the mysterious ruins of the Crystal Spire and the caverns below, and uncover what secrets they may hide! As you learn more about the world, so too will your abilities grow, allowing you to transform into more and more forms!
Controls:
Right Mouse button to move
Left Mouse to use Actions
Scroll Wheel or Q and E to select an Action
TAB or Middle Mouse to open/close the Form menu
ESC to open the Main menu/Options
The 1-0 keys on the keyboard will also let you change your HUD/UI color.
This game was made both by myself, Linker, (Ben Maksym, @linkerbm) and The Wood Between the Worlds (Isabelle Trail) doing the music. Be sure to check us out if you like our work! The game's OST can be found at the following link:
https://thewoodbetweentheworlds.bandcamp.com/album/polymute-original-soundtrack
NOTE: There have been multiple issues with Windows Defender flagging Polymute as malware; I'm fairly certain that these are false alarms, but just in case, download at your own risk! If you encounter any issues, please reach out to me (the dev) and I'll be happy to reimburse you.
Purchase
In order to download this game you must purchase it at or above the minimum price of $10 USD. You will get access to the following files:
Development log
- Game is back up for now!May 28, 2021
- Taking the game down again indefinitelyMay 25, 2021
- Update #3.5/Temporary RemovalMay 04, 2021
- Update #3.4: Little HotfixJun 10, 2020
- Update #3.3: Midnight Oil Burning BugfixesMay 23, 2020
- Update #3.2: Two Little ThingsMar 28, 2020
- Update #3.1: Control Updates & Softlock FixMar 22, 2020
- Update #3: Free for March/AprilMar 17, 2020
Comments
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Just can't find the last form, just to the right of the dragon on that screen.
EDIT: Huh. Apparently it's not necessary to complete the bestiary, at least.
don't know where else to put this but could someone help me with the "helping the elephant put out the fires" puzzle? I can make the frosty tincture just fine but I can't figure out how to actually use it to solve the puzzle to save my life.
DOES work on Steam Deck, ONLY if you edit the launch options to "Force the use of a specific Compatability tool" and set it to "Proton: Experimental."
I'm sorry it doesn't! In my defense though, Polymute was released two years before the Steam Deck, isn't a Steam game, and doesn't even have controller support.
I actually found a workaround. The steam deck is exremely finicky about what does and does not run so its definitely not something you need to apologize for.
This is SO wonderful! Just bought as part of the bundle - thank you for your support and thank you for creating such a cute transformation game!
Hit a little bump - at some point the world sort of reset even though I still had all my forms/items, like bombs I blew up would reappear, fires I put out were lit again. It wasn't really an issue until I tried to leave the ruins and found the barrier right in front of the stairs was back, preventing me from going to the spire. Might've happened while I was trying to redo the fuses and golems puzzle for an emerald tablet--since if you light the wrong fuse you have to close and reopen the game to try again--but that's just a guess
Yeah, that might be what did it; depending on how you closed the game to retry the puzzle, it might not have saved properly. I don't know if there's anything I can do to help at this point, since it sounds like some of the saved data has been either overwritten or lost. I'm so sorry!
No worries, thanks for such a quick response!
I scrolled through some older comments and found a fix that worked for me - changing the 'respawn' value in the options.ini
such a cozy and surreal game, loved it a lot, it deserves WAY more recognition
I loved this game, it's super fun!
Alright, I am so close for finishing the game with the best ending! Got the...
[le spoiler territory]
...Silver Crown, and I do have a good idea of where the Golden Wand might be! I even beat the Tower of Gargax (very neat game as well) to figure out what the book said... shields and serpents!
Problem is... which ones?... oh boi...
Edit: ...oh, you devious lad! Such a clever idea! Really nicely done! All in all, super fun game! Really enjoyed it!
Just finished it and got one of the alternate endings (shields and serpents). Honestly what a wonderful game. The placement of the puzzles feels really well thought out, making me go "aha!" every few minutes as I found out a way to deal with something I saw 15 minutes ago. The shields and serpents puzzles were devious but it was such a rush when I finally figured them out (with help from the comments here).
I'm assuming there's another ending that has something to do with the secret form that you don't need to finish the bestiary, but I haven't been able to figure out where to use it. Any hints on that?
I'm so glad you enjoyed it! That one (shields and serpents) was one of my favorite puzzles to design, so it's always really gratifying if/when people figure it out. As for the extra form, it's mostly just an easter egg/point of connection to Tower of Gargax (since it's the playable character of that game) and gives a little extra info about what happened to them after the events of that game. Still, if you haven't found all of the tablets/found where to use them, I'd advise going back into the catacombs. There may be something there to help with the other alternate ending, if you haven't seen it yet!
Yeah, I found all the tablets and got the thing that was behind their door, but I thought it was used in the shields & serpents ending with the other item. Does it have a use elsewhere? Also just out of curiosity, was the shields and serpents puzzle a thing that you retroactively added to Tower of Gargax? Or was it some 4D chess type move where you had it in there from the get-go?
There're three endings: one where you don't 100% the game (tablets bestiary) or do the shields & serpents puzzle (the "bad" ending), one where you either 100% the game or do that puzzle (one of the two items, the "normal" ending) and one for completing everything (the "good" ending). If you got the last one, that's the best ending! Congrats! Though, now I may have to add a super secret ending in...
And, in regards to your question, it was retroactive, though I wish I'd had the foresight to add something like that in at the time. Though, I hadn't even made Transmute (Polymute's other prequel game) at that point, so I had no idea things would connect as they did. But then I added a reference to ToG into Transmute and from there came Polymute!
Ah, haha, I see, guess I got that ending then. I guess my path took me to the tablets first and the book there talked about the other item and so I tried to find it. Great game, had a lot of fun with it!
So glad you enjoyed it!
Recent update is being flagged as a virus by both the itch.io client and windows defender.
Is it the most recent update (after May 28th 2021) or did you download the game prior to that point?
If the latter, downloading the most recent update might fix the issue. Otherwise, I'll look into it!
I had the game downloaded from months ago but haven't opened the itch.io client for a few weeks. So it was an update between today and around the middle of May. If it installed multiple patches on top of each other that could have triggered a false positive, so I'll reinstall and see what happens.
Running a windows defender scan didn't flag it this time, so it was probably an issue of a backlogged patch being installed before the more current one.
oh i remember buying this on my dad's computer for the BLM fund!
Loved it back then and still think about it now
It looks like there was an update today, but no dev log to accompany it, so I don't know what was updated...
It'll be up asap! Essentially the update should(?) improve performance on some new machines/versions of Windows; a bunch of my games got a similar update today. There's a quirk with Game Maker Studio where a certain Windows update causes a game projects/exes to run poorly, so this is responding to that.
So this game is real good and full of neat ideas... but.
This I assume final puzzle/encounter is just plain badly done and I don't know if I'll finish it. I think you perhaps may be so familiar with every sprite in the game that it is hard to evaluate on your end but requiring the player to basically make 25 or so correct randomized choices (that seem to get progressively harder) in a row without making a single error is bonkers, especially given that really nothing in the rest of the game prepares you for it or really asks much of you in terms of fail states or reaction time. As is I put well over a half hour into this (might be over 45 minutes actually), my wrist hurts and I'm considering just youtubing the ending.
It is probably too late to fix here but in a future game if you consider doing something similar you really should either make it much shorter (a dozen would get the same point across), give the player multiple "hits" or add in checkpoints.
Hi!
Thank you for your feedback; it is a little late to fix/tweak this, since Polymute's probably not going to be getting much in the way of future updates at this point (in fact I've released a whole other game since releasing this! Time sure flies). Still, I appreciate the difficulty being brought to my attention, and I'll try to make my future projects more lenient.
I'm not sure if this will help at all, but as a note, the boss "timer" pauses when in the menu, meaning you have as much time as you'd like while in there to try to figure out what to turn into, though if that doesn't help Youtubing the ending is certainly an option too.
Happier ending: I did manage to finally get past it as the RNG took pity on me near the end (putting on my wrist support also didn't hurt), total time on it took almost exactly one hour.
The game seemed to be in a rather finished state so I think it is more than reasonable to leave it as-is, I just felt I should point it out as I thought the body of the game was a legit hidden gem. The pacing of giving new forms, the secrets, the various puzzles built around the main mechanic were all rather well realized, some of it is a bit rough around the edges but I'd unreservedly call it a true pleasant surprise of a game. It's what made ending on what felt like to me at least an unforced error (FWIW I think the concept of the final confrontation is pretty good) a bit of a downer. Or to put it another way, if I thought that most of the game wasn't pretty good I wouldn't care enough to bother pointing out the bits that felt like they needed a bit more fine tuning.
Anyways thanks for taking the time to read and reply, and I'll likely take a glance at your most recent game in the near future as this game showed that you are capable of putting together something rather creative.
I enjoyed Polymute so much I added it to my Hidden Gems Series :)
A like/subscribe would be a huge help to continue these. <3 Enjoy your day!
This game is an absolute blast and filled to the brim with new and unique gameplay ideas. I frequently come back to check up and see what else the developer is up to.
Freaking amazing game! The puzzles, the world, the funny characters and different species, it's all amazing.
Thank you so much! Glad you enjoyed it!
Unfortunately the game glitched once I got the Chameleon potion. Now I can't talk to any of the NPCs.
That is unfortunate! Is that the extent of the glitching? Also, did you unpack the game executable from the .zip file it was in/did you put the game down and come back to it afterwards? That can affect save data sometimes.
I believe that was it, glitch-wise. I did unpack the game, and it had worked fine before oer multiple saves. I have started the game over, and thankfully it's easy to get back where I was since I know how to solve the puzzles and I know where everything is.
Also, I'm really enjoying the game so far! The music's soothing, the art's nice, and there's so much to remember that I feel challenged, despite the simplicity of the puzzles. So many things to do, all the time! I'm glad this was in the Racial Justice bundle, or I'd have never heard of this little gem.
I'm glad you're enjoying it, and I'm sorry that you ultimately restarted! Thank you for giving it that second chance though! I'll have a look and see if I can sort out that bug, too, just for the future. Let me know if anything else funky happens!
The game glitched again. Couldn't talk to NPCs in the room I loaded in. quit the game in a different room and went back, and I could talk to them again.
And then all the puzzles in the Catacombs reset, which included the thieving archeologists. I got my wand stolen after I got it back, and then I couldn't get it back again from the Lich. Might have to start over again if I can't get the Lich to reset too.
Did it glitch at the same place, or was it under different circumstances this time?
It would be really useful if SPACE could be a permanent shortcut for Transform. Currently, space does nothing if you have talk or examine selected; it only does something if you've selected transform, so why not make it constantly "act as" transform??
bug/glitch: I found 5 tablets, then closed the game for the night. When I boot it back up the next day, my progress was properly saved, but all the collected tablets respawned!
I re-collected 3 of them, and am now at 8/7 tablet. This either means I'll be able to cheese the tablet requirement, or I'll still need to collect the missing two without a clear way to know which are missing (besides remembering which were collected based on their location)
p.s. a map would be handy... ._.
update: I think it caused a lot of things to glitch...
A LOT of dialogues just don't appear or are replaced with "not very talkative"...
I think I'll have to start a new game :<
Welp! I'm sorry about that! No idea what could be causing those issues! I'll have a look and see if I can do anything to help remedy the situation on my end. My best guess is that the file that deals with certain objects respawning/not respawning in game got deleted/corrupted somehow.
As for the SPACE/transform idea, I'll consider it! I thought that SPACE also did something if you moused over an object with an action that wasn't transform selected, but I guess that's not the case! Hopefully the issues haven't ruined the game for you, and again, I'm sorry that this has happened!
[SPOILERS]
I need help in the
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Shadow puzzle. The one where you need to match the shadow, after the king's game. I'm fairly certain it's the gemerald monolith, but I can't seem to trigger the puzzle. What exactly do I have to do? Did I get the right object in the first place?
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If it's the one inside the Spire (purple area) it's probably not the Monolith, because as far as I can tell, the shadow can't be the Monolith. However, yes, it should be a form that you already have, that was required for you to get to that point. All you should have to do is approach the shadow with the right form and it'll open the path. My best guess is to try either the Mirror form, or the Egg form.
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Let me know if this helps!
Turns out it was the egg. I'm an idiot.
Wow, this game gave me more than I was expecting! I thought it would be a short affair, but it's length and ingenuity are a welcome surprise :) Nice job!
I do have a problem, though: I can't find the deluxe magical boots! I saw the hint a few comments down, but haven't figured it out yet. I've looked in the Shroomish Marsh as an eye, I have the Seeing Stone and everything. Is it on a different screen, or am I missing something?
No, it should definitely be in the Marsh! Or, the place to obtain them, anyway. It's a bit more in-depth than just picking them up. Check the South-West portion of the area, particularly looking for the Mushroom Cobbler.
Thank you for the kinda words btw! I'm so glad you've been enjoying my game!
Ahhhh gotcha! Thanks for the quick answer.
I've completed the game since my previous comment, it's been really cool. Time to explore for some more secrets!
For some reason some of the puzzles reset and now I'm stuck behind the first barrier with the wizards skull and can't access the surface at all now
Huh. That's weird! No idea what's up with that. If you'd like to go back through the intro/tutorial bit again, open up the game's files (should be in local appdata, look for "Transmute Deluxe"), go into the Options.ini file (you can open it up with notepad or a text editor), and look for the Respawn option. Then, set the x value to 1408, and the y value to 384. If you save that, and then reopen the game, you should start back at the very beginning (but with no forms lost) so you can re-open the puzzles as necessary. Hope this helps a bit!
Alright I'll try that, thank you very much and keep up the good work
I'm not entirely sure how potion making works, I've picked up ingredients and I'm not sure what to do?
Do they just combine automatically if I have the right ingredients and I'm in the right form?
No, you'll need to find a way to combine them! Like a cauldron, for instance!
This game was completely amazing, it took me a couple days playing on and off to finish but it was really fun, and i plan on playing some of your other games two. One question though, do you save everyone in the ending where you collect everything?
I would say yes, you do save everyone, though it's left sort of ambiguous isn't it? I'm you enjoyed the game, by the way! I'd recommend Transmute next (since it's sort of linked to this one).
Yeah i felt like i did save the ruins but they weren't the same, meaning that the people there wouldn't be the same, idk but I will start playing transmute. :)
Love this game, thank you
I've just finished and uploaded an 100% completion true ending speedrun of this game. This is my first ever attempt at speedrunning *anything*, but I adore this game and thought it would be fun. I suspect my time (about 35 minutes) is pretty easily beatable, but I'm calling it a world record because I can't find any other speedruns, haha.
Congrats!! Never thought people would try to speedrun my games! I think my best time is just under half an hour, but since I've never recorded it, I do think you have the record for now! Well done!
Finally!
This took the entire day to beat but it was worth it :D
Thanks for making this amazing game!
This is an absolutely amazing game! I'm really immersed in it right now.
I'm glad you're enjoying it!! Thanks for reaching out!
I got here thanks to the on-going bundle :)
You did such a fantastic job on this game, I loved every minute of it!
So glad you enjoyed it!
Superb game, played it to completion in 1 sitting (getting the 3 magic items ending). The golden wand puzzle was hard! Only encountered 1 glitch: the frog that carries you across the river as a mushroom in the beginning of the game got stuck forever walking downward, through a wall and off the screen before teleporting back and repeating. Not game breaking at all, though. Very fun!
Huh. That's a new one! I'll look into that. Glad you enjoyed, and congrats on the ending!! It's meant to be difficult, but it seems like you figured it out in the end!
This game is great, but I've become stuck in the mouse king. (transformed into a dif form from snake form on top of mouse king's original spot) I need help! I have a full bestiary and everything! I do not want to have to replay the whole game
I can help! You'll have to find the game's files though. It'll probably be in your program files/local appdata, and it should be called "Transmute_Deluxe2." Once you find the file, open it up and open "Options.ini" in a text editing program. Notepad works just fine for this. Look for the option labelled "[Respawn]" and add about 16 to whatever the y value is. Then, save the document, reopen the game, and you should be in the clear! So so sorry that this happened, and I hope this helps!
Also, I just did a little bugfixing, so if you want to download the latest version of the game and boot it up, you should be able to transform out of that situation now, even without going into your files!
Thanks! I just finished the game 100% and have to say that it was a lovely experience. One of the more unique and charming indie games I've played in recent years!
Glad to hear you enjoyed it, and that you got 100%! Congrats!
This game is a gem! I'm about an hour in, and I'm enjoying the gameplay and the overall atmosphere quite a lot.
So apparently this is a thing. I got all forms and yet the first time finishing it I didn't get 65/65
I also was wondering if the curious pawn near the throne room is a red hearing or did I miss a puzzle there?
First off, congrats on the completion! The curious pawn is a small hint about where to get the Fish form/figure out the third guard's riddle in the Zoo, so not a red herring, but maybe not related to what you were thinking! If you're looking for the final form, I think you missed a specific secret one. Try going back to the Lookout Point at the very beginning!
That's the thing, I did not miss it, that's why I had the Bestiary in the screenshot to show I had completed all forms. Had I not had the 65 forms I would have not gotten the Bestiary, (I tried). I finished the game twice with 100% and it seems the first time you finish it you always get 64/65. Funny enough if I finished it again I get 65/65. This had happened to me twice and it also happened to Ghast in his run.
Around minute 16:20 Ghast gets the the form he was missing to get all 65. However at 1:10:19 you can see de 64/64 and hear him complain about getting 64/65 despite having all forms. As I said this happened to me twice in 100% runs.Huh, that is weird. I hadn't realized that was a thing! Guess I'll go check that out!
Wait no, I thought I fixed this! You're playing on the latest version of the game I assume?
Great game, I was wondering, are there multiple endings? I'm under the impression that I'd get a more optimistic ending if I found every green tablet.
There are multiple endings, yes! And that is certainly a step to getting one of them, though I won't spoil the exact process!
really creative game! loved the presentation and music. it might have been previously mentioned, but the forms menu really needs a "form name" tool tip. it's hard to distinguish between the forms because of their low resolution and how many you acquire. that was my only gripe. everything else was very enjoyable. kudos!
Thanks so much! I'll bear the form tooltip idea in mind if I ever get around to updating the game again!
Well, I've reached the final (I think?) area, though there are still things along the way I haven't solved - I have no clue how to obtain the golden wand, and while I unlocked the Moon Pool, I have no idea how I've done it. Any hints?
Well, the Moon Pool unlocks once you complete the Bestiary (I think) though it's honestly just a dev room. As for the golden wand, that's a big ol' secret, so I don't know how much I want to share. I will say, though, that the clues to start you on your way are in places you've presumably already been, and you'll have to think outside the box (or be lucky) to reach your end goal.
I think I have an idea, but I've managed to get myself stuck inside the Mouse King and unable to transform into a snake to scare him off again. And then I misclicked on New Game. I'm not sure if I have it in me to replay everything from the start, sadly. (Maybe some sort of confirmation would be good there?)
Anyway, I've come to the conclusion that the wand the Mouse King has is nothing but a red herring and I think I know what the big ol' secret is, thanks!
Update: Replaying turned out to not be that much of a hassle, knowing what to do and in what order makes a huge difference.
Still not sure how to get the Golden Wand - I've been attempting the path of snakes and shields, but I can't get it to work. Adjusting for the difference in how the maze works doesn't seem to do anything, and neither does mirroring the directions, so I'm completely stumped.
Again, you're on the right track, but you may be relying on the wrong hints. Try looking around in Monster Town and the Dragon's Lair. There may be something helpful there if you can find it. Also, sorry about the bug and then restarting! I think I have an idea what might have caused you to get stuck, but I'm not 100% sure. Guess I'll have to look around!
I enjoyed this game so much! The aesthetic of it, the characters, and the puzzle transformations were fun, and really made me think. I seem to be doing the secret solution to the final maze wrong, even though I've played Tower of Garax, so that's frustrating. Or maybe I'm doing it wrong?
I can't say if you're doing it wrong or not without knowing what you've been doing, but it seems like you're on the right track? If in doubt, look for hints in one game that correspond to things in the other. That may get you on your way.
so not to be picky but have you considered having checkpoints for that final encounter, because I don't think I can handle repeating the entire thing over and over again for how ever many more dozen attempts it's going to wind up taking me to get through it
I'll consider it, sure! May not add them for a bit, but I'll see what I can do
alternately, even just giving more time to react would help a lot probably
I think I'm stumped; can I ask for some hints? I have the deluxe magical boots, an eye-shaped gem, 6 tablets (though I have no idea what they're for), I've made the chameleon potion (and used it for something), and the invisibility potion (which I haven't found a use for). There's one mysterious room near the beginning of the game that I haven't found a use for, and another room with a glittering barrier that hasn't yielded to any of my ideas for how to cross it...
I'm not sure how much more specific to get; are there any obvious things that I should be thinking about at this point in the game? (I've forgotten a few things that I've since rediscovered through wandering, but I've been wandering long enough now that I think I might actually be stumped...)
If you have the eye-shaped gem, your next goal should be finding a way to upgrade it. See if you can find someone in Monster Town to help. You'll need the ability to fly though!
Hi, I've found myself in the same situation (except not so many tablets). What/Where is monster town? I've been everywhere, I think, and don't remember seeing that name pop up.
Aside from being stumped at this point I'm really enjoying the game. I've figured out what to do and haven't felt lost until now.
Monster town is south from the Herb Garden! Follow the river down from that room and you'll end up in a place called the Shroomish Marsh. After that, go east, and you'll get to Monster Town! Hope this helps!
Thanks a bunch, I've finished it now... what a crazy game!
Bug report with the puzzle to get the lace root: I had figured out the form to assume, but not the color to assume, so I decided I would just try all 7 colors; but as soon as I was in the right form, talking to the person guarding the garden made them say the line about "you solved my riddle", even though they hadn't moved. They didn't move until I changed my color to purple... although that was the color that I started the game in, which seems like it might be a bug? (Why even ask me to be a particular color if I'm that way automatically? Plus I don't remember the effigy being that color, although I'm not certain that what I'm thinking of was the effigy, so I'm not certain about that part.)