The Stack

I’ve made it through level 3 — it turns out this isn’t the level with the trampoline where I got stuck previously after all. In fact, it only has one challenge room at all, and no shop. I’m assuming that this is a sort of special “Oops! All Maze!” level and that I won’t see the game go to the same extreme again.

Level 3 also introduces something I wasn’t sure I’d see: optional items. There’s a dead end in the maze where you can find a key, guarded by an arm from a window like the toll-taker, except he demands a watch. You can find a watch further along in the maze, where you probably haven’t been yet when you meet the watch-taker for the first time. If you don’t have a watch, he instead takes all your gold and lets you through. The familiar toll-taker is also found near the exit, as usual.

Now, I said before that the toll-taker requires all the gold in the maze. I don’t really know if that’s strictly true. I just know that whenever I haven’t given him all the gold in the maze, he’s sent me away for more. Maybe he has a minimum acceptable amount, but takes as much as you have. Maybe he’ll accept whatever’s left over after the watch-taker takes his cut, which would make the actual watch downright useless. But even assuming that you can’t let the watch-taker have any gold and still win the level, there’s an alternative to using the watch: Just go the watch-taker’s dead end before collecting any gold.

On top of that, if I’m not mistaken, you don’t even really need the key he’s guarding anyway. Past that point there are two locked doors, and two keys you can find. Making you look for the watch at all is pure trollery. Maybe I should keep the watch — unlike gold and keys, inventory is preserved across levels, and I could see this game suddenly requiring you to have something you gave away two levels ago.