[SPOILERS] - Story discussion

[StrickenBiged]

Ok, spoiler warning dealt with.

 

Now, I just want to see if anyone else thinks the same way I (and apparently PushSquare) do... I've been mulling the story over in my head since I got the Plat, and had reached many of the same conclusions as PushSquare. 

 

It'd be interesting to know what you guys and gals all thought too.

 

Did anyone else play this and think "I wonder if I [the player character] am Kate?"

 

I think the player character may very well be Kate, having joined with the alien entity thing, and exploring the village after the apocalypse. 

 

The ending sequence shows her joining with the weird alien light thing. She was more open minded about its intentions than Stephen, who just wanted to bomb it. It is not a stretch to imagine that maybe the alien sensed her open-mindedness and decided she was a suitable vessel or host for it. 

 

Also, when Stephen sets himself on fire in the Bunker, he can see or sense Kate in the light which appears to him. I think it's safe to say that, if they have not joined completely, Kate and the alien are in-sync somehow.

 

It also appears that the alien "disappeared" more people than just Kate. Many of the core characters are shown dispersing into light at the end of their respective archs.

 

It appears that the alien's initial attempts at communication were clumsy. It was killing animals and making people sick, and had to travel around in telephone wires and electromagnetic radio and TV waves. It makes sense that it would not have been able to understand much of what was going on while the apocalypse was happening, but also plausible that it had some awareness of the world outside of the telephone wires and TV signals.

 

I therefore think that:

1. the alien is curious;
2. it joined with Kate and/or she became its first host;
3. it joined with other people in the area;
4. it appeared to Stephen before he killed himself, possibly because Kate and he had loved each other;
5. after it had a host, it decided to explore Yaughton, etc, to see what had happened; and
6. the way it can "see" is in the imprints left in people's memories of their interactions. These are the scenes that play out as you wander around.

What do you guys think? Any theories on how you are wandering around after the apocalypse, or why? Do you think PushSquare is correct, that the player character could be Kate?

[noyjoy]

I fully agree that we are playing as Kate in the game. The first time I played through I immediately thought it but went online to see others opinions. Lots and lots of people were saying I was some random person or you are merely a camera.

The second time I played through, I had no doubt the character you play as is Kate. You even start the game right at the observatory where she was located. I saw it as the aliens way of showing her the steps that led to everyone dying.

[Crispy_Oglop]

Agreed on it being Kate, the whole trip around town was a journey of discovery for her. She had not moved on because she was alone and it was only until the end that she realized she belonged with the entity, which was essentially the same as her - out of place and feeling isolated.

 

Also at the end, anyone think that looked like a doorway opening pulling her energy through. I'm guessing this is what everyone saw when they passed. Also when Jeremy fell down the stairs in the basement and broke his ankle, the guy on the stairs said that he could see them all in the light. So for me, I reckon they were all just moving on to another form of existence brought about by the alien.

 

I guess the message the game is trying to get across is that it is alot easier to move on when we have people and places that we can call home.

 

From a character point of view, I found Stephen and his mother, Wendy to be two different generations of asshole. Wendy is a bigoted, bitter and close minded fool with no redeeming qualities. Stephen is a self-centered cheating douche who carried two women on the go and would rather trap himself in a bunker and literally set himself on fire than entertain the notion that this change in humanity might be a good thing.

 

Really great game. Been a while since I got frustrated at some written characters in a game, which shows it is definitely doing things right.

[MesopithecusUK]

It's amusing to me as someone who I know has stated that they hated the game because there was no real explanation of what happened and they had no idea who they were meant to be.

 

It makes me wonder if they actually followed the story arcs and paid attention to the conversations and details, me thinks they might have just rushed through for trophies and that makes me feel sad.

 

Anyway, I also felt the person was Kate.  Did any of you notice the code at the end of the credits?  It's been deciphered to this:

 

“In the wake of a human being’s death, what survives is a set of afterglows, some brighter and some dimmer, in the collective brains of those dearest to them. There is, in those who remain, a collective corona that still glows – Douglas Hofstadter”

[zettlock]

Oh, c'mon guys - Kate says that herself at the beginning of the game, that she is the only survivor  . And she's there to spectacle, kinda relive, the disaster that descended upon the lads when she was in that tower. That's no recorded thing. It's her words spoken atm. There's no recording distortion and stuff. That's her and we're playing (walking...) as her.

[TurtlePM]

Curious...

I tried to check with whom I was playing and I checked the reflexes at some windows... And I saw TWO Tiny CAMERAS

 

And I also "Simulated" the Moonwalk like the trophy list sugests

 

[audiopile]

Definitely playing as merged Kate walking through the aftermath of the cleansing.  She is seeing what all her friends and neighbors were going through in the final hours.  The end motion triggered sequences for the characters likely happened simultaneously as the bombs dropped.  I think the alien was absorbing the sick people though, how else did they "do a runner"?  The birds probably died from all the electromagnetic energy being generated by the alien.

 

Also Stephen is an a-hole.

Edited May 31, 2017 by audiopile

[paultje118]

The question that i have is, how long is the time between the actual game and the airstrike?

 

All the dead bodies are gone, but all the birds are still on the ground.

Also the roads are still closed i think of precauting of the toxic gas.

 

The game was great!

I felt all the emotions of the characters before the bombs drop.

I felt my body shivered when i was at the campsite and you saw all the childeren fading away because of the gas.

[AmazingNoeder]

On 1/16/2020 at 8:00 PM, paultje118 said:

The question that i have is, how long is the time between the actual game and the airstrike?

 

All the dead bodies are gone, but all the birds are still on the ground.

Also the roads are still closed i think of precauting of the toxic gas.

 

The game was great!

I felt all the emotions of the characters before the bombs drop.

I felt my body shivered when i was at the campsite and you saw all the childeren fading away because of the gas.

Everything is pretty "fresh"  like that happened a few hours ago

I believe the time between the air streak and the beginning of the game is like a 1 day after the air streak

If you remember,we started the game on the entrance of the observatory,is like as soon as kate "desapear" (or the day after) and became the alien host or something like this she left the observatory and went to see the events that happened while she was there

[setobox]

So I am done with the game, other than getting one final trophy and here are my thoughts.

 

Yes we are playing as Kate. 

Spoiler

For example, when we reach the end of Jeremy's arc, we hear her gasp as she saw him talk and connect with The Pattern and told it to follow him into the church.

Stephen is a jerk. Like a huge one and so is his mother Wendy. Kate told him about how the villagers were treating her and he brushed it off as her overreacting and complaining. As we see from how others in the village talk about her, she was not overreacting and as her husband, he should have nipped that shit in the bud instead of making excuses for how the villagers treated her. Like, their actions and his is what pushed her to isolate herself.

 

Also, I could not feel sympathetic for Lizzie at all, especially after seeing her scenes.

 

Spoiler

Comparing your affair with Stephen and getting pregnant by him to Kate isolating herself from her husband and the village and basically saying that the two of you are the same by ruining your marriages but in different ways? The reason Kate isolated herself was because you were having an affair with her husband and both of you acted dumb about it to her face on top of how the villagers treated her. You can't be serious.

 

And then her agreeing with Stephen and running away to escape the valley and leaving Rachel and the children behind at the camp? What?

 

I liked this game but man there were parts where I said "I don't feel bad for this person?"