Post by Rob in Type Help comments

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This has to be the worst name for a game I've ever come across. But I still decided to try it based on recommendations and I'm glad I did because it turns out it's an excellent game!

The way the game is played is pretty genius in its simplicity and the story is something I haven't seen before in any sort of media. Making it a very satisfying mystery to figure out.

Here follows a random assortment of comments.

!SPOILERS BELOW!

The only flaw for me would be that the final puzzle is much harder than anything leading up to it. I spent 2 days on the game to reach the end and then another day just trying to find that last location. Oh well, time wasn't exactly wasted since it gave me opportunity to re-read the story and find some subtle things I had missed the first time. But it did feel like a somewhat abrupt change in difficulty. If you had trouble finding a location earlier, you could often brute-force it with some constraints. E.g. if you hadn't located 2 persons in a timeslot, you could try one of them in each location and if that didn't work you knew they were together somewhere.

A big clue was that Wintercote was bolded as a location so I was pretty sure it should be used but the problem was figuring out what person(s) would be there PLUS what timeslot to use. It was made extra hard by not knowing if I should use "13" like all the persons before, or to use the "K" from the transcript. Another major stumbling block was that I assumed the timeslot would be 27 (or maybe 0) "to complete the chain".

A "fix" would be to

a) Rename "K" in the phone transcripts. Use "0" or "13" instead.

b) Rephrase the clue about thunder in 25-AT-1 from "There's the distant sound of rolling thunder" to something that makes it more clear it's the same type of thunderclap sound that has been heard throughout the game.

I found a small bug with the "act" command: It only works if you supply two parameters and doesn't show any helpful error message if you don't. Also, if you never rename the acts the useful arrows don't show up when using the "list" command. (They make it easier to jump between act listings.)

Some plot points that are never explained (or are they?):

Why didn't Martha call the police? (My best guess is the phone wasn't working properly because of the weather and she couldn't place the call when she tried, so she decided to pretend that she had called them in order to not cause further panic.)
What had Annie done to get into trouble? (I'm guessing she ran away from home (Wintercote) and needed money because of something like drug/gambling addiction.)
Why did John kill himself? (Did he have a mental breakdown and blamed himself for the deaths?)
The hangman was confusing and didn't feel like it belonged in the story.
Is the agent's name (Richard Longley) a hidden easter-egg or are we supposed to deduce that?

William Rous312 days ago(+3)

Yeah this is a legendary comment. I'll come back and put a lot of these in an update I think. Thanks for you help!

fishmonk311 days ago (4 edits) (+10)

FWIW, I disagree that the final puzzle is flawed or overly difficult. (explanation after spoiler warning)

I found it well-telegraphed by the game, given the fact that Wintercote is bolded, how often Victoria mentions Wintercote and her mother, that the 'name' command works for K but not for 13, and that K is the only character who could possibly be at Wintercote during the events of the game.

Please don't follow the suggestion to rename K to 0 or 13. That wouldn't "fix" the puzzle but would actually ruin it. 13 is Amelia West, and neither 0 or 13 make sense for K, given when she died.

Rob311 days ago (1 edit) (-1)

I want to clarify that I don't think the puzzle is flawed, in a broken sort of way. My criticism was regarding the much higher difficulty for it. Perceived "difficulty" is individual and can vary a lot, so fair enough if others didn't have problems with it. Props to you for figuring it out quickly! I can only speak of my own experience and I felt it was much harder than the rest of the game and stopped the progress as a rather abrupt obstacle.

My reason for suggesting renaming "K" is that it would reduce the ambiguity of what the filename for the final scene could be. All other scenes follow the same pattern with numbers for the people, so allowing a letter in there makes the search-space even larger. You seem to argue that "K" can't be renamed because there's a fixed rule about having the characters numbered in a specific order, which isn't really the case. It's true that the numbering follows the apparent order in which they die, but then Hobbes wouldn't really be number 1 since he never became part of the chain. Katherine would be 1 by that logic.

I guess the biggest problem for me was to realise WHEN the scene took place. I was pretty sure it would take place on 27 since there were hints about "completing the chain". The clue about "distant thunder" was too vague for me to understand that it was the same "death sound" that had been heard for the other deaths. I was also confused by the "one death doesn't quite fit the pattern" clue, which made me start theorising that maybe one of the earlier deaths were faked à la "And Then There Were None". Which made the number of possible final scene permutations enormous, when I didn't know WHEN, WHO and maybe not even WHERE it took place.

Anyways, I still think it would help to make the filenames consistent by only using numbers for the characters, but the biggest improvement would be to make it clearer that there's a similar thunderclap sound in 25-AT-1.

CrabHelmet311 days ago (2 edits) (+8)

I think I disagree with both of these comments re: the final clue. Spoilers below.

By the end of the game, a player should have worked out that a thunderclap sounds when and only when someone dies. There is a thunderclap during John's scene in 25-AT-1. John does not die after the thunderclap. Therefore, the player should be able to work out that someone else has died somewhere, and that any missing scene must be a 25- scene.

You are told Katherine is K in the preceding scene in 24-LI-1, when John has a conversation with her. That immediately marks her out as a K. She would be a very poor fit as 13, because the player should have already been taught that the deaths count backwards. Katherine could only be 13 if she was the death before Rupert. Indeed, the game explicitly relies on this logic - there's no way to find 01-ST-12 unless you make the inference that Rupert is 12 as the earliest death, since there is no other scene which refers to Person 12. Logically, Amelia (if she had had scene) would have been 13, and it would be highly confusing to have Katherine as 13. Equally, Katherine can't be 0 because she dies before John. Really, Katherine is actually "Person 1" by the usual schematic and John is the one who is misnamed, as strictly speaking he doesn't die from the thunderclap, but if you made, say, Katherine 1 and John J, the game would be far too easy (the player would immediately notice Person 1 was never mentioned).

As such, you should be able to work out that there's a 25-##-K scene.

Finally, once you realise it is Katherine, all the clues are provided for you to know she is in Wintercote and therefore that the missing scene is 25-WI-K. Changing anything else would just make it far too easy.

At best, I guess I have limited sympathy for the idea that the "rolling thunder" should perhaps explicitly be called a thunderclap.

I actually thought 25-WI-K was kind of obvious because you're told Katherine is given the moniker K - it took me longer to find 01-ST-12 because there's no scene in which you're ever explicitly told Rupert is 12!

Rob311 days ago (4 edits) (-2)

The focus on the character numbering system makes it sound like it has to follow specific rules. (Namely the order people die in.) But the numbers are really just the agent's shorthand for the different voices he's transcribing. It could have been anything. In fact I think it would have been better to have them in random order since the system isn't really death order because Hobbes dies after Katherine and he's not part of the chain. So I don't think using 13 instead of "K" would be "highly confusing".

As for Rupert (01-ST-12) being harder to find; I guess that's another example of people having different views on difficulty. ~~It was stated in 00-audio-recovery that there were "twelve victims found in and around the house" so I think it's clear that there should be a number 12 death somewhere~~ (edit: the audio-recovery file was found at 01-ST-12, so it can't be a clue) and with the only unaccounted thunderclap being in timeslot 01, it's just a matter of finding what room it could have been in. I found it easier to find just because it did follow the normal scene code naming convention where persons have numbers. So it was logical that the number would be 12 (or possibly 0). It would have been MUCH harder if had been named 01-ST-R or something.

btw, another confusing clue I was reminded of now was the statement in 00-audio-recovery: "they were only able to recover about a minute from the thirteenth body" which refers to someone as number 13. Another suggestion that there should be a person with that number.

CrabHelmet311 days ago(+6)

Spoilers

Working out the agent's shorthand follows a particular order is one of the central puzzles. Having the numbers in a random order would detract massively. Being able to instantly infer who was the most recent death is useful to advancement in a lot of scenes.

Also, the agent created the number 1-12 system *before* the agent himself worked out Katherine was relevant. You can see that here:

"[@] Edit: looking back at all the deaths, it's clear there's one that doesn't quite fit the pattern. It took me a while to track it down, but I've now added one more scene that should complete the chain of events."

Katherine can't fit into the same numbering system the agent used because the agent only realised Katherine was relevant much later and her scene was gathered much later.

Rob311 days ago (1 edit) (-7)

Fair enough. I didn't really mind the numbers being in death order, but I also think it wouldn't have bothered me if they were in a random order because it did feel a bit like cheating once you realise they are dying in order. From then on you're never surprised at which person is next to be erased.

In fact, it might be a missed opportunity to create a situation when you're not really sure who has been eliminated. Once players figure out that the thunderclaps signal a death, they would want to know who it is but with this system it's never a mystery. It could have been a fun little puzzle to try to deduce some deaths that aren't obvious (people dropping in the middle of a conversation etc.)

btw my favourite death scene was 09-ED-6-10 where it's heavily implied that Eddie is in the middle of having sex with a dead Eve... X-)

joshg304 days ago(+3)(-1)

eww, no, please delete

TheFriendlyEnemy310 days ago(+1)(-1)

Spoilers

You can't use 00-audio-recovery as a hint to find 01-ST-12, because that file is found inside 01-ST-12.

Personally, I think the numbering system being the way it is was a good call. On a meta level, if the numbers were random then the player would at one point have to be directly told a number for Rupert, which would have been extremely conspicuous since he's a non-speaking character. It's also logical in the story that the agent numbers things in a consistent order (at least, before he realised the K thing) rather than assigning them randomly. And as other comments say, if the number system stays, K has to stay, unless you're willing to number her 1.5.

I kind of agree on the thunderclap - to me, rolling thunder isn't quite the same as a thunderclap. Personally, I would've liked a bit more of a hint to Wintercote specifically, e.g if Victoria had said "We'll drive to Wintercote, it's only 10km away" and then scene 25 said "thunder can be heard about 10km away". Distant could mean absolutely anywhere, and the only real clue to Katherine is the phone call.

zamaj310 days ago(-1)

What is rolling thunder, if not a thunderclap heard from a distant location?

TheFriendlyEnemy310 days ago(+1)

The key word is "clap", which evokes the idea of a short, loud burst of sound. Rolling thunder is quieter but longer - it takes time for a sound to be "rolling".

P.S I didn't know this before writing this, but there are actually defined lengths and pitches to classify different types of thunder, which is neat! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thunder#Types

zamaj309 days ago

I don't think that a thunderclap and rolling thunder are distinct phenomena. A thunderclap at Wintercote would sound like rolling thunder at Granger House, since those locations are quite far apart. (I'm not a meteorologist, but preliminary research seems to confirm my intuition: rolling thunder is essentially just the result of a thunderclap reverberating, and the rolling sound travels farther than the clap). However, I agree that the only clue that tells you who died is the phone call. The rolling thunder by itself doesn't tell you anything, but once you realize there was thunder at Wintercote, then the rolling thunder pins down the time.

Rob310 days ago (6 edits) (-1)

For me, "rolling thunder" implies a longer, more stretched out low rumbling sound. Not the sharp whip crack of a thunderclap. It's also heavily implied that the death sounds in the game are not actual thunderclaps, they just sound similar. So they are not originating from a storm or anything. The rolling thunder line is much more ambiguous and could be read as bad weather approaching.

Deleted post310 days ago

Deleted 305 days ago

TheFriendlyEnemy310 days ago(-1)

I'll rot13 my spoilers from here on out because it's easier than dots.

Lrf, ohg vs gur znva ryrira jrer ahzorerq 1-11 ohg jvgubhg qrngu beqre, lbh pbhyq ernfbanoyl unir Ehcreg nf 0 be 12 - gurer'q abg or n tbbq jnl bs xabjvat juvpu jvgubhg gur ntrag gryyvat lbh. (Znlor rira 13, vs Xngurevar vf 12).

Crefbanyyl, V guvax gur bayl jnl gb unir n enaqbzvfrq beqre naq unir Ehcreg fgvyy or fbyinoyr vf unir Ehcreg nf 12 (ohg arire fgngrq), naq Xngurevar nf 13. Bapr gur cynlre frrf Xngurevar sbe gur svefg gvzr, gurl'q xabj bs punenpgref 1-11 naq 13 jvgu n pbafcvphbhf tnc vzcylvat fbzrbar unf orra ynoryrq 12, urapr ehyvat bhg 0.

itch.io

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