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Ole' pickaxe is actually my favorite song
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Oct 19, 2018 15:15
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Tin Can Hit Man posted:Finding Bea it's such a cliché song but the moment it's on I choke up a bit.  I also love how it calls back to Die Anywhere Elsee: and the mall music too, of course! I feel like a lot of the songs on the soundtrack do that, I wonder if anyone has looked for all the motifs Your Computer fucked around with this message at 17:05 on Oct 19, 2018 |
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Oct 19, 2018 16:57
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https://twitter.com/ghostramp/status/1053306540227096577
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Oct 19, 2018 17:13
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Mallard's Tomb has gotta be the one I come back to the most. The game was so turbulent, the room was a beautiful, peaceful retreat. Spent a lot of time in-game just sitting next to that window listening to this song.
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Oct 19, 2018 21:48
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aniviron posted:Mallard's Tomb has gotta be the one I come back to the most. The game was so turbulent, the room was a beautiful, peaceful retreat. Spent a lot of time in-game just sitting next to that window listening to this song. Was about to post this, am currently listening to this song. It rules so much
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Oct 19, 2018 21:52
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Mae finding Mallard is one of the great moments in the game. It's just pure joy for her, and you can't help but feel it too. My experience the first time I did that scene was just pure delight.
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Oct 19, 2018 22:48
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Master Twig posted:Mae finding Mallard is one of the great moments in the game. It's just pure joy for her, and you can't help but feel it too. My experience the first time I did that scene was just pure delight.  Mae is so happy about the entire thing
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Oct 19, 2018 22:51
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Yeah, while the problem is never really solved (the town is still dying, Mae needs clinical help that her family probably can't afford, Bea is still being crushed by the weight of her responsibilities and both of them will eventually have to deal with Gregg and Angus moving away) I do like how the ending does still grant the characters a bit of happiness in the short term (Mae made some new friends, rekindled her relationship with her old ones and came out of her shell a bit by the end, that's progress at any rate).
Larryb fucked around with this message at 23:12 on Oct 19, 2018 |
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Oct 19, 2018 23:07
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I really liked the ending (although I found the cult stuff kinda out of left field and that it sorta undermined some stuff?) and I definitely think it couldn't have ended any better. It wouldn't really make sense for the themes and such of the game if things were "solved" in the end and everyone lived happily ever after, but the little things sure felt good.  speaking of it, I'm watching other people's playthroughs now (help I can't stop thinking about NITW) and I'm a lil weirded out how many people want/assume Bea and Mae as a couple
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Oct 19, 2018 23:44
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The cult does at least fit into one of the main themes of the game at any rate (the real antagonist is Capitalism). There is also a slight supernatural element present thoughout but due to the way it's handled most of it can be written off as being primarily in Mae's head. I'm not saying I wanted a happy ending or anything (the game's own plot sort of prevents that anyway) but I'm glad it wasn't super dark and gloomy either. As for Mae/Bea I could honestly see that going either way (Mae is at least bisexual if Proximity is to be taken at face value) but to be honest I see it as more of a familial relationship personally (they're just really close friends who make up for what the other lacks). They clearly need each other but there doesn't necessarily have to be anything romantic about it. Larryb fucked around with this message at 00:46 on Oct 20, 2018 |
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Oct 20, 2018 00:24
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It does fit into the main theme of the game in a pretty excellent way, I just don't like how it muddies the mental health stuff in regards to Mae. Not to get too personal but as someone who also dropped out due to mental health Mae's entire deal just hit really close and it saddens me when I see people go "oh she was just possesed/had magical headaches/whatever" and brush the entire thing off, and I feel like the developers themselves weren't entire clear about it either (which I guess was intentional) and yeah Mae makes a few references to being bi throughout the game, but Bea likewise does the same to being straight and their whole deal is like.. super platonic. They even both say at several points that they feel like family and I think that's so sweet and I guess I just feel like the internet's obsession with making every character kiss kinda cheapens that I mean I'm not the videogame police though so I guess everyone can interpret and enjoy it however they want
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Oct 20, 2018 00:43
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Your Computer posted:I really liked the ending (although I found the cult stuff kinda out of left field and that it sorta undermined some stuff?) and I definitely think it couldn't have ended any better. It wouldn't really make sense for the themes and such of the game if things were "solved" in the end and everyone lived happily ever after, but the little things sure felt good. It's the internet, everybody wants every character to be gay, and gay with each other.
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Oct 20, 2018 00:44
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Mae's primary issues were separate from the cult (as I recall, it wasn't until after Harfest that she really started hearing the Black Goat herself), but they did make things a bit worse for her though. Plus, it's not like her problems just magically disappeared at the end so their inclusion didn't really bother me that much.
Larryb fucked around with this message at 00:55 on Oct 20, 2018 |
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Oct 20, 2018 00:53
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Mae's definitely bi but there's also no indications at all that her relationship with Bea should be seen as romantic at all.
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Oct 20, 2018 00:55
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RAT BABIES
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Oct 20, 2018 00:58
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My children all grown up
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Oct 20, 2018 00:59
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exquisite tea posted:It's the internet, everybody wants every character to be gay, and gay with each other.  Larryb posted:Mae's primary issues were separate from the cult (as I recall, it wasn't until after Harfest that she really started hearing the Black Goat herself), but they did make things a bit worse for her though. Plus, it's not like her problems just magically disappeared at the end so their inclusion didn't really bother me that much.
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Oct 20, 2018 00:59
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Your Computer posted:you got me there Fair, but I still choose to see it as two separate issues (Mae mentions during her confession that this all started when one day something just broke inside of her, also the fact that her mental issues don't just disappear once the cult is taken care of at the end). Ironically though, despite all that happened dropping out of school and moving back home may have actually saved Mae's life in the long term (she has a stronger support system backing her up now at the very least and she's also opened up a bit more). She still needs professional help of course (and not from some quack who tells her to just repress everything) but there's been some definite progress at any rate.
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Oct 20, 2018 01:41
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It's probably intended to be vague (I think one of the authors explicitly does not want to elaborate) but I got the impression that the supernatural elements want to take advantage of mental problems that develop or already exist in order to encourage people to give themselves up for their brutal cause. Like, the (final dream sequence) cat god talks about how it and the rest of the universe just does not care about you, and my final takeaway was that the world is a harsh place and beware anyone who says your problems will be solved if you Buy This Thing or Go Fight The Enemy or just Stop Complaining And Work Harder because they really just want to take advantage of your personal struggle to find meaning where none exist. Mental issues feel kind of cheapened if they're caused by spooky stuff, so I might be trying to explain the game to myself around that idea.
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Oct 20, 2018 01:50
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Your Computer posted:you got me there It makes sense when you realize that Bea is a total tsundere and Mae is a total yandere.   
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Oct 20, 2018 02:33
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Twobirds posted:It's probably intended to be vague (I think one of the authors explicitly does not want to elaborate) but I got the impression that the supernatural elements want to take advantage of mental problems that develop or already exist in order to encourage people to give themselves up for their brutal cause. Like, the (final dream sequence) cat god talks about how it and the rest of the universe just does not care about you, and my final takeaway was that the world is a harsh place and beware anyone who says your problems will be solved if you Buy This Thing or Go Fight The Enemy or just Stop Complaining And Work Harder because they really just want to take advantage of your personal struggle to find meaning where none exist. a thing can be more than one thing, like how the black goat is a voracious force of spacetime-rending darkness but also late-stage capitalism mae's mental issues are genuine, the supernatural stuff might also be genuine, but the latter is deliberately crafted to accentuate the former "the hole in the center of everything" espoused by the Cat is the creeping sense of existential doom experienced by anyone paying attention and by younger people in particular, and it is also a big old hole in the ground that horrible old people throw children into
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Oct 20, 2018 02:39
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Oxxidation posted:a thing can be more than one thing, like how the black goat is a voracious force of spacetime-rending darkness but also late-stage capitalism This was my interpretation. Wouldn't be the first time the spiritual and the real were subtly or overtly implied to be facets of one another in a narrative sense.
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Oct 20, 2018 02:47
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The hole in the ground is capitalism.
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Oct 20, 2018 02:53
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Synthbuttrange posted:The hole in the ground is capitalism. the black goat is capitalism, the cultists sacrifice the young to it in a desperate attempt to stave off the "hole" growing in the center of their own lives NitW's a straight critique of capitalist thinking but it ties all that into a larger sense of impending existential and societal collapse
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Oct 20, 2018 02:58
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Synthbuttrange posted:The hole in the ground is capitalism. That's actually the void in Mae's heart that only Bea can fill, but never will.
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Oct 20, 2018 03:00
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There is some evidence of the supernatural (like how the cult member Mae saw at Harfest was able to get away without leaving a single trace, the Black Goat itself, and also potentially the weird Janitor who may or may not have been an avatar of God) but it's also important to note that most of it only seems to happen around Mae which might imply that some of it (the dreams at least) may just be a product of her subconscious and nothing more. I still don't think the Black Goat is entirely to blame for Mae's problems but it didn't help either (Mae is almost completely broken in body, mind and spirit by the time they officially meet up with the cult but still somehow manages to pull herself together by the very end). Larryb fucked around with this message at 03:50 on Oct 20, 2018 |
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Oct 20, 2018 03:04
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while we're on the topic I gotta say it's extremely refreshing how political the game gets
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Oct 20, 2018 05:08
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uhh, wrong thread
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Oct 20, 2018 06:55
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aniviron posted:Mallard's Tomb has gotta be the one I come back to the most. The game was so turbulent, the room was a beautiful, peaceful retreat. Spent a lot of time in-game just sitting next to that window listening to this song. This has been my wake up alarm since last spring. Most things I set as an alarm get annoying after a while, but Mallard's Tomb will always be good as hell.
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Oct 20, 2018 07:02
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See, I find it hard to discount the supernatural elements as Mae's mental health acting up when all four of them encounter the goat worshiping murder cult, who pretty much go on to openly admit what they are. The guys who kidnap kids for ritual sacrifice are real. I've read all the gas-driving-people-mad theories and whatnot. And that fits to an extent. Except there's little reason for Mae to share in some mass hallucination that a bunch of old miners developed from decades of mining. Otherwise, it's an awfully big coincidence that she shares these same crazy dreams and delusions with the cult members.
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Oct 20, 2018 17:27
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Guys, this is not difficult. The hole is capitalism. Bea even blatantly states this.
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Oct 20, 2018 17:30
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The only real super natural aspect is the question of what a God is. The three characters that symbolize it are there caring but absent janitor, the present but uncaring cat god in maes dreams, and the present but hungry God of capitalism, that needs the sacrifice of the younger generation. Why Mae in particular is encountering these three is left unexplained. If it has something to do with her disassociation, it wasn't clear.
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Oct 20, 2018 21:20
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Paul Zuvella posted:Guys, this is not difficult. The hole is capitalism. Bea even blatantly states this. its actually a evil goat god.
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Oct 20, 2018 21:36
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I think for me the part that got a bit muddied is that the metaphor was extremely clear and I kinda expected it to just be that... but then the whole cult and them being chased and Mae going into a coma and the hole stuff was all real? When things started getting weird I kinda expected it to be like a mental breakdown or something of the sort but no, there were actual death cultists sacrificing actual kids to an actual bottomless pit. I mean meta-narratively the hole can both be a hole and a metaphor for capitalism, but in-universe that stuff is actually happening and that makes things more complicated. It just gets kind of weird because the game is directly criticizing capitalism in-universe but then there's this death cult and eldritch horror and the horror also represents capitalism. I'm not putting this into words well but eh, that's what I mean by muddy v  v
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Oct 20, 2018 21:38
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That's the whole point. The Eldritch horror is literally capitalism. And it's a hungry God.
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Oct 20, 2018 21:53
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User0015 posted:The only real super natural aspect is the question of what a God is. The three characters that symbolize it are there caring but absent janitor, the present but uncaring cat god in maes dreams, and the present but hungry God of capitalism, that needs the sacrifice of the younger generation. Janitor is at least real as he has a brief exchange with Mae's parents and Pastor K later in the game, CatGod is up for debate as it only appears once in Mae's dreams (though it does hint at some stuff she wouldn't end up learning about until later) as is the Black Goat as one of the cultists does mention one of their members gaining powers because of it (which would explain how the one Mae saw at Harfest was able to get away without a trace) and they do admit to having the save visions that Mae does. Not entirely sure what she has in common with a group of terrible old men who ritually sacrifice children because they've somehow convinced themselves it's "saving" the town though. Also Mae's goat neighbor (Mr. Twiddlemyer or something like that) was totally one of the cultists right? Something he says at the church after Mae gets shot at kind of hints in that direction anyway and we never see him again afterwards.
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Oct 20, 2018 21:56
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User0015 posted:That's the whole point. The Eldritch horror is literally capitalism. And it's a hungry God. what I mean is that the characters in-universe clearly has to deal with actual capitalism and the socioeconomical problems it brings but they also literally have to deal with a death cult of old men sacrificing kids to a pit which may or may not contain and actual deity but also represents capitalism? it's capitalism all the way down
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Oct 20, 2018 22:02
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The real villain is Steve Scriggins.
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Oct 20, 2018 22:40
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Larryb posted:Not entirely sure what she has in common with a group of terrible old men who ritually sacrifice children because they've somehow convinced themselves it's "saving" the town though. She cares about the town and town's traditions more than most of the characters. She loves Harfest and is bothered that someone messed up the mural. She's troubled by the town's changes during the short time she was away because she needs that sense of familiarity. The idea of "saving the town" would appeal to her more than to her peers, and she's someone who was literally called "killer" by people after a violent act.
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Oct 20, 2018 23:43
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Zerilan posted:She cares about the town and town's traditions more than most of the characters. She loves Harfest and is bothered that someone messed up the mural. She's troubled by the town's changes during the short time she was away because she needs that sense of familiarity. The idea of "saving the town" would appeal to her more than to her peers, and she's someone who was literally called "killer" by people after a violent act. Fair point (and even after the whole cult business she even admits that she kind of understands where they're coming from). She's better than them of course but they are kind of on the same wavelength as far as the town goes.
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Oct 20, 2018 23:53
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