Register a SA Forums Account here!
JOINING THE SA FORUMS WILL REMOVE THIS BIG AD, THE ANNOYING UNDERLINED ADS, AND STUPID INTERSTITIAL ADS!!!

You can: log in, read the tech support FAQ, or request your lost password. This dumb message (and those ads) will appear on every screen until you register! Get rid of this crap by registering your own SA Forums Account and joining roughly 150,000 Goons, for the one-time price of $9.95! We charge money because it costs us money per month for bills, and since we don't believe in showing ads to our users, we try to make the money back through forum registrations.
 
  • Locked thread
Paladinus
Jan 11, 2014

heyHEYYYY!!!

Plom Bar posted:

It really blows my mind that this topic is ever debated when there's literally a sequence where Max is stuck in her own subconscious and finds Dream-Warren has made a hairdoll of her and says overtly creepy things to her.

Yes, it's just a dream, but it's a reflection of Max' inner feelings on the topic.

Chloe also says creepy things in this sequence. Everyone does.

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

Plom Bar
Jun 5, 2004

hardest time i ever done :(

Paladinus posted:

Chloe also says creepy things in this sequence. Everyone does.

No she doesn't. Max' dream-self says bad things about Chloe, but otherwise Chloe is only ever shown in a positive light in this sequence. Hell, the code to get out of the bathroom is Chloe's birthday.

Milkfred E. Moore
Aug 27, 2006

'It's easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism.'

Plom Bar posted:

It really blows my mind that this topic is ever debated when there's literally a sequence where Max is stuck in her own subconscious and finds Dream-Warren has made a hairdoll of her and says overtly creepy things to her.

Yes, it's just a dream, but it's a reflection of Max' inner feelings on the topic.

The only thing I saw of Warren in that sequence was him saying "Maaaax! Come out to plaaaaaay!" and I was like, oh hey, it's that movie.

...was there really a hairdoll?

Plom Bar
Jun 5, 2004

hardest time i ever done :(

Milky Moor posted:

The only thing I saw of Warren in that sequence was him saying "Maaaax! Come out to plaaaaaay!" and I was like, oh hey, it's that movie.

...was there really a hairdoll?

It's the 7th photo op for that episode, I believe. You have to find his locker.

Paladinus
Jan 11, 2014

heyHEYYYY!!!

Plom Bar posted:

No she doesn't. Max' dream-self says bad things about Chloe, but otherwise Chloe is only ever shown in a positive light in this sequence. Hell, the code to get out of the bathroom is Chloe's birthday.

That's creepy, imo.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1S-TrGW3Ss&t=1156s

And that's like a two-minute scene, not some bullshit collectible.

Milkfred E. Moore
Aug 27, 2006

'It's easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism.'

Plom Bar posted:

It's the 7th photo op for that episode, I believe. You have to find his locker.

Feels weird to say it is a real reflection on Real Warren when it's obviously a Worst Possible Warren in a nightmare where Max is confronted with her deepest fears that everyone despises her, wants to hurt her, use her, lies to her, hates her. Like Shinji's breakdown in Evangelion.

edit: And while Chloe is always a bright spot, the whole thing on the couch has Max thinking that she likes other people as much as she likes me and such. It's a reflection of Max's worries and insecurities.

Milkfred E. Moore fucked around with this message at 12:45 on Oct 29, 2016

Plom Bar
Jun 5, 2004

hardest time i ever done :(

Milky Moor posted:

Feels weird to say it is a real reflection on Real Warren when it's obviously a Worst Possible Warren in a nightmare where Max is confronted with her deepest fears that everyone despises her, wants to hurt her, use her, lies to her, hates her. Like Shinji's breakdown in Evangelion.

edit: And while Chloe is always a bright spot, the whole thing on the couch has Max thinking that she likes other people as much as she likes me and such. It's a reflection of Max's worries and insecurities.

I forgot about the couch thing and concede that Chloe said some negative things there. That said, your edit paragraph really hits on it: it's about Max' insecurities and worries concerning all the people. With Chloe, it's an anxiety that she'll think other people are better/more desirable to Chloe than her. With Warren, the concern is that he is unhealthily obsessed with her and may take it too far.

But hold up, why am I defending Chloe's presence in the dream? It has gently caress all to do with Warren's behavior, which is what my original point was.

Paladinus
Jan 11, 2014

heyHEYYYY!!!

Plom Bar posted:

I forgot about the couch thing and concede that Chloe said some negative things there. That said, your edit paragraph really hits on it: it's about Max' insecurities and worries concerning all the people. With Chloe, it's an anxiety that she'll think other people are better/more desirable to Chloe than her. With Warren, the concern is that he is unhealthily obsessed with her and may take it too far.

But hold up, why am I defending Chloe's presence in the dream? It has gently caress all to do with Warren's behavior, which is what my original point was.

Like her other worries in the dream, the one about Warren is also, wait for it, un-Warren-ted.

Plom Bar
Jun 5, 2004

hardest time i ever done :(
A woman: I find this man's behavior unsettling

A man, inevitably: No You Don't.

Paladinus
Jan 11, 2014

heyHEYYYY!!!

Plom Bar posted:

A woman: I find this man's behavior unsettling

A man, inevitably: No You Don't.

In the dream she also finds the dog unsettling. And it's a completely okay dog. You know how in nightmares scary things happen and then they never happen in reality? Pretty much the same thing here, only with time travel, I guess.

Milkfred E. Moore
Aug 27, 2006

'It's easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism.'
I can't believe that Pompidou actually knows how to use a phone.

Paladinus
Jan 11, 2014

heyHEYYYY!!!

Milky Moor posted:

I can't believe that Pompidou actually knows how to use a phone.

A woman: a dog texts me and threatens my life
A low-life PUA MRA: lol, dogs can't use phones

Lt. Danger
Dec 22, 2006

jolly good chaps we sure showed the hun

With respect, Plom Bar, your argument would be more convincing if your references to the text were more accurate.

Jenner posted:

So, I didn't get that message at all and I'm not sure what you're concluding it from. Again, Jefferson seems totally fine killing Chloe, Nathan, Victoria and Max (and Rachel.) There is no reason he wouldn't kill those other girls too. Especially since they're useless to him now.

Jefferson only starts killing when it seems like his secret is getting out. He doesn't need to kill anyone (and risk a murder investigation) until Nathan messes up and Max starts putting the pieces together.


vvv it's not a photoshop, it's a poorly developed picture. Warren is bad at photography.

Lt. Danger fucked around with this message at 15:27 on Oct 29, 2016

Glagha
Oct 13, 2008

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
AAAAAAaaAAAaaAAaAA
AAAAAAAaAAAAAaaAAA
AAAA
AaAAaaA
AAaaAAAAaaaAAAAAAA
AaaAaaAAAaaaaaAA

I forgot about the photoshop thing. I still think the window thing is a little overblown because he's clear across the courtyard clearly just waiting on her, but then again i think that was so he could fake a "chance meeting" so I guess that's a point against again. More reasons kissing Warren is for trash people. Put that kid in the rejection dumpster so he can learn to stop being a weirdo.

Plus if you blow him off he goes to hang out with drone girl doesn't he? The one who actually likes him right? There are literally no bad outcomes from rejecting Warren. QED

Milkfred E. Moore
Aug 27, 2006

'It's easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism.'

Lt. Danger posted:

With respect, Plom Bar, your argument would be more convincing if your references to the text were more accurate.


Jefferson only starts killing when it seems like his secret is getting out. He doesn't need to kill anyone (and risk a murder investigation) until Nathan messes up and Max starts putting the pieces together.


vvv it's not a photoshop, it's a poorly developed picture. Warren is bad at photography.

I liked your points about the Sacrifice Arcadia ending, by the way!

Glagha
Oct 13, 2008

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
AAAAAAaaAAAaaAAaAA
AAAAAAAaAAAAAaaAAA
AAAA
AaAAaaA
AAaaAAAAaaaAAAAAAA
AaaAaaAAAaaaaaAA

Also I thought that the only deaths that happened were when Nathan mucked something up by overdosing someone? Also when our protagonists knew too much. I thought the original plan was that they'd all live, so when Jefferson got to Kate without any interference she left in the intended state of not trusting her own memories.

SimonChris
Apr 24, 2008

The Baron's daughter is missing, and you are the man to find her. No problem. With your inexhaustible arsenal of hard-boiled similes, there is nothing you can't handle.
Grimey Drawer

Glagha posted:

Plus if you blow him off he goes to hang out with drone girl doesn't he? The one who actually likes him right? There are literally no bad outcomes from rejecting Warren. QED

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i2SvgBnhOZw

Warren is a total player, actually. He just hides it well.

Plom Bar
Jun 5, 2004

hardest time i ever done :(

Lt. Danger posted:

With respect, Plom Bar, your argument would be more convincing if your references to the text were more accurate.

The only part of the text I got wrong was about Chloe's presence in the nightmare, which was unrelated to my point.

Paladinus
Jan 11, 2014

heyHEYYYY!!!

SimonChris posted:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i2SvgBnhOZw

Warren is a total player, actually. He just hides it well.

Girls love him. Brooke's asked him out and Alyssa's carved the heart. But Warren has always been saving himself for Max.

SimonChris
Apr 24, 2008

The Baron's daughter is missing, and you are the man to find her. No problem. With your inexhaustible arsenal of hard-boiled similes, there is nothing you can't handle.
Grimey Drawer
Did you miss the part where he was already going with Brooke and has to cancel their date when Max accepts?

Paladinus
Jan 11, 2014

heyHEYYYY!!!

SimonChris posted:

Did you miss the part where he was already going with Brooke and has to cancel their date when Max accepts?

She asked him out as a friend, and he said that he was also going to ask someone else out, so would only go with her if that fails. Pretty obvious to me.

If that's not how it is, it would mean that he's not totally obsessed with Max, which is we all know isn't true.

cocoavalley
Dec 28, 2010

Well son, a funny thing about regret is that it's better to regret something you have done than to regret something you haven't done
A big part of what made this game so enjoyable for me was that nothing could be taken for face value, and that characters were fleshed out enough that my opinions of them could be changed. Since he's such a point of contention (ha ha, Reddit), yeah, Warren starts out as a nerdy horndog. But like the rest of the characters he goes through his own metamorphosis by the end. The first time he fights with Nathan is an opportunity to show off and garner sympathy so Max might go out with him. But the second time he is visibly shaken by it and his reaction, a pretty obvious turning point. He only half-heartedly tries to tag along and is easily sent off. By the party he's turned in on himself. Our last 'real' encounter with him is in the diner, where he seems to have processed and accepted the week's events, and there is no sign of going ape. Even if you choose to kiss him, his reaction is subdued. All of the character development drives home how difficult the ending feels, regardless of choice. It just does such a good job invoking doubt, I was even momentarily irked that my game was putting me in that position .... And I love that it could do that.

Jenner
Jun 5, 2011
Lowtax banned me because he thought I was trolling by acting really stupid. I wasn't acting.

cocoavalley posted:

I thought Nathan overdosed Rachel and that's when things began to snowball? Jefferson mentioned that his subjects had always ended up committing suicide after he broke them and Kate was unusual since she was recovering. He even mentions "testing her faith"' again. I think he only starts outright killing once he gets discovered, in an attempt to cover things up?

Yeah, Nathan was the one who accidentally killed Rachel but that doesn't mean Jefferson wasn't going to ultimately kill her anyway. I honestly don't remember Jefferson sayying any of this stuff about his past victims killing themselves and such... I guess I'll need to play the game again.

It is quite possible Jefferson did catch and release because it's easier to clean up right up until Nathan hosed everything up.

Lt. Danger posted:

Jefferson only starts killing when it seems like his secret is getting out. He doesn't need to kill anyone (and risk a murder investigation) until Nathan messes up and Max starts putting the pieces together.

Yeah, I guess this makes sense. Thanks you two.

King Vidiot
Feb 17, 2007

You think you can take me at Satan's Hollow? Go 'head on!

Paladinus posted:

Warren did nothing wrong.

Aaaape aaape aaaape, who wants to go ape?!

Oxxidation
Jul 22, 2007

King Vidiot posted:

Aaaape aaape aaaape, who wants to go ape?!

Let us not blame poor, hapless Warren for the sins of the scriptwriters.

As for Jefferson and Kate, it's never spelled out, but you do get a chance to overhear Jefferson driving Kate even deeper into depression when she tries to confide in him and he brushes her off with an insinuation that she brought the entire incident on herself. My guess is that he knew that Nathan's fuckup had started to pull the thread on his own criminal activities, and was banking on Kate committing suicide so that he'd have a reason to "regretfully resign" and start anew somewhere else, probably bumping off Nathan on the way.

Jenner
Jun 5, 2011
Lowtax banned me because he thought I was trolling by acting really stupid. I wasn't acting.
When you get right down to it Nathan is the real hero. Without him being an incompetent gently caress up Jefferson probably could have kept doing his awful bullshit forever.

Prokhor Zakharov
Dec 31, 2008

This is me as I make another great post


Good luck with your depression!
Warren would definitely vote for Trump imo

Saraiguma
Oct 2, 2014

Prokhor Zakharov posted:

Warren would definitely vote for Trump imo

No way, he's a die hard write-in Bernie bro

sout
Apr 24, 2014

Warren would love Harambe memes.
Go Ape stuff aside.

Karpaw
Oct 29, 2011

by Cyrano4747

Paladinus posted:

Like her other worries in the dream, the one about Warren is also, wait for it, un-Warren-ted.

No you see, it doesn't matter that Max can go on a date with Warren, write flirty messages on his door slate and kiss him. Deep down she's actually creeped out by him because someone for whom hetero relationships are an alien concept thinks so.

It's really Warren who should be afraid of Max. Bitch has no second thoughts about using him for her own gain, like when she makes him an accomplice to the break-in at Blackwell at the risk of expulsion and criminal charges. Yes, it's his decision to send the bomb-making instructions but she knows drat well he won't say no to her.

Glagha
Oct 13, 2008

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
AAAAAAaaAAAaaAAaAA
AAAAAAAaAAAAAaaAAA
AAAA
AaAAaaA
AAaaAAAAaaaAAAAAAA
AaaAaaAAAaaaaaAA

Save it for Reddit

cocoavalley
Dec 28, 2010

Well son, a funny thing about regret is that it's better to regret something you have done than to regret something you haven't done
Decided to play again this week, just one episode a night (instead of binging the whole season in less than two days like my first playthrough). Tonight is episode 5 and I'm dragging my feet because the end is near. Taking the time to savor each episode and wander around has been nice. The atmosphere in the dorms and the end of the world party especially remind me of college, really well done.

Of course my choices this time are biased by knowing the outcome, so it's fun getting different scenes. I didn't realize the spirit deer wasn't affected by rewind and missed the photo in the junkyard because I got too close :arghfist::saddowns:

magicalmako
Feb 13, 2005
Finished, what a ride.

morallyobjected
Nov 3, 2012
I think one of the standout writing moments in this for me was Episode 3(?)'s fake out:

"Life is... so unfair"

despite the context, I had to chuckle

cocoavalley
Dec 28, 2010

Well son, a funny thing about regret is that it's better to regret something you have done than to regret something you haven't done
Yeah, there are some great little winks to the player tucked around. I liked the diner jukebox having "I Got You, Babe".

Beefstew
Oct 30, 2010

I told you that story so I could tell you this one...

morallyobjected posted:

I think one of the standout writing moments in this for me was Episode 3(?)'s fake out:

"Life is... so unfair"

despite the context, I had to chuckle

And that's actually a way more accurate title for the story.

Orange Sunshine
May 10, 2011

by FactsAreUseless
One thing I've noticed about this game is how small it is, in terms of locations. Almost all locations are reused multiple times. You come back over and over to Mr. Jefferson's classroom, to the hallway outside it. You come back multiple times to Chloe's house, to the two whales diner, to the junkyard, to the courtyard outside the school, to the beach, to the lighthouse.

I think the reason behind it was to save money, as it meant you didn't have to create large numbers of locations for every scene in the game. I think it actually improved the game considerably, as it made the gameworld feel more like a real place. You go back to Chloe's house over and over and it feels like a real place that you could visit. You go back to the junkyard at the end of the game, and you immediately know it since you were there earlier, I think this was more effective than just picking a random spot for Rachel's body.

It works fine because a high school student would return to the same places over and over in the course of her daily life, to school, a friend's house, and so on.

morallyobjected
Nov 3, 2012
they talked in commentary about how they used the fact that they had the same locations to tell more of the story and make it more engaging, such as when you get to the alternate timeline and Chloe's room is empty

Last Chance
Dec 31, 2004

Orange Sunshine posted:

One thing I've noticed about this game is how small it is, in terms of locations. Almost all locations are reused multiple times. You come back over and over to Mr. Jefferson's classroom, to the hallway outside it. You come back multiple times to Chloe's house, to the two whales diner, to the junkyard, to the courtyard outside the school, to the beach, to the lighthouse.

I think the reason behind it was to save money, as it meant you didn't have to create large numbers of locations for every scene in the game. I think it actually improved the game considerably, as it made the gameworld feel more like a real place. You go back to Chloe's house over and over and it feels like a real place that you could visit. You go back to the junkyard at the end of the game, and you immediately know it since you were there earlier, I think this was more effective than just picking a random spot for Rachel's body.

It works fine because a high school student would return to the same places over and over in the course of her daily life, to school, a friend's house, and so on.

Yeah it's like a movie or a TV show based around a few locations, so I think it feels pretty natural.

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

Ser Pounce
Feb 9, 2010

In this world the weak are always victims of the strong
I suspect that unless you are a type of Gypsy in real life then it's also probable that you keep going to the same places every day, week, year. Salted by the occasional novel place you might go for work, school trips, meet a new friend or lover and a lot of these places will eventually just become regular haunts.

It's just not something we are usually consciously aware of and it's likely, when you think about it, that you are intimately familiar with all the places you choose to hang out in your life. I think it's a very nice touch that the game world try's to mirror this. And I liked how awkward visiting some rooms/places, say Janice and David's bedroom, made me feel, I can't think of any other game I've played that achieved that for me.

It's such a nice touch that even months after finishing the game, I find that I can be listening to a song from the soundtrack in some playlist or other and I'm back thinking about certain scenes in particular locations and how exploring them allowed Max to fill in my blanks about those places, such as everything about Chloe's house. For Max almost none of it was truly new. All linked to some revealed memory, even fairly often the same revelation of her inner life occurs when you start poking around other people's private stuff. Even the alternative versions served to help build your internal picture of the real/primary.

For me the game is very much a synecdoche of real life, it might be because when I got older my life became a series of baggage halls, hotels (which all merge into the blandly familiar), offices I work at and a few houses (home and family/friends), everywhere else just being in between these places. I think the dev team and the story builders have done a seriously incredible job with it, plot holes and telegraphed final choices can be set off to one side as entirely unimportant, the haunts that make up Max and Chloe's familiar lives are somewhere that I think I can be happy to revisit sometimes and just chill out.

  • Locked thread