#nitw playthrough

[ink-doc]

Some highlights of my annual Night in the Woods playthrough.  Thanks to everyone who followed me along the way on Twitch, and a special thanks to Infinite Fall and Finji for making my Octobers special, if not a little weird.

[crazy-talk]

Matt: Always get mad at ancient people!

Woolie: Fuck those people. What did they contribute?

Matt: Nothing!

Woolie: Useless assholes.

[voraktee]

NIGHT IN THE WOODS | Episode 7 | A MONSTROUS CREATION

It's aliiiiiiiiiveeeeeee!!!!

[theamberfang]

NitW: Day 8, [rainy] afternoon

Upkeep

I know I’ve barely even started splitting up these days into afternoons and evening, but I’m feeling like the afternoon segments can even be split further. I’ll have to see how long it takes to write this post—and, after the fact, how much I feel like I missed out on writing about due to feeling like I had to move on. If I do go on with splitting things up more, I could definitely use Friday; I can even consider Sunday and Tuesday regardless of their respective biweekly activities.

As for where I’d split things up: probably based on different parts of town. I don’t think I can make a definite cut anywhere since different areas have different things going on—Mr Chazokov makes a big difference, for example. It would probably be a matter of doing everything in one part of town and evaluating how much I feel like I’ve done, and how much I might be able to write about it all.

Anyway, I’ll get on with writing about what I played today.

Groggy

I’ve never commented on it before, but I have to say that I love the way Mae wakes up. I think it’s mostly how one eye stays half-lidded in her first few moments of waking up: it sells how she’s slow to start.

Anyway, checking her computer, Mae finds a message of thanks from Bea, about how Mae filled in last night in the play. She definitely doesn’t seem to mind Mae flubbing her lines—with it being last minute and all. Gregg apologizes for not hanging out last night—aww, no it’s great for you to spend date nights with your boyfriend—and lets Mae know that today is band practice, because he said so and he’s in charge. Well, he seems to be feeling good after date night; good for Gregg.

Downstairs, Mae’s ruminates on the passing of time, via the family portrait and the grandfather clock. With the portrait, she notes how they’re all a bit older—following up on her previous observations about how she’s changed herself—and that it’s actually kind of strange how this single snapshot seems to represent an “ideal” time in their lives. Just because they’ve changed doesn’t make them any worse than their past selves from this portrait.

Regarding the grandfather clock, she wonders how the newer clock downstairs feels about its ancestor. Is it scared of the strange noises that the grandfather clock makes from upstairs? Mae thinks that it shouldn’t, because this clock is one of the few things they have left of her granddad, and they could use as many of those as they can get. The way that Mae assumes the new clock would be scared of the older one reminds me of the way some of the local teens don’t seem too keen to talk to adults, even Mae. Mae recognizes a generational divide, and feels that it would be better to respect and remember those who came before us.

After briefly wondering if their bird just stays in that one spot all day, Mae makes her way to their bookshelf. She spends some time looking for things that might help her sort out what she witnessed last night: books about detectives, books about psychos, books about ghosts. The impression I get is that she doesn’t even know what to think about last night, let alone where to start for any research. She’s just trying to find something for her mind to latch onto.

Reconciliation

Heading down the rest of the stairs. Mae is called over by her mom, over in the kitchen as usual. If I recall correctly, this has only happened once before, way back on Mae’s first full day back. Back then, it functionally served to let the player know that Mae’s mom was over there, and in context it made sense for her to greet her child after missing her arrival the previous night.

This time, Mom wants to apologize, and Mae does so in kind. Mom specifically wants to make sure that they stay on good terms, so as to not repeat what happened a few years ago—in the moment, I wasn’t sure what this might be referring to, and thought it might be about Dad’s past drinking problems. When asked about the topics, Mae says that she’s still working out what she saw last night and that she also isn’t ready to talk about dropping out of school.

In turn, Mae asks about what’s been stressing her mom out. It turns out that after Mae’s “noodle incident” from a few years ago, the family had a lot of debts to pay to deal with everything—so this is probably what left these two are poor terms a few years ago, and is likely the same thing that the old neighbor was talking about when he said “the town hasn’t forgotten, and they’re just being polite.” Knowing that Mae used to have anger problems—which is why she saw a psychiatrist who “prescribed” her journal—and how she had a dream about smashing up her college... I’m beginning to think that she went on a wild rampage around town, and her family had to pay for the damage. After having to pay for that, in order to get Mae into college still, their family took out a predator mortgage from a bank; now the bank owns their house and they have a debt that’s greater than what their house is worth.

There are some very pointed lines about how the bank takes advantage of people who are vulnerable and not used to dealing with banks—not only their family, but a whole class of people. They lure in poor and vulnerable people that are only hoping for a chance to better their lives: ultimately making them even poorer in the process. It’s a very real thing, and it’s often the poor people that are blamed in these situations for “not knowing better.” Ignoring the fact that poor people don’t often have the connections with people who actually do “know better” that would have warned them, nor do they have the time and energy to spare—when some people need to juggle multiple jobs just to stay afloat—to find out themselves. It is a class-based privilege to be able to “know better.”

This very clearly makes class-struggle real for Mae. Until now, we knew that Mae actually lived in a “nice neighborhood,” at least from the perspective of a teen that lives out by the train tracks. Her parents were able to send her to college. Mae had seemed somewhat removed from all the decline seen around Possum Springs; even the problems her friends faced seemed pretty far removed from Mae’s background and perspective. Thinking about it, I can really see why Bea was angry at her before. Mae has all of this privilege: so much that she could apparently afford to throw away a college education. The debt that the Borowski’s are stuck with changes things: now it’s apparent that she’s in the same boat as the rest of Possum Springs, being exploited and sucked dry by big money corporations and business.

After that revelation, Mae and her mom move on to have a conversation about the book her mom is reading: a collection of unsolved murder cases. Mom describes one of the situations, and after asking a question, Mae comes up with an absurd solution to the case. I’m guessing it might depend on your choices, but I ended up with Mae saying that the suspect was a surgeon that implanted a piece of metal into the victim’s skull and used a super-magnet to violently pull the piece of metal out, and the super-magnet was hidden on the refrigerator as an ordinary magnet.

Mae says that her mom should have been a detective, and Mom agrees that she would have liked that. Before Mae leaves to see the rest of the town, they say their goodbyes, referring to each other as “Detective Mae” and “Inspector Mom.” I love these two.

(Ugh, I feel too tired to write more and Mae isn’t even out of her house. I’ll just have to see how much I can remember tomorrow to catch up with how far I actually played.)

[theamberfang]

NitW: Day 7, Evening; Harfest

Upkeep

After having to delay this post for a few days*, I’m continuing with Mae’s seventh day back home, completing her first full week. In my last post, I had covered her afternoon activities, primarily running around town and talking to everyone.

(Wrist pain after writing part 1 left me less keen on continuing right the next day, and the weekend was taken up with other things.)

Suiting Up

Last time was the first time I’ve ever saved and quit when Mae wasn’t sleeping in bed. (It had always felt so natural to wait until then, and you’re even told to “Hold esc to save and quit” and it only ever works in bed.) I came back into the game right where I left off: with Mae standing in her room. This still leaves me uncertain about whether it’ll save any position, or if you always end up back in Mae’s bedroom and I just happened to be there already.

Regardless, the only thing I had left to do was examine Mae’s mirror to get Harfest started. After a taking a brief moment to admire her regular clothes, she dons her outfit for Harfest: Witchdaggah! Or rather, Witchdagger, a band that Mae may (heh) mentioned once before. She does have a Witchdagger poster in her bedroom, featuring the same likeness as her outfit: a cat in robes and a dagger-pierced witch’s hat.

Costume adorned, Mae heads downstairs. I attempt to see if the costume has triggered any new messages around the house, which alerts me to the fact that Mae can’t jump when I try to get past the stairs to where the bird cage and bookcase are. Fair enough that she wouldn’t be jumping around in costume.

Making her way all the way down the stairs, Mae notices that her parents aren’t around; it would normally be innocuous enough, but it’s somewhat worrying after Mae’s argument with her mom earlier in the day. Mae brushes it off though, assuming her parents had just made their way out to the festival before her.

Harfest

Heading out the front door, the player is greeted with “Harfest” as a scene title, of sorts, and cuts straight into the town, right next to the tunnel entrance and the bulletin board—neither of which can be interacted with. There are way more people here for the festival than Mae usually sees in town, some she that recognizes—like the man that always tells Mae to stay away from his porch and the curmudgeon that Mae claimed to be mayor to; quite the grumpy pair—and many that she doesn’t recognize. Either way, she isn’t able to—or interested in—talking to anyone.

The first thing Mae can interact with is an opening in a tent. The first is labeled “fortune teller,” and a second something along the lines of “dunking booth.” Heading into that first flap, I’m greeted with what seems like one of those unique minigames: there’s a big wheel front and center and a meter off to the right. From off-screen somewhere, Mae has a conversation with whoever is running this contraption—something about the wheel saying sooth and such. Once the “game” gets going, a little bar shows up on the meter, rapidly increasing and decreasing, reminding me of power-gauges in golf games. I end up with a weak spin, and Mae gets a lame fortune for it: she’ll live, and then she’ll die eventually.

Before Mae walks over to the next flap, I notice that there’s something going on in the foreground. It looks like a marching band, and they’re followed by vehicles that make it apparent this is a parade—a small one, but a parade nonetheless. Someone (Mr. Chazokov?) is singing from the back of a truck, and I’m sure it’s something spooky. Following is... some sort of emergency vehicle? An ambulance maybe? It’s just a darkened silhouette in the foreground, so it’s hard to tell. After that is a car pulling a cart with a really big pumpkin in it. Trailing the back is the rest of the marching band.

Speaking of the band. the music for Harfest is a banger. I mean, a lot of tracks in the OST are, but this one really stands out while playing, almost as much as the dream ones. Parts of it actually remind me of music from Paper Mario.

Anyway, moving on to the next flap of this tent I’m greeted with what looks to be another minigame: there seems to be some sort of stage (as in a play), and Mae’s hand is in the foreground holding what might be a ball? From offscreen, or offstage rather, someone seems to be complaining to someone else—Coleen? One of those city council members. The bird that is very interested in historical preservation comes out first wearing a big board that has a ghost drawn on it, hopping along the stage in a simple predictable pattern, and Mae gets to throw what are actually water balloons at him. The hits are scored up top, and after enough time, he swaps with the fox lady, who I think is Coleen. She’s a witch with a more complicated movement pattern. Following her is is the grumpy-looking blue...bear? He unenthusiastically hops around as a pumpkin. Last is the gator lady as a skeleton with the most unpredictable pattern. All the while, each of them says whatever they think would be appropriate for their characters, and it’s a good show of each of their personalities—especially when it had otherwise been difficult to think of them as anything but a unit. The whole thing has endeared me to them a bit, so I’m trusting them a bit more to actually help Bruce and not throw him under the bus for the whole mural-vandalism thing.

The Harfest Play

The next stop was the Pickaxe, which was hosting the Harfest play this year, though it seems that Mae needed a reminder. Bea is seems pretty frazzled with only 10 minutes until the play starts... and she has to resort to asking Mae to be part of the play: three people were no-shows. Mae’s confident that she’ll do fine, because she memorized every line for this play when she was younger, but it turns out the play has changed a bunch in recent years to make it spookier: it’s, like, 20% history and 80% spooks now.

The actual play opens up with the Pickaxe’s newest employee and an older gentleman I don’t quite recognize (he may be one of the telemarketing employees, but in a fake beard?) performing as beaver fur traders that have taken a break from their travels to drink from a spring—likely the eponymous spring of Possum “Springs.”

I believe the year they gave was 1783, so combined with what we know of the town’s history of coal mining, I figure someone better versed in United States history might be able to come up with an actual place that Possum Springs is based on. Based on my own limited knowledge (I’m not quite there yet in my US History studies on Khan Academy), I’d place Possum Springs as still being close to the Appalachian Mountains and closer to the north, so maybe around contemporary Ohio or Indiana? Mmm, Pennsylvania might be closer. I wouldn’t place it in the New England area because Bruce does say he came from the northeast, though I guess he could still have come from Canada.

Anyway, once these fur traders settle in near this spring, that’s when Mae shows up. Conveniently, she didn’t even have to change because she seems to be playing a witch. Also, I decided to choose the second option for all of Mae’s lines, because they seemed to be all of the incorrect lines—the extra chaos feels appropriate for a “Gregg-run” of the game. The correct lines seem to be about the witch having cursed the spring, while Mae’s made-up lines are about the witch cursing the traders for being “rude young men.” Despite Mae’s incorrect lines, Bea, as narrator, swiftly fixes things so that the play can move along—I’m sure she can’t be too mad because Mae has literally only had 10 minutes to skim through the script.

The next scene has one of the fur traders running off for help since his brother, the other fur trader, had died to the witch’s curse. He comes to who seems to be a regular townsperson, played by Gregg, and Mae’s correct lines are about the witch having cursed the spring, which means that even the regular townspeople, like Gregg, are also cursed to die.

The final scene is of the forest god, played by the repairman from the bus station (way back from the beginning of the game), confronting the witch. Interestingly, even though I seemed to get the response for continuing to choose incorrect lines (at least, I think that’s what the reaction-sound meant), the repairman seems to go along with things just fine. My headcanon at the moment is that the repairman, like Mae, was also a last minute replacement—which is why he isn’t in any sort of costume at all—and he happens to be very good at improv: perfect for someone filling in last minute and to play off of Mae’s nonsense.

This final scene, I think (I didn’t seem to absorb the details here as clearly), was that the witch was supernaturally immortal, so the forest god corrected this blasphemy of the natural order, effectively killing the witch, but still leaving her as a spirit. I figure that this ending plays into Possum Springs being haunted, and it shows that the forest god turned target dummy had a basis—and wasn’t something purely of Gregg’s creation, though he may have still been the one to build the thing (although, it feels less likely the more I think about it.)

It’s interesting to wonder what this founding story originally was, before all of the changes to make it spooky. Based on context, my first guess would be that the “witch” was originally a Native American—more a “shaman” perhaps—and that there wasn’t a curse at all, or if there was, the “shaman” had nothing to do with it. Instead, the fur traders and other townspeople did, indeed, become ill, so they sought the help of the “shaman” who communed with a “forest god” to cure everyone and un-curse the spring. At the least, this sort of story sounds more like something that would end with a town being founded. The spooky version sounds like the origin of a ghost town instead.

That Night

To my surprise, the Harfest play ended Harfest. The fortune telling and water balloon throwing prepared me to expect everything to throw me back out into the festival afterwards. I might not have missed much, but I didn’t get to explore and see if Bruce came or if Germ and his friends did. It’s unfortunate, but I guess I’ll know for another playthrough (whenever that may be.)

Mae asks what Bea and Gregg are up to for the rest of the night, hoping to hang out for longer. Gregg says he’s heading home since Angus is cooking dinner, but it would be awkward for Mae to come since it’s a date-night kind of thing. Bea is going out to a buffet, over by the Ham Panther, to eat with people from the Chamber of Commerce; whether as the polite thing to do since she had volunteered to host the Harfest play for them, or to actually discuss recompense.

This left Mae without much to do, so she just hung around while she contemplated her options... until she saw some teen, who was sitting around looking at their phone, get attacked and abducted by some tall cloaked figure. Mae takes a moment to see if anyone is around for help, and seeing none, she gives chase herself. She chases the figure all the way out past the abandoned Food Donkey, only to find that they’ve made it past the fences, preventing Mae from chasing any further.

Aunt Molly arrives then, but it doesn’t seem like she has seen the figure. Mae tries to explain, but Molly quickly takes Mae home...

But. after the transition, the player doesn’t find Mae at home. She seems to be in a dark forest: so dark that none of Mae’s features are visible; she’s practically a walking shadow. She walks to the left—a strange direction to be walking for anyone familiar with side-scrolling video games—into those dark woods. Noise comes from the forest, and the deeper Mae goes, the louder the noises become. Mae comes upon a well...

And I find that Mae had been sleeping all along. It was just a nightmare: a dream unlike any other thus far. It was likely influenced by what she had witnessed the night before, and I’ll just have to wait until next time to see what else it might mean.

[theamberfang]

Journal 233: Relatable

NitW: Day Three

Like I did yesterday, I’ll just kick off tonight’s journal with my experience playing a bit of Night in the Woods: Mae’s third full day back home, in which she seeks out Bea to get her to drive everyone to a party, then the subsequent party that night. Throughout this day and night, the player learns a lot about Mae: her past, her relationships, and how she thinks.

The day starts much the same as the previous two: Mae gets up, has something to do, so she runs around town to get it done; maybe she also talks to a bunch of people on the way. Like the day before, there aren’t quite as many people to talk to as there were on that very first day.

Something I’m beginning to notice though—that has been present the whole—is a general feeling of discontent from the town’s populace. Many people in the background are dissatisfied with their lot in life and are looking for work. I recall from the first day someone who was only a few years Mae’s senior who was recently laid off work. Coworkers, in front of the telemarketing offices, talk about how one of them is dissatisfied with the job and wants to work somewhere else; the other tries to get her to stay, telling her that “she just needs to work hard to climb the leaderboards.” (Ignoring how, by their very nature, someone has to be at the bottom of those leaderboards; I’m also sure very few at the top get any benefits at all.) There’s also the woman, about Mae’s age I think, who hangs out at the bottom of the hill, in the area just to the left of Mae’s neighborhood; just today she was talking about having applied to the local supermarket, where Mae’s dad also works. She has dreams beyond this little town, but the supermarket is the best she can do.

Anyway, I know that my goal is to talk to Bea, so I do what I’ve always done in games and explore everywhere else first. A light-post is being repaired today, so soon I’ll be able to explore the higher stories of the town. Angus was at work, and he said that even if he doesn’t really like parties, it’s different if Gregg is around: Gregg is his corner. I “awww’d” in synch with Mae at that. Gregg continued to be a bundle of excitement over at the Snack Falcon, but was otherwise uneventful.

With nothing left to do but finally meet with Bea, Mae finds her busy dealing with a difficult customer. Really, Bea seems to be busy all around, and curtly tells Mae to go home and get ready. It turns out I didn’t have to make sure to explore first, since I think I could have spent this time visiting Angus and Gregg—though, now that I think about it, it’s possible that they’d have more to say after you speak to Bea. (Too late now.)

(Oh yeah, Mae draws a page for Bea in her journal, and in the corner she writes “MAEBEA.” I guess I may have very well been remembering the ship-name from the game itself.)

Outside of home, Mae found Aunt Molly, who had ominous words of warning for Mae. There’s a strong implication that the areas around town are not as safe as they appear: that Aunt Molly has seen more than a severed arm by the diner. I recall Casey, one of Mae’s old friends, who used to be the drummer for their band, and how he’s gone missing. Did he really just run away? Time will tell, I suppose.

The Party

Once Mae is back inside, she finds her parents in the kitchen having made tacos. I opted to have Mae say that she was going to eat snacks at the party, which turns into a fun discussion about snakes—reminiscent of an online exchange Mae had with Gregg the previous night.

As the time for the party draws near, Mae finds herself waiting in her room. She has to “get ready,” but it amounts to nothing more than fretting in front of the mirror. Her fretting is incredibly relatable though: anxious thoughts about how she looks (Nightmare Eyes), whether people like her (or if she even likes people), how to introduce herself to people (Hi, I’m a college dropout!), and if her ex, Cole, will be at the party (Please, whatever-gods no).

After a short drive, the gang makes it to the party. Gregg and Angus make their way to the edge of the party—a corner perhaps, despite this being a forest—and they’re content to stay there despite (or because of?) the sound of smooching. Bea separates from the group to mingle with a goat (who, as far as I know, is unnamed and unimportant, so maybe they just serve as general partygoer?) Mae is left to wander around by herself, but the only people she’s actually willing to talk to are her friends, even if they’re busy doing their own thing. The only alternatives are awkwardly walking around Cole, who showed up despite Mae’s prayers, or drinking.

The only real option then... is to drink. With each drink, Mae has new things to say to her friends, but she never quite musters the courage to talk sustain a conversation with Cole. With just three drinks, Mae ends up quite drunk, and at one point reveals to Gregg and Angus that her dad used to be a violent drunk. Her friends encourage her to have a seat by the fire...

Which prompts Cole to come talk to Mae himself. Mae can’t really handle it, and turns the stump she’s sitting on into a soapbox, ranting about the sad state of her life, and ultimately threatening to attack Cole in the night, with a knife. (Though, I think she might have just been describing the horror movie she thought of: Nightmare Eyes.) Her rant is punctuated with vomit, and Bea promptly driving her home.

During that drive, it’s revealed that Mae and Bea used to be best friends when they were young, complete with adorable nicknames for one another, despite how cold Bea has been to Mae since her return. We’re also given some clues as to why Bea has been so cold: Mae has somehow forgotten that Bea’s mom is dead, and Bea is jealous of Mae for having gone off to college and also angry how Mae has dropped out. Still, Bea helps Mae get inside and into bed, referring to Mae with her old nickname, Mayday, before heading out herself.

Bed isn’t quite the end of today though, as it’s the game’s first dream sequence. Mae has a dream of running around with a baseball bat, gleefully smashing cars, lampposts, and neon lights. She leaves a trail of destruction as she climbs up a hill, and at the top it becomes apparent where this is: the college that Mae dropped out from. Here stands the statue of the college’s founder, just as Mae had described it in her rant at the party: pointing down at her condescendingly. It becomes clear that this was Mae’s ultimate target. She would bring low this hauty figure of welded metal frame.

Looking at just this dream and not knowing anything that comes later, one interpretation is that Mae literally went on this kind of rampage. We’ve been hearing from various people how she hurt someone really bad before. At the party, she drunkenly threatened to violently stab Cole, and we also learned that her father was similarly a violent drunk. A milder interpretation is that this dream illustrates how angry and frustrated she felt at college; while fretting in front of a mirror, she did recall how she didn’t make any friends there. It’s possible that the statue wasn’t actually posed to point down at people, but it was instead how Mae felt it looked at her: the same way that her professors may have looked at her, the smalltown girl she is.

All of this hits pretty close to home for me, as a university dropout myself. About three years into a mechanical engineering major, I voluntarily hospitalized myself for suicidal thoughts and major depression; based on what I’ve seen thus far, I imagine Mae collapsed under similar mental and emotional pressure. Years later, I still haven’t gone back. From a practical perspective, even if I was three years in and “almost finished,” I’d inevitably have to retake a bunch of classes—likely two years worth—to relearn all of the foundational material. Beyond that though, simply thinking about university stresses me the hell out: it’s the place that I spend walking around, sometimes for hours it felt like, being depressed and thinking about killing myself.

Bea’s words actually hit me the hardest, because those were the sorts of words I shamed myself with when I was too depressed to attend classes. Instead I spent my time walking around campus with my suicidal thoughts, or occasional driving off campus to watch a movie or something. I knew other people would kill for what I had, and there I was, squandering it. Maybe, in the past couple times I tried playing the game, I had hung out with Bea because I really wanted to see her forgive Mae for dropping out, because that would be like she was forgiving me.

My Day

Outside of playing Night in the Woods, I managed to complete my other tasks of  studying more with Khan Academy and browsing Tumblr themes—I actually went beyond that and picked one. Thinking back, I remembered that the reason I picked the theme I had was simply because it was light text on a dark background. Now that I have more experience actually writing here though, I like this one because it makes it easy to read long text posts, and I imagine reblogs should look better with this layout. I still want to tinker with other things eventually, like the color scheme, description (since the space for it is so much bigger now), and maybe even my profile icon.

I also found myself fretting over how yesterday’s journal didn’t have any notes despite being tagged with “#nitw.” I mean, a past post where I barely had anything to say about the game got some notes, so why not the one where I actually wrote at length about it? Was it bad? Should it be in a separate post afterall? Should I go back and separate everything out and start a new series of posts dedicated to Night in the Woods?

Well, upon reflection, I’m pretty sure I should simply stop paying attention to the notes on any of my posts. There’s a reason I turned off the notifications for those things; I’ve just been looking at the activity page for my blog anyway. Like with how I’ve committed to cutting sugar out of my diet, I need to work on cutting out this addiction to internet points. It’ll be hard on Reddit since there isn’t a way to remove karma from the website UX, at least as far as I know, but for Tumblr and YouTube comments I have to go out of my way to look at these points. I need to commit to not clicking on these things just to see notes and likes go up.

Regardless, I need to remember that this blog is intended to be a place for me to put up rough work. Even if I split off the Night in the Woods content later, I don’t have to make a big deal about the older parts being attached to my daily journals. Things are going to be messy here, and my work here is, in part, practice for becoming comfortable with an imperfect mess. If I really feel like I can make a more complete work with my NitW content, it should be easy enough to search for the tag—actually another thing to remember, the tags I use aren’t only for people finding my blog, but for me. Really, it might be healthier for me personally to think of my tags as primarily being for my own organizational purposes, because thinking too much about other people using these tags will only make me anxious.

I’ve briefly considered attempting to give the NitW stuff it’s own post tomorrow, but I don’t think I’m quite ready for it yet. There’s less anxiety at the thought of it, but still enough that I think I’d end up not doing it at all. I just went through the effort of making myself more comfortable with the mess I’m making anyway, so I may as well let the mess get a bit bigger.

My mom and I missed out on grocery shopping again today. Apparently my father took his car out to be worked on this morning and needed mom to go pick him up. They ended up also staying out for several hours for other things, like waiting on my father’s prescriptions and picking up food. They didn’t go for groceries though, so maybe we’ll still be doing that tomorrow?

Oh! I also caught the Drawfee livestream today and something exciting happened: Julia ended up using my name for a “name game.” Basically, she drew her interpretation of “AmberFang,” which turned out to be a glossy chunk of amber that was also a vampire—who was also clumsily cooking in a kitchen because she had previously started a drawing of “Chefwhatnot,” but that person had already been drawn before. It was the last thing drawn, so it should be near the end of the VOD if you want to check it out for whatever reason.

Tomorrow’s Tasks

Dance for exercise; 1000

MLP: FiM S9 E21; 1130

Message Wan; 1200

KA: US History; 1500

Play NitW; 1800

Journal; 2000

[theamberfang]

NitW: Day 6

Upkeep

There are a couple of things I feel like writing about before getting into things. First, though I’ve mentioned here and there, I’ve indeed tried to play through this game a couple of times in the past. The first time I stuck to hanging out with Bea, and the second time I mixed things up hanging out with different people. More importantly, I never finished the game either time—my theory is that I overbinged and burned myself out—and I think I’m getting close to the furthest I’ve ever gotten before. The next day might be the limit of of my past experiences; if not that, the day after.

The second thing is that these days are getting filled with a ton of stuff, especially the evening portions after exploring the town. From now on I’ll start splitting things into two parts: the first will be on Thursday, and the second will be on Saturday. The general plan is to have the first part cover any town exploration stuff, with the second part covering anything that happens afterwards. Of course, the game’s pattern might change, so I’ll just have to wing it if that ever happens. Anyway, onto writing about what I played today.

Morning

Or sort of morning? Thinking about it, I guess Mae actually wakes up in the afternoon; it may have been explicitly pointed out by Mae’s mom in an early day, and the stars we look at with Mr. Chazokov are literally called Dusk Stars. This means Mae sleeps through most of the day, and her mom works evenings at the church.

Speaking of Mae’s mom, she seems really stressed and/or tired this morning—afternoon—with her eyes partly closed and all. It turns out she’s been handling the family budget and all sorts of adulting with numbers. Apparently Mae has also been historically bad at numbers, which may have contributed to her dropping out of college. Further, it subtly indicates that Mae isn’t particular cut out for what adulting entails, at least as things currently stand.

Oh, and before she went down to see her mom, Mae saw that both Bea and Gregg were open to hanging out.

To Town

Nothing seems to be going on in the immediate neighborhood, so Mae heads on over to the next part of town, where she can chat things up with Selmers. Selmers greets Mae asking something along the lines of “remember what was good from school?” and the options Mae has are pretty enlightening. I don’t recall one of them, but one was “not bleeding on the seat in junior high” (likely due to a period) and another was “not punching the guy who gave her her first kiss at prom” (who might have been Cole.) Whatever you choose (probably), Mae says that it didn’t actually happen to her when Selmers asks (likely a lie.) Turns out Selmers was just thinking about fruit snacks, which were pretty dope. I remember being into Fruit Roll-Ups and that other fruit snack that came in, like, sheets with shapes that you could punch out.

Selmers also lets Mae know that Mr. Chazokov is up on the roof. Additionally, Selmers saw some fires out by the water tower last night. My first thought was that it might be Casey out there. My next thought was that it might be whatever trouble led to an dismembered arm showing up next to the diner. Now that I’ve juxtaposed these things, these things could actually be closely related.

Stars

Anyway, upwards to Mr. Chazokov! After a bit of eye damage, Mae finds a star representing “Sterling,” a Seer for a king who was kicked out after an Astronomer came around with different explanations for the stars. It leads Mae and Mr. Chazokov to discuss how fair the treatment of Sterling was: even if he was ultimately incorrect about the stars, was his labor really without value? Does Sterling deserve to be put out on the streets, or does he have a right to a certain quality of life?

The other dusk star for today represents Simone, the heroic icon of a revolution against an oppressive government. She has a gun, indicating that her story is much more recent than those of the other stars thus far. Mae comments that it would be a lot of pressure for someone to lead a revolution, but Mr. Chazokov ensures her that Simone didn’t work alone. She was primarily an icon that represented more complex ideals, and such an icon was very powerful. He goes on to explain that Simone didn’t see the end of the revolution, having met her end under cannonfire raiding “the palace gates.” Her body was put into a mass grave, so her remains were mixed with and indistinguishable from those around her; it’s said, instead, that she’s buried within the foundation of her nation (or something along those lines.) Mae calls it sad and spooky, but I like the thought of being remembered that way.

As an aside, due to the way I’d pronounce Simone, I was reminded of Simon from Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, a revolutionary himself in that story. It makes me wonder if this Simone was a reference, or maybe they both have a shared inspiration.

In Town

Once in town proper, I decided to change up the route for today. After a brief check of the bulletin board (I noticed that Katie boasted never having lost a child; is Katie a babysitter? Isn’t not losing children a bare minimum expectation?), Mae went into the tunnels to start. The rhyming-tunnel-fisherman was back, this time with a sad rhyme about his family life. Next, Mae made quick work of stealing a pretzel.

Miss Rosa—I remembered her name this time—was back to tell Mae about her granddad. Unfortunately, I don’t remember too many specific details, but Miss Rosa’s description of Mae’s granddad could all easily apply to Mae herself. I also get the impression that Miss Rosa sees the resemblance.

There’s nothing else going on in the tunnel, so Mae just makes it to the other side of town. There are the two Smelters fans in front of the bar, as always, though I think this is the first time I’ve mentioned them. They’re notable now because on of them seemed a bit down, and the other decided to start a cheer for the Smelters in response. It’s a small demonstration of how things like sports serve to distract and placate the masses from their day-to-day problems: why rally to change life for the better when you can just rally behind sports? Well, that’s my cynical take on it; I’ll admit that it’s a decent enough way to cope, and who’s to say these two don’t talk things out somewhere less public.

Running past the Snack Falcon—again, it will be the last stop today—Mae heads over to check out the Food Donkey. Germ is out there again, and offers to hang out with Mae for the night. I think I took up his offer on my second playthrough; if I recall correctly, it involved going under a bridge and seeing an animal that Germ was taking care of. Alternatively, I might be remembering the anxious roof kid, since that’s another person you can hang out with today. Anyway, I decline since my plan is to hang out with Gregg.

Heading back into town, the newspaper-reading lady shares a story about a small tech company going out of business. Dropping down from there, I’m surprised to find that I missed someone right next to the tunnel exit. Apparently it’s someone a few years Mae’s senior—he was in high school when Mae was in junior high—named CJ, back home to visit family. Mae remembers him as a guy who did nerd stuff across the street, which he explains as paper roleplaying games—so DnD and the like. He’s a lawyer now, so Mae asks him questions about getting out of prison... prison break style, and how to deal with prison gangs and such; he isn’t very helpful on that front. Oh, he also casually mentions having a husband, which is cool.

Speaking of guys with husbands, Angus is at the video store. He says that business is picking up with Halloween on the way, and he asks what Mae’s favorite horror movie is. There are two options: one has a name like Slaughter Scythe, which sounds like a gorey murderfest, and the other was named The Black Oak which sounds more like a creepy thriller. I chose the latter, and Angus describes it as a classic, and Mae calls it very “witchy,” making me think it’s something similar to The Blair Witch Project. Angus doesn’t have anything else to talk about beyond this, but I wonder if he would if I had beaten Demon Tower by now.

Back to the other part of town, Mae makes it to the Pickaxe. The new employee is back, and, like Mae’s dad, he doesn’t exactly enjoy the job, but it pays. He complains about the load of rock salt though; he thinks it’s too early for them to even have the stuff (true, since Bea was confused about why the distribution center sent it.)

Bea is as stressed as ever, effectively doing the work of three employers and shop owner... without even being the shop owner; Mae kind of thought she actually was the shop owner, but Bea would rather die than be stuck with that. Bea doesn’t plan to spend the night doing anything, and Mae is open with doing nothing; she’ll be busy with Gregg this time though. From what I recall, hanging out with Bea today would have meant hanging out in her apartment, seeing her dad, and Mae and Bea having a heart-to-heart. It’s been at least a couple of years since I played through it, so I don’t remember too many details.

Church

As much as I would like to get that MaeBea scene, instead Mae heads out to church. Mom is still looking stressed and tired, and it makes sense she’s also busy with a bunch of church stuff today. The city council folks are around, and there’s going to be a 12-step program meeting in the basement later—I recall that Dad was a violent drunk, so Mom must still be pretty invested into that kind of thing.

Mae leaves her mom to that church business, finding the city council people speaking with Pastor K in the sanctuary. The topic of discussion seems to be Bruce again: specifically, what the next steps are in helping him out. Pastor K says she’s thinking of making a space for him in either the old library—I figure that’s the room in the back of the church—or in the basement. The council members say that Bruce is a nice guy, and that they’ll bring the topic up at the next meeting. Despite what they say about liking Bruce, I still don’t trust the way they march around in unison; there’s no guarantee that the outcome of such a meeting would be a good one.

Once the council members leave, Mae has a short conversation with Pastor K about dreams. She has weird dreams—indeed—that she ends up not wanting to talk about. Pastor K once dreamt of being stuck in a wall, finding it a relaxing experience since she was confident that help was coming in a few hours, so she could catch a guilt-free nap. Mae questions her about feeling guilty for taking naps, and Pastor K wishes she didn’t feel that way. She strikes me as the type to have trouble taking proper care of herself because she wants to spend as much as time as possible helping others.

Hiking out past the church, Mae finds Bruce near the cliffside. Corroborating what we heard from Selmers earlier, Bruce says that he saw fires out by the water tower. Further, he heard noises and chanting, and he finds it pretty worrisome—ain’t seen nothing good come from chants in the dark. Mae says it could just be the local teens hanging out there, but it also occurs to me that the teens might be the ones doing the chanting. I wonder if there’s some weird occult stuff going on: it could definitely explain the arm from a few days ago. Casey could be involved too; maybe he’s leading it even.

Wrapping Up

Back into town, Mae jumps up onto the powerlines. Making her way to where Mallard rests, Mae feeds the pretzel to the little miracle rats—there’s four of them today. Mae figures that these rats will move out one day, and she wonders if they’ll even recognize each other if they ever pass each other on the streets. It’s pretty moving, until you remember she’s taking care of vermin.

Then again, maybe there’s a point being made about how even Mae’s actions here are valid. Even today, people of lower classes are often referred to as vermin, and Mae is showing that even vermin deserve love and care.

Heading back out to the roofs, Mae talks to the anxious kid that hangs out up here. He offers to hang out by the train tracks, though he’s worried about being boring. Unfortunately, with my current plans, I turn him down. I do want to see what these other characters are all about though, especially if it’s easier to get around in a “New Game Plus.”

That’s about everything, so all that’s left is to head over to the Snack Falcon. Mae finds him being really hyper and excited, raring to go hang out. He’s not on a bunch of coffee or anything; he’s just like this today.

Wounds

I’m treated to a surprise when this part opens up: Gregg is taking Mae for a ride on his bike, one with pedals, not a motor. It’s pretty startling since everything up to now has moved slowly, at the pace Mae can get around town; even when they were in a car, we didn’t really experience the motion. Here, the bike is rushing past scenery, up and down hills. There’s a sense of freedom here, far removed from the day-to-day of the rest of the game.

With a scene transition, we catch Mae and Gregg talking about his bike; I don’t catch all of the details, but I think it’s a foldable unit he bought online. Anyway, now the two are out in the middle of the woods. They find a collapsed tree, it’s trunk creating a sort of bridge that they can stand on. The two recall how they used to knife fight when they were kids—a bit of a shock to me—and it turns out Gregg actually brought a couple of knives.

They decide to have a go at it, and it turns into its own little minigame. Things are zoomed in on their hands and knives, and I can move Mae’s hand up and down, stab, and pull back to dodge. I swear Gregg can move faster than Mae, but I could also have been bad. After four bouts, it all ends with Mae having her hand stabbed 12 times and Gregg only 2.

After that, the pair aren’t done with their recklessness: they decide to jump on the collapsed trunk until it breaks under their feet. Laying stunned on the ground, they wonder at how they’ve made a marked changed to these woods. Through a sort of butterfly effect, what they’ve done here might make the difference between life and death for someone in the future.

As much as it sounds like a line from a stoner, it’s a message that fits right along with everything else in the game. Small actions today can have profound results for unseen people in the future, and there’s something powerful about having that kind of connection. These two can very well start something in Possum Springs that leads to changes that they couldn’t even imagine.

Gregg moves on ahead of Mae, and when she catches up to him, he has a crossbow in hand. A distance away there’s a strange four-legged figure: the “forest god” according to Gregg—I’m not sure if he built it or if it’s always been here. They discuss how Mae never went hunting before; her granddad did, but he thought of it as a “guy thing,” so he never brought Mae along. Mae figures she would have liked it though, and, well, now is a fine enough time to start.

This is another little minigame, played from the perspective of Mae looking through the crossbow scope. Everything wobbles significantly, according to Mae, from the weight of the thing. The main thing in sight is the “forest god,” but there’s also a sign for possums that’s clearly been shot a ton before, and there are also a bunch of birds in the surrounding trees. My first shot is at a bird, just to see what happens; I think it flew off with the shot barely missing. I take a shot at the sign, and the bolt sticks into it. Up until now, I’ve actually been avoiding shooting at the “forest god” because it feels blasphemous to do so, but I go ahead and shoot at it’s head; apparently it counts as a miss. A shot at the torso lands, and I notice there’s a vague target painted onto it.  A shot to the “god’s” rump also counts as a miss. A few more experimental shots count as misses until Mae runs out of bolts.

The two move on from this shooting range to a shallow pond; there are a couple of exotic looking birds on the other side—cranes or something. Gregg asks if he’s “good.” Mae says sure he is, and they start a wholesome conversation that I can’t recall well enough for a play-by-play.

The gist of things is that Gregg clearly has bipolar disorder: he has up days and down days, and some days end without him knowing which one the day was. This recontextualizes the day, especially the way he was hyper at the Snack Falcon, as Gregg having a bit of a manic episode. Though, things have calmed down now, and with time to think, he’s having intrusive thoughts questioning his own self-worth.

He’s especially worried of doing something to mess everything up with Angus. He has a lot of love and respect for his boyfriend. Apparently Angus grew up with a “trash family,” and Angus only came out as well as he did because Angus is awesome like that. Compared to someone who could be so good despite such hardship, Gregg feels like a screw-up. He’s kept up at night sometimes worrying about how everything could go wrong eventually. Now knowing that he’s bipolar, I imagine he may have caused problems, whether with the wild energy of mania or through the negligent lethargy of depression.

Mae ensures Gregg again that he’s good, and that Angus is good. That last point is something Gregg can confidently agree to. Angus is good. They share a bunch of Angus’s good qualities... Then they settle to discuss how Angus has a good ass. It’s a nice moment of levity.

Things wrap up with Gregg wondering what kind of birds are across the pond. The pair make up a couple of names, and Gregg wonders if they migrate. At Gregg’s request, Mae simply makes something up: “Yes.” He says: “That’s good.”

It’s an interesting thing to think about: why would Gregg say migration is good? My guess is that migration is, put simply, “going somewhere far away.” There’s a promise of freedom in that, and Gregg is happy to hear that at least these birds have it.

Night

Back home, Mae asks her dad about Mom being stressed out today. He explains that being vaguely stressed all the time is simply part of being an adult. Mae, disappointed, responds that she had hoped her stresses would become more specific as an adult—he says there are those too, on top of the vague stuff. The way the game has set things up, I expect Mae will eventually find that things don’t have to be this way: people shouldn’t have to live their lives being stressed out all the time.

Mae asks Dad, again, about those boxes, and from his response it sounds like he’ll finally get around to moving them. Mae sits down for a bit of Garbo and Malloy, and the two have a bit in which they are nostalgic for the time when they first started their careers in comedy. Of course, the jokes are that the drunks hated them, and that it wasn’t all that great. Still, there’s a sense of nostalgia reminiscent of Mae’s nostalgia for her childhood days.

Up in her bedroom, Mae catches up with Bea online: Bea is currently doing paperwork while listening to 80s music videos. Mae says Bea is 20 years too young for that, and Bea responds saying she needs to pick up where her mom left off. That got me right in the heart. Gregg apologizes for being a downer, and Mae lets him know that it’s all cool.

Before turning in, Mae plays a bit of Demon Tower. She finally beats the third boss, the necromancer, but generally sticking to one side and just catching the boss when he lands on a nearby point. Skeletons that are spawned far away don’t actually notice you and just stand around, so there isn’t much to deal with if you stay put. She almost beat the next level’s boss, a big skeleton king, but a couple of double-hits spelled her doom. She’ll get him next time.

Finally going to bed, Mae has a musical dream for the third night in a row. This one is really slow on my computer with all of the smoke particle effects from the train. The slowdown is extra annoying when this dream actually has a bit of platforming to find all of the ghosts. I still don’t have any definitive thoughts about these dreams, but I do wonder if these four ghosts were revolutionaries fighting for labor against Big Coal, back from the days that Miss Rosa spoke of—well beyond even her time. If so, there would be an implied parallel to Mae and her band of friends being revolutionaries themselves.

[theamberfang]

NitW: Day 5

Upkeep

After having to start this Night in the Woods project by attaching it to my daily journal (as a means of bypassing my anxiety and perfectionism), I’m finally around to doing things the way I wanted to in the first place: playing the game and immediately writing about it afterwards, relatively earlier in the day so that I don’t overburden my hands/wrists with a ton of typing in one evening.

Speaking of things I wanted to do in the first place—”original intent” one might say—I never actually explained what it is I’ve been doing in the preface of my previous post. My original plan was to write a series of reactions+analysis based on my playthrough of Night in the Woods. Ideally, I’d have a two monitor set-up and a computer that can handle playing a game and a word processor at the same time: I have neither of these things. Early on, with day one in particular, this focus on wanting to analyze things immediately left me with little more than “eh, I don’t recall much of anything, so I guess I don’t have much to write about.”

To get around this, I began to review everything that I could remember about my play session, so that I could then have refreshed memories to work with. An interesting consequence of this is that much more of my effort has been spent retelling and reinterpreting events. My reactions have been absorbed into these reinterpretations, and any analysis of themes seems almost more like a thoughtful part of the retelling.

Basically, I’m not entirely sure what I’m doing. As I had briefly mentioned before this is all experimental practice for me. Initially, the intent was for this to be critical analysis practice and it’s instead more of creative writing practice, but it’s all writing practice in the end. Anyway, that’s enough rambling; it ended up being more words than I expected.

Bird Cages

When Mae woke up today, I imagine that she was still sore after helping Gregg with “crimes” yesterday—I know I would be at least. She’s (relatively) young and active though, so maybe a good night’s sleep is all her body needs; she certainly doesn’t complain of any soreness. It could just be that, after checking for her friends on her computer, she had people to hang out with and things to do, a sore body be damned.

Before the day really gets going though, Mae stops with a question for the family’s pet bird: “What do you even do all day?” (or something along those lines.) She’s had things to say to and about this bird throughout her time back home, generally indicating that Mae isn’t too fond of their pet. Symbolically, caged birds represent people who are trapped, yet taken care of, especially women. On the surface, Mae couldn’t be more different from a caged bird: she spends her days relatively free of responsibility, jumping along powerlines while exploring the town. One may conclude that this difference is the cause of Mae’s animosity.

Looking deeper though, one might find that Mae is more similar to the bird than it seems. As free as she is to explore town, Possum Springs isn’t big. As free of responsibility she may be, she’s still anchored to her parents to survive. Most worrying of all, she can’t truly remove that anchor: she can merely move it from her parent’s house to a workplace. There isn’t really anyone in town that expresses satisfaction with their job: it’s merely a necessary evil to stay alive. In all likelihood, if Mae moves out with her own job, she’ll end up being less free: more like a caged bird. She still sees the inevitability of it all, and it scares her; it’s why she runs from her mom before she can be asked about getting a job.

Rain

Heading outside is a bit of a surprise: it’s raining. Well, it’s a surprise for me, the person playing the game; I never really expect the weather to change in games. It seems to be a pretty light shower though, pleasant even, and nothing like a dark and foreboding storm. If this shower means anything, I’d say it’s merely emblematic of the changing season, of autumn, which then can symbolize some other kind of change. What that is has yet to be seen, but I’m still confident that Mae is going to inspire something in this town.

Nothing is really going on in Mae immediate neighborhood—other than ever-present construction—so she moves on into town, where Selmers is hanging out, reliable as ever. Selmers opens up with a sales pitch for some sort of beauty product, and it becomes apparent that Selmers has gotten involved with a multi-level marketing scheme. Luckily, she doesn’t seem too invested yet, but I’m worried about her falling deeper into that business. She’s on the up-and-up with her poetry journal and attendance at a support group, and it would be terrible to see that all get crushed by a predatory MLM. Mae doesn’t share my concerns though, and simply moves on into town.

Church

After a quick look at the flyers and a toss of the yarn ball, Mae heads up the steps to church. Speaking to her mom at the desk, Mae finds out that the— uh, “sanctuary” I think she called it?—was open. (I’m not a church person.) Evidently, Mae means the big double-doors that she passes before finding her mom’s desk. Before turning back to see what’s going on over there, Mae and her mom get onto a tangent about how, unlike the doors of this church, saloon doors of the wild west never locked; the two end up exchanging quips in funny accents, and it’s all fun and wholesome as always.

Anyway, mom has to get back to work, so Mae backtracks over to those big doors: turns out the sanctuary—if I recalled what Mae said correctly—is the iconic part of the church, where the preaching happens to the rows of pews. Pastor K is here, and Mae has a conversation with her about how she used to go to church as a kid but stopped as soon as she didn’t have to, at 15. Mae seems to have fond enough memories of Sunday school—orange drink and cookies—but she wasn’t comfortable with how church seemed to force people to feel certain things. Pastor K offers that it’s more of a suggestion, but Mae doesn’t agree. Mae admits that she hasn’t heard Pastor K preach before though, so maybe she’ll stop by. Pastor K admits that “preach” doesn’t actually sound too great—a bit condescending perhaps—and they agree that “talk” is preferable.

Something I do want to clarify is that, even though I’m not particularly religious, I don’t believe that there’s anything inherently wrong with religion and faith. There are healthy ways to practice religion, and there are also toxic ways; from what I’ve seen from Pastor K, her practice is very healthy. In fact, I currently see her church as a secondary power structure that exists within Possum Springs—one that exists largely outside of capitalist power structures. I’m hoping that Pastor K and the church will end up supporting Mae, whenever she gets around to challenging the status quo.

Speaking of, I think Bruce might get caught up in things. Mae finds him dealing with the city council folks—also Aunt Molly. Ostensibly, they’re only here to ask Bruce some questions and to look at his living arrangements, such as they are. They don’t bring up the vandalism of the mural at all, but I’m still worried about Bruce being made into a scapegoat. There’s something about how orderly these people are that reminds me of soldiers, especially with the sound effect for when they turn to and from looking at Bruce’s living area. It reminded me of a whistle.

After the city council folks leave, Mae can finally speak with Bruce herself. She mostly asks about where he came from and who he is: he vaguely came from the northeast—making me think of New England—and that he used to do all sorts of blue collar work before finding himself drifting. To me, he’s a victim of how the modern world undervalues blue collar, physical labor, but also technological advancements making these sorts of jobs obsolete. We tell people like Bruce that all they need to do is “learn new skills,” but there the social systems don’t exist to make that happen. At least Bruce has found Pastor K and her church, showing the value of secondary power structures.

Town

Back in town, Mae jumps from the steps, onto the lamp post, and to the power lines. Up here, she finds the lone teen drawing: it’s of a prop to simulate someone getting stabbed in the eye. It turns out he wants to get into making horror movies and already knows how to make all sorts of props for practical special effects. Mae is rightly impressed, despite the teen’s claim that he must be boring her. She’s even incredulous that he thinks that she would find it boring—she had that idea for Nightmare Eyes! I’m genuinely hoping that comes up in the future.

Leaving the teen alone, Mae makes her way down to the Pickaxe. Bea seems to be busy as ever: their distributor sent over a bunch of rock salt and snow shovels that she has to unload, on top of everything else she’s responsible for, of course. Mae offers to hang out, but Bea lets her know that the best she can do is let Mae tag along at work. It actually took me a long time to recall what this had entailed; I think I only did this in one of my previous playthroughs. In short, Mae helps Bea fix an old lady’s boiler. I instead opted to hang out with Gregg today though, since I still had the feeling I mostly hung out with Bea in my past two playthrough attempts.

Out of the Pickaxe, Mae made her way over to the tunnels, so she could steal some food for her little rat darlings: easy peasy. She also comes across some teens, avoiding the rain by hanging out down here. Mae tries to engage with them, but they rebuff every attempt with disinterest. They don’t seem to care at all about what an adult might have to say, even if Mae is barely an adult herself, just a few years older at most. It’s emblematic of how the youth of today doesn’t trust the older generation, but, to me, it’s really a symptom of how the system disenfranchises them. Adults represent the system, and they often enforce it as well.

Mae makes her way out of the tunnel to the other side of town, and though she’ll be saving the Snack Falcon as her last stop, she runs into a traveller out front of it. Turns out he’s a Russian hiking across the country, and he’s looking for a specific store for resupply. Mae lets him know that it went out of business and was replaced by the Snack Falcon, but he can at least restock on some granola bars and stuff in there.

Today, she’s actually okay with “hiking out past the abandoned Food Donkey.” Out there, she finds Germ, who talks about hanging out with kids that live out by the tracks. I don’t recall it too well, but it somehow gets to talk about people losing limbs and Mae asking if that could explain the severed arm she and her friends found by the diner. He says he doesn’t think so, but it’s at this point he decides to leave—mildly ominous. I’m not sure how I feel about Germ.

Back in town, there isn’t actually much left to do. The deer at the video store doesn’t have anything to say, and up top, the lady reading a newspaper just talks about the sinkhole that appeared—oh yeah, that was a thing Mae’s mom mentioned before getting to when Mae would be getting a job. I’m guessing the sinkhole is the other way from home, past the ever-present construction. Anyway, Mae makes her way over to her rat babies, where she finds that an extra rat showed up for food. All that’s left now is to meet up with Gregg.

Mechanic

After some time off screen, I catch up with Mae and Gregg at the lobby of his apartment. They’re discussing the helmet Gregg is wearing: it appears to be a German helmet—the kind with the pointy bit on top—and Gregg seems to have added the anarchy symbol to it. Gregg is explaining that his ancestor, who this helmet ostensibly belonged to, survived a bullet to the head (I then notice that the helmet does, indeed, have a bullet hole.)

Mae claims that it’s still a fascist helmet, and Gregg explains that its older than that, and they weren’t fascists then; based on my limited knowledge of pre-WWII wars in Europe, it might be from World War I or from even earlier in the Napoleonic Wars—in that latter case, I don’t think it would even be German: it would be Prussian, I think.

They spend a bit more time off-screen, and I find the two somewhere outside of town. There’s a car with a tree growing out of it, and Mae has a bat—reminiscent of her first dream, in which she rampaged through her college campus. Apparently, the plan is for Mae to beat up the car so they can get the battery out of it: for the robot, most likely. This all felt somewhat familiar to me, and I think in my second playthrough attempt of the game I had went on a date with Bea first, then spent time with Gregg afterwards.

Anyway, Mae goes to town on the car and eventually the hood pops. She reaches in to take the battery out and gets herself electrocuted—first when she was trying to get to Gregg and Angus’s apartment, now when she’s actually hanging out with Gregg. While she’s knocked out, she meets with Sharkle, the little desktop buddy on her computer. He lets Mae know that she isn’t dead, but that despite his insistence that she needs to live, he’s not going to lie and tell Mae that she has a grand destiny or anything like that. Things get weird when Sharkle just starts laughing... and he keeps going...

Oh, it was Gregg laughing. Mae was apparently out for, like, just five seconds. I guess it’s sort of fair after Gregg was almost crushed several times yesterday? 

Anyway, they manage to get the battery out and make it back to the apartment. This is also where I’m pretty sure I hung out with Gregg after hanging out with Bea the last time I played: I definitely remembered the Sharkle scene. The difference is that back then, I didn’t get this follow-up scene in the apartment; it just awkwardly ended with Gregg taking the battery out of the car.

Instead, since I’m following up from yesterday’s crimes, I had to help Gregg put this robot back together. First though, Gregg talks a bit about how he’s only been inspired to do these crimes because Mae is back in town: she reminds him of times from a few years ago. Also, apparently this robot is a gift for Angus, who has been out with his family these past two days. It’s pretty sweet and wholesome all around.

They also follow up on the conversation about Gregg’s helmet: even if it were once a fascist helmet, he’s reclaimed it with the symbol of anarchy. Reclamation: it’s actually what these two have been up to. Everything they’ve stolen was already abandoned, left to rot by the capitalist system. The notion of taking a fascist symbol and reclaiming it is particularly powerful though, especially since it’s part of Gregg’s heritage.

Anyway, to the robot! Though it took Mae and Gregg a ton of struggle to get the head to the apartment, it seems that Gregg managed to lug the torso over by himself. He even picked up a bunch of other parts! There’s actually this whole minigame where they piece everything together, and though I made it so that everything looked sensible, I wonder how wacky you can ultimately make this thing.

With the robot put together, all there was left to do was to turn it on, and Mae had the honor of doing it. Of course, it electrocuted her when she pushed the button. She doesn’t have the same near-death experience, but is still left comedically frying on the floor. This is also when Angus came home. Must have been quite the scene to him: this big animatronic robot wiggling on the couch, his boyfriend screaming, and his friend twitching on the floor.

Night

That chaotic scene cuts to Mae coming back home for the evening. She talks to her dad about his job—working the supermarket deli—a bit, asking if he enjoys it. He simply answers that he likes the money, the sweetest meat of all; basically, no, he doesn’t like the job, but he does it out of necessity. Mae also asks about those boxes under the stairs, and her dad just asks her to sit with him for some TV again.

It’s Garbo and Malloy, and their bit is about a new law—maybe it was just being proposed?—that makes it so that pirating movies is punished with ten years in prison. They, rightly, joke about how absurd it is. I think I’d be pretty down with their show.

Before turning in, Mae checks her computer for messages from her friends. Bea spent her evening watching some bad—but maybe in a good way?—true crime dramas. Gregg lets Mae know that Angus is happy with his robot present. Lastly, Angus makes sure that Mae is okay after being electrocuted—twice. She also plays a bit more of Demon Tower, dying again to the necromancer.

After going to bed, she has another dream. I’m still not entirely sure what to make of these musical dreams. The four ghostly musicians do match up with the band of Mae and her friends, at least if you count their missing friend Casey. From looking up the song, I also know the track is “Astral Coal Town,” so it makes me think of Mae running around this coal town inspiring the workers, and the music represents them striking or otherwise standing up for their rights as workers. I’m not sure what to make of the ends of these dreams though, with the appearance of a huge ethereal animal roaring, leading to dream-Mae collapsing.